Is everyone ready for the great Leap Day festivities?

"Poke your eyes, pull your hair, you forgot what clothes to wear." Liz gets the situationally mandated eye poke for failing to wear the Leap Day-appropriate yellow-and-blue from -- of all, er, people -- Lutz. Jack Donaghy will register astonishment that "the woman who watches all six pawn-shop reality shows" has never seen the classic film Leap Dave Williams, making her apparently the only American suffering such cultural deprivation. Watch the instant-classic "Leap Day" episode of 30 Rock here.

"Leap Day's not a thing."

-- Liz Lemon, in the "Leap Day" episode of 30 Rock

"We should live every day as if it's Leap Day, and every Leap Day as if it's your last."

-- at episode's end, the real Leap Day William?

by Ken

Politics is one of the uncommon fields in which it's not necessarily a godsend for an incoming officeholder to replace what we would call "an easy act to follow." Look how Barack Obama botched the sweet deal of taking the reins from Chimpy the Ex-Prez. Now there would have been a heap of perilous passage to maneuver based just on the interlocking network of cosmically fine messes the Bush regime psychos and thugs go us into, but it didn't help that the new president often seemed to forget that he wasn't the old one.

In other fields the transition should be easy as pie. Replacing Nancy Franklin as TV critic of The New Yorker, for example. This would have been a cushy gig for anyone from Rose the Talking Parrot to that plucky squirrel you watched climb a tree last weekend in the park. I'm still trying to get a fix on Emily, whose writing at New York magazine I'm unfamiliar with, but there's no question that it's an upgrade. How could it not be? (For the record, I see that New Yorker Editor David Remnick told WWD Media in September, "Nancy decided she was tired of writing for a while, and tired of writing about TV I expect, after she catches her breath, she'll begin writing for us again and I dearly hope so." I'll take the high road and refrain from obvious sarcastic comment, but don't let me stop you.)

I bring this up because just as I've been thinking about the amazing stride 30 Rock has maintained in its belatedly begun new season, I stumbled across a February 23 newyorker.com blogpost of Emily's {"In Defense of Liz Lemon"), in which I learned:

Judging from my Twitter feed, there's been a backlash to "30 Rock" this season, particularly the character of Liz Lemon, played by Tina Fey. Here's one example of these anti-Lemon blog posts. [You'll find this link and the following ones onsite. I didn't read them, but you may want to. -- Ed.] Here's another. Here's another. The argument in all these pieces (many by writers I respect) is pretty much the same: "30 Rock" used to be funny, but now it's sour and negative. Liz Lemon was once our heroine -- a sassy, confident, if somewhat neurotic single career lady. Now she's become infantilized and dumb. She behaves as if Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) is her daddy. She doesn't trust her own judgment, she's bad at her job, and there's something awfully misogynist about all this! Liz Lemon is pathetic.

At the outset I had to override my instinctive prejudice against anyone who judges anything by anybody's Twitter feed. Emily went on to write:

Well, I can't get on board the hate train, especially after last week's tour-de-force episode, in which Liz morphed from a crazy old subway lady (every New Yorker's dream: she gets her way at every turn) into Heath Ledger's Joker. Someone needs to speak up for the Lemon, and for the Fey. Because from the beginning Liz Lemon was pathetic. That was what was enthralling, and even revolutionary, about the character. Unlike some other adorkable or slutty-fabulous characters I could name, Liz only superficially resembled the protagonist of a romantic comedy, ready to remove her glasses and be loved. Beneath that, she was something way more interesting: a strange, specific, workaholic, NPR-worshipping, white-guilt-infected, sardonic, curmudgeonly, hyper-nerdy New Yorker. In the first episode, Jack nails her on sight as "a New York third-wave feminist, college-educated, single-and-pretending-to-be-happy-about-it, over-scheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says ‘healthy body image' on the cover and every two years you take up knitting for … a week." Even Liz had to admit he scored a point.

That was why the show worked: it rarely made Liz an empowering role model, although many women certainly identified with her. The show let her be the George Costanza, not the Mary Richards. And, refreshingly, this appeal had little to do with sex or relationships: a lot of it was about her job. Liz was professionally successful, but she was a sellout. . . .

I mostly kind of skimmed the piece, and there's a lot about women's roles on TV that I wouldn't be allowed to comment on in any event, since you can't unless you're a woman, but since I do frequently watch 30 Rock reruns from earlier seasons, I don't think there's any question that Emily has a better grasp of how the character of Liz Lemon began and subsequently evolved than the Twitterers she's taking issue with. For example, later she writes, "That has always been one of the most radical things about “30 Rock,” the way it has continually punctured Liz’s image of herself as a spunky brunette underdog." And later:

And the thing is, Liz’s confrontations with her worst qualities have actually strengthened her. That’s what so odd about the backlash. This season, Liz is happier than ever—and for once, she’s rejecting Jack’s influence, finding her own bliss, embracing her oddball nature, going on the Oprah-style vacations she feels like taking.

I'm not sure that Tina Fey would express quite such a pluckily cheery view of where and how Liz has wound up. She seems to be enjoying piling on poor Liz, perhaps relishing the ways in which her fictional alter-ego has stumbled down her Road Not Taken. But the Nussbaum piece is still worth a skim.

AS FOR THE SUBLIME "LEAP DAY" EPISODE . . .

Kenneth the decommissioned NBC page does his much-admired rendering of Leap Day William. We'll find out that apparently he's not, as we (like Jack) would assume, wearing a bald cap.

There isn't much I can say that wouldn't detract from rather than add to the pleasures. It's true that Leap Day has been featured all over the TV dial -- or rather the cable and satellite program guide, but nobody nailed it the way the 30 Rock people did, making Liz Lemon the only noncelebrant in a world gone quadrennially Leap Day-mad. These days the show's writing is so thorough, intricate, and dazzling, and the characters are so ingrained in the writers' consciousness, that there really doesn't appear to be any separation between writing and acting.

Sure, the celebrity cameo roles can become gimmicky, and this episode was studded with them, but they're usually well done, and I thought one of them from this episode, the very last, with John Cullum at his most ineffably charming, dressed as -- what else? -- Leap Day William, who then reappears after the final commercial break as -- dare we imagine? -- the real Leap Day William:

"Well, I guess we all learned something tonight, about love, friendship, about taking chances, about the true meaning of Leap Day. But these lessons aren't just good for every four years. No-o-o! They're good every year, because we should live every day as if it's Leap Day, and every Leap Day as if it's your last. Oh, and if you should ever see an old man in a blue suit bustin' out of the middle of the ocean, take the time to say, "Howdy." It might just be [takes off his hat] worth your while [opens his mouth and reveals a mouthful of short but fanglike teeth.]"

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Thank goodnesss for the still-living subversiveness of George Carlin

Denis Leary talks about his relationship with George Carlin and his comedy in Part 6 (of 10, though Parts 3-5 have apparently been purged by YouTube) of 2008's sadly posthumous Kennedy Center award of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Later in the clip we see a version of George's own riff on "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television."

Thank God, the Catholic Church once a month, in the bulletin, would put a list of the banned books and records [slow-building then really long audience laugh] and the recommended books and records, which, by the way, for us in those days was like a "What's Hot and What's Not" list. So one Sunday the paperback version of The Godfather was listed among the books that were not to be read by Catholics, and Class Clown, which was one of the things I was vying to be in my school at the time, and they specifically said, "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television." There were four altar boys. We pooled our money, left the church after Mass, went to the record store, bought the record, went to this kid's house whose parents were away, and listened right away to "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television." It was at that moment that I became an ex-Catholic, ladies and gentlemen. That was when I realized you could make money for saying stuff my dad used to say when the car wouldn't start.

-- Denis Leary, remembering George Carlin
at the Kennedy Center

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."

-- from notes for the 2008 Kennedy Center event made by
George Carlin, found by his daughter Kelly after his death
[for more on this quotation, see the UPDATE below]

by Ken

As I write this, I'm watching the traditional telecast of the Vienna New Year's Day concert (this year conducted for the first time by the new general music director of the Vienna State Opera, Franz Welsesr-Möst, music director of the Cleveland Orchestra -- and so far not quite as drearily straitlaced as I would have expected from previous encounters with Welser-Möst, who at least isn't getting in the way of the Vienna Philharmonic, which can't hide its gut-level identification with this music), no longer having any choice between PBS's formerly traditional afternoon and evening telecasts of the concert.

In place of the afternoon telecast, at least on my local PBS affiliate, we had an afternoon of comedy: rebroadcasts of the Kennedy Center awards of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (given annually since 1998) -- to Tina Fey (2010), George Carlin (2008), and Bill Cosby (2009), followed by an American Masters show devoted to Carol Burnett.

As it happened, I hadn't seen any of these shows. I think it has to do with something like that observation of George Carlin's about "enterprises that require new clothes," read at his posthumous award presentation by Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen Schwarzman. It's understandable that such events are uncomfortable for performers; for much the same reason they can be uncomfortable for audiences. One of my favorite moments from the Carlin show was the showing of a clip from The Colbert Report, a "Word" segment devoted to George's famous "Seven Words," which ended with Colbert expostulating "Motherfucker," which to the horror of the great Lewis Black was bleeped, not just for TV, but inside the Kennedy Center! Lewis couldn't get over it. George probably would have found it hilarious.

Tina Fey was of course honored at a significantly earlier stage of her career than most Mark Twain Prize recipients, including George and Bill Cosby, and so her (totally well-deserved) accolades came mostly from colleagues. The Carlin and Cosby programs were peopled more by "disciples," notable figures in American comedy who were majorly influenced by the honoree. I think what made Denis Leary's story so compelling for me was the Catholic background he shared with the man who showed him the way, comedically speaking. You certainly don't have to be Catholic to love George Carlin, but I suspect growing up Catholic gives you special access to a part of his particular sensibility.

And the roster of Carlin presenters provided an obvious but still important reminder that one crucial function of comedy is to be subversive, to refuse to accept conventional orthodoxies and pieties. The loss of George has been felt incredibly painfully, but there's some inspiration to be had, not just from the large body of work he left behind on records and video and in books, but from the number of great comics he's inspired with his own unrelenting subversiveness.


A preview of the American Masters show devoted to Carol Burnett


UPDATE: ABOUT THAT NOTATION OF GEORGE CARLIN'S

Commenter Buttermilk Sky recognizes that line George had noted in his Kennedy Center preparations as a quotation from Thoreau:

I believe the "enterprises requiring new clothes" line is actually a quote from nineteenth century funnyman Henry David Thoreau. Carlin was very well read, which is becoming rarer among comedians.

The quotation as I find it is: "Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes," and it certainly seems likely that this is what George was remembering. The closest I can find for the actual Thoreau source, though, is "Seasons--Autumn (l. 202)."

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The "30 Rock" gang shows us the true spirit of Christmas -- from which "as hard as you try, no one can escape"

"Christmas Attack Zone": In this year's Christmas episode of 30 Rock, Jack (Alec Baldwin) explains, "We Donaghys believe that when there is something at all delicate to talk about, it is best to suppress it-- until it erupts into a fistfight in a church barbecue," and his seven-months-pregnant lady friend Avery (Elizabeth Banks) chimes in, "The symbol on the Jessup family crest is a knight refusing to talk about his feelings."

"You know what I learned tonight? As hard as you try, no one can escape the horror of Christmas."

-- Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), in this year's
Christmas episode of 30 Rock

by Ken

Liz, who'd been ducking "the annual Lemon family blow-up" of Christmas back in White Haven, planning to travel on Christmas Day and swoop in in time for presents, but instead has found herself immersed in the Christmas dramas of all her NBC-TGS nearest-and-dearest, went on to say:

As hard as you try, no one can escape the horror of Christmas. So it might as well be with your onw family. I'm going to go get a bus to White Haven now, and I should be home just in time for Aunt Linda to try to prove that she's sober by holding someone's baby while cooking.

I know Christmas is over, but I'm so imbued with the holiday spirit that I just rewatched the 30 Rock Christmas episode, which is just chockful of it, what with Liz accepting an invitation to the Donaghy family Christmas, figuring it's safe thanks to the dependable old-line right-wing tradition of keeping feelings safely bottled up, only to find herself in the midst of a family free-for-all -- starring, of course, the reigning queen of family dysfunction, Colleen Donaghy, direct from the Death Shore Retirement Community -- another memorable appearance by the great Elaine Stritch, but also featuring the return of Jack's "hippie pacifist" real father, Milton Greene (Alan Alda), who reported excitedly from Vermont that they've just gotten caller ID there!

It's also an episode in which Tracy, still trying to establish his new image as a "serious actor" in hopes of winning a Golden Globe, appears at a Christmas Eve charity function, as Dotcom (Kevin Brown) points out many stars do, including Russell Crowe, who's holding one "for victims of his own mood swings." Resuming tomorrow there'll be plenty of time for the Social Security mess, the Obama triangulation mess, the Afghanistan mess, the Irish mess, and all those other messes and messes-to-come. For now let's just revel a bit more in the spirit of the holidays. (Of course Jack Donaghy would insist on "Christmas" rather than "holidays." He's the pathologically Jesus-defiling Bill O'Reilly's and Bill Donohue's kind of guy.)


SOME ELAINE STRITCH MUSICAL MEMORIES

It seems to me we're going to need a DVD compilation of Elaine Stritch's memorable 30 Rock episodes. Meanwhile, I yanked these records off the shelf, memorializing two memorable Stritch Broadway roles: the first a smallish one in a landmark musical with a large ensemble cast in with which she darned near stole the show, the second a starring role in a not very successful and now (despite the distinction of its principal creator, Noël Coward) mostly forgotten show.

Regular readers won't be surprised that I'm presenting these numbers in exactly backwards order (both the two shows, and the numbers within the Sail Away group). Note that tonight's late-night post (midnight ET, 9pm PT) features a much more recent Elaine Stritch video performance of "Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch."

From Company (1970), music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

"Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch"
Elaine Stritch, from the Original Broadway Cast Album, Harold Hastings, cond. Capitol, recorded 1970

From Sail Away (1961), music and lyrics by Noël Coward

(Sorry about the LP surface noise early on in the "Why Do the Wrong People Travel?" track. I came close to paying the 99 cents to download this great song, but the noise cleared up, and as I like to say, 99 cents saved here and there adds up to 99 cents saved here and there.)

"Why Do the Wrong People Travel (When the Right People Stay Back Home)?" (Mimi Paragon)

"You're a Long, Long Way from America" (Act I finale, Mimi and company)

"Come to Me" (opening number, the Stewards and Mimi)

Elaine Stritch and company, from the Original Broadway Cast Album, Peter Matz, arr. and cond. Capitol, recorded October 1961

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"Surplus canvas waterboarding hoods" made into messenger bags? It appears "30 Rock"'s ratings are good enough to get away with such stuff!

In the 30 Rock episode "Brooklyn Without Limits," clueless "maverick" congressional candidate Steve Austin (John Slattery) encourages blind voters to believe that he's the wrestler of the same name and "senile" voters to believe that he's the Six Million Dollar Man.

"As God is my witness, we will build casinos on the moon!"

-- Rhode Island "small government" crackpot congressional
challenger Steve Austin, pressing his signature issue

"In the mid-'90s [Halliburton] found themselves with a surplus of canvas waterboarding hoods, so they had sweatshops make them into messenger bags to sell to outer-borough idiots."

-- Jack Donaghy, bursting Liz Lemon's mini-green
eco-bubble in last Thursday's 30 Rock

by Ken

An amazing episode this week (written by Ron Weiner), as --

TRACY TURNS TO JENNA FOR ADVICE
ON WINNING A GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD

And Jenna (Jane Krakowski) advises Tracy (Tracy Morgan), who has been nominated for his undoubtedly aptly named movie Hard to Watch, on how to make an impression on the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, including -- "when the time's right" -- attempting to bribe them.

TRACY: I'm not an expert at morality, but isn't that wrong?
JENNA: You're asking me?
[TRACY and then JENNA burst into laughter.]

(It turns out that Jenna is actually trying to sabotage Tracy, as she readily admits to Liz when Liz points out that Jenna is still jealous of Baby Jessica for drawing all that attention away from her. It seems Jenna knows from personal experience that it's not possible to buy a Golden Globe award. She shows Liz her Golden Globes banned-for-life card to prove that she's been banned for life for attempting it.)

JACK LEARNS CONGRESSIONAL NEMESIS REGINA
BOOKMAN FACES A STIFF REELECTION CHALLENGE

Grandstanding Rhode Island Congresswoman Bookman (Queen Latifah), you'll recall, has been threatening to block the acquisition of NBC by cable giant Kabletown. On learning that she faces a serious reelection challenge, Jack (Alec Baldwin) orders his toadyingly loyal assistant, the hopelessly love-struck Jonathan (Maulik Pancholy), to bring challenger Steve Austin to him for vetting. It turns out that Steve, played by John Slattery (Mad Men's Roger Sterling), is building his electoral strategy around encouraging voters to think he's either wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin or the Six Million Dollar Man.

Still, Jack is encouraged to learn that Steve believes in small government.

STEVE: Or no government at all. If it works in Antartica [sic], why can't it work here? If we have to have government, make it as small as possible. Dwarves. Tiny buildings. Pizza bagels for lunch --
JACK: Maybe we should stop at "small government." Let's cut to the chase. I need you to assure me you would never allow the government to interfere with the sale of one company to another.
STEVE: Course not! The government shouldn't interfere in anything. What happens inside a man's own rain poncho at a minor-league baseball game is his own business.
JACK: Well, Steve, we should stop talking.

Jack supervises the filming of a Steve Austin TV spot. Steve delivers the text mechanically, with occasional semaphore-style arm gestures.

STEVE: I am a constitutional originalist, and I believe that our founding fathers had it right. We need to get back to their America: [ticking the points off with his fingers] no paved roads, rum used as an anesthetic, legalized slavery.
JACK: All right --

LIZ'S LIFE IS TRANSFORMED BY THE DISCOVERY
OF MIRACLE-FIT JEANS FROM A STORE IN BROOKLYN

One and all are stunned by the transformation in our Liz (Tina Fey). Is it any wonder that after seeing her miraculously slimmed lower torso in the mirror Liz bought an additional ten pairs on the spot, and instructed the store clerk to burn her old jeans?

What's more, Liz is under the (mis)impression that the maker is a small eco-friendly company that's engaged in saving the world. Jack bursts her mini-green eco-bubble.

LIZ: Hey, don't talk down Brooklyn Without Limits. Stores like this are saving the world.
JACK: Really? You're going to lecture me about big business again. Do you know who owns Brooklyn Without Limits?
LIZ: Brooklyn Zack! He throws pool parties in Dumpsters.
JACK: Halliburton. In the mid-'90s they found themselves with a surplus of canvas waterboarding hoods, so they had sweatshops make them into messenger bags to sell to outer-borough idiots.
LIZ: You don't know what you're talking about. [She swivels so the BWL jeans label, which says "HAND-MADE IN USA," is facing Jack.] "Hand-made in USA."
JACK: Your magic jeans are from BWL? Oh, Lemon, it's not "hand-made in USA." It's pronounced "Hond-made in Oosa." The Hand people are a Vietnamese slave tribe, and Usa is their island prison. They made your jeans. You know how they get the stitching so small? [Whispers through his hand.] Orphans.
LIZ: No! Brooklyn Zack is real. He just got back from Peru, where he met a family that's been making hats for 2000 years.
JACK: We all make our compromises. At least I'm doing it for our company, for jobs. You're doing it [turning and shouting so everyone around can hear] for your ass.
LIZ [as JACK walks away]: I don't believe you. The liberal media would have told me about this.
JACK [turning back to face her]: There's no such thing. The New York Times is owned by NYT Incorporated, which is owned by Altheon Ballistic Dynamics, which is owned by the Murdoch family, which is owned [great dramatic two-hand gesture of surprise] by Halliburton.
[With JACK gone, LIZ is left with a wounded look on her face.]

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Pour yourself a cup of tea, and get ready for . . . the Sarah Palin Network!

"Not all our programming is fear-based."

You're not gonna wanna miss Alaskanence, the show about "a single woman who doesn't believe in having sex before marriage who is struggling to raise her three young children," or So You Think You Can Make Me Fill Out the Census, or the 30 Rock parody 30 Main Street, in which the princess herself stars as Lez Lemons, "an uppity bitch who's so focused on her career that she's in her late 30s and stil doesn't have grandchildren" (it's even got its own Baldwin brother -- Stephen, of course). -- Ken

30 Rock: with The Office and Burn Notice, two hours of terrifically written and acted TV

"They're all former investment bankers who were laid off in the economic crash that Nancy Pelosi caused. [Smiling affectionately.] They've got zero real-world skills, but God, they work hard!"

-- GE-NBC exec Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) to producer Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), about the snide, hypercompetitive new pages assigned to her show ("a little old," she has observed, "and overdressed"), in last week's 30 Rock episode

by Ken

And Jack would know how hard his over-age-frat-boy pages work. He asks them "to run out and pick up some flowers, a collection of bath soaps, and some Spanish-language gossip magazines," and they make a mad, elbows-flying dash for the elevators. (It turned out that Jack was trying desperately to win over the grandmother of Elisa, the Puerto Rican nurse he's fallen in love with, played by the lovely Salma Hayek. He's under the impression that the old woman doesn't like him -- perhaps because, as we saw in a flashback, she's told him that she hates him.)

I've been trying for a week to think of something remotely as smart as this dazzling bit of dialogue to say about 30 Rock. In the erratic but irresistible first season most of the fun came from ultra-corporatist Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and his underclass counterpart, ultra-loyal (and ultra-bizarre) page Kenneth (Jack McBrayer). By the show's second season, though, all the wacky elements had hit their stride, and the momentum has carried through brilliantly to this, the third season.

To her credit, show creator Tina Fey didn't demand the spotlight, and her own character, producer Liz Lemon has grown into one of TV's most cherishable (albeit near-hopeless) characters -- her show seeming week by week less under her control, and her personal life in even worse shape. The show functions just this side, or maybe a bit over the edge, of insanity.

And NBC has paired it brilliantly with its other great sitcom, the astonishing American version of The Office. (There must be some weird schedule-balancing principle at work in plunking the hour comprising The Office and 30 Rock right after an hour filled with the flesh-crawling My Name Is Earl and Kath and Kim. Is there anybody who watches both hours?) And now with USA's Burn Notice at 10pm ET/PT as gripping and amusing as ever in its third season, we've got as solid a two-hour TV block as I can remember: smart and funny, terrifically written and acted.

(At that same hour, according to NBC promos ER continues to be shown for what is claimed to be a final season. Surely this is just a cunning cost-cutting measure, though. Didn't ER go off the air, like, 10 years ago? Surely nobody has watched it since then. My theory is that the scam goes like this: NBC simply continues to list it on the schedule and, since no one is watching, saves money by not running any actual program. Must be tough on the ad salesfolks, but it can't be much tougher than a lot of the crap they have to sell where there is an actual program.)

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