“Our first cop-raided party. I am just so proud!” gushes Lorelai Gilmore to her daughter, Rory. Upon discovering just moments later that a fight between two boys over Rory is what resulted in the arrival of the police, Lorelai breaks into the chorus of The Wind Beneath My Wings (“Did you ever know that you’re my hero, everything I longed to be . . .”). Rory stalks off in embarrassment and annoyance (“Say Goodnight, Gracie,” 3-20).

It was an amusing scene, particularly since Lorelai continued to sing as she followed her daughter down the street—the fun sort of scene viewers of Gilmore Girls have come to expect. However, for the uninitiated, the scene had a few peculiarities. In most family/teen dramas or sitcoms (and in real life), the parent or parents would have been furious at their teenage daughter for attending a “parents out of town” keg party that ended when the police broke up a fight and dispersed the intoxicated party-goers. The fact that Rory was sober and ashamed would not have swayed most parents. There would have been lectures, exhortations of disappointment, and very likely a grounding. But this is Gilmore Girls, and the usual logic about par-ent-child interactions does not apply.

When Amy Sherman-Palladino created Gilmore Girls, which debuted in 2000, most dismissed it as another teen drama with family-friendly overtones—racier than 7^th Heaven, but more “value oriented” than Dawson’s Creek. Its popularity, currently holding strong in the show’s seventh season, belied the naysayers, as Gilmore Girls  …