30 Days of TV: Day 02 - Why Aren't You Watching?

A show that you wish more people were watching: 30 Rock

You know, living with someone who can look up Nielsen ratings so that I don't have to try to figure it out is super cool.

That's how I know that 30 Rock placed 53 during the May 2010 sweeps list of the top 100 broadcast shows. Really, people? Why aren't you watching this show with me?

Simply the most important thing that you need to know about this show is that Tina Fey is behind it. She's the series creator and star of the show. It's basically loosely based on her experiences as head writer of Saturday Night Live, and takes place behind the scenes of a fictional sketch comedy called TGS with Tracy Jordan (originally The Girlie Show). They work in the GE building at the NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, hence the name of the show.

Tina plays Liz Lemon, a sarcastic and self-deprecating woman who is attractive and doesn't know it. She thinks of herself as a geek who will never outgrow the torment of her youth.

Jenna (Jane Krakowski) and Tracy (Tracy Morgan) are pretty ridiculous in their roles. Kenneth (Jack McBrayer) usually ends up helping them set fires that Liz Lemon has to eventually figure out a way to put out. She's a mess, doesn't hold herself together that well, and is always looking to her boss, Jack (Alec Baldwin) for advice. But, she remains the heart and brains of the whole operation.

Liz and Jack have an absolutely fabulous relationship. She looks up to him as a father-type figure, someone who can get things done, and who everyone respects. Jack thinks of Liz as his pet project, trying to shape her into a useful human being, and hoping that one day, she will be worthy of being called his protégé. Jack somehow pulls of totally arrogant, yet extremely likable.

Just with these five characters, so much shenanigans occur. Every week it seems like a miracle that their live show airs. Liz is barely holding them together, yet they are so much like a dysfunctional family.

I think the best part about the relationship between Jack and Liz is that they have absolutely no sexual tension. Jack is way out of Liz's league. He is constantly giving her advice, especially about men, and none of it is ever really good.

The show is smart, quick, and kinda zany. It doesn't just make you laugh, it also makes you think. It frets over what it means to be funny. And, another gem it has going for it - this show has amazing continuity. You'll really notice it if you marathon the episodes back to back. Really, I love the continuity on this show - and it's only rivaled by How I Met Your Mother. Also, they have some pretty great guest stars. (Like Princess Leia.)

30 Rock has won 3 Emmy awards for Outstanding Comedy Series and in one of her acceptance speeches, Tina Fey thanked "the dozens and dozens of viewers" watching 30 Rock. In November of 2010, she was the youngest-ever winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

What makes this show great is it's a comedy with a woman in the central role. (Wow, I said that about Freaks and Geeks, but you know what? It's true. There have been far too many leading man roles, and quite frankly, I'd rather watch a show about a woman because I can identify with them more.) Under Tina Fey's writing at SNL, she brought out the talents of Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Cheri Oteri, Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer. Think of the show today. Can you name one outstanding female actress (besides Kristin Wiig)?

But, just singing 30 Rock's praises probably won't be enough to convince you, so watch this compilation of clips that someone put together... If you don't fall in love with Liz Lemon, then this is not your type of humor and you really shouldn't be watching anyway.

There are two other very specific scenes I love from the show, but sadly they are nowhere to be found on youtube, and aren't able to be embedded from hulu. Also, the scene I found there wasn't complete, and I'm not going to try any harder because you should just watch all the episodes anyway. But, specifically, watch season 1, episode 3 "Blind Date". Jack sets Liz up on a date with Thomas... Gretchen Thomas, assuming wrongly that Liz was gay. This scene is near the end of the episode after Liz ponders over the situation:

Liz Lemon: What do you say, we make a pact? If, say, in twenty-five years, neither of us has found somebody, we'll move in together and become roommates. And even though I am... not into the sex stuff, if it helps you, I would let you... do stuff to me.

Gretchen Thomas: I can't be around anymore. Bye Liz.

Liz Lemon: That's funny. That's what the guys always say.

The other episode is season 2, episode 10 "Episode 210". Liz falls in love with a piece of real estate and tries to buy it, because of a piece of advice from Jack. When she's waiting to hear from the co-op board, she panics, drinks several bottles of wine, and proceeds to drunk dial them. It was hilarious and if you've ever gone through the stress of buying a house, you will love this scene as much as I did.

And I haven't even mentioned that they sing every once in a while...

I just adore her and this show. It is one of the funniest on right now, and it's definitely the funniest one you're not watching.

Here's what others think:
Brenda
Dany
Jessie
Beth


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Return of 30 Rock

True, season 3 of 30 Rock won't air on network television until October 30th, but you can see the first episode RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. The last section is totally the funniest, but sadly the storyline right now is very Baby Mama-esque. Although, the good news is that Tina Fey is writing it. And she gets a do-over, as the episode's title states. Fabulous.

(Thank You, Hulu)

Not the best episode of them all, but I'm super happy to have it back.

Also, Tina Fey was on the Thursday edition of SNL tonight, with Will Ferrell's George W Bush. Just another good reminder of how SNL lost all of its best talent. Especially since we know Amy Poehler's leaving, too.

Funny how the 30 Rock episodes says she's working all the time... (Maybe we can get some of Tina's new found fans from her Sarah Palin impressions to start watching her show!)


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Palin Debate Flow Chart

A friend sent me this through email yesterday. It made me chuckle, so I thought I'd share.



I think that this is Tina Fey's script for her SNL skits as well. My favorite part is "Do something cute. OMG! You're such a great debater!"

I suppose if I liked her it wouldn't be so funny. Although, I do have to say that I was impressed with how well she did during the vice presidential debate. She really only completely avoided a few questions and sometimes actually sounded like she knew what she was talking about. I did laugh out loud a few times though, specifically when she gave the shout out to the 3rd grade class and when she said, "Say it ain't so, Joe!" I was proud of myself because I knew it was from the Black Sox Scandal. (I recently watched Eight Men Out.)

Anyway... funny chart. Click on it to enlarge.


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Fey and Sudeikis Take on Palin and Biden

Because I can't stop posting them now, here's the SNL opening from Saturday. Queen Latifah showed up as a special guest star to be the moderator from the Vice Presidential debate. I think I laughed just as hard at Jason Sudeikis playing Senator Biden. (Remember, they were dating each other on 30 Rock.)



I'm sure these are way funnier if you're actually watching the debates. Next one is tomorrow night.


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It's Not a Parody If It Actually Happened

Okay, I didn't realize that Tina Fey was just repeating Sarah Palin from the Katie Couric interview, but that's what she was doing. I didn't get to see both in close proximity to one another, but this CNN clip puts them together nicely.

I bet Ms. Fey is sitting on the edge of her seat waiting for the vice presidential debate tomorrow night. It must be nice for her to not have to come up with anything to write.



Holy cow. And she wants to be Vice President? The scary part is, it might actually happen.

If that's the case, I say we stage a coup d’état and put Tina Fey in her place. No one will ever know the difference. It'll be just like Dave.


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New SNL Skit

Saturday Night Live has done it again. Just more proof as to why I love Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. (By the way, Baby Mama is out on DVD. It's pretty cute in a predictable kind of way. I still affirm it would have been better if Tina had written it herself.)



If you didn't see the interview with Katie Couric, you should probably watch it because it makes this even more hilarious. SNL did one on the presidential debate with Obama and McCain too, but it wasn't quite as funny.


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PS, I love hulu.com, despite its advertisements.

Tina Fey Returns to SNL

Okay, it might have been a one night only engagement, but I surely hope they let her come back to spoof Sarah Palin more often. One of the saddest things about Hillary Clinton not winning is the fact that we're going to see less of Amy Poehler playing her.

If you missed the opening to the new season on Saturday, watch this. (Excuse the ads, I pulled it from Hulu because some of the youtube ones got yanked.) It's almost too perfect for me to even comment more on. There's so much to love about this. I adored it.



I love it when she says, "And I can see Russia from my house!" I think that line makes me laugh the most.

Hey, the neatest thing about this is that one of my coworkers actually knows the cop that Sarah Palin tried to get fired. It's true, everyone from Alaska knows each other!


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Further Proof as to Why You Should be Watching 30 Rock

The Emmy nominations are in. 30 Rock has 18 of them (If you count the online content one). That's the most nominations that ANY comedy has EVER received. Granted, it won't win all 18 of them because they're up against themselves in a few categories. Take a look:

Outstanding Guest Actor In A Comedy Series
	30 Rock • NBC Rip Torn as Don Geiss
	30 Rock • NBC Will Arnett as Devin Banks
	30 Rock • NBC Steve Buscemi as Len
	30 Rock • NBC Tim Conway as Bucky Bright

Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series
	30 Rock • NBC Carrie Fisher as Rosemary Howard
	30 Rock • NBC Edie Falco as Celeste 'C.C.' Cunningham
	30 Rock • NBC Elaine Stritch as Colleen Donaghy

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series
	30 Rock • Rosemary's Baby • NBC Jack Burditt, Written By
	30 Rock • Cooter • NBC Tina Fey, Written By

The other guest actor is Shelley Berman as Nat David (Curb Your Enthusiasm).

The other guest actresses are Polly Bergen as Stella Wingfield (Desperate Housewives), Kathryn Joosten as Karen McCluskey (Desperate Housewives), and Sarah Silverman as Marci Maven (Monk). If a 30 Rocker doesn't win, Sarah Silverman should.

The other writing competition is Flight of the Conchords, The Office, and Pushing Daisies.

So... good luck to 30 Rock and Tina Fey. I'll actually have something to cheer for in the comedy categories. I'd like for Rip Torn and Edie Falco to win. Or Will Arnett... he was fabulous, too. And Elaine Stritch is hilarious. I just love this show, okay? But the episode entitled "Cooter" was better than "Rosemary's Baby" (surprise, Fey wrote it), so I hope that's the one that wins.


Kinda still on topic news - Kathy Griffin will be back at the Emmys with her two nominations - one for her Bravo special, Straight to Hell, and another for her reality show, My Life on the D-List. She probably won't win for Straight to Hell because that would deny George Carlin a posthumous Emmy, which he probably would've made fun of during his acceptance speech - much like she did last year.



Maybe Kathy can accept it in his honor. That's okay though, she's got her Emmy. She's focusing on a Grammy next.


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Television and Movie Entertainment Stuff

TNL. Thursday Night Live? I just read a news article that says SNL will have four 30 minute episodes running on Thursday nights (after The Office) for the four weeks prior to the 2008 Presidential Elections.

Oh pleeeeeeeease let Hillary Clinton get the Democratic nomination. Then we get to see Amy Poehler as Hillary even more! What do you mean that is not the way the country should vote for a President??

In related news:
Only 17 days until the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy Baby Mama comes to a theater near you.



In other-other completely non-related news (except that it's a movie):
I watched Chariots of Fire this weekend. I thought it was a movie about running. I was unprepared for all the religious stuff in it. And that the Chariots of Fire theme song was hardly in it at all. I was kinda disappointed overall.

I'm pretty sure I had that movie confused with another one. But, I don't know what the other movie is that I have it confused with. In my mind Chariots of Fire was supposed to be about running - more specifically marathon running, not sprinting - and something was supposed to happen at the end... something big... and everyone who has ever watched it is supposed to have cried. Now, whatever movie I have just described... I want to see it - because it wasn't Chariots of Fire.

Except I don't want anyone to spoil the ending as to why everyone cries (which is a large reason why I have not done a lot of searching into this). So, if you know what movie this could be (the sport might not be running, this has obviously passed through some sort of Nikki filter that has distorted all of the facts), you should let me know so I can put it on my Blockbuster queue. And in case you think it's Brian's Song, it's not. I've seen that. I'm sure it's something else that I'm thinking of. (But I'm nearly positive that it's an older movie, likely made in the seventies.)

So, think on that, would ya? Sports-type movie (that may or may not involve running), made possibly in the 70s, that is a tear-jerker. I'm not sure why I want to watch such a movie, other than the fact that it's famous... and I always cry at sports movies anyway.

Could it be something to do with Steve Prefontaine? Did he have a movie made about him? Help! It's driving me crazy.


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(Wow, I was feeling very parenthetical, wasn't I?)

You Have Lettuce in Your Hair

I grab fast food for lunch all the time. (Which probably has a lot to do with the additional 15 pounds I've put on since moving to Kansas City.) It's just too hard to cook something at home and then put it in little containers to heat it up at work. (And I'm lazy.) I'd rather spend 5 or 6 bucks a day for the convenience of fast food. However, we don't have a wide variety of fast food selections near my workplace. Yesterday I settled on going to Taco Bell because it's cheap, I hardly ever eat there, and I was looking for something different.

Usually my standby is a turkey sub from Mr. Goodcents (with provolone, lettuce, onions, black olives, banana peppers, and mayo). But yesterday, I thought... why not? And I had the number 5 combo from Taco Bell. (Don't worry, I felt pretty horrible last night. I probably won't be eating there again until I forget that I didn't feel well.)

Anyway, the point is, when I was done eating and about to throw my trash away, I noticed that I had lettuce in my hair. Cue the laughter that only I understood. This will explain it all:

I'm sure that a reason why I love this show so much is that a small portion (or maybe more) of me is just like Liz Lemon. Did you notice she was eating a turkey sub?

Once again, I praise this show, its writing and continuity, and Miss Tina Fey's portrayal of the woman who acts exactly how I feel sometimes. This comes from episode 01x06: Jack Meets Dennis.

I'm happy that 30 Rock is coming back in April because the last episode that aired (02x10: Coffee and TV) was probably my favorite so far. Liz sets out to purchase a condo, which I totally understand from my house hunting days. And on top of that, there's a musical feature with "Midnight Train to Georgia". So, you should check it out at nbc.com, or by clicking here.

Liz: "Look at those floors. I would walk all around inside of that."

I also like to sing show tunes really loudly.


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Kristen Wiig = Favorite SNL Cast Member

Saturday Night Live has seen better days. Sure, I agree with that statement. But I think that the current women of SNL are really brilliant. I miss Tina Fey as an anchor on Weekend Update and her writing in general, but since I have 30 Rock now, I'm not complaining about her loss from the show. (I'm very happy she's moved on to bigger and better things.) Amy Poehler does a great job on SNL. But, I have to say, I am most impressed with cast member Kristen Wiig. More specifically her reoccurring character, Penelope.

She cracks me up to no end.

Please write more Penelope. I adore her and can't get enough.

The bit at the end where she says, "Oh, hi Tony the Tiger, how are you? ...Oh, just good? That's weird. I thought you'd be something else." BRILLIANT!!! Brilliant, I say!!

Really... more, please. It's Grrrrrrrrreat!


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It's Amazing What You Find on YouTube

YouTube took down the extended full version of Tina Fey's American Express commercial. Only the new, shorter, edited version is available anymore... which sucks. They cut out my favorite part: Octopus Time.

However, in my search to find the commercial again, I found this:



No, really. I love her. Beth, I believe she may be your new hero. This made my day.


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I Watch This On Loop

I can't even describe how much I love this commercial from Emmy winner Tina Fey.



It's fabulous. I want Octopus Time.

I can't wait for 30 Rock to come back. I am one of its dozens and dozens of viewers - and you should be, too. I hope it sticks around for the next 6 years, too.


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