TV Guidance

Jaime Weinman writes about all kinds of television and other kinds of popular culture. He does not write Gossip Girl episode reviews. Follow Jaime on Twitter: @weinmanj

Categories: TV Guidance

30 ROCK In its Re-Tooled Form

by Jaime Weinman on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 12:52pm - 7 Comments

Just to follow up on my last post with the most pointless YouTube video ever, here’s what I think 30 Rock might be like if it were taken over by new producers and re-tooled (including a more Urkel-like emphasis on Kenneth). The video mostly has clips from two episodes, “Sandwich Day” and the second season finale; if I’d gone through every episode I probably could have found more appropriate clips — what this kind of sequence really needs, apart from the Jesse Frederick theme song, is a scene where the whole cast goes on some outing and has fun together — but I didn’t wanna.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.2558873&w=560&h=340&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

Tags: 30 Rock, Miller-Boyett, Sitcom

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http://heywriterboy.blogspot.com Denis McGrath

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever do that again.

Jaime Weinman

Then you probably won’t like what happened to In Treatment when the producers of Baywatch took over.

http://zeppomarxist.blogspot.com Anthony Strand

Oh, that’s beautiful. I was wondering how you managed to find such a perfect Jesse Frederick theme song until I opened the actual YouTube page and saw it was the theme from that one TGIF thing I never saw. Good work.
http://burnstheair.blogspot.com Justin

That’s funny. And it’s a good reminder of why characters like Kenneth work better in smaller, supporting roles.

It’s also a good reminder of What’s-His-Name’s existence. Seriously, I can’t even remember the last episode that featured Pete in any non-throw-away way. Actually, I can’t even remember the last episode that featured Pete in even a throw-away sort of way. It’s odd to see a character in the credits who virtually never appears on the show. It’s kind of a shame, too, because Scott Adsit’s a funny guy.

Jaime Weinman

I’ve touched on this before, but Pete is kind of a holdover from the original concept of the show, which was less cartoony and had more to do with the actual process of running a TV comedy show. Pete was the other guy Liz looked up to, the opposite of Jack, and the two of them could sort of pull her in opposite directions.

As the show developed, the Jack/Liz relationship took over, and (as on many workplace shows) the actual work Liz was doing no longer had much to do with the plots. So Pete really has no function on the show: everything he was supposed to do either has been taken over by Jack, or has been dropped along with the behind-the-scenes stuff at TGS. It was the right direction for the show, but he just has no reason to exist any more.

http://burnstheair.blogspot.com Justin

I’m certainly not disputing any of that. I just think it’s odd that the show has pretty much decided to write him out but leave him in the credits. It seems to me that this would be one of those cases where the actor would either stick around getting inconsequential storylines (like Pete’s lame adventure with the snack machine) or become a recurring guest or leave entirely. Not this weird thing where he’s there in the credits all the time but never in the show proper. (Which is not to say that 30 Rock should start giving Pete inconsequential storylines; on the contrary, I think it’s to the writers’ credit that they haven’t.)

http://zeppomarxist.blogspot.com Anthony Strand

He showed up at least once this season to get his mileage reimbursed as say, “Yes, Hornberger!” Which, frankly, would have been a lot funnier if anyone in the audience remembered that was his last name.