30 Rock

What else do you call a day when the comedic actress and writer is seemingly everywhere all at once?

First up, Vanity Fair, which enlisted The Times' Maureen Dowd to profile Ms. Fey, whom the magazine's cover trumpets as "A New American Sweetheart!" (Punctuation theirs.) The magazine's Web site also features one of those behind-the-scenes videos of Ms. Fey's photo shoot that all magazines' Web Editors are convinced Internet users love. (In an example of too-weird-to -ignore/too-geeky-to -explicate life imitating art, a very Maureen Dowd-like character played by Christine Lahti once wrote a profile of the protagonists' of Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a show, like Ms. Fey's 30 Rock, set behind the scenes of a sketch comedy show very much like Ms. Dowd's launchpad, Saturday Night Live.)

Ms. Dowd's story was dutifully picked up by The Daily News, The New York Post (whose Page Six also had an item about Ms. Fey today), and The Associated Press, and TMZ. (Apparently a lot of people have been wondering why Ms. Fey has a scar on her face.)  read more »

Monday: Chuck
With so many television shows getting toe tagged or suffering on life support, it's probably time to remind everyone that Chuck is one of the most charming, romantic, smart and consistently fun hours of television we watch every week. NBC has already ordered a full second season, but if the ratings continue to slack, we can't imagine a third being in the cards. Do us a favor and watch this gem while you can. Pretty please? [NBC, 8 p.m.]

Tuesday: The Savages
When making the rounds last year for The Savages, Tamara Jenkins' first film since 1998's Slums of Beverly Hills, the writer-director joked that she was on the "Terrence Malick schedule, without the masterpieces.  read more »

AdWeek's AdFreak blogger, David Giantasio brings word—and image!—of this 30 Rock promotional stunt from The Netherlands that's so strange, it has to be real.

Behold, Oscar-nominated actor and recent New Yorker profile subject Alec Baldwin's face on toilet paper. (This comes via TVTattle.)

Someone should probably send a case of this stuff to the staff of the New York Post's Page Six' and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, each of whom has elevated hating the outspoken Mr. Baldwin to a life mission.

As you have no doubt already heard, the season three premiere of 30 Rock is available online at this very moment. (Hooray! It looks like we have something to do this weekend!) If you’re one of those old fashioned folks who wants to wait until next Thursday to watch the show on an actual television set, you can still get your 30 Rock fix over at Paste Magazine. In preparation for season three, they’ve compiled a list they call “The 30 Best Moments from 30 Rock Thus Far”. Being through only two full seasons, you might think it’s hard to come up with that many noteworthy moments.  read more »

How much Tina Fey is too much? We can't get enough of her stellar spoofs of Sarah Palin (we've been doing that gun shot hand gesture topped off with a wink since her parody of the Katie Couric interview). But we're even more excited for her 30 Rock return. Lucky us, we can watch the season three premiere a week early on NBC.com and Hulu.com--right now! With new studies showing that more people are watching SNL online than on the original broadcast, maybe NBC and Hulu are hoping for similar stats (and bigger online ad revenues) with 30 Rock's premiere.

The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards air Sunday on ABC. And in preparation, we thought it would be fun to give you a little help on your office pool. Welcome to the fifth and final day of our Emmy preview!

We've already handicapped all the acting races, so you should be all set for Sunday. Here, finally, a look at the shows.

Best Comedy Series: Curb Your Enthusiasm; Entourage; The Office; 30 Rock; Two and a Half Men

Who we're pulling for: This might sound counterintuitive, but we hope 30 Rock never finds a mass audience. The second season was so funny and completely bananas, that we wonder if Tina Fey and her cohorts would be able to get away with the stuff they do if people were actually watching.  read more »

It's getting hard to keep up with all the planned 30 Rock guest appearances, isn't it? We need a calendar.

Last week Jennifer Aniston was announced. Then Oprah joined her. And now, Entertainment Weekly has confirmed that Gossip Girl stars Leighton Meester and Blake Lively will appear on the multi-Emmy nominated comedy during November sweeps in a flashback as former high school classmates of Tina Fey's Liz Lemon.

As fans of both shows, this mash-up is like a dream come true. But considering that neither show has any real audience to speak of, is this a wise move?  read more »

When a television comedy gets overloaded with stunt casting, it usually means the show is just not funny and thus has to over-compensate by dangling shiny objects in front of viewers' faces. Think Will & Grace. "Look there's Matt Damon! And that's Demi Moore! Oh, I love Michael Douglas!"

With 30 Rock, it's the opposite. It's pretty much the funniest show on television, hands down. [Though we also love Samantha Who?. And Gavin and Stacey!--ed. note] But 30 Rock's overabundance of guest stars (last year  alone featured Elaine Stritch, Edie Falco, Rip Torn, Steve Buscemi, Buck Henry, Andy Richter and Jerry Seinfeld) is more used tomake up for a sheer lack of viewers.  read more »

Guys, remember when Jennifer Aniston was actually a TV actress and not just a Hollywood beefcake's weepy ex or current arm candy? Well, she's about to remind us on an upcoming episode of 30 Rock. John Mayer will be eating his shorts!

She'll definitely appear on the show, which airs on NBC, the channel that gave her a household name (and haircut) on Friends, a publicist confirmed, but he has no further details, according to the AP.

Last night we found 30 Rock’s Judah Friedlander standing alone amid the Tribeca festivities at the Museum of Modern Art and thought it might be the perfect opportunity to inquire about those self-designed trucker hats he sports on the show.

So you design your own hats for 30 Rock.

Yeah, I’ve been making my own hats for years. I’ve been doing stand-up for 19 years and my hats have always said world champion in some language.

World Champion?

That’s my stand-up persona: The greatest athlete in the world and the biggest sex symbol in the world.  read more »

NBC has moved 30 Rock to 9:30 p.m. on Thursdays, butting it out of its self-proclaimed "family hour," from 8 to 9 p.m. The schedule change comes a couple of weeks after NBC had the Parents Television Council calling them "hypocritical" for tainting their (antiquated, irrelevant) "family hour." "You know, 30 Rock just a couple of weeks ago had a show that I can't even mention, with a vulgar acronym for older women that pursue younger men," said Dan Isett, a PTC spokesman. He was talking about MILF Island, a Survivor-like reality show in which 50 eighth grade boys are stranded on an island with 20 "holy hot mamas."  read more »

The Observer's research editor Oliver Haydock pings in this update from the New York Comic Con at the Javits Center.

Scott Adsit, who plays producer Pete Hornberger on NBC’s 30 Rock, is a comic nerd. Mr. Adsit was spotted by the Culture Czar looking a little bit lost in the main exhibition hall at the New York Comic Con, which is running from today until Sunday, April 20. Mr. Adsit was on his way to find his “hero,” Walt Simonson, a comic artist who worked at Marvel during the 1980s and 90’s, best known for his drawings of The Mighty Thor and X-Factor.

When asked if he collected comic art, Mr. Adsit responded, “Not yet, I have never been able to afford it.” He does, however, have an extensive collection of comic books at home, which he claims takes up “a lot of wasted space.” In addition to his work on 30 Rock, Adsit is working on Moral Orel, his stop-animation show on Adult Swim, which is currently in post-production and should air sometime in the fall.

   read more »

MONDAY

Start fresh! That’s what ABC is begging its viewers to do tonight with Samantha Who? (9:30 p.m.). Its rookie run had been going swimmingly until the writers strike. Starring Christina Applegate and Melissa McCarthy (Sookie from the Gilmore Girls), the show returns in the midst of a heated battle for Monday nights.  read more »

Producer Universal Media Studios is suspending regulars on NBC's Bionic Woman, The Office and 30 Rock. Actors will be on half-pay for five weeks, citing the force majeure provisions in their Screen Actors Guild contracts.

Via The Hollywood Reporter:  read more »

The striking cast members and writers of NBC's 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live programs will present one-night-only live performances of the shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre this weekend. The (already) sold-out performances will benefit the Writers Guild strike fund.

Playbill reports:

"Saturday Night Live" will feature a collection of favorite sketches, hosted by Michael Cera, the young star of "Superbad." The musical guest will be Yo La Tengo. The entire current cast of "SNL" has been confirmed for the 11:30 PM performance on Nov. 17.

The live performance of "30 Rock," scheduled for Nov. 19 at 8 PM, will feature the complete cast of "30 Rock," including Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski and Alec Baldwin. The star-studded cast is scheduled to perform a live episode from the popular series.

It's death by metashtick! Seinfeld, Fey stir up trouble by, well, acting like themselves.  read more »

Two locally filmed shows took top series honors at last night's Emmy Awards.

'The Sopranos' took home the Best Drama award, and creator David Chase and director Alan Taylor won for writing and directing.

But in a big upset, favorite James Gandolfini lost to James Spader of 'Boston Legal.'

'30 Rock' took home its single primetime award--but it was a big one: Best Comedy. During their acceptance speech Tina Fey thanked the show's 'dozens' of viewers and thanked NBC's Zucker for sticking with the show.

Altogether the program was its usual mix of bathos and strained humor. But in case you still feel like you missed, something, after the jump is the exhaustive, chronological account put out by the show's organizers. It has a similarly strange, incantatory charm to the show itself.  read more »