According to walking-David-Lynch-encyclopedia Mike Segretto, today marks the 20th anniversary of the first episode of Twin Peaks. In honor of the occasion, he has posted an extremely thorough and throughly extreme overview of the groundbreaking series on his blog, Psychobabble. Whether you’re a casual fan or a Twin Peaks diehard, you’re guaranteed to learn something from Mr. Segretto’s fascinating piece. To wit:

David Lynch and Mark Frost shared a love of pop culture that thoroughly informed the show they created together. “Twin Peaks” is rife with post modern allusions to cinema and television to the degree that listing them all would probably double the length of this article, but some of the most prominent ones are:
• Laura Palmer’s forename was nabbed from Otto Preminger’s 1944 noir Laura, in which the memory of a murdered woman haunts those who loved her and the detective investigating her death.
• Laura Palmer’s cousin Madeline Ferguson got her name from the two main characters of one of David Lynch’s favorite films: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which starred Kim Novak as Madeline Elster and Jimmy Stewart as John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson.
• In episode 18, Peggy Lipton and Clarence Williams III share an exchange for no other reason than their history as co-stars of “The Mod Squad”.
• The scene in which Cooper has trouble adjusting his stool in Ronette Pulaski’s hospital room is an homage to a similar scene in which Humbert Humbert struggles to open a folding cot in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, another favorite film of Lynch.
• Dancing fool Leland Palmer was named after the actress and dancer of the same name who appeared in Bob Fosse’s 1979 film All That Jazz.
• Gordon Cole, the hearing-impaired FBI Regional Bureau Chief played by Lynch, was named after an unseen character in yet another of his favorite films: Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard.
• Sitcomy couple Lucy and Andy owe their monikers to sitcom pioneers Lucille Ball and Andy Griffith.
• In keeping with “Twin Peaks’” notorious sweet tooth, brothers Ben and Jerry Horne allude to a famous duo of ice cream makers.
• Schizo one-armed man Phillip Gerard/MIKE is a reference to both the police lieutenant of the same name and the murderous one-armed man in the classic TV drama “The Fugitive”.
• In Black Edward’s excellent 1962 chiller Experiment in Terror, Lee Remick is terrorized in the (real) town of Twin Peaks, San Francisco. And the terrorizer’s name? Red Lynch.

I remember how excited I was for the Twin Peaks premiere. I was 14 years old, and already a massive David Lynch fan (I still think Blue Velvet is the best film ever made, although the fact that it was my favorite film even back then could point to some serious psychological problems). During the series’ initial run, I only missed a single episode on account of a band concert. I haven’t played the drums since.

Since then, I’ve purchased Twin Peaks on DVD in its three incarnations … first as separate box sets for the 1st & 2nd season, and then in the more expansive Gold Box. In spite of this, I am ashamed to say that I have yet to make it all the way through the second season. Twin Peaks can be extremely entertaining, but it can also feel like a lot of work. It’s a slow show, and getting all the way through its 30 hours more than once is a real test of endurance. Maybe this 20th anniversary should inspire me to watch the full run again, the way nature and God intended. Whaddya think, superfriends? Should we start an Awkward Twin Peaks club? Anyone?