30 Rock

I loved it and saw every episode, but with so many new shows churned out every second I don't dwell on it much.

I love it but it went on a little long. The last year or so of episodes seem like retreads of earlier seasons. James Marsden was kind of wasted there.

Another thing: the jokes and punchlines were very long or relied on forgotten pop culture. It got worse in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Compare that to more timeless sitcoms like I Love Lucy and seinfeld.

More sitcoms should end after 5 years or less.

I was glad to find it on Peacock, it almost seems like it disappeared completely.

It was appointment TV for me. especially once they de-emphasized Tracey Jordan.

It's not forgotten at all, but okay

Jane Krakowski is a national treasure. It’s a crime she didn’t win an Emmy.

I've been watching it all day and it's as funny as I remember.

It ages just as well as The Rural Juror

I had such a crush on Maulik Pancholy.

Agree r6. Every line she delivered was perfection. Loved the minor characters Chris Parnnel as Dr. Spacemen. Dot.com and Grizz, Elaine Stritch was fantastic as Alec Baldwins mother Coleen.

Good show and like most sit-coms, in one eye and out the other.

I actually saw quite a few episodes of this and liked them. Much better than "Friends" or "Something About Raymond" and many, many others.

It's weird, I rarely watch sit-coms and when I do I usually hate them. I liked "Frasier" and "MASH" and "Mary Tyler Moore" but even those I didn't watch all the time. The only thing I watch all the time is the news. And the Great British Bake Off. I would watch more "Mindhunter" if it came back which in theory it will at some point.

It’s not.

I rewatched most of it recently and had to skip over all the Jason Sudekis episodes and the last season. It's still pretty funny. Alec Baldwin and Elaine Stritch are still hilarious. The boyfriend Dennis was great too-- Dean Winters?

It, like Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and SNL are my favourite tv shows ever.

I loved it when it was on, but I've had no desire to rewatch it.

Black Tie - with Paul Rubens, and his tiny hands, and Isabella Rosselini is always a favorite.

I almost forget Isabella played Jack's ex-wife, Bianca.

Jack : I want full stake in the Arby's franchise we bought outside of Telluride.

Bianca: Oh, dammit Johnny, you know I love my Big Beef and Cheddar!

love 30 rock!

This show landed the best guest stars from the legendary Carrie Fisher to Jan Hooks and Elaine Stritch. Isabella Rossellini was great, Jennifer Aniston was wonderful, Oprah was "herself" and they managed to make it work. You could always look forward to random guest appearances from people like Gladys Knight, Paul Rubens or Al Gore. I'll give them credit for knowing how to allow them to do what they did best and it never seemed too forced.

Jane Krakowski was robbed every awards season. She was truly the best thing to come out of the series and she was never recognized for it properly. Her delivery was always pitch perfect.

While I don't particularly care for Tina Fey, I do thank her for giving Jane two series where she got to be funny.

I loved the show, OP. I think what you're referring to is that it doesn't have the kind of afterlife that its fellow NBC comedy, The Office did. I think that's probably because The Office was more "comfort food" TV and 30 Rock was much sharper and (often) meaner.

If you're a big 30 Rock fan, its DNA is certainly seen in Hulu's Difficult People and Comedy Central's The Other Two. Difficult People -- would stick with just the first two seasons. The Other Two -- apparently the second season is finally coming next year and its moving to HBO Max.

this is the show for you if you want circa 2008 to 2012 inside baseball jokes about snl, nbc, ge, and comcast

I teach high school and I have a couple of (boy) students who love it. I have been meaning to ask them about it. Most kids like The Office-- it's very odd to come across kids who know 30 Rock. Apparently the jokes are not too obscure for them.

And then you take your reward.

I've watched it a few times since it went off the air. Alec Baldwin is wonderful. There's a scene where someone is break dancing, and he's trying to copy them. Little details like that cracked me up.

There is some silliness that is not my type of humor, but mostly I love it.

My teenage niece and her friends watched it during quarantine and loved it, so perhaps it's aged well enough for the younger generation.

Fuck! My night cheese, not ham.

I hate ham. Dammit, Muriel. I'd pay an extra $5 for the ability to edit.

This chaotic show is my favorite. I love “showbiz” shows, and I cannot praise Jane enough. She’s just perfect. I was in high school when it came out, so the topical references are still not lost on me at this point. But I think that it is still hilarious even if you miss a reference, my god— look at the Golden Girls and their dated references. Tina Fey is sharp and writes mean satire— which 30 Rock is even at its goofiest.

OP you're being such a non-pillow right now!

I love 30 Rock and have been watching it off and on over the last few months. Tina Fey Alec Baldwin Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, and Tracy Morgan are all great.

For all the top notch cast members and guest stars there were also lots of clunkers. Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander and the writers were never funny. Susan Sarandon and Julianne Moore were both terrible guest stars. Also Cheyenne Jackson was a dud.

It's my favorite show on Hulu. It's my comfort food when I just want to zone out.

I follow Hilaria Baldwin, Isabella Rosselini, and Elizabeth Banks on Instagram. Once they all appeared sequentially on my IG timeline.

I rewatched the whole thing on Hulu a few months ago. I expected the humor (not just the references) to feel dated, but it holds up surprisingly well. Hilarious. The penultimate season felt "off" somehow, but it rebounded in the end.

Tina created a fun show where the lead was far from perfect. Like in the Rural Juror episode where the writers point out that Liz always belittles Jenna and her accomplishments. Or Liz as the confrontational loudmouth Liberal making conservative Jack look reasonable in comparison. Or when she reported her neighbors (one of them played by Fred Armisen) to the FBI, because she thought they are terrorists, but they were only doing their audition tape for The Amazing Race.

Tina and I have mutual friends from here in Chicago, many of whom went on to NY and LA as well. She's pretty cut-throat and driven and has a bit of a revenge streak (Rachel Dratch, anyone?). But she's also super-talented and surprisingly self-aware for such an ego.

My favorite episode is when Liz goes back to her high school reunion, full of dread and angst over seeing her Mean Girls HS bullies, only to find that they all thought SHE was the bully. It rang true in so many ways.

What's the Rachel Dratch story, R32?

Rachel Dratch was originally cast as Jenna, right? But NBC brass made Tina replace her?

I don’t know if it hurt their relationship; Rachel would pop up on the show randomly.

Is there something more recent that happened?

[quote] But NBC brass made Tina replace her?

That's what I thought as well. If I remember correctly, she felt about about it and brought in Dratch for one-off roles whenever she could in the first season.

Yeah the show had so many things going against it (it's very inside baseball, it's very New York, it moves a lot faster than most American TV viewers are able to deal with) the brass thought having an uggo as the lead was just one thing too many. So they replaced her with someone pretty.

I wonder what DL thinks about the comparison of that show to the Muppet Show. Tina is Kermit. Jane is Miss Piggy. Tracy is Gonzo. Kenneth is Scooter....

I thought it was mean when she made fun of Dratch's Spring Break movie. Loved Carrie Fischer in it, wish she'd reappeared but I guess she did in Carol Kane's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt character. And I can't mention that show without saying I'm in love with Tituss Burgess.

NBC wanted Rachel Dratch replaced because they thought she was too ugly and would turn off viewers, so Jane Krakowski was cast instead.

I watch "30 Rock" almost every day on Hulu. It's my winddown show. I set my sleep timer and turn it on. I have watched each episode probably more than a dozen times. Because everyone knows the best part of the muffin is the top.

Those you who don't know about the now-publicly-reconciled Rachel Dratch - Tina Fey feud haven't been around DL very long.

I enjoyed reading Rachel Dratch's book a few years ago. She doesn't seem to bear Tina Fey any ill will. It was NBC who rejected Dratch, not Fey.

I wonder if Tina has ever cheated on her cute hobbit husband.

Some very, very funny moments, but for some reasons I never feel like revisiting the series. Sometimes I will watch a funny cameo on YouTube, though. The plot about Jenna’s husband being a drag version of herself was a head scratcher. I did appreciate a takedown of David Blaine in one episode. That was clever.

Was there ever really a feud? Also, I think it's a bit reductive to suggest that the only reason Dratch was replaced was because of her looks -- it's also a bit insulting to Jane Krakowski who was brilliant in the role. At the end of the day, Dratch is just a better sketch comedian than sitcom actress and even though Jenna is certainly a heightened character she has to feel real in the world of 30 Rock. They absolutely made the right choice. I'm sure that didn't make it any easier on Dratch, though.

I love 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt, but I'm not a fan of the music in both shows (composed by Tina's husband).

I remember Fey saying in an interview, back when she and Dratch started on SNL and were still doing two-woman shows together, that Dratch was a complete oddity in the comedy world in that she was a very nice person with no dark side. I feel like had Fey not lured her away to do 30 Rock, Dratch could probably have been a contented SNL lifer like Keenan Thompson.

Jane Krakowski was undeniably brilliant as Jenna Maroney, and it made no sense to have Jenna be an even bigger neurotic mouseburger than Liz (which is what Dratch was playing in the clips from the abysmal test pilot.) I’ve said before on 30 Rock threads, that Dratch could have been quite good at playing a female version of Frank, and the dynamic of having another woman in the writers room (the incomprehensibly Swedish Sue doesn’t count) would have been interesting.

It was probably the last network sitcom that I really enjoyed. I never got the hype around The Office or Parks and Rec. Modern Family was so-so at best.

I am binge watching now. Its still funny.

My favorite bit was the sequence where Jenna fondly remembers her stalker while Sarah McLachlan's "I remember you" is playing in the background. The full sequence isn't on youtube, sadly. It's a compilation of short moments where you see Jenna being attacked or terrified by her stalker, yelling her ass off.

Fey’s bright, she’s talented, she’s attractive, but I dunno, for me there always seemed a nastiness to Fey’s humor. Or maybe it’s just to Fey. Also too much “look at how smart I am, don’t you wish you could be like me?” coming through.

It's aged better than "Just Shoot Me"

Probably because it deteriorated so badly, like most shows that go beyond 3 seasons. The adoption crap, the reality series crap, Tracey’s wife, relentless stunt casting, the music crap (obviously Fey’s husband got involved more & more as the show went forward, since they were running out of ideas). Liz went from being the nerdy, responsible San person stuck with a bunch of of crazy coworkers & an egomaniacal boss to a messy retarded person telling fart jokes

*sane person, obviously

[quote] It's aged better than "Just Shoot Me"

So did Benjamin Button and the title character from Orphan.

Anytime a series does a "live" episode it's usually downhill from there.

Haha...the one where tracy is off his meds...reminds me of kanye.

Some of the political stuff feels more dated in a bad way in 2020 - mostly because it’s a reminder of how far we’ve fallen. The jokes about McCain/Romney now feel like actually what was even that bad about them?

But it remains one of my favorites, a good balance of sharp and absurdist humor.

[quote]It was NBC who rejected Dratch, not Fey.

NBC didn't try to pretend they didn't want Dratch for any other reason, they flat out said she was too ugly to be the lead in a series and audiences wouldn't watch. That's show business, though. It's a rough business and I'm sure Dratch was aware of what she was getting into when she went into the business, knowing how someone who looks like her would be treated.

There is a nastiness to Fey’s humor, R49, but there is a smart self-awareness about that fact in the humor, too. It’s smart humor even in its goofiest moments.

R45, casting Dratch as the hapless stage manager or as a lead writer is a brilliant idea. She would have been leagues funnier than that Frank character, who was just fine.

30 Rock is probably the only sitcom I ever really cared about, but it's too cerebral for general audiences. There was no real will-they-won't-they romance like in Friends or The Office to pull in fraus and frauettes, and it was female-led and didn't have any bro humor/class clowns for straight guys to relate to, so that's 2 marks against it for really dominating the mainstream. Plus it wasn't really a "family" sitcom.

It's definitely endlessly quotable though.

"My single 'My Single is Dropping' is dropping."

"What's happening?"

"My single is called 'My Single is Dropping.' And it's dropping."

Seasons 1-5 are great... The queen of jordan ep mentioned at r59 is such a dead-on satire of reality shows

It was better when they had less money. They had to use witty dialogue instead of filming endless parodies of commercials, reality shows & songs.

Donald Glover/Childish Gambino was a staff writer for "30 Rock." The Tracey Jordan character ad the satire on race was spot-on. Krakowski was brilliant. Alec Baldwin was the most one-hour character and even he was great. Looking back that series was robbed of Emmys. There is no comedy of that time that has endured as well.

r59's post is why I loved 30 Rock. So "romance" fraubait storylines, no douchbag straight bros and no fucking kids! These three things are why I don't watch most sitcoms. 30 Rock was a great show and consistently funny.

I loved it. Still do. Didn’t like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmitt, though. Maybe I should give that another try.

"NO romance" I meant, not "so romance." Sorry!

I wish we had an edit function.

Very few people watched it when it originally aired. It always had low ratings.

Few people remember it because few people were aware of it.

Jack: If you're not having any luck with men, start dating women.

Liz: I told you, I'm straight!

Jack: If you say so, but your shoes are definitely bicurious.

R63 What do you mean by "no kids"? Uhh...

[quote]casting Dratch as the hapless stage manager or as a lead writer is a brilliant idea. She would have been leagues funnier than that Frank character, who was just fine.

Once they punted Dratch for Krakowski the plan was to have Dratch regularly play an assortment of characters. That didn't happen. I think Chris Parnell ended up on 30 Rock more than Dratch.

Loved the "Queen of Jordan" bubble episodes featuring Tituss Burgess as D'Fwan.

My husband didn’t know who Rachel Dratch was when I told him she was originally supposed to have the Jenna part. I showed him who she was & he said, “I would kill myself rather than watch a 30 minute show she starred in. What were they thinking?”

So I can see why they went with Krakowski. Plus, let’s face it, Krakowski is an all-around performer, able to sing & dance. Dratch’s greatest talent consists of doing a New England accent.

It’s actually one of the few shows I can rewatch over and over. Compared to Parks & Rec which was enjoyable, but I don’t really find myself wanting to revisit.

I thought part of the Dratch replacement was that the original concept was to produce the sketches from TGS as web-exclusive content, which Dratch was good for, but then that aspect got scrapped. Plus they rewrote the character from the mousey Jenna in the pilot to be more sensual, which is a character that Rachel Dratch was never good at, even on SNL.

Tina Fey has always given me a bit of a weird vibe. She's super-talented, but there's a bit of unpleasant snark in most of the things she does. One thing that really stuck with me was hearing an interview where she talked about how proud she was that several 30 Rock writers quit the industry after she worked them so hard. I think she called it a measure of success, and I don't remember it being a joke.

R45 - that's actually a great idea for Dratch! I can actually see that.

R54 - Aw. I LOVED the first live episode they did, with Julia Louis Dreyfus.

I’d love to do a “Where are they now?” reunion. I picture Liz flailing through the cancel culture fall out what was supposed to be her dream job: executive producer of a Bon Appetit Test Kitchen-style digital platform. Jenna having met cute with Donald Jr when she was the big-ticket celebrity quarry at a human hunting safari for oligarchs is installed at the White House and is being groomed by the GOP to take over for Mike Pence. “Tracy Jordan Presents: Aunt Phatso goes to Stonewall and throws the first brick” has just won best picture for its searing tribute to the BIPOC transwoman who led the resistance. Jack is ousted as head of GE but soldiers on as Senior Vice President of programming on Peacock and reports to Kenneth.

R74 they did a reunion show of sorts this year.

I'm not subscribing to Peacock to see the reunion show, but the clips I saw were... well... they made me appreciate the original. Some things are best left in the past.

The reunion show should be on your cable Ondemand.

"Once they punted Dratch for Krakowski the plan was to have Dratch regularly play an assortment of characters. That didn't happen."

And THAT was due to the original Fey-Dratch feud . At Second City Dratch was the up-and-comer and Fey was that girl with the scar who should only write, not perform. Once Fey broke thru on camera at SNL, their famous partnership became some sort of weird threat, and she even scuttled a filming of their famous two-woman show as it would only point out how good Dratch was and would really do nothing for her own career. Cold, calculating and unfriendly. When she made that crack about Dratch's upcoming spring break movie in the Rosemary's baby ep, all their mutual friends reamed Fey for the unnecessary pile on.

That spring break movie was pretty funny. Missi Pyle stole the show, though.

R78 - you see more invested in this than I imagine either Fey or Dratch are.

A series of one-liners. Thinly drawn characters. Implausible storyline that Liz Lemon is unattractive and a big loser. Entertaining when you watch it but eminently forgettable.

I Googled a little about the bad blood Tina and Rachel and found... a DL thread from 2007, with zero sources, written by seemingly the same person who is on this thread 13 years later at R78. So color me skeptical.

r81 = fingering herself to PBS.

I saw Dratch and Fey at Second City. Even then, Fey was the pretty one and Dratch was weird looking. which was no mean feat considering that the third woman in the show was Jenna Jolovitz. Scott Adsit was also in the cast. There used to be videos of the show, Paradigm Lost, but they don't seem to be around.

Isn’t Kristen Schaal related to Richard (Dick) Schaal who used to be married to Valerie Harper?

Are they replaying the episodes from late yesterday?

Kenneth The Page cracked me up. Back in Appalachia (where he grew up) a newly married couple would have to go in the mating shed with the town albino to certify the consummation of the marriage.

Who thinks of this stuff? Made me laugh.

Kenneth was my favorite. Between the lines they wrote for him and McBrayer's delivery, I always laughed.

If you liked 30 Rock & told someone they should watch it and they saw a random episode (like during the 30 Rock marathon this weekend) that came from the end of the series, they would think you are an idiot. It was that bad.

I thought I watched the whole series but I never realized Kenneth became a janitor. I think it’s because I checked out during the Kristen Schaal arc. She was ok in 10 second bites on Flight of the Conchords, but 30 Rock used way too much of her.

I went through 20 replies before realizing this thread was not about "3rd Rock From The Sun".

Tina Fey & Marci Klein were/are good friends because they both had bad men do things to them. Maybe that’s where Frey’s snobbery came from.Marci’s gay dad gave her everything she wanted.

As 30 Rock deteriorated, Fey got more slim & well proportioned, had plastic surgery, cosmetic dermatology and high priced hair treatments. By the end of the series she wasn’t even trying to portray a human anymore. She deliberately messed up her hair & put on big clothes to make herself look like a muppet - I guess to hide her better looks.

Also, the jokes about being a lesbian because she wore striped shirts with a short blazer & jeans were off putting. Her plaid flannel shirts were fitted. Lesbians don’t wear fitted shirts, straight girls do. I’d seen plenty of straight girls who dressed like Liz Lemon & they looked fine. The “Oh, I don’t dress like Jenna or Suri, therefore I look like a lesbian” bit was wearisome.

I wish they didn't do the trope of "woman obsessed obsessed with overeating junk food and never exercising yet is thin."

It would have been funny to have her stare at donuts and bitch that one bite would have her bloated until the next week.

I don't remember the exact quote, but there's an interview where one of them says the biggest misconception about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler is that they're nice.

I'm sure it takes a lot of grit and ambition to reach their level of success, and frankly I don't need or expect them to be gentle PTA mommies.

I recently looked for the unaired pilot and found these clips.

I like Rachel and agree with posters up thread that she would have been great as one of the writers.

Her character in the pilot is too similar to Liz. It fits the narrative of two female friends finally making it, only to have Tracy Jordan step in, but that's not a big plot point after the early episodes.

I can't see her Jenna flirting with Jack and having an overly high self esteem the way Jane's Jenna does. She couldn't be a slutty contradiction to uptight Liz.

It was the right move for the show.

R39. That is my secret shame too.

Bumping this thread because I've been bingeing the show on Prime. I missed it during its initial run and LOVE. IT.

It always had low ratings in the original broadcasts and it never did well in reruns. It only won all the emmys because the press was so far up Tina Fey’s bum in those days.

I never liked her so I never got it

[quote]Tina Fey has always given me a bit of a weird vibe. She's super-talented, but there's a bit of unpleasant snark in most of the things she does.

I have always sensed that nastiness and demand to be seen as the most clever EVER about Tina. Her schtick is really wearing thin now and her writing and jokes have lapsed into "Hip Grandma". She's becoming a female Douglas Carter Beane.

I still enjoy 30 rock. Fey doesn't seem particularly pleasant though she is a very good writer. She reminds me uncannily of a woman I used to work with. Same dry, nasty humor and sort of covert narcissistic tendencies.

R99 what is it about her specifically? I am a fan but also detected something off/ mean. I think it was Rachel Dratch's hiring and demotion that stuck in my mind. Like it could have been handled much better instead of weird cameos (contractually obligated?).

The other thing that stuck out was big weight loss right while getting famous (I think it was at least 30 pounds). That is someone who is more image conscious and controlling than they want to admit. Most people can't keep weight off and even slightly chubby people can get certain appetite suppressants if they doctor shop a little. I know this from experience.

[quote] Dammit, Muriel. I'd pay an extra $5 for the ability to edit.

Amen to that.

[quote] this is the show for you if you want circa 2008 to 2012 inside baseball jokes about snl, nbc, ge, and comcast

Which is part of the problem - it was all very of that moment and shows that dwell on those sorts of current culture jokes generally age badly.

Fey is not a happy person and neither is Amy Poehler.

My favourite show of all time (alongside VEEP). I love absurdist shows. Jenna Maroney is one of my all time favourite characters. Her monologue about killing Kenneth's bird was one of a kind.

"Kenneth remember when you told not look inside your bedroom, well naturally we assumed you were a serial killer and now, as you can imagine your bird is dead".

I thought episode devoted to Queen of Jordan was a masterpiece - parody at it's finest, down to the oh-no-she-didn't musical sting.

[quote]Fey is not a happy person and neither is Amy Poehler.

Funny women who seem mean and unhappy. I will never meet them, but if I did, I would have extreme anxiety before, during and likely after.

This was their great Superbowl ad for NBC. Casts from every NBCseries took part and it's great looking back at them all -- The Office, Parks & Rec, L&O, SUV, the Today Show, etc. Even Brian Williams gets in at the end. Great compilation.

I'm not sure it can be forgotten because the show wasn't exactly a top-ten hit when it first aired, in fact it rarely broke the top 100. It was highly regarded by the industry and NBC, hence why it hung on for so long, but its niche audience remains fairly devoted.

One of the things I always appreciated about 30 rock is that it was pure light hearted comedy. They didn't shove in any over the top melodramatic storylines or force some cheesy will they or won't they romance between Liz Lemon and Jack. A lot of shows would have done something like that.

I adore 30 ROCK and revisit it constantly.

I'm a little surprised that over 100 replies have come in without anyone's mentioning how Fey pulled several episodes from circulation because of things like blackface. It's a shame, because (1) that removed some outstanding episodes, like the Oprah appearance mentioned upthread and the second live show, and (2) I don't think this sort of self-censorship does anyone any good. (I seem to remember a tweet from an African-American woman responding to the episode-pull with something like "You all are literally doing everything BUT what we're asking you to do about race in show business.")

As someone who binged the show for the first time via Prime just this year, I'm disappointed about the episodes being pulled. I would have liked to have seen them.

I agree that pulling them from circulation doesn't really help matters -- couldn't they have kept them available and added a pre-show disclaimer regarding the content?

Has Hulu pulled the blackface episodes of DESIGNING WOMEN and (sort of) THE GOLDEN GIRLS?