Nearly two decades after the final episode of the hit television show “Gilmore Girls,” fans still enjoy watching the series and coming together to connect over their love of the program.

Some fans say they like to rewatch it year-round as a comfort show. Others like to watch it during the fall, wrapped in their favorite blanket, associating it with the cozy time of year when the leaves are changing, and pumpkin spice is in the air.

“I watch it while I’m decorating sugar cookies and working,” Kelsey Sandoval, a fan of the show, told The Epoch Times. “I don’t have to fully pay attention to it anymore because I’ve watched it so many times, but I know I can look up and I’ll be happy because it’s ‘Gilmore Girls.’”

Sandoval said she started watching “Gilmore Girls” while in middle school, and it was the witty dialogue between the two main characters, a mother and daughter, that drew her in.

“It keeps me watching it every year just because it reminds me of my mom and our relationship,” she said.

For Chris Pancoast and his family, the show is a way to spend time together.

“We’re all sitting together on the couch watching it. We’re not in our separate rooms; we come together. It’s hard these days to spend time together,” Pancoast told The Epoch Times. “It’s heartwarming.”

Events where fans have the opportunity to meet cast members and writers are more common on the East Coast, where the show’s fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, is set.

For example, one recurring “Gilmore Girls” festival is The Firelight Event, which has been held annually in New England and other places since 2016.

However, recently an event called Flannel & Foliage took place in Danville, California, where fans could gather and, for a fee, take photos with some of the actors.

“It was just an overall really nice, heartfelt festival,” said Pancoast, who volunteered at the Flannel & Foliage festival. “I really liked how the characters came out and were really willing and open to meet and greet with people. So it was a fun weekend.”

“Gilmore Girls” fan Chris Pancoast (L) poses for a picture with actor Scott Patterson, who played “Luke” in the show. (Courtesy of Chris Pancoast)

“Gilmore Girls” fan Kelsey Sandoval attends the Flannel & Foliage festival in Danville, Calif. (Helen Billings/The Epoch Times)

Stan Zimmerman on Writing for the Show

Stan Zimmerman, who was one of the writers for season 5 and authored the book “The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore,” attended the Danville event. He said it’s the characters that keep people coming back to watch the series after so many years.

“I think the staying power of something like ‘Gilmore Girls’ is in large part due to the townspeople of Stars Hollow,” he told The Epoch Times. “It gave us a place to go home to and where … as quirky as you were, you were still loved by everybody in town, and it was a safe place.

“And you just loved seeing all those kooky, crazy characters and want to come back to them. That’s what it is. There’s so many characters. They all have a fun character story.”

As a screenwriter, he added, it was thrilling because there were so many areas of that town with different characters to write about.

“I just tell the fans, thank you for keeping the show alive. It’s so exciting to meet people that adore the show and the experience that they had either watching it with their mothers or now sharing it with their daughters. And we’ve had multiple generations watching the show,” said Zimmerman.

He said he feels grateful to have been involved with a series that stands the test of time.

“I’m still so fortunate to have been a small part of a really phenomenal show,” he said.

Zimmerman previously wrote for “The Golden Girls” and met “Gilmore Girls” creator and executive producer Amy Sherman-Palladino while writing for “Roseanne.”

Stan Zimmerman, one of the writers for season 5 of “Gilmore Girls,” at the Flannel & Foliage festival in Danville, Calif. (Helen Billings/The Epoch Times)

Zimmerman said that writing for “Gilmore Girls” helped him learn more about storytelling.

He said Sherman-Palladino “conceived the show in the fast pace” and that she planted seeds of characters and stories and then let them develop over many episodes instead of just having a character appear once.

“You would see Logan maybe by the coffee cart, and suddenly he was in Rory’s life, and then they were going on dates, and then they were stealing cereal,” he said.

Zimmerman went on to use that technique in other writing projects, he said.

The fifth season had the theme of characters coming together and breaking apart, said Zimmerman. He said when you throw conflict at certain characters, you see how they respond, and that’s a great way to learn more about them.

He mentioned that Kelly Bishop, the actress who played the grandmother in the show, talked about that at the event in Danville and said that she could seem really tough in the beginning of the series, but the more time you got to spend with her, the more you got to see other sides of her.

In writing for “Gilmore Girls,” Zimmerman got to use many of his own real-life experiences because he had a very vocal grandmother, mother, and sister, he said.

He said his grandmother was very much like the one in the show.

“So I just relished being able to write for characters like that,” Zimmerman said. “I just have always been drawn to writing for women. They’re just so much more honest and open and emotional, and that’s the kind of writing I like to do.”

“Gilmore Girls” fan Chris Pancoast (L) poses for a picture with actress Emily Kuroda, who played “Mrs. Kim” in the show. (Courtesy of Chris Pancoast)

He said actress Lauren Graham is like Lorelai, the character she played—down-to-earth and talented—and was fast with memorization.

“It was a real marriage of actor and character together,” Zimmerman said. “And that is what we call lightning in a bottle.”

Coffee and Dinner With Actors

The independently organized Flannel & Foliage festival was not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Warner Bros., but it offered an opportunity for fans to meet some characters as well as other activities.

“Gilmore Girls” fan Ida Koo from San Jose said she purchased an all-access pass, which gave her the chance to join a coffee chat with actress Kelly Bishop, who also wrote the book “The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir.”

“It was so much fun,” Koo told The Epoch Times. “She’s funny; she told stories.”

“Gilmore Girls” fan Ida Koo attends the Flannel & Foliage festival in Danville, Calif. (Helen Billings/The Epoch Times)

There were 14 other people at the coffee chat, she said, and they got to ask Bishop questions and listen to her talk about her time in “Gilmore Girls” as well as in the musical “A Chorus Line” and the movie “Dirty Dancing.” They took a group photo at the end of the meeting, she said.

She also got to join some actors and fans for a dinner at the local restaurant Bridges, the same location where the restaurant scene from “Mrs. Doubtfire,” starring Robin Williams, was filmed—the scene where Williams switched his wardrobe between Mrs. Doubtfire and the father character multiple times.

T-shirts for the independently organized Flannel & Foliage festival. (Helen Billings/The Epoch Times)

Saturday night’s dinner included a toast from cast member Todd Lowe, who was then joined by cast member John Cabrera. Someone at the dinner shouted out that they should do a song, Koo said.

They sang the opening song to “Gilmore Girls,” which was so much fun, she added.

Koo, who still watches the show, said she started watching it when it came out in 2000. She would invite people over for girls’ nights, because back then you could only watch an episode as it aired on TV.

Koo’s favorite “Gilmore Girls” character is Lorelai because she works hard to build a life for herself and her daughter.

“I think because she’s a strong character, she knew what she wanted, she went for it,” Koo said.

“I believe in that, that you don’t need to ask for permission to do things. If you want something, you go, and you fight for it. That’s life.”