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Gilmore Girls was the creation of Amy Sherman-Palladino. It premiered on The WB and moved to The CW when that network combined WB and UPN. But, there was another entity involved in bringing the Gilmore Girls pilot to air.

'Gilmore Girls': Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham sit at a table outside
L-R: Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham | The WB/Mitchell Haddad via Getty Images

Sherman-Palladino appeared on a Television Critics Association panel in 2005. Already in season 5 by that point, Sherman-Palladino expressed gratitude and apprehension towards the organization that helped Gilmore Girls get on the air. 

The Family Friendly Forum paid for the ‘Gilmore Girls’ pilot

Sherman-Palladino wrote the Gilmore Girls pilot and sold it to the network. There was a bit more to it than that. Sherman-Palladino only heard about the Family Friendly Forum when she was in production. 

“Here’s the thing about the Family Friendly Forum,” Sherman-Palladino said. “I was terrified of them when I heard about them because I didn’t know who they were. And I didn’t even know we were affiliated with them until we were shooting the pilot, and we were in Canada and I opened the Wall Street Journal and it said that they basically paid for the script, which, you know, thank you.”

What is the Family Friendly Forum?

The Family Friendly Forum was a coalition of 40 advertisers that collaborated to bring what they considered family friendly programming to TV. Other productions included Chuck, Friday Night Lights, Everybody Hates Chris, and Ugly Betty. Given Gilmore Girls’ edgy stories, Sherman-Palladino was worried Family Friendly Forum was going to exert some influence over the show.

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“So I was very nervous about being associated with anything with a name like ‘Family Friendly Forum’ because it sounds like guys in hoods come in the middle of the night and set fire to your barn or something, so it was a little scary to me.”

Family Friendly Forum never interfered with ‘Gilmore Girls’

Fortunately, Sherman-Palladino confirmed Family Friendly Forum was a silent partner. The premise of the show was that Lorelai (Lauren Graham) was a teenage mother and now raises Rory (Alexis Bledel) as a single mother. Some “family values” advocates object to that, but not Gilmore Girls’ benefactor. Considering the other titles they funded, it sounds like Family Friendly Forum was open to modern definitions of family.

“But the thing is I never heard from these people,” Sherman-Palladino said. “In five years I’ve never heard from them. I’ve never seen them, I tried to send them a coffee cup once at Christmas, I couldn’t find them. They’re like in a bunker in Oslo somewhere, so for some reason they chose to give us a chunk of change and then go away, which, you know, is my favorite kind of person, basically. So I don’t know if we’ve been kicked out or not because I never met them. I haven’t gotten a letter so I’m assuming they’re still cool or they’re still in Oslo.”

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