Note: This is a free “I want to go” zone
During his seven years of idiotic and glorious career, 30 Rock jokingly, he skewered all the cultural and media taboos with what might be called a welcoming insider air.
For 100 minutes at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday evening, the 30 Rock 20th Anniversary Reunion did much the same thing, while also slightly hinting that more than 13 years after the series ended, yes, they sort of predicted everything.
“A lot of what we wrote actually came true,” a (rightfully unidentified) member of the writing team said from the stage.
Tina Fey got the gang together Sunday night right around the corner from the real 30 Rock with exactly zero cast members Trenten Island (but lots of other surprise guests) — and on the 20th exactlyth moreover anniversary of the debut of the series. In fact, she hadn’t intended to do anything to mark the moment until Jack McBrayer, during a lunch she had with him during a trip to Los Angeles last year, suggested she do some sort of reunion. “I think he meant, like, dinner with actors.”
But here they were instead inside Radio City Music Hall in front of 6,000 screaming fans who finished every line and went crazy over every reference to what-am-I-farmer, what-is-this-horse, how-are-you-boyfriends, Jewel-hotline-adults and reference to a water bug on a channel changer, and ten others that go even deeper. If you’ve ever watched Comic-con and said, “I don’t know if I could ever get this crazy about Marvel, but I would go crazy if a Peak TV-era singlecam gathered everyone together to throw Easter eggs,” this was your event.
Quick warning, on this, before the details. If you are a 30 Rock superfan, like me, you understood it. You’ve seen the whole series 3, 4, 5 I don’t know how many times. Everyday situations and phrases remind you of passages you feel compelled to quote, and you jump out of your seat when an obvious opportunity is missed. You spend half your time socializing trying to convince people who’ve never watched the show to do it and the other half quietly judging them because they never will. And you believe, deep down, that there are two kinds of people in the world: 30 Rock Stans and people whose lives have been terribly derailed. Or as someone I know once said, apologetically to John Waters, “If you go home with someone and they tell you they don’t understand, 30 Rockkill them.
Quick additional warning. This reunion was strangely furtive. OK, Fey, Robert Carlock & Co. didn’t want to broadcast or record the proceedings. It makes sense. I have to buy a ticket and be there. But the organizers didn’t even seem to want media coverage; a LiveNation representative told me after requesting a press pass that “this event is not intended to be covered for review.” Fortunately, Vivid Seats still exists. (Fey asked the audience not to shoot video, because “we’re not shooting it either” and it “would have a problem like a video of the Hall of Presidents.” The request was made lightly and respectfully, and everyone in the room that this reporter could see, including this reporter, obliged, at least for most of the night.)
Fey promised an “overly ambitious bag of nonsense” and the audience got nothing less (nor more). The evening brought a series of 30 Rock-themed skits, like Jenna singing a medley of her fictional songs (despite the lack of cam-a-ra), Jackie Jormp-Jomp and the Rural Juror and everyone else, while McBrayer presided over a game show in which Fey and Tracy Morgan had to finish their lines from the clips lest Lutz, standing next to them, get stunned. Morgan didn’t do very well, prompting Fey to wonder “did you even watch the program? The least he could have done was Google itself.
Meanwhile, in the halls of the majestic venue, fans had no trouble remembering all the zingers or debating their favorite episode. (The correct answer, obviously, is “Brooklyn No Limits.”) The merch booths were populated with shirts like “The Problem” and “Solvers,” and their proceeds, like the whole shebang, benefited the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, which Fey joked was a kind of makeup after Tracy Jordan repeatedly ruined that ad. Tracy didn’t exactly prepare for this spot, and the reunion cast, Fey said, followed along with that in mind. “No one has seen this show before, including us, because we haven’t rehearsed it,” she said.
In addition to most of the series regulars, many 30 RockPlenty of guest stars appeared – Conan O’Brien kicked off the evening with a characteristically self-deprecating bit about how he lost out to less worthy men like Jon Hamm and Jason Sudeikis to play Liz’s love interest; Tom Hanks presenting an award to the fans’ best guest star (Elaine Stritch, of course); Brian Williams puts together a remarkable sketch in which Jack makes jokes about the modern Trumpian climate (more on that in a second); John McEnroe somehow entered the mix for reasons that are unclear (although he didn’t praise any child singing); and Hamm, as the hook-filled Dr. Drew Baird, is part of a Scott Adsit-hosted sketch involving “Liz Lemon’s Boyfriends” on a Bachelor #1 type show with a fan as a contestant. (Dr. Drew lost to Dennis Duffy. Conan was on that too, although Adsit kept wondering why he wasn’t Matt Damon.)
Then there was the prediction stuff. You have to admit, the foreknowledge is a little scary. The reunion ran through a diverse set of examples, including Jerry Seinfeld’s digitally reproduced in dozens of S1’s NBC shows, which he paired with headlines about Tilly Norwood, and the final triumph of Dr. Spaceman’s Surgeon General, hinted at as foreshadowing the madness of Robert Kennedy Jr., among many others. (Chris Parnell gave a pretty solid monologue in character, by the way.)
You could feel the enthusiasm from the cast — Kevin Brown, who played Dot-Com, even arrived early to a pre-show fan event, hanging out with his daughter and warmly answering questions just because. The sight of him without Grizz was a reminder of all that had been lost and, indeed, a tribute to the late crew members and the real Grizz Chapman, who died earlier this year of kidney disease, offered a poignant palate cleanse of hijinks.
Even some who weren’t on stage came to the theater, including Lonny Ross, the “Josh” actor who was there in the first three seasons but wasn’t invited and — at least as he told some fans in the Radio City hallway — didn’t even buy a ticket for Sunday night’s reunion. (I mean, you can’t hook up a guy?) He paid $2,000 to get in there by himself.
The best sketch of the evening had Maulik Pancholy as Jonathan telling Alec Baldwin as Jack about each year’s major news event as the calendar reversed and Baldwin responded from his office as Donaghy would have done.
To answer the big question: the famous Romney-Reagan Republican is NOT turning out to be a Trumper, but not for the reasons you might expect. No, he opposes the president for another reason: Trump is bad at business.
“I mean, he lost money running a casino.” Baldwin said like Jack. “It’s like not getting jerked off at drama camp.”
Donaghy also took aim at the January 6 insurgents, in a way. “Animals,” he said of those who attacked the Capitol. “When I defecate on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, I look her in the eyes.” And he roasted a tycoon in a way that’s perhaps… a little too timely. Asked if he wants to know the 2024 election count as this November night unfolds, Jack says, “No. Elon showed me the final results weeks ago.”
Donaghy also sat down in front of a number of other cast members and recalled how they ended up in the Epstein files. (Jenna pretended to be a “runaway Belarusian teenager” to get Ghislaine Maxwell’s attention.)
The evening ended with Lin-Manuel Miranda appearing in front of a large group of musicians and dancers to sing a duet with Morgan of “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah,” as the crowd practically lost it.
No, men did not become wolves that night. But we were all a little changed, or at least we still had a 30 Rock artifact to dominate all those misguided and unwashed non-fans.
Gn entert
