30 Rock - Creating a new genre?

Tina Fey’s new NBC show, “30 Rock,” for which Fey is also the creator, writer and lead actor, works on two distinct genre levels; it works both as a sitcom and also, due to the level at which the show references and parodies material from other shows it acts as a form of fictionalized sketch comedy in the vein of “Saturday Night Live,” for which Fey was previously head-writer. It both fits within the sitcom genre and combines elements of sketch comedy to create a show with heightened intertextuality and self-referentiality.
Several actors from “SNL” have joined the cast of “30 Rock” adding to the show’s intertextuality. Tracy Morgan plays a character with a strikingly similar name, Tracy Jordan, who is arguably both a version of himself and several other black actors. References are made to Martin Lawrence in the pilot episode with Jordan’s character having been in a movie where he plays a “fat grandma,” an obvious reference to “Big Momma’s House.” Jordan’s character also references Eddie Murphy with the red leather jacket worn in the pilot episode which is reminiscent of Murphy’s jacket from his “Delirious” tour. Lastly, in a flashback to Jordan’s film career, Morgan parodies the Danny Glover character from “Lethal Weapon” by stating, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
The multiple actors that Morgan impersonates further the levels of reality at work in the show. Tracy Morgan the actor is a sketch-comedian, who is playing a sketch-comedian whose celebrity life is a combination of roles that are actually impersonations and parodies of other celebrities’ lives.
Actress Rachel Dratch (also from “SNL”) guest stars regularly on the show as well. Dratch is not playing one of the show’s main characters, but rather reappears in several episodes as different characters. (She plays a cat wrangler in the pilot episode, a maid in “The Aftermath,” and Elizabeth Taylor in “Jack Meets Dennis.”) Dratch’s appearances as changing characters points to the show’s relationship to sketch comedy; she is a regular cast member who is able to impersonate someone new every week. Alec Baldwin, though not an “SNL” cast member was a frequent host of the show, so his contribution here is both logical and fitting as “30 Rock” VP Jack Donaghy.
Tina Fey plays the main character of the show, Liz Lemon. Fey is the previous head-writer for “SNL” playing the head-writer for the sketch comedy show “The Girlie Show” on “30 Rock.” Her character is an obvious amalgamation of several other female sitcom characters and this contributes to the show’s ability to act both as sitcom and sketch comedy.
In the pilot episode, Liz Lemon (Fey) confronts a man who cuts in line at a hotdog stand, resulting in her buying all of the hotdogs and walking down the streets of New York passing them out. As she begins her walk down the city street a song begins to play with the lyrics, “Who’s that kicking it down the street causing a stir…that’s her…who’s got the kind of charisma the boys prefer…that’s her..” The lyrics and score to the song and the shots of Fey prancing down the New York streets are reminiscent of the opening sequence for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” The theme song lyrics for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (seasons two through seven) stated, “Who can turn the world on with her smile? Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Well it's you, girl, and you should know it.”
This entire opening sequence works on the level of parodying “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” so as to make this a sort of parody “sketch,” but as Fey approaches her office building the camera shifts inside to a set where the theme song playing is being filmed. It is not the theme of “30 Rock” as we have been mislead to believe, but rather the theme song for one of “The Girlie Show’s sketches” titled “The Overly Confident Morbidly Obese Woman,” a screen parody of Kirstie Alley’s “Fat Actress” (replete with sequined dress). Again the show is providing two levels here: the sketch comedy that occurs within the narrative and also the sketch comedy that takes place as a part of the show that Fey as Liz Lemon is writing for. In a sense the show is able to parody two shows at once – one in the narrative and the other in the narrative’s own sketch comedy show. The idea of the show-within-a-show concept is also tied into “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
In the following episode, “The Aftermath,” Fey parodies Mary Richards again. Here she throws a party for her co-workers on a yacht and worries throughout the entire episode about the party failing. She is constantly asking the party-goers, “It’s going well, isn’t it? I mean it has to go well.” After the party ends in disappointment Fey admits, “It was a disaster. I can’t do this.”
In the next episode, “Blind Date,” Fey moves us into another “female” sitcom parody, the obvious choice of parody since Lemon (Fey’s character) is a writer for “The Girlie Show,” described by the NBC page as “a real fun ladies’ comedy show for ladies.” (Fey’s friend and star of “The Girlie Show,” Jane Krakowski is also from “Ally McBeal,” the quintessential “girlie” show.) This time Fey parodies entire aspects of the HBO show “Sex and the City.” As Lemon points out in the pilot, though, referencing the HBO tagline, this is “not HBO, it’s TV.”
In “Blind Date,” Jack tells Liz she needs to date and that her “biggest fear should be choking to death in [her] own apartment.” Liz states she isn’t afraid, only to be plagued by it the entire episode, and at her apartment while eating Chinese take-out she chokes and has to perform the Heimlich on herself with the help of a chair. This entire scene is taken from the “Sex and the City” episode “Four Women and a Funeral.” Therefore, in this episode, Fey is parodying Miranda’s character from “Sex and the City.” This is later confirmed again when Liz finally agrees to be set up on a blind date with a friend of Jack’s, only to find that the blind date is a woman; Jack has made the assumption that she is a lesbian. Miranda also experienced this exact same pratfall on “Sex and the City.”
In the latest episode, “Jack Meets Dennis,” “Sex and the City” is referenced again. Guest star Dean Winters plays Fey’s boyfriend, Dennis Duffy. When asked by Jenna (Jane Krakowski) how the sex is, Fey replies “fast and only on Saturdays; it’s perfect.” Winters also played in an episode of “Sex and the City” titled “Fuck Buddy,” where he played Carrie’s “friend with benefits.” Since the show acts as a sort of sketch comedy in the vein of “SNL,” Winters is the host/guest star of this show and he parodies in it the work he has done before (as is customary for “SNL” hosts.) He plays again the role of the “boyfriend of convenience” here and also later references his role as Ryan O’Reily on “Oz” when he discusses “rat kings,” referencing a discussion about Governor Devlin on that show.
In “Jack-Tor,” Fey raises the level of intertextuality even more. The opening scene of the show addresses product placement and the characters discuss how annoying it is as they themselves participate in obvious product placement for Snapple. This scene parodies a scene from the film “Wayne’s World” (where the same is done with Pepsi), which also happens to be an “SNL” film. And, this scene is also self-referential because NBC had actually required more product placement in the show, so Fey wrote it into the show as an instrument of comedy (like Wayne’s World) and this is also what Liz Lemon proposes for the GE products they are required to write in.
In the same episode, Jenna performs her international hit song “Muffintop,” a theme and joke that continues throughout the show. The lyrics of the song, “Everyone knows the top of the muffin is the best part,” are a reference to a “Seinfeld” episode where Elaine uses that exact phrase (and later a store called “Top of the Muffin to you” is opened up.)
“30 Rock” features incessant parodies of other shows and styles while retaining the plot conventions and drive of the normal sitcom. In creating a show with several levels of reality and references to prior (and current) shows, Fey has created a new multi-layered genre; the sitcom and the sketch comedy coalesce to form the “sketch sitcom.”