Saturday Night Live has been giving audiences laughs and unforgettable performances for nearly fifty years. In 2006, SNL alum Tina Fey debuted 30 Rock, a bizarre love letter to her time on the iconic Lorne Michaels sketch-comedy and variety show.

30 Rock follows Fey’s Liz Lemon, head writer on a NYC live sketch-comedy show that films in the famed 30 Rockefeller Plaza—now the Comcast Building. It’s the same building where NBC Studios lives and SNL is written, produced and performed. NBC, Michaels’ Broadway Video and Fey’s Little Stranger were all behind 30 Rock. 

Seeing stars

Naturally, in a parody about SNL produced by the same companies as SNL, there is bound to be SNL talent crossover everywhere. From main cast member Tracy Morgan as Tracy Jordan to Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy, SNL alums and former hosts help populate the show. Other double-takes include writer John Lutz, Rachel Dratch (who was originally cast in Jane Krakowski’s role of Jenna), Chris Parnell, and Jason Sudeikis.

Structuring a “live” show

The parody is crystal clear, often veering into surreal humor to skewer show business. 30 Rock used several filming techniques, such as its signature cutaways—which involve interrupting the narrative with scenes of unrelated footage—to underscore its themes to comedic effect. The combination of a sitcom, a “live” show-within-a-show, satire, and farce gave 30 Rock a certain kind of appeal for a certain kind of audience. It swung from outrageous and absurd to heartfelt and sincere. The show was never a huge hit, but it was solid, and it racked up awards as though there’s some inside joke the rest of the world outside Hollywood isn’t quite attuned to.

Female-forward

Tina Fey, and Fey as Lemon, was a bit of a trailblazer. The show wasn’t contingent on her romantic escapades. As a workplace comedy, it was something entirely unique through a lens not often explored in that venue in the early 2000s. While the show was far from perfect in how it handled a lot of controversies—which will be explained in the next section—the great part of 30 Rock is more about how it catapulted Tina Fey's rising star beyond SNL. She’s known just as much for being the showrunner as she is for being in front of the screen as Liz Lemon. Especially in the comedy arena, Fey was arguably paving the way creatively for the likes of Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling, and Amy Schumer. It’s difficult not to bring any of those women to mind without thinking about their particular brand of comedy. That is part of what Fey helped usher in through 30 Rock.

Not without controversy

30 Rock originally aired episodes featuring blackface which NBCUniversal has since pulled at the request of Fey and co-creator Robert Carlock. This is just one way in which the show carelessly treated race, as well as LGBTQ2S+ issues. Such shortcomings are possible to examine through hindsight as we collectively work towards doing better with every show, with every writers’ room, to broaden that POV and bring in more voices to tell more unique stories.

In Retrospect

The quirky ensemble that lived out their days in 30 Rockefeller was nominated for 103 Primetime Emmy® Awards over the course of the show’s run, winning 16, including Outstanding Comedy Series for its first season. Other Emmys were awarded to the writing team, as well as Fey and Baldwin for their acting. The Writers Guild of America also awarded 30 Rock Best Comedy Series in 2008 while the show broke Emmy records that year for most nominations for a comedy series, beating out ’96’s The Larry Sanders Show. The show has also taken home Golden Globes®, a Peabody, and the list goes on…

30 Rock will forever be synonymous with Liz Lemon, as well as its emblematic setting. It’s a glimpse into the absurdity of show business, and life in general. Like Lemon says, “All of humankind has one thing in common: the sandwich. I believe that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich.” There’s always common ground to be had if we just pause to think about it. And hopefully, laugh a little along the way.