Choate Rosemary Hall - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Choate occurs frequently in novels, only the best known instance being listed here, as the first item:

• In Catcher in the Rye the character Al Pike (who shows off at the swimming pool) went to Choate.
• In the TV show 30 Rock the character Avery Jessup went to Choate (and Yale). Eugenia Jessup was RH headmaster from 1938–58, and Jessup was a girls' dorm on the Wallingford campus from 1973 until the early 2000s.
• In the TV show M*A*S*H the character Charles Emerson Winchester went to Choate (and Harvard and Harvard Medical School).
• In the TV show The West Wing the character Clifford Calley went to Choate (and Brown and Harvard Law School).
• In the TV show Dawson's Creek (episode 3), Joey pretends to attend Choate to seduce a rich guy.
• In the TV show Family Guy (the episode "Road to Rupert") a man is told that, if he wins a bet, the dog Brian will lick peanut butter from "anywhere on your body." The man accepts the bet, saying, "Well, I did go to Choate." In the episode "April in Quahog" Mayor West says in his diatribe against the Black Hole, "I don't care if you did go to Choate." (The show's creator, Seth MacFarlane, is an alumnus of rival Connecticut prep school Kent).
• In the TV show Passions the characters of Ethan Winthrop and Gwen Winthrop went to Choate.
• In the TV show Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law one of Harvey's rival lawyers, Evelyn Spyro Throckmorton, went to Choate and Yale Law School.
• In the TV show Gilmore Girls the prep school "Chilton" is based on Choate.
• In the 2002 movie "Igby Goes Down," after failing courses at his private school, the title character is told by his parents "You know where your sterling performance is going to take you now, little man?" to which Igby responds, "Choate?"
• In the 1993 movie This Boy's Life based on the memoirs of writer Tobias Wolff, the main character, Toby, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is denied acceptance to Choate but is accepted at the Hill School.