Go-Green “30 Rock” Rawks | OPEN THREAD
By NoQuarter on November 9, 2007 at 9:35 PM in Current Affairs, Environment
If I’d known that Al Gore was going to do a “cameo” on “30 Rock” last night to help NBC promote its GREEN WEEK, I’d have told you all to watch. John at Crooks & Liars has video of Al. ALSO: NBC offers free video airings for one week — check 30 Rock’s official site to watch the entire episode. And here’s the review from Television Without Pity:
30 ROCK
Schwimming In It
{Weecap} It’s Green Week at NBC, which you may not have noticed when every single show started shutting off the lights and composting. Here, in addition to recycling David Schwimmer, Tina Fey advocates the importance of good writing by making Al Gore funny. Positively union-busting…with laughter!
If you’ve never been to TVWithoutPity before, it’ll amaze you to learn that there are people there who write up every single detail of all of the popular TV shows, every day. For example, the full recap of this week’s 1/2-hour episode of “30 Rock” is four full pages long. Here’s an excerpt from the long-form recap:
… It’s in the main plot thread where we get treated to Jack’s first appearance on the show; it’s the first episode since his brilliant, scene-stealing 5-person impersonation of slightly racist ’70s sitcom characters in the previous episode. Liz asks him about the odd superhero costume that has just walked by her in the hall and Jack lets her in on NBC’s corporate-wide “green” initiative. Of course, this is a real initiative at NBC, so what we get to experience here is commonly known as synergy. On Friday, Deal or No Deal models are wearing recyclable suits! See? Synergy. Anyway, Jack introduces Lemon to Greenzo: “Saving the earth while maintaining profitability!” Lemon chuckles nerdily. Greenzo, real name Jarrett, is played by David Schwimmer. You might otherwise know him as one of the breast men from Breastmen or as one of the pallbearers from…I forget the name. It’s yet another “Must See Thursday” alum for 30 Rock. But Schwimmer, unlike Jerry Seinfeld, gets to not play himself. Also unlike Jerry, Ross seems to slide unforced into Rock’s kinetic pacing. Say what you will, I always felt those kids from Friends had good timing…and they were cute. Greenzo is an environmental superhero with oversized mitts for hands and a yellow cape against a green body suit. He believes in the cause of the environment, but not in that pinko liberal agenda type of way. “The free market will solve global warming, if that even exists” he says.
Jarrett’s last real “gig” was in an attack ad for Rick Lazio’s ill-fated Senate campaign, but things are different now, Jack tells Lemon. As NBC’s environmental mascot Greenzo will be releasing an endangered falcon at halftime of the Knicks game and (as if that weren’t enough) he’s been booked onto The Today Show. His appearance goes swimmingly. He does the Greenzo dance for the kids, and when Meredith Viera tells him that he’s saving the world, Greenzo slowly looks up as if realizing only for the first time how special he must be. Given the success of Greenzo’s Today Show appearance, Jack asks Lemon to write some punchy material on the heels of Greenzo’s smashing success. …
See what I mean by detailed, blow-by-blow descriptions?
Yes, there really are people — tens of thousands of them, actually — who read the full recaps, and then discuss every facet (EVERYTHING!) of the shows on TVWithoutPity’s forums.
Since TVWithoutPity usually features the less-well-written but more popular shows, I’m glad to see that they’re now including a well-written and superbly-acted show like “30 Rock” that doesn’t usually get great ratings.
Q FOR YOU: WHAT DO YOU DO TO BE “GREEN”?
COUGH:
Think Progress: Gonzales to receive $40,000 speaking fee from University of Florida.
From Laura at War and Piece.
Oh, barf.
On Gonzo, I mean.
The 30 Rock is hilarious, and I gotta say, Al Gore is a pretty good actor!
Gore did great! And he didn’t have easy lines to deliver.
I love love love this show. It makes me laugh so hard. And there’s a LOT of political humor throughout.
I must also say that NBC’s coordinated effort to talk about the environment and going green this past week was quite impressive. Not only did MSNBC, the Today Show, and other news programming feature “green” segments, the dramas did too. My daughter and I got in the habit of watching “ER” a couple years ago and, while it’s gotten pretty dumb for the past season or so, and I don’t watch regularly anymore, I did tape last night’s new episode — the “green” message is woven into the plotline. So that means that, months ago, when that script was being written, NBC already had this week planned out and got all the producers and writers on board. That’s really rather amazing.
Keith Olbermann even gave up throwing his script up in the air the other night. He put it in a recycling bin instead! Cute.
Open thread! yea Susan!
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Gonzales to receive $40,000 speaking fee from University of Florida.
Good work if you can get it..If we can get Gonzo, Rummy and Rove to tour the whole state we may never lose florida again..just a thought…
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Well we had a big upset in the elections in Indiana.
The Democrat Bart Peterson, Mayor of Indianapolis was defeated by a republican..Some gulf 1 war Army officer. We were in total shock election night.
Indy is a democratic City in a GOP State.
Here is a word to the wise..under peterson the property tax last year rose 50% to 100% for the average homeowner. There were alot of angry people.
Alot of people in Indy had problems holding onto thier property. We as democrats must make sure that middle and lower income folks aren’t taxed beyond thier means..that is the landmark of our party.
The rich get richer..a few more bucks from them really doesn’t stop thier wealth from growing, But for the middle and lower class..those extra taxes really hurt thier growth to the next level.
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On TV right now there is a program on bloggers..
It’s called, ‘Band of Bloggers’ it’s on the history channel..Very awesome..it’s about the war. In the background I heard this quote ‘ The only people that know the end of this war..are the dead.’
My head swiveled..oh my gawd..that is so true..so sad.
Dang it..the show is awesome..bloggers in Iraq during 2003-2004 reporting on the war..
some lady just blogged ‘making sense of this place is like trying to move a mountain by smashing your face into it’
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We miss Jordan..we haven’t heard from him in 10 days.
My family went out to dinner tonight..5 kids and a grand daughter and we miss our jordan so bad..
We have a big family that misses our 1 son so badly.
We pray, we worry, we don’t watch the news..it is forbidden in our house to watch the news.
There are literally thousands of families that go through this on a daily basis..The GOP has no idea what they have wrought on america.. They think it’s like a 1950’s movie and everybody is a hero and everybody comes home and there is a happy ending.
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Blogging while you sleep..I’m going to end my post to you fine people on this note..
a) Impeachment will never happen without Pelosi on board..so forget Dennis K. or anyone else in the US.
Send an email to Nancy..
b) Don’t fret about the new AG. He may just show a backbone and rule against waterboarding..This is politics..It could have been much worse.. Bush could have appointed anyone during recess.
I understand our new AG has a strong moral background and there is a chance he could do the right thing..If not..in a year..these jokers are gone.
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Good night my friends
The Hoopster
LA Times:
Pakistanis’ anger at Musharraf extends to U.S.
By Henry Chu
Washington is perceived as propping up an autocratic leader and ignoring the people’s desire for democracy. Many want it to stop its ‘interference.’
thanks for the link to 30 Rock’s site — i got to watch the entire episode — AND the other episodes i missed. THANKS! (i had no idea you could watch an entire episode — what an idjit!)
i then watched “Scrubs” — another good show , imo.
(their environmental episode was “My Inconvenient Truth”)
I’m so glad! It truly is top-notch comedy. It’s a mystery to me why it doesn’t get higher ratings, although it’s up against “Ugly Betty,” which is a hit show on ABC but which i tired of after about two episodes.
SPEAKING OF GREEN: I just got my delivery of a big box of soy milk from Amazon — at great savings too. And, in the box was an envelope in which I could send in an old cell phone for recycling.
If any of you have any old cell phones to recycle, you can go here to find out how to do it:
http://www.cellphonesweep.com/green
– there’s also a contest to win $10,000
I saw the ep on Thursday. It was very good. The whole show is very witty, really flows, and this was especially. Schwimmer’s character fit into the general kookiness of the set very well, and they did a great job with Gore’s appearance. And the final gag where the globe of the world catches fire was wonderful.
TO WHOEVER POSTED AND ASKED ABOUT THE FCC HEARINGS:
Seattle crowd blasts FCC on big media
SNIPPET:
HERE’S ANOTHER SEATTLE-BASED ARTICLE ON THE BIG FCC POWWOW:
HERE’S ANOTHER SNIPPET — and yes, as astonishing as it seems, the conservative, Republican owner of the Seattle Times is opposing the FCC on their media consolidation drive:
related to the writers strike thread below, here’s a youtube explanation of the issuess from the WGA perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ55Ir2jCxk&eurl
Thanks for the link - great clip!
I liked Gore’s statement about replacing payroll taxes with CO2 taxes. THAT is one way to appeal to working people. Let’s have some meaningful changes to the tax structure that benefit the majority of people! AND the environment!
Susan and other bloggers at No Quarter USa. If you want to get some action at this site, write fair and balanced piece about the Israeli Palestinian conflict or post a piece about the Mearsheimer and Walts Israeli lobby book and paper.
But you must know your filters will have to be set up to take on
the onslaught of attacks that come with this territory.
I am challenging the so called “progressive” blogs about whether they are all ready “self” censoring when it comes to writing about the I/P conflict or challenging the I lobby. I believe the progressive blogosphere is practicing ’self censorship” and shutting down debate on this issue. They will write about all sorts of issues but will generally not touch this issue. Why?
here is something I just wrote at a website and it is all ready receiving lots of hits.
http://www.israelpalestineforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=152&highlight=
Hi, I just became a part of this forum here and I would love to be a part of it. Just love the environment here. Great work by the admin and mods and every member around.
I appreciate the quality of videos and links provided by everyone and hope I can do that for you all too. Just to start off, I came across a cool site called http://www.vodmeta.com/ that offers watching free tv series like Prison break, House, Scrubs, etc., for free. Hope you guys enjoy it.
Anyway, look forward to great conversation and hanging out here often .