Just for Fun: Heavy is the Head That Eats the Crayons

Seriously, how have I never written about 30 Rock before? My love for this show goes incredibly deep and continues to deepen, even though it's been cancelled. I quote it so much in daily conversation that I sometimes forget where I got those parts of my spoken lexicon. I've even been known to cite Liz Lemon (Tina Fey's character) as my personal patronus. For the three of you who are unaware of this show, the premise is the life and times of a female head writer who created and works on a sketch comedy show on NBC - TGS with Tracy Jordan - with plenty of time spent on others who are involved with TGS. So, without any particular order, here are some of the things I love about 30 Rock:

Playing with Stereotypes: This show makes fun of and plays around with stereotypes like nouveau riche, second wave vs. third wave feminism, race, politics, cults of personality, and so on. One of my favorite examples of this is Liz Lemon's white guilt and how it backfires on her. I'm thinking specifically of the time that Liz, trying to mollify Angie Jordan (the wife of one of her stars) who is angry about the racially stereotypical characters her husband is playing. Liz tries to calm Angie telling her about a future sketch that includes Obama. Angie's response? "No. We support Kucinich." There's a fantastic article over on ThinkProgress that covers this topic way better than I ever could.

Crazy Quotable, Quotable Crazy: Every single episode has multiple quotable bits, never mind the catch phrases. Some quotes in this show capture human truths, and others are so insane that even thinking about key phrases (such as the title of this post) can make me laugh. I've put some favorites below, but there are plenty more on this great Philly.com post:

I want to go to there.

Blerg

Characters Evolve: So many of the shows with which I grew up had static characters, even the really good ones. Liz learns from her mistakes. Jack (Liz's boss) acknowledges that his previous ambitions won't help him in the future. Tracy and Jenna (the other main star of TGS) struggle with each other at the beginning of the series, but by the end they are friends. People are allowed to grow, to learn, to evolve.

How about you? What's your favorite thing about 30 Rock?