30 Rock Sucks So Bad Even Tina Fey Blows

Every single moment I watched 30 Rock, even with the beautiful and talented Tina Fey, I fantasized about being waterboarded. Yes, it is that bad. 30 Rock sucks. I even tried drinking. Good Lord.

30 Rock is a Golden Globe Award-winning American sitcom that debuted on October 11, 2006. It airs Thursdays at 9pm ET on NBC in the United States, Sundays at 8:30pm ET on CTV in Canada, Wednesdays at various times on Sony Entertainment Television in a half-dozen Latin American countries, Wednesdays at 10:30pm on yes stars 3 in Israel, and across Southeast Asia on Star World on Thursdays. In Australia, the show will be coming to Channel Seven during 2007.

The show was created by former Saturday Night Live (SNL) performer and head writer Tina Fey, who stars in the show and has written numerous episodes, including the pilot. She is also one of the show’s executive producers.

The show is a workplace comedy set in New York City’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza (“30 Rock” being a nickname for the building); it follows the cast and crew of an SNL-like show-within-a-show called TGS.

Overview

Fey portrays Liz Lemon, the head writer of NBC’s TGS and the show’s protagonist. Alec Baldwin plays Jack Donaghy, who as the series begins is an executive from NBC parent General Electric who is the new Vice President in charge of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming; he “interferes with her show, and bullies Lemon into convincing Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan), a wild and unpredictable movie star, to join the cast.” Jane Krakowski plays Jenna Maroney, previously the star of The Girlie Show, but now overshadowed on the renamed TGS with Tracy Jordan. Also in the cast are Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, and Judah Friedlander.

The show’s title comes from a nickname for 30 Rockefeller Plaza, also known as the GE Building. It is used as the headquarters of NBC’s New York City studios, including Studio 8H, home to Saturday Night Live.

30 Rock is filmed primarily at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens, New York, It is one of two shows on the 2006–07 NBC lineup that revolves around the off-camera happenings on a sketch comedy series, the other being Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Cast

Main characters
Head writer of The Girlie Show, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey).
Head writer of The Girlie Show, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey).
Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) is the Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming.
Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) is the Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming.
Tracy Jordan.
Tracy Jordan.

* Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) — The protagonist of the show. Liz is the head writer of The Girlie Show. Writing for a comedy show is her dream, but she finds her dream interrupted when Jack Donaghy is made to be the new network vice president.
* Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) — The new Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming at the network. Arrogant and sometimes foolish, he frequently tells Liz that he does not find her attractive and often gets into conflicts with her. He convinces Liz to hire Tracy as the new star of the show.
* Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) — An unpredictable film actor who is hired to be the star of The Girlie Show. Tracy is hired after Jack Donaghy convinces Liz to hire him. Tracy tries to maintain a crazy image in the public eye. His character also makes frequent references to Star Wars characters. Since he was hired to the show, the show was renamed (much to Liz’s chagrin) TGS with Tracy Jordan. Also, in the episode, “Fireworks”, he finds out he is related to Thomas Jefferson.
* Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) — The female lead of The Girlie Show. She is conceited and frequently lies about her age. One of her characters on the show is “Pam, the Overly-Confident Morbidly Obese Woman,” for which she must wear a fat suit.
* Kenneth Potsdown (Jack McBrayer) — A young, Southern, dense page at the studio where the show is filmed who is very enthusiastic about his job.
* Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) – Liz’s trusted producer whom Jack Donaghy fired when he became president of the network. However, Liz convinced Jack to hire him back.
* Frank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander) – A sarcastic and quick-witted writer for the show. He always wears a trucker hat with a short saying on the front in big capital letters.

Minor characters

Main article: List of minor characters on 30 Rock

* James “Toofer” Spurlock (Keith Powell) — An African American writer with an aversion to the stereotypical aspects of black culture embodied by Tracy. According to Liz, Toofer is “afraid of black people.” According to Jack, his nickname is “Toofer” because “with him you get a two-for-one; he’s a black guy and a Harvard guy.” In the episode “The Breakup”, Toofer makes reference to having been a member of The Harvard Krokodiloes and having had a solo on “Like a Prayer”.
* Josh Girard (Lonny Ross) – The final one of the three main actors on TGS (along with Tracy and Jenna). He performs impressions on the show. His parents apparently raised him as a girl for ten years. His character has also been said to be based on SNL alumnus Jimmy Fallon.
* Cerie (Katrina Bowden) — Liz’s young and attractive assistant who dresses inappropriately at times. She is typically portrayed as being shallow and dim-witted, somewhat along the lines of a stereotypical “dumb blonde” or “Valley girl.”
* Dennis Duffy (Dean Winters) – Liz’s on-again-off-again boyfriend who is the last remaining beeper salesman in New York City. Although Liz does not enjoy dating him, she cannot seem to break up with him despite Jack’s encouragement to do so. Liz would finally dump Dennis upon learning that he is a sexual predator after she saw him on Dateline NBC being caught on camera trying to meet a teenage girl he chatted with online in one of the show’s hidden camera investigations.
* Dr. Leo Spaceman (pronounced “spa-cheh-man”) (Chris Parnell) – Tracy’s incompetent and unethical doctor who treats him with wildly experimental methods. He also dabbles in dentistry and specializes in fertility, meth addiction, and child psychology.
* Rachel Dratch, also a former SNL alum, portrays various roles according to the scripts’ needs. So far, Dratch has appeared in three episodes as Greta, a cat wrangler for sketches that needed animals. In other episodes, Dratch’s characters have included Elizabeth Taylor; a group therapist working as a counselor for professional relations; an imaginary blue man; a Latina maid; a prostitute; a nearly unintelligible Barbara Walters; and a Religious Right activist.
* Floyd (Jason Sudeikis) – An accountant who sends Liz flowers on Valentine’s Day in in “Up All Night”, although he had intended to send them to his girlfriend, who has a similar name. Since then, Liz had a few awkward encounters with him and ended up trying to fire his girlfriend so that she could date Floyd. Jack had Floyd’s girlfriend transferred, and Liz and Floyd later began dating.

Crew

30 Rock’s executive producers are Tina Fey, Joann Alfano, Marci Klein, David Miner, and Lorne Michaels. The show’s co-executive producers are Robert Carlock, Brett Baer, Dave Finkel, Jack Burditt, and John Riggi. The supervising producer is Adam Bernstein. Jeff Richmond and Jerry Kupfer are the show’s producers. Irene Burns, Matt Hubbard, and Margo Myers serve as co-producers.

The writing staff for the first season consists of Brett Baer, Jack Burditt, Kay Cannon, Robert Carlock, Tina Fey, Dave Finkel, Daisy Gardner, Donald Glover, Matt Hubbard, and John Riggi.

See also: List of 30 Rock crew

Notable guest stars

* Stephanie March appeared in the episode “Blind Date”.
* Ghostface Killah appeared in the episodes “Jack-tor” and “The Source Awards.” He is also mentioned in “Hard Ball”.
* Dean Winters appeared in the episodes “Jack Meets Dennis”, “Tracy Does Conan”, and “The Break Up”.
* Conan O’Brien appeared in the episode “Tracy Does Conan”.
* Chris Parnell appeared in the episodes “Tracy Does Conan”, “The Rural Juror”, “The Baby Show”, and “Fireworks.”
* Chris Hansen appeared in the episode “The Break-Up.”
* Bob Wiltfong appeared in the episode “The Rural Juror”.
* Whoopi Goldberg appeared in the episode “The Rural Juror”.
* Peter Hermann appeared in the episode “The Head and the Hair”.
* John McEnroe appeared in the episode “The Head and the Hair”.
* Paul Reubens appeared in the episode “Black Tie”.
* Isabella Rossellini appeared in the episodes “Black Tie” and “Up All Night”.
* Will Forte appeared in the episode “Black Tie”.
* Joy Behar appeared in the episode “Up All Night”.
* Sherri Shepherd appeared in the episode “Up All Night”.
* Jason Sudeikis appeared in the episode “Up All Night” “The Source Awards” “The Fighting Irish” “Fireworks and “Corporate Crush.”
* Rip Torn appeared in the episodes “The C Word” and “Corporate Crush”
* Chris Matthews appeared in the episode “Hard Ball.”
* Tucker Carlson appeared in the episode “Hard Ball.”
* Wayne Brady appeared in the episode “The Source Awards.”
* LL Cool J appeared in the episode “The Source Awards.”
* Nathan Lane appeared in the episode “The Fighting Irish.”
* Anna Chlumsky appeared in the episode “The Fighting Irish.”
* Molly Shannon appeared in the episode “The Fighting Irish.”
* Will Arnett appeared in the episode “Fireworks.”
* Maury Povich appeared in the episode “Fireworks.”

Early changes and ratings

The show underwent several changes during the months leading up to and following its debut.

A May 2006 press release mentioned that sketches from The Girlie Show would be made available in their entirety on NBC’s broadband website, DotComedy.com. This aspect of the series was abandoned prior to its debut.
The original cast of 30 Rock (L to R) Tracy Morgan, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Jack McBrayer, Alec Baldwin.
The original cast of 30 Rock (L to R) Tracy Morgan, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Jack McBrayer, Alec Baldwin.

Originally, Rachel Dratch, Fey’s longtime comedy partner and fellow SNL alumna, was to portray Jenna, whose surname was DeCarlo at that time. Dratch played the role in the show’s original pilot, but in August 2006, Krakowski was announced as Dratch’s replacement, with Dratch remaining involved in the show playing various characters. Additionally, Jenna’s last name was changed to Maroney. Fey attributed the need for the change to the role itself, one Fey called a “straight-ahead acting part” better suited for Krakowski; Fey said she and Dratch “were both very excited about this new direction. [Dratch is] so delightful when she’s deep in character and she’s going to be playing a range of different characters.” “I think it’s something that’ll help the show be unique. And I think it brings a little sketch sensibility into a show where you’re not going to see sketches.” An interview with Dratch revealed that she’ll appear in at least six episodes, and confirmed the reason for the change:

I think the big thing was—at least what they told me—that at first they wanted to have more comedy sketches in the show. Then they decided they weren’t going to focus on the sketches, so they needed more of a sitcom actress, as opposed to a character actress….That’s the party line, at least—it’s what I can tell my parents!

The changes prior to the debut did not help the show’s early ratings. The show’s pilot episode attracted 8.13 million viewers, third in its time slot and 58th for the week. The ratings for “The Aftermath” (the second episode) were down 21 percent.

Although the second episode’s ratings were revealed on the same day that NBC announced plans to replace expensive scripted shows in the 8–9pm time slot with reality series and game shows, the network demonstrated an apparent confidence in the series a week later, announcing a new time slot for the show (Thursdays at 9:30pm ET) beginning in mid-November. The move helped reestablish a two-hour block of comedies on an evening NBC once promoted as Must See TV.

The third episode attracted 6.01 million viewers, making it 73rd in Nielsen’s prime-time television in the U.S. As November sweeps began, the show’s fourth episode attracted 4.61 million viewers in its fourth week, making it 85th in Nielsen’s prime-time television rankings.

CTV, which had broadcast the first four or five episodes in Canada, dropped the show effective November 30 after a brief run during which it never entered the BBM Nielsen top 30. CTV has since re-added the show to its lineup on Sundays at 8:30pm ET.

NBC waited until December 1 to commit to a full season of the show, announcing the commitment the day after the show followed Scrubs for the first time. The 30 November episode drew 6.6 million viewers, nearly a million more than the previously televised episode and only 1.5 million fewer viewers that the show’s pilot. The increase in viewership occurred in spite of the show’s new time slot, opposite the second halves of Grey’s Anatomy and a repeat of CSI, two of the three most highly-rated scripted series of the November 2006 sweeps. The December 7 episode continued its rise, drawing 6.8 million viewers and attracting its highest 18–49 demographic, 3.2.

On January 17 NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly announced that he expected 30 Rock “to return next season”; the next day’s episode, competing against new episodes of CSI (“Sweet Jane”) and Grey’s Anatomy (“Six Days, Part 2″), attracted 5.04 million viewers, the fewest since the beginning of the November 2006 sweeps, and 80th in Nielsen rankings.

On 2 February NBC announced that 30 Rock would take a six-week break after the March 8 episode so the network can test out Andy Barker P.I..

Then on March 12 NBC announced that 30 Rock will return sooner than previously stated. On April 5 30 Rock will return for a 35 minute super-sized episode at (8:40pm ET) following a new episode of The Office. The following week 30 Rock will move to its new time at (9:00pm ET), where it will finish the rest of the season. The season finale is scheduled for April 26.

On April 4, 2007 it was announced that 30 Rock has been renewed for a full second season of 22 episodes.

The following day (April 5) Reilly explained that despite its so-so ratings even though it retained 80% of its lead-in, he notes that the renewal of 30 Rock demostrates NBC’s commitment to the series, plus he added that the decision to move it to the 9PM slot was due to having the show serve as a better lead-in for The Office than Scrubs: “There was some evidence that Scrubs while a qualitatively good match is not demographically necessarily the best flow for the show.”

Critical reception

In its fall 2006 preview of new shows, TV Guide named 30 Rock the best new comedy. After five episodes, Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote that the series has “consistently and considerably improved since its premiere” and called it “refreshingly bright, sweet and, lest one forget, funny.” He described Baldwin’s performance as “rare and rich” and a “crazy joy to watch” and declared McBrayer “the show’s brightest discovery,” quoting executive producer Lorne Michaels: “We’re very high on [McBrayer]. He’s obviously the breakout performer on the series. We like him, the network likes him, viewers like him, everybody likes him.”

On December 22 the The Wall Street Journal cited 30 Rock as the one comedy that, along with two dramas, was evidence that “this year’s lineup yields the strongest signs yet that some sort of life force is returning to network television after years of absence.” It added that “the show grows sharper weekly, more hilariously assured in its wild satiric reach,” calling it a “wildly funny enterprise.”

In its 2006 yearend issue, Entertainment Weekly listed 30 Rock fourth on a list of ten best “Series of the Year.” The show also appeared on similar yearend “best of” 2006 lists in the New York Daily News, LA Weekly, and the New York Times. The Associated Press wrote that NBC’s “Thursday night comedy block—made up of My Name Is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, and 30 Rock—is consistently the best night of prime time viewing for any network.”

On Feb 14, 2007, Entertainment Weekly published an updated review of ’30 Rock, giving the show an “A”.

On Feb 28, 2007, Tim Goodman in the San Francisco Chronicle called: “”30 Rock,” the funniest sitcom of the new season and a show that has made a startling creative growth from its pilot to where it is now,” adding “”30 Rock” is not to be missed … this could be the beginning of the next great sitcom.”

Episodes and U.S. ratings

See also: List of 30 Rock episodes

In the following summary, “Rating” is the estimated percentage of all televisions tuned to the show, and “Share” is the percentage of all televisions in use that are tuned in.

Unless otherwise cited, the overnight rating and share information comes from Zap2It The following week, the numbers are updated with the final Nielsen numbers from TVWeek.com. Additional ratings information, including the 18–49 rating, comes from BroadcastingCable. Viewer numbers and rank numbers come from Google Groups.

DVR ratings

On December 29, 2006, Nielsen Media Research reported the results of having, for the first time, monitored viewers who use a digital video recorder to pre-record shows for later viewing. According to the Nielsen numbers, 30 Rock had the fifth-largest increase (viewers who use a DVR to record the show and then watch it within a week of its initial airing). According to Nielsen, 30 Rock adds nearly 7.5% to its total audience every week as a result of these “live plus seven” viewers.

Ratings among the affluent

A report from MAGNA Global, based on Nielsen Media Research data about viewership ranked by among adults 25-54, shows that as of the time of the report 30 Rock’s viewers have a median income of $65,000, high enough to place the show tied at 11th in affluence with several other shows. This is during a period where for the season 30 Rock is tied at No. 85 in the 18-49 demographic.

International broadcasters

30 Rock is broadcast on the following stations around the world.

Trivia
This article contains a trivia section.
Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.

* A longstanding part of GE’s corporate culture is a philosophy of moving executives to new divisions every few years. Thus, NBC routinely receives new executives with little or no previous experience with the television industry. For example, Bob Wright—the network’s longtime CEO—came to NBC in 1986 with GE’s acquisition of RCA after a lengthy career with various GE divisions.
* Jeff Richmond, Fey’s husband, composes all of the show’s music and also serves as a producer on the show. He also appears in some episodes as the show-within-the-show’s piano player.
* The show’s name is similar to 3rd Rock, the commonly used short title for 3rd Rock from the Sun, another NBC sitcom created by and starring Saturday Night Live alumni. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, Tim Allen mispronounced the show’s name as 3rd Rock when mentioning Alec Baldwin had been nominated for the Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical Award.
* Thus far, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, and Judah Friedlander are the only actors to appear in every one of the show’s episodes.

You can watch a lot of Tina Fey all at one time if you go grab the streaming full episodes of 30 Rock from NBC. The show is appalling, but Tina Fey is, in fact, the perfect woman. And only two month younger. Sadly, married.

Elizabeth Stamatina “Tina” Fey (born May 18, 1970) is an American writer, comedian, and actress. She was a cast member and co-head writer of Saturday Night Live.

Career
After Fey graduated from drama school at the University of Virginia in 1992, she moved to Chicago, getting a day job at a residential YMCA to take night classes at The Second City. She made what she later described as an “amateurish” attempt at stand-up comedy, and learned that the key to improvisation was to “focus entirely on your partner. You take what they’re giving you and use it to build a scene.”

By 1994 she was invited to join the cast of The Second City, where she performed in the Jeff Award-winning revue Paradigm Lost. She is also a veteran of The ImprovOlympic.

Saturday Night Live

With then-head writer Adam McKay’s help, Fey became a writer for NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1997. By 1999, Fey was SNL’s first female head writer, a milestone she downplays by pointing out that the show has had few head writers.

As co-head writer of SNL’s 25th anniversary special, Fey won a 2001 Writers Guild of America Award; she and the writing staff also won a 2002 Emmy Award for their work on the show.

In September 2005, she went on maternity leave after giving birth to a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond. Her Weekend Update role was covered by Horatio Sanz for several weeks before her return to the show on October 22, 2005, noting:

“I had to get back to work. NBC has me under contract; the baby and I only have a verbal agreement.”
Fey confirmed during a July 2006 Tonight Show appearance that she would not be returning to SNL for its 2006-7 season.

SNL sketches
Some recurring sketches written by Fey include:

Parodies of Live with Regis and Kelly and The View
The Girl with No Gaydar, cowritten by Rachel Dratch
Boston Teens, cowritten by Dratch

She is also credited with:

Colonel Angus, portrayed by Christopher Walken in a sketch filled with word play on the colonel’s name
Mom Jeans commercial
“Talkin ‘Bout ‘Ginas” (Parody of The Vagina Monologues)

Weekend Update
In 2000, Fey and Jimmy Fallon became co-anchors of SNL’s Weekend Update, a pairing that ended in May 2004 when Fallon last appeared as a cast member. (Fey also was co-writer of the Weekend Update segment). Fallon was replaced by Amy Poehler. It was the first time that two women co-anchored Weekend Update.

Celebrity impressions
Barbara Pierce Bush
Bea Arthur
Janice Dickinson
Kathleen Willey
Mary Ann Mobley
Paris Hilton
Paula Zahn
Vanna White

30 Rock
Fey developed a situation comedy, 30 Rock, for NBC’s fall 2006 schedule.. The show is produced by NBC and Broadway Video, with Lorne Michaels and two former producers of The Tracy Morgan Show, David Miner, who is also her manager at 3 Arts, and Joann Alfano. She also writes and stars in the sitcom, said to be based on her experiences at SNL. The show’s title is a reference to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where SNL is produced.

Similarities between 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip led to speculation that only one of the two shows would be picked up. Alec Baldwin, who played the network executive in the 30 Rock pilot, said “I’d be stunned if NBC picked up both shows. And ours has the tougher task, as a comedy, because if it’s not funny, that’s it.” Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment, was supportive of Fey, describing it as a “high-class problem”:

I just can’t imagine the audience would look at both shows, choose one and cancel the other out. In some ways, why is it any different than when there have been three or four cop shows on any schedule, or Scrubs and ER, which are totally very different?

Evidence of the overlapping subject matter between the shows (as well as the conflict between them) is the fact that Aaron Sorkin, the creator of Studio 60, asked Lorne Michaels to allow him to observe SNL for a week, a request Michaels denied.

It’s just bad luck for me that in my first attempt at prime time I’m going up against the most powerful writer on television. I was joking that this would be the best pilot ever aired on Trio. And then Trio got cancelled.

In spite of the overlap in subject matter, it was announced on May 15, 2006, that NBC had picked up both shows.

The show debuted to mostly positive reviews, however ratings its original timeslot on Wednesdays at 8 PM were weak. Rather than cancel the show, NBC moved the show into a revamped Thursday Must See TV comedy lineup at the end of November sweeps. After its first episode in its new Thursday 9:30 PM timeslot on November 30, 2006, the network picked up the show for the entire season

Other work
She partnered with fellow cast member Rachel Dratch in the critically acclaimed two-woman show Dratch & Fey at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, and the Chicago Improv Festival. Lorne Michaels saw her at one of the performances, which led to her becoming the co-anchor of SNL’s Weekend Update.

She also appeared in Martin & Orloff, a surreal comedy which premiered at Austin’s SXSW.

Fey wrote the script and co-starred in the 2004 movie Mean Girls. Characters and behaviors in the movie are based on Fey’s high school life at Upper Darby High School and on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence (ISBN 0-609-60945-9) by Rosalind Wiseman. The cast includes other present and past cast members of SNL including Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler.

As of April 2006, Fey is working on a script for a Paramount Pictures film by the name of Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill that is said to be based loosely on the true story of a Hasidic rock musician.

Personal life
Fey was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia to a Greek American mother and a father of German and Scottish descent. Her brother, Peter, remembers a drawing she did when she was about seven: it showed people holding hands, walking down the street with wedges of Swiss cheese. The caption read, “What a friend we have in cheeses!”

Fey was exposed to comedy early, saying:

“I remember my parents sneaking me in to see Young Frankenstein. We would also watch Saturday Night Live, or Monty Python or old Marx Brothers movies. My dad would let us stay up late to watch The Honeymooners. We were not allowed to watch The Flintstones, though, which my dad hated because it ripped off The Honeymooners. I actually have a very low level of Flintstones knowledge for someone my age.”

Her dream to entertain first was at Philadelphia Phillies baseball games, as she wanted to become a ball girl.

Fey attended Cardington Elementary School and Beverly Hills Middle School; by middle school she knew she was interested in comedy, even doing an independent study project on the subject in eighth grade. She graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1988.

Tina Fey is married to Jeff Richmond, a composer on SNL. They met before their jobs on SNL and dated for seven years before marrying in a Greek Orthodox ceremony on June 3, 2001 . They have a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond who was born on September 10, 2005.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Share on Tumblr