Watching 30 Rock

So the Buzz Log over on Yahoo! agrees with me …. maybe the Saturday Night Live writers should go on strike occasionally, because they seemed to be on top of their game this past week. The show was one of the best I’ve seen in a long time, in no small part because of host Tina Fey.

One of my favorite parts of Saturday Night Live has always been the parody commercials. Mom Jeans, Corn Chip Nail Tips, Cracklin’ Oat Flakes (with Ecstasy), Excedrin RT, Happy Fun Ball, Oops I Crapped My Pants, Woomba, all classics.

Here’s one of the funniest parts, a parody commercial for a drug called “Annuale.”

This episode of SNL also had some pretty good political humor, with the cold opening CNN debate, where all the debate moderators kiss Barak Obama’s ass and ignore Hillary Clinton. (Although I think they should keep looking for someone to portray Obama — Fred Armison did okay, but doesn’t quite have it yet.) And Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s appearance on Weekend Update was funny, and gave me some new respect for someone I thought was a little bit crazy.

The Digital Short was another winner too, with a old man whose wife put his grandsons into movies so he watches, so they won’t just be full of people he doesn’t know (and to translate slang.) “Hi Grandpa!”

So it may be time for you all to give the show another try. If you are up and you’ve already watched all your Netflix movies, flip on over to NBC at 10:35 on Saturday. Or if you like to go to bed early on Saturday nights, set your DVR and you can watch the show during Sunday brunch and fast forward through all the commercials. This week’s host is Ellen Page (star of Juno) which gives us hope that it will be another good show.

Bitch is the new black!

Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live, Ellen Page

So Tina Fey hosted Saturday Night Live this past weekend> Either her presence or the end of the writer’s strike seems to have thrown a little life into the show (which hasn’t been the same since she left.) Below is my favorite moment from the show … not just because Tina was back behind the Weekend Update desk, but because she did a little politickin’ for Hillary Clinton.

Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live, SNL, Hillary Clinton

Yay! The Writer’s Strike is finally over and we all can get back to sitting on the couch watch our favorite shows as opposed to sitting on the couch watching crappy, hastily thrown together reality shows and weird stuff on cable. Hey, what was I supposed to do? Read? (Just kidding, in case any of my literature professors happen to be reading this.)

The New York Times is reporting that the first new show back on the air is likely to be Saturday Night Live which will return February 23rd, with our girl Tina Fey as host. Following on March 1st as host will be Juno star and Academy Award nominee, Ellen Page.

30 Rock will return on April 10th, with five additional episodes. Only five? I don’ want to be complainy, because I am happy to get anything at this point, but really, only five? Entertainment Weekly has some hints to spill about possible plots, apparently straight from an email from one Tina Fey: “Liz has a pregnancy scare” (Go Liz! Get some already!) and “Jack may be called to serve his country.”

There is some hope that more than five episodes may be shot, but Alec Baldwin is scheduled to begin work on a new movie at the beginning of March. The film is called My Sisters Keeper and costars Abigail Breslin and Cameron Freakin Diaz. Jeez, Alec Baldwin, isn’t NBC paying you enough? Why you doing a movie with Cameron “I Used to Do it With Justin Timberlake” Diaz? You know you’re going to have to put up with Drew Barrymore on the set every day and the fact that she and Cameron will constantly be raiding the craft services table with their daily attack of the munchies. Better hide some donuts in your trailer.

Sorry, got off track there. What I meant to say is that the strike is over, 30 Rock will be back on your TV soon, Tina Fey will be there even sooner, and Alec Baldwin is making a probably crappy movie. Back to business as usual!

30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, SNL, Tina Fey, Ellen Page, Alec Baldwin

Interested in an inside glimpse of the Saturday Night Live studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza? Brian Williams (NBC Nightly News host and recent SNL host) gives you a look on this brief 30 Rock tour. No appearances from Tina Fey or the rest of the cast (or even any cast members from SNL) but interesting nonetheless.

So after you are done looking at that picture of Mr. Williams being all serious and journalistic, click the smaller picture of him below for an occasionally snarky video tour of part of 30 Rock. Mr. Williams, make a guest appearance on 30 Rock! You seem cool!

'Early Nightly': Touring 30 Rock

30 Rock, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Brian Williams, SNL, Saturday Night Live, SNL Studio Tour

Oh grrrrl! Tina Fey has just dissed nasty on Paula Abdul. Tina is in this month’s Playboy (with clothes, c’mon they do have great articles) and in the interview she reveals what a train wreck Abdul is. She said Abdul was “awful” when she hosted the show in 2005.

“I was pregnant [with daughter Alice] at the time and probably a little moody, but I remember thinking, ‘She’s a disaster! I gotta prop this lady up and get her on TV,’” Fey dished. She went onto say Abdul was “disastrous … in the way she generally appears to be.” Abdul didn’t even want to play herself in an American Idol sketch so Amy Poehler had to play her (probably with a lot less crazy).

But this is the first time Tina has dropped da bomb on former SNL hosts. Last year she revealed a big old shit bomb about Paris Hilton on the Howard Stern show. When Howard asked her how Paris was as a person, Tina said

“She’s a piece of sh-t. The people at SNL were like maybe she’ll be fun, maybe she won’t take herself so seriously. She takes herself so seriously! She’s unbelievably dumb and so proud of how dumb she is. She looks like a tranny up close.”

Oh! Harsh girl! She went on to say how Paris refused to do a fake sex tape sketch and her main goal was to play her big rival at the time Jessica Simpson, in a sketch. She wanted to make Simpson look fat. Because after all making fat jokes about skinny people is at the heart of middle school humor.

The other person who mildly bore the brunt of the Fey insult machine was Matthew McConaughey who Fey says is nice but doesn’t smell too good. We can see that. Keep the celeb dish coming Tina we like it! Maybe if this whole writer strike thing doesn’t end you can be a guest columnist on our sister blog Trashy Celebs.

Paris Hilton, Tina Fey, Playboy, Jessica Simpson, Matthew McConaughey, Paula Abdul