Development

Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show's creator, drew inspiration for the show's setting of "Stars Hollow, Connecticut" after making a trip to Washington Depot, Connecticut, where she stayed at the Mayflower Inn, which she found beautiful. She was amazed at how the people of the town knew each other very well and by the next morning of her stay she had written the pilot's dialogue. She explained: "If I can make people feel this much of what I felt walking around this fairy town, I thought that would be wonderful. At the time I was there, it was beautiful, it was magical, and it was feeling of warmth and small-town camaraderie. … There was a longing for that in my own life, and I thought—that's something that I would really love to put out there." The show's pace is inspired by Katharine Hepburn–Spencer Tracy films. The pilot episode of Gilmore Girls received financial support from the script development fund of the Family Friendly Programming Forum, which includes some of the nation's leading advertisers, making it one of the first network shows to reach the air with such funding.