NBC’s 30 Rock presented a brilliant live episode Thursday night, inspired by and spoofing on the history of live TV itself. Then, three hours later, did it all over again, just as brilliantly – but by no means the same…
Taking full advantage of the opportunity to mount a live “rerun” for the West Coast three hours after doing a live telecast for the East, 30 Rock swapped out punch lines, theme song lyrics, and, on some occasions, even guests.
Team East Coast – and the viewers watching – won big in one respect. For a cameo appearance at the beginning of the show, in which Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon was extolling the virtues of live television by insisting that anything could happen, the scene was interrupted by Paul McCartney. Team West Coast and its viewers, instead of a former Beatle, got a visit by… Kim Kardashian.
On the other hand, during the East Coast performance, a spoof on NBC’s 60s-era news team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley had Alec Baldwin playing Huntley and guest star Jon Hamm as Brinkley. They were hilarious together, making fun of a “woman reporter” played by Fey – but on the West Coast, reprising the segment three hours later, Brinkley was played by NBC’s current real news anchor, Brian Williams.
In most cases, Team East Coast and Team West Coast got served slight variations on the same delicious menu. And the show even had a point. “Live TV made us all what we are today,” Fey’s Liz Lemon realizes at the climax – then, at the very end, lands one final joke about how few people are watching. Well, at the end of the West Coast show, anyway.
In the early days of live television, one NBC executive, Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, initiated what he called “spectaculars” – one-time shows that were so ambitious, they deserved a description grander than “specials.” 30 Rock, in both versions Thursday night, was exactly that: Spectacular.
Some favorite moments, from the show, which was written by Jack Burditt and Fey, and directed by Beth McCarthy Miller:
In one flashback to an ersatz TV variety show, a “joke wall” paid homage to Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Alec Baldwin, for the East Coast, imitating Richard Nixon. On the East Coast, Baldwin imitated Paul Lynde – both of whom made cameo appearances on the real Laugh-In.
The Lovebirds, a spoof of The Honeymooners (with only the names changed, to protect the innocent) had Baldwin taking Ralph Kramden’s spousal threats to new heights, or lows. “Bang, zoom,” he tells he tells Fey, who plays his wisecracking wife. “I’m gonna drown you in the bathtub and say a mental patient did it!”
And perhaps most bravely, Alfie ’n’ Abner, an obvious spoof of Amos ’n’ Andy (TV’s first all-black sitcom, and still the most controversial series in TV history), had Tracy Morgan playing opposite Jon Hamm, and taking outrage at his white co-star’s exaggerated dialect and dialogue. “Alfie, I done stole dis catfish!” Hamm bellowed as Abner, prompting his co-star to recoil in offended disgust.
Other segments, on both coasts, poked fun at vintage cigarette commercials, at the live TV version of 12 Angry Men, at Dean Martin’s ultra-loose variety show (with Baldwin surrounded by bouncing beauties on The Joey Montero Show), and even at vintage telethons, where Jimmy Fallon got to guest star in flashbacks, playing a young version of Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy, being prank-called by a young Liz Lemon, played by Amy Poehler.
Sheer brilliance – but almost no one got to enjoy both versions live. And too few are watching anyway. Last week, NBC’s most-watched Thursday program was Betty White’s Off Their Rockers. Ironically, that program is a throwback to one of the shows from TV’s early years, Candid Camera.
And one final irony: Eventually, the best place to compare and contrast both versions will be the DVD set of 30 Rock. Which, of course, is not live at all – but one more factor, along with DVRs and time-shifting, that is making live TV, or even watching TV in real time, quite literally a thing of the past.