A new 30 Rock thread because I can't find the old one

It disappeared from Netflix in Australia as well.

I've never seen it in syndication, though i noticed one of my streaming services has it - crave tv in canada.

season 4 of this show...man

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-donaghy-812928159

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/melissa-etheridge-score-for-mystic-pizza-musical_87574.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=22jan2019&fbclid=IwAR1luuC0mVum5ebJcRLo8NoeiTOvId8UE9ChfDyOvPEoH-RLoFWKhAqbC0s

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2D_xWauf_c/TyOtE4O0CWI/AAAAAAAAAIk/c8yIlp7AOCE/s1600/jenna.png

oh death

On July 18, 2019, it was reported that NBC had given a 13-episode straight-to-series order to an untitled Tina Fey and Robert Carlock comedy starring Ted Danson, who is set to play a wealthy businessman running for mayor of Los Angeles. Originally meant to be a spin-off/continuation of Fey's series 30 Rock, the series was to star Alec Baldwin reprising his 30 Rock role of Jack Donaghy, following his political career in New York City. After around a year of negotiations, Baldwin dropped out of the project and was replaced with Danson. Danson was unwilling to move from his home of Los Angeles, and the series was rewritten to take place there.

oh man, Jack Donaghy is an all-time great TV character but Danson is such a huge upgrade on Baldwin in 2019.

as long as this thread is bumped I want to recommend the NYer profile of Tracy Morgan from earlier this year

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/13/tracy-morgan-turns-the-drama-of-his-life-into-comedy

“You know how to rest your soul?” he asked. I didn’t, and I told him so. “Take a breath,” he said. “You know how to relax? Or did you forget?” I had. “Sure you did. Relax. If you’re around me, relax.” Now he looked more deeply into my eyes, despite my effort to break the stare.

“Look at me. Relax.”

Then, diagnostically, and a bit impatiently, he said, “The problem with you? You don’t know how to keep it simple.” We’d known each other for not quite half an hour. He wasn’t wrong. “You complicate your fucking life—with things.” He said the word “things” with ascetic disdain. “Stop doing that.”

The worm is aroused.

SHUT IT DOWN

https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/30-rock-blackface-episodes-removed.html

Goodbye Jon Hamm shouting, "BANJO!".

Was thinking about these eps when reading that Joni Mitchell thread about her blackface album cover in 1977... Tina Fey doing it on prime time television in 2012, 35 years later.

This "controversy" is dumb. The use of blackface in these sketches was specifically pointed AGAINST the people appearing in blackface; it was never held up as a good or funny thing in and of itself.

I'm not sure why we want to go down a road where you can't use obviously racist tropes to make fun of a racist character (see also the stupid controversy over the blackface episode of The Sarah Silverman Program)

(Basically, I have issues if you are using blackface to dress up as Lebron James or Oprah but absolutely none if you're using it to dress up as Ralph Northram)

Agree with DJP. Imo, there's a pretty significant difference between Joni Mitchell wearing blackface to dress like a pimp on an album cover or at parties, as part of some weird exotic fantasy, and an Amos & Andy parody showing Tracy Morgan reacting furiously to the clueless use of blackface in a failed show idea.

I dunno, I like 30 Rock but it still feels like a hack to keep doing the same old shit.

How is it the same old shit?

"I feel like I have the soul of a Black man so I painted myself in blackface and strutted around with a pimp walk for Halloween and to fuck with a photographer" is decidedly NOT the same thing as "this ridiculous shit used to be played absolutely straight as legit entertainment, which is a massive indictment of the times and the foundation of shitty attitudes that are still prevalent today"

I think 30 Rock often took comedy tropes that are now seen as insensitive and worked them into the show using a writing hack, namely "no, see, we are criticizing this, it's social commentary". And maybe it is, but they still get to have it both ways, don't they? Yeah, Jenna cluelessly dressing up like a black man during a fight with Tracy is funny social commentary since everyone on the show is appalled, but you still get to see Jenna in blackface. I don't know if the former balances out the latter.

"get to"?

Yep, get to. Get to make that joke. Everything that implies.

To me, that joke implies that Jenna is a racist. What does it imply to you?

The desired reaction was pretty obviously not "omg, how edgy!". It was a humorous scenario, not in that blackface is funny, but because Jenna is such a colossal, narcissistic moron, that she's too dumb to realize how racially insensitive it is to appear in Blackface. Which is why Toofer shows up moments later, horrified, to tell her exactly this.

Jenna also confused Obama with Osama Bin Laden on Fox News, so this is fairly in character with her.

In other words, DJP otm

It implies that there's a history in American entertainment of white people wearing blackface to make the audience laugh, and once you decide you're going to do that on your TV show in 2008, it might be good to interrogate your own motivations, and ask yourself "is this joke really operating solely on the social commentary about this being crass and racist, or does part of me still think a white lady in blackface remains a hilarious visual that I want to put in my show?" And then ask yourself as a writer or showrunner if you can really answer that question honestly. You can't cancel out the valence of actually showing a white person doing blackface on the screen in a sitcom by making the joke that it's wrong.

The key difference is the audience is laughing at her not with her.

There were 4 different blackface gags in 30 rock,only 2 were jenna.

Tina Fey was also head writer on snl when jimmy fallon impersonated chris rock in blackface.

The Jimmy Fallon thing is inexcusable.

There were 4 different blackface gags in 30 rock,only 2 were jenna.

The Jon Hamm one is even more obviously critical imo.

The key difference is the audience is laughing at her not with her.

This isn't a good way to say this because back in the day, people were also laughing at the people in blackface because that's what White people thought Black people were like.

Jenna, as a character, is a horrible person. I'm not particularly offended by jokes built around horrible people doing horrible things that reflect horribly back on them; of the four blackface jokes in 30 Rock, which ones were value-neutral on the concept of blackface?

I'm very interested in what people on this thread think of Bamboozled

You don't know what the audience is laughing at, and if you're being honest with yourself, you know some proportion of the audience is in fact laughing with Jenna. But I'm thinking more about the writer honestly questioning their own motivations and unconscious biases. Of course Tina Fey doesn't affirmatively want to make racist jokes, but a lot of comedy tropes have through lines that are very racist/homophobic/antisemitic and if you make them today, even with some meta-commentary about it being wrong, you're also bringing along that history. If I were writing a sitcom and came up with sketch along these lines, yeah, I would as a white dude very much ask myself if there wasn't some part of me that wanted to "get to" make edgy jokes.

My conservative father watched this ep on air date. he didn't even laugh, but instead angrily asked "why is whiteface ok but Blackface isn't" moments later (at which point the Neanderthal children lectured him).

It plays well into Jenna's character of not caring who she offends or upsets as long as it benefits her, personally.

here's my ultimate hot take on this stuff: not sure what the difference is between this and, say, the joke that got shane gillis pre-fir3d from snl (the punchline in both is 'a character being racist'), would love to hear anyone's justification for supporting one and not the other... trying to establish imaginary lines like this is why ppl should not complain about 'offensive' comedy (i.e. there's always a context), HOWEVER in this instance i don't think anyone is actually complaining, it's just a woke lady using BLM for ego/publicity/to get out ahead of a story she would have less control over

speaking of Jon Hamm and blackface, are we going to have to spike a key episode of Mad Men as well?

i thought the problem with the gillis thing is that it didn't seem it was a bit/character but just him being a dick?

"This isn't a good way to say this because back in the day, people were also laughing at the people in blackface because that's what White people thought Black people were like."

Right, but isn't that "with"? In other words, the audience and the actor are laughing together at their portrayal of what black people are "like"? But yes I do feel like my summation was falling short either way.

The audience isn't meant to be entertained by Jenna for the reasons that the Jenna character wants/intends.

You don't know what the audience is laughing at, and if you're being honest with yourself, you know some proportion of the audience is in fact laughing with Jenna.

of all possible objections, "won't someone think of the dumbest fucking people on earth" is maybe one of the less effective ones

xp slight disagree but the context of comedy at the very least always works from the axiom of the person is 'doing comedy's.. I know that's reductive but it gets completely ignored and I don't think the only way to do a funny racial joke is to have another character lecture about the history of racism

s

If we're going to fault humor for audiences misunderstanding the point of the joke, that will pretty much invalidate any politically-charged comedy ever.

I'm sure there were plenty of racist people who laughed at the Clayton Bigsby episode of Chappelle's show because a Black man hurled racial epithets against himself, but that fairly obviously wasn't the point of the piece and doesn't obfuscate its actual point. (Though I don't think today's climate would make it possible if his show was airing today).

Right, but isn't that "with"? In other words, the audience and the actor are laughing together at their portrayal of what black people are "like"?

I am not convinced this is a reasonable description of black actors doing blackface and/or mammy/coon roles.

You don't know what the audience is laughing at, and if you're being honest with yourself, you know some proportion of the audience is in fact laughing with Jenna. But I'm thinking more about the writer honestly questioning their own motivations and unconscious biases. Of course Tina Fey doesn't affirmatively want to make racist jokes, but a lot of comedy tropes have through lines that are very racist/homophobic/antisemitic and if you make them today, even with some meta-commentary about it being wrong, you're also bringing along that history. If I were writing a sitcom and came up with sketch along these lines, yeah, I would as a white dude very much ask myself if there wasn't some part of me that wanted to "get to" make edgy jokes.

As a Black man, I already know that virtually any depiction of Black people in media will be deemed "hilarious" regardless of whether there is any comedy involved or not (see The Hero Who Rescued Three Kidnapped Women in Cleveland Is Hilarious) and have taken that into account when processing my reactions to entertainment for at least the past 30 years, if not longer.

I'm sure there were plenty of racist people who laughed at the Clayton Bigsby episode of Chappelle's show

and ppl who identified & agreed with Archie Bunker

chappelle specifically spoke about hearing the wrong kind of laughter to his skits and that being one of the reasons he quit the show

iirc it was specifically the stereotype pixies sketch but it might've been a few different ones

i think mcgruder has spoken about the same thing

IIRC Chris Rock also has talked about people not understanding the "black people vs n*****s" routine the way he intended it

Yeah, my conservative white roommate and neighbour in grad school def used that 'distinction' to give themselves licence to use the n-word.

Going to double-check that I have a stable copy of the D&D Community episode, though.