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100 Thoughts on 30 Rock for Its 100th Episode

Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images/2011 Getty Images
Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images/2011 Getty Images

Tonight 30 Rock celebrates its 100th episode. Over those 100 episodes, Tina Fey and Co. have made us laugh, guffaw, giggle, and also made us think — about the show, about the characters, about things only loosely related to the show and the characters. So, on the occasion of 30 Rock’s milestone, we have put together a list of 100 thoughts inspired by 30 Rock, encompassing everything from how “Live every week like it’s Shark Week” is really stellar advice, to our concern about Blurry Face syndrome, to our curiosity about what Sabor de Soledad really tastes like. Please, add your own, and, no matter what Alec Baldwin has to say about it, here’s to 100 more.

1. We would eat three out of the following eight cereals dreamed up by Toofer: Honey Bunches of Sadness, Oat Bum, Swastic-Os, Fruit Lupus, Dingle Berries, Fart Nuggets, Frosted Mini Guns, and Lucky Bastards.

2. What did we say to express blurgh before Blurgh?

3. And how did we say we want to go to there, before “We want to go to there”?

8. Or worse, Blurry Face syndrome.

5. Words to live by: “Never go with a hippie to a second location.”

12. This really is how NBC does its programming.

7. Sometimes, we worry about our unborn children having Avian Bone syndrome.

8. Or worse, Blurry Face syndrome.

9. A crime-fighting team of Grizz, Dr. Spaceman, and Lutz would not be a bad idea for a spin-off.

10. And which celebrity will volunteer to name their baby Spaceman, with the correct /spəˈtʃɛmən/ pronunciation?

11. The ideal drunk-dial, no? “I’ve moved on. I bought a whole bunch of apartments. I bought a black apartment!”

12. This really is how NBC does its programming.

13. We’re pretty sure we saw Lonny Ross, who played onetime TGS star Josh Girard, in a car commercial.

14. Dot Com: Please go purchase dotcom.com.

15. Ghostface and Jenna should duet in real life.

16. Will Tracy Morgan be as eager to take off his shirt now that he has a kidney-transplant scar?

17. Who doesn’t feel this way about cornbread? “I love this cornbread so much, I want to take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant.”

18. Liz Lemon is right: All any of us really want in life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich.

19. Jane Krakowski is great, obviously, but what would 30 Rock be like if they had kept Rachel Dratch as Jenna?

20. 30 Rock has inspired some really terrific cross-stitch.

21. And also some really terrific candy art.

22. The greatest moment in Jon Hamm’s career is when he played the Jamaican nurse in Liz’s hallucination.

23. So is Cheyenne Jackson still on this show or not?

24. We would watch three out of the following four pornos: Assatar, The Lovely Boners, The Hind Side, Fresh-Ass: Based on the Novel ‘Tush’ by Assfire.

25. Before Liz Lemon, women had to actually kiss their handsome love interests on-screen.

26. The highest-rated episode of 30 Rock ever is the one where Alec Baldwin and Elaine Stritch sing “The Christmas Song.”

27. This is a good put-down, which sounds even better when said by Elaine Stritch: “No, I heard you. Did you hear you?”

28. Tina Fey’s conversation with her mirror self in “Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001” may be her finest acting moment ever.

29. So, how old is Kenneth?

30. And who is going to give him a traumatic-childhood-memoir book deal already?

31. Can Sabor de Soledad really taste better than Doritos?

32. This was a funny thing Jack said: “Making it through a full 24 hours without making a single misstep is called Reaganing. The only other people who’ve ever done it? Lee Iacocca, Jack Welch, and — no judgment — Saddam Hussein.”

33. Also this: “She’s probably having beach sex, which is the third-best sex after elevator and White House.”

34. And: Liz: “Why are you wearing a tux?” Jack: “It’s after six. What am I, a farmer?”

35. And: “You have the boldness of a much younger woman.”

36: So Sleep Rape can be funny

37. No one uses guest stars better.

38: Is the best Frank trucker hat the one that said “Half Centaur” or “Rods”?

39: Sharks make for good metaphors. See: “Relationships are like sharks, Liz. If you’re not left with several bite marks after intercourse, then something’s wrong.”

40. And “Live every week like it’s Shark Week.”

41. And “You are wise, Liz Lemon. Like a genetically manipulated shark.”

42. What would Jack Donaghy sound like saying your name?

43. Why don’t more TV shows take advantage of Tim Conway?

44. Aaron Sorkin’s self-deprecating cameo is the only thing that could stop us making Studio 60 jokes.

45. Paul Reuben’s withered-limbed Prince Gerhardt may have been the most grotesque creation since David Cross as Titannica’s acid-burned fan on Mr. Show.

46. Whoever styles Tina Fey’s hair in her flashback scenes has a shrewd memory for the most unflattering trends of the last 30 years.

47. This really does explain Phil Collins’s appeal: “I have two ears and a heart, don’t I?”

48. Tina Fey has the least vanity of any female actress on TV since Ruth Buzzi.

97. Huh, the Trinidadian Creole word for “Stranger” sounds something like “Coschelle.”

50. We’re reasonably sure that if 30 Rock offered Brian Williams a full-time gig this afternoon, all you’d see on the news tonight would be an empty, spinning anchor chair.

51. It really is true what Jackie Jormp-Jomp taught us: “You know you bought it / if you buy it with things.”

52. Yummm, McFlurries.

53: What would Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy’s kid look like?

54. This is what Liz would do for cable: “If I could push a button and five people in the world would die, but I’d get free cable for life, I’d do it.” What would you do?

55. This is a funny thing Liz said: “It doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived in New York. It’s still fun to look up and pretend all the buildings are giant severed robot penises.”

56. Also this: “There ain’t no party like a Liz Lemon party ‘cause a Liz Lemon party is mandatory.”

57. And: “Who’s got two thumbs, speaks limited French, and hasn’t cried once today? This moi.”

36: So Sleep Rape can be funny

59. Dot Com’s version of Let’s Stay Together is so much better than BET’s.

60. Tina Fey gives great awards speeches more consistently than anyone else, ever.

61.Would January Jones have dated Jason Sudeikis if it weren’t for Floyd?

62. Top Alec Baldwin moment: Jack Donaghy’s inability to figure out what to do with his arms when shooting a product-integration video.

63. No, scratch that, it was his role-playing therapy session with Tracy, of course.

64. Donald Glover apparently wrote a lot of Tracy Morgan’s material. If so, that is still his greatest life accomplishment.

65. Was Don Geiss killed off for story reasons, or because Rip Torn had had one arrest too many?

66. Was Season 3’s early run of high-profile guest stars (Oprah/Jennifer Aniston/Steve Martin) the show’s idea or the network’s?

72. Julianne Moore’s Boston accent is much better if you imagine she is partially deaf.

68. When Tina Fey says she wasn’t a great actress in the beginning of the show, you think she’s just being self-deprecating. But when you compare the early episodes to today’s, she was pretty much telling the truth.

69. We would have watched MILF Island.

70. Joni Mitchell, please record this song.

71. Dean Winters’s appearances as Dennis are less funny when you imagine that he’s Winters’s sociopathic Ryan O’Reilly from Oz, out on parole.

72. Julianne Moore’s Boston accent is much better if you imagine she is partially deaf.

73. Cerie’s last name is Xerox.

74. The lists of everything Tracy Jordan said defy the concept of diminishing returns.

75. We can’t get on the G train without thinking, “The G train, Nermal!”

21. And also some really terrific candy art.

77. Now that Glee has run Sue Sylvester into a brick wall, can Jane Krakowski finally have her Emmy?

78. This is actually a really good explanation of the Uncanny Valley.

79. And why isn’t there a video game called Goregasm already?

80. A smart thing Tracy has said (beside that thing about Shark Week): “Dress every day like you’re going to get murdered in those clothes.”

81. Also, “I do not want to disappoint my Japanese public. Especially Godzilla. I’m just kidding, I know he doesn’t care what humans do.” That’s true, he doesn’t.

70. Joni Mitchell, please record this song.

83. Liz prefers to celebrate Anna Howard Shaw Day over Valentine’s Day. Coincidentally (?), Leslie Knope likes to celebrate “Galentines Day” instead of Valentine’s Day.

84. Congrats, 30 Rock, you made it on Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: “Got caught with 30 rocks / the cop looked like Alec Baldwin.”

85. Kathy Geiss is TV’s funniest half-wit since … actually, you know what, it seems kind of offensive and weird when other shows do it.

86. This is how drinking coffee feels: “It’s like my heart is trying to hug my brain!”

87. After the long post-Friends hangover, we were surprised at how happy we were to see David Schwimmer again as Greenzo.

88. Any other show would have succumbed to the temptation to book a Ludacris cameo in an episode about Ludachristmas.

89. It’s always satisfying to find old, obscure Saturday Night Live references resurfacing on 30 Rock, as if they take place in a parallel world (i.e. the faux-profanity “vondruke” from a 2000 Will Ferrell sketch is also the Franco-Dutch word for “bitch,” according to TGS writer Sue).

90. And yet it’s also satisfying that so many of TGS’s intentionally bad sketch ideas (“Pam, the Overly Confident Morbidly Obese Woman,” “Rolando, the Two-Foot-Tall Spanish Hustler”) seem like they might have been actual recurring sketches during the Rob Schneider years.

91. Grizz and Dot Com could make a fortune if they started a babysitting service.

92. Of all the rude names one could be called behind her back, “Paul Simon” totally is worse than “Lez Lemon” and “Fart Barfunkel.”

93. The only character on the show who feels too familiar is Jonathan: A dash too much Smithers going on there.

94. 30 Rock is the exact average of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, NewsRadio, and The Larry Sanders Show.

95. We hope NBC continues to struggle, if only so 30 Rock can continue to make knowing jokes about it.

96. Also, why is it that taking any word that starts with a “C” and making it start with a “K” automatically makes it seem a little racist? Sorry, Kabletown.

97. Huh, the Trinidadian Creole word for “Stranger” sounds something like “Coschelle.”

98. Watching James Franco love on a pillow reminds us we like him.

99. In the porn version of 30 Rock, the porn Frank wears a hat that says “boner,” which, weirdly, Frank himself has never worn.

100. Who will smart, funny women have to obsess over when Liz Lemon is gone?

100 Thoughts on 30 Rock for Its 100th Episode