1990s

One of two scenes in the collection set far in the future. Good to know Vassar’s still around in the 23rd century! (And the 31st; see Futurama.

This teen drama follows a group of affluent high school students in Beverly Hills through their struggles with friendship, sex, drugs, and other social issues.

Another family sitcom with a smart daughter looking at colleges. Vassar makes the list of possible options. Vassar as character point for smart, as we’re seeing more often in this period. With a little twist in a joke around how expensive it is.

This was a teen sex comedy with a major plotline following a number of Manhattan prep-school girls applying to college.

A high-concept, low-rated show (remade a decade later) where Jeremy Piven believes he is—and might actually be—Cupid, sent to earth without his godly powers. To return to Olympus, he must unite 100 couples in love, but just through his bro-y charm and the power of Bartending.

A funny indie movie starring Hope Davis ’86. Davis is looking for her husband, who’s lied to her about his whereabouts; she tracks him to a party and finds a drunk Marcia Gay Harden. Vassar as character point to no real purpose, except perhaps as an in-joke since Davis is actually an alum.

Another iconic ’80s sitcom.

This sitcom follows a seemingly mismatched couple—a free-spirited yoga instructor and a strait-laced U.S. Attorney—who get married on their first date.

Another famous one, based on a Stephen King novel. The character point was retained for the screenplay, but this is far from the typical presentation of a Vassar girl—an angry, embittered, dark, jittery, and heavily self-medicated woman who went to Vassar on scholarship.

Christina Applegate has faked her resume in order to get a job at a fashion house. Her Vassar status is part of what gives her entrée, and makes the boss believe she can do great work. A character point for intelligent, determined, and capable.

One of the most iconic sitcoms of the ’90s, and no great surprise to find a Vassar reference here since Lisa Kudrow ’85 had a starring role. Our scene doesn’t feature her, though. It’s a bit of a strained joke about Vassar and football.

Thanks to Evelyn Starr for this incredible catch—those are Vassar running shorts and you can see it if you pause it at just the right point. Evelyn says she read an article where Mary McDonnell pointedly wanted the character to be a graduate, and ordered the shorts from the bookstore herself.

A science-fiction series based off the camp-classic movie, about a group of immortals who fight each other with swords until only one is left. In the course of this episode, the hero meets a wealthy businessman with a Vassar daughter. Vassar as character point for a smart and wealthy woman.

A TV movie about a woman who gets a bump on the head and goes back in time to meet her younger, more carefree, and not-embittered self.

This is a broad Godfather parody from the folks who made Airplane! and The Naked Gun. It may not be entirely clear in the clip but the film is set, as was The Godfather, in the late ’50s/early ’60s, and so there were no men at Vassar.

We’ve seen little digs at Vassar being a hotbed of sexual activity, but here that idea is writ large. Woody Harrelson has a rubber prosthetic hand and is known on the competitive bowling circuit as “Rubberman”; this fact has attracted a new sponsor.

There must have been some grads among the writers of this long-running NY-based show. Here’s a bunch of quick shots of the Vassar grads who have populated the L & O world…victims, friends, witnesses, and people of interest to the investigators.

The earliest of three Black-focused sitcoms to reference Vassar.

This show has a curious science-fiction premise, where Earth’s worst movies are screened by the bad guys for our hero and two robots. They would then make snarky comments about the movie. (And the movies are all real, Z-grade schlock films.)

Another prominent ’90s sitcom, about a wealthy, highbrow family and their lowbrow, Queens-born nanny. Nothing too special, just Vassar as a character point for a place for elite girls.

This was the video the Office of Admissions sent out in 1990 and 1991 to college applicants with their acceptance letter.

Sort of a supernatural NCIS, investigators in this episode of this cable horror show (in both senses) are looking into reports of witchcraft at an elite boarding school. One of the teachers was particularly creepy in an interview and here the team is pulling her background.

An obscure movie adaptation of the Pulitzer-finalist play, Painting Churches, about an artist daughter and her aging parents. Great cast here, and a decently funny if out-of-date riff on the stuck-up Vassar girl.

The earliest science-fiction entry, where the hero travels through time and embodies someone in that time period. This episode is set in the 1950s on a luxury vessel, and Vassar, as it so often is, is a character point for wealthy and well-bred.

The definitive late-night sketch comedy show that features a rotating cast of comedians performing parodies of contemporary culture and politics.

An unusual contrary, negative viewpoint about Vassar. Melanie Griffith in this World War II drama is not a member of the upper class; here she is confronted with being shut out of a job because of that and she throws back the line about the quality of Vassar students into the interviewer’s face, and then later doing some digging into her new boss.

The ur-text of this collection, almost everyone knows at least one of these references, which now are a running joke/character point across all 30+ years of this show’s run.

The show is about the mayoral staff in New York’s City Hall. There’s not too much to say here; it’s just a character point for a smart, ambitious career woman.

This was a sketch comedy show from the mid-90s with a lot of great people. Its very first episode had a Vassar joke, as a marker for “high-class.” Plus it sounds funny.

The film, based on the play by Jon Robin Baitz, follows three children of a Holocaust survivor and book publishing magnate who is beginning to lose his mind to dementia.

Another small indie film, but noteworthy here for being the first time Vassar is a character point for a gay man.

An obscure attempt to copy Pulp Fiction, but without being nearly as intelligent or funny. Our scene, though, offers a somewhat unusual take on a Vassar girl. Vassar as character point for a hard-partying grifter.

Three scenes from this TV movie on the life of Jackie Kennedy meet her at different stages of her life: just out of college, being courted by the Kennedys, and as the First Lady.

This was a made-for-HBO movie of three famous love stories. Mary McCarthy—one of the college’s more famous alumna–has her story treated here with Beau Bridges discussing his wife with the woman he hopes to be his mistress as they cross the country on a train. Vassar as character point for smart, radical, and worldly.