2000–2002

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2000–2002

NYPD Blue
All these police procedural shows seem to bring in a Vassar character at some point. Our Vassar character is writing an article for an art magazine and has some information about the disappearance of the dealer who is the subject of her article.


Ghost Stories
Vassar even makes it into anime. Well, at least, into the English rewrite of the second episode of Gakkō no Kaidan, based on a book series by Toru Tsunemitsu. The show is about a girl who returns to the hometown of her deceased mother, to find an abandoned school stuffed full of ghosts who used to haunt the school and the town. They’re now being released due to the nearby urbanization.  Our heroine’s not a Vassar student but it sounds like she wants to be; a character point for a determined, ambitious young woman.
Thanks to Alex DelPriore ’13 for this fun catch.

Miss Congeniality
In this light comedy, Ben Bratt is trying to impress Sandra Bullock with his sexual prowess and his very young Vassar-student girlfriend.  Bullock is a smart, tough FBI agent with no feminine side (at this point in the movie). It’s an unusual choice to make Vassar a character point for a ditz.
Thanks to Miriam Vega for the tip.

Party of Five
A popular teen drama about five children orphaned when their parents are killed. In this scene late in the run, the youngest member of the family struggles with whether to sleep with her boyfriend; she’s also preoccupied about college options.


American Psycho (deleted scene)
For this period, it’s unusual to see Vassar as a character point for a white-glove, prudish, debutante.  A deleted scene on the DVD, the movie follows a young investment banker who also murders people for fun after dark.
Thanks to Laura Berlin Zipfel for the tip.

Undressed
This was an MTV late-night soap opera with plotlines around sex. The show would follow a handful of characters for a few episodes and then leave them forever—essentially a series of vignettes. The arc of Max & Cassidy is of interest here as Cassidy is a spoiled prom queen who wants to go to Vassar to stay with Max, who seems to have already been accepted. She is the villain of the arc, ultimately; a mean girl who tries to play a power game with Max and ends up losing.


In the Bedroom
This is an excellent drama about a young man involved with an older woman; her violent ex-husband beats, and later kills him. This scene comes after the beating; his parents worry over the situation and seem to imply he’s a Vassar student. A character point of no particular moment, save that he’s sensitive and intelligent.


Gilmore Girls (3 episodes)
Vassar showed up three times in the second and third season of this popular show about a young mom raising a teenager in an idyllic New England town. Nothing so remarkable here—a character point for a place where a smart and/or well-bred girl should want to go.
Thanks to Jim German for the tip.

Malcolm in the Middle
A top sitcom, and a curious instance where the writers could really have chosen any college, but opted for Vassar. Doesn’t seem to have much import or reason behind the choice; perhaps the writer had a connection to the college?
Thanks to Barbara Monroe for the tip.

Kate & Leopold
Hugh Jackman plays a wealthy New York playboy from the 1870s who has traveled through time to present-day Manhattan where he meets and falls in love with Meg Ryan. He is considerably more sophisticated, cultivated, and charming than anybody around him in 2000, and one loser friend of Ryan’s convinces him to go with him to a club to be his wingman. Jackman turns on the charm with the ladies around the table. (He goes on in this scene to describe the opera Madama Butterfly in loving detail, which is curious since it was written in the 1890s, but I digress.)
Thanks to Jim German for the tip.

Curse of the Jade Scorpion
Woody Allen wrote one of the best Vassar jokes I’ve ever run across in his essay “The Whore of Mensa.” Here, as there, Vassar is used to refer to a place for intellectual women.
Thanks to Michael Weissbluth for the tip.

Ed
Justin Long was a Vassar student for a year or so, so I’d imagine this joke crept in through his role in the show. Here, he’s hiring an escort to be his prom date and trying to pass her off as a Vassar student.
Thanks to Jim German, Josh Siegel, and Denise Whalen for the tip.

The District
Yet another cop show (see more police procedurals), this one set in DC. And another Vassar girl tangled up in a web of crime.
Thanks to Jim German for the tip.

Summer Catch
This slight baseball romantic comedy has a fairly basic rich-girl/poor-boy dynamic (see The Flamingo Kid for another). The female lead, Jessica Biel, is supposed to be a Vassar graduate—it says so in every production summary, on the DVD box, and in media that drew from the production materials—but it’s never actually said in the movie. There's also a character in the cast list given as "Vassar graduate". A character point for a rich, smart, and ambitious woman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Varian's War
Virtually unknown WWII TV movie with a great cast, focusing on the so-called American Schindler. Varian Fry rescued a number of Jews out of Vichy France with the help of Miriam Davenport; they meet in this scene.


The Daily Show (2 episodes)
It’s hard to remember Stephen Colbert back when he was playing characters other than “Stephen Colbert.” The first clip is all the way back from 2001.  A second clip, from 2005, with a bit of a sexist cast in the joke, is also here.


Thanks to Bronwen Pardes ’95 for the tip to the ’01 clip.

The Sopranos (2 episodes)
A wildly popular and critically acclaimed show about the mafia in suburban New Jersey. The first scene here was actually the later one—it’s just a Vassar poster on a wall (look carefully when the woman walks in and out of the office). In the third-season episode “He Is Risen,” daughter Meadow is drunk and wild and trying to get to Vassar to hear a band, but her recalcitrant and ill-fated boyfriend isn’t inclined to go.


The Late Show with David Letterman
My sense here is that Letterman was making a Vassar-related joke more or less all week, but I was able to catch this one clip. Since I missed the original joke, it’s now just a unanchored punchline and I really don’t know what it was about.
Thanks to Stephanie Burkland for the tip.

Leap of Faith
I've known about this since the day after it aired but it took 10 years to locate a copy. The show was canceled after 6 episodes and completely sucked down the memory hole. A laughtrack-free sitcom on life in the big city for a single young woman. Here our protagonist meets up with a former childhood friend; their life paths have diverged, and the friend is high-society, while our protagonist is more spunky and down-to-earth. Ugh, I know. But the Vassar punchline's not bad.


Cedric the Entertainer Presents
This short-lived television variety show starring a major black comic is one of only three clips I know about with the reference coming from African-American characters (the others are the sitcoms Girlfriends and Living Single). This is a recurring character—the sassy Cafeteria Lady. Vassar as a character point but I can’t quite say for what.


Obsessed
An original movie for Lifetime, Jenna Elfman is on trial in this scene for stalking her married boyfriend. Her psychological problems start to become more and more apparent. Vassar as character point, but unless it’s a marker for “nuts”, I don’t really know what it speaks to.
Thanks to Angela David Beatty ’93 for the tip.

Igby Goes Down
Unusual and interesting movie about some quirky young New Yorkers. Claire Danes refers in this scene to her parents’ intellectually rarefied profession. (See other unusual faculty on Batman.)
Thanks to Susannah Renzi ’93 for the tip.

The Time Machine
This scene was shot at Vassar—according to the Quarterly, they filmed in Rockefeller and New England, but this little bit is all that made it into the movie (or at least, all that was recognizable). The students are Vassar students working as extras.


The Banger Sisters
Comedy about a reunion of two friends who were groupies together when they were younger. Now parents, this is just a character point for a place for a wealthy and intelligent girl.

Thanks to M. Davis and Stephanie Burkland for the tip.

Continue to:
Page One: 1920s & 1930s
Page Two: 1940s
Page Three: 1950s
Page Four: 1960s
Page Five: 1970s
Page Six: 1980s
Page Seven: 1990s
Page Nine: 2003–2005
Page Ten: 2006–2009
Page Eleven: 2010–2012
Page Twelve: 2013–2015
Page Thirteen: 2016–2019
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Page Fifteen: 2023–

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