“Let’s Stay Together”

Ahhh Freddy Krueger. How you wormed your way into our collective childhood psyches. You even killed Johnny Depp in his first ever movie role in the first A Nightmare on Elm Street. Side note: the sign reads “F. KRUGER”, but it’s actually spelled Krueger, who wore a red and green striped sweater, a fedora, and had a horribly burned face.

So the full list of signs that the writers put on Liz’s door are:

• F. KRUGER – fictional mass murderer
• LEZ LEMON – because Liz wears comfortable shoes
• WYNONA RIDER IN A HUNDRED YEARS – cute pixie of an actress, looks a bit like Liz
• FART BARFUNKEL – juvenile version of Art Garfunkel, half of the famous Simon & Garfunkel
• PAUL SIMON – the other half of the famous Simon & Garfunkel

Rodney Dangerfield was a comedian, and “I don’t get no respect” was one of his catchphrases. Liz is doing a piss poor imitation. No, it’s really bad. Especially for an actress. Unless of course Tina Fey the actress was playing a Liz Lemon who was bad at impersonations, in which case it was brilliant.

For some reason I like to think about this. I mean, I’m a programmer. What possible use would I be in a post apocalyptic world? Everything I’d ever created (including, chillingly, this website) would be gone. Maybe I could be used for nutrition. Or, like Liz, a radiation canary. They used to carry canaries down into coal mines, and if the canary, a little bird with a delicate constitution, died, they knew the air was becoming too toxic and they should escape before they joined his little yellow feathered fate.

At least Liz could be a travelling bard. She could go from burned out settlement to wasteland encampment, singing songs and telling stories of The World That Was. No one would believe her mad ramblings, of course, but she would travel with The Road Warrior. He would take care of her. Or sell her for her weight in canned dog food.

The Kabletown-NBC is an ongoing story on 30 Rock, parodying Comcast’s buyout of NBC, due to be complete by the end of 2010, less than two months from when this episode aired.

USA Network is a sibling of NBC, both being owned by the conglomerate NBC Universal. Monk was a show starring  Tony Shaloub, a private detective with OCD. Monk ran on the USA Network from 2002 to 2009. Its final episode aired on December 4, 2009. Which would explain why Liz can’t seem to find it anymore, as it would have been off the air for almost a year when the episode aired.

Vertical integration. This is a topic for Management and Microeconomics classes, but what the hay. Allow me.

Jack actually does a good job explaining it in this episode. It’s when a single company owns a ton of its own supply chain. Notable examples are American Apparel, who dye, cut, sew, finish, and distribute their own products through their own stores, and shoot their own ads; and Big Oil, who explore, drill, transport, refine, and sell their products. Apple’s strategy of “controlling the whole widget”, their tight control over suppliers and their own retail stores would also qualify.

Liz’s favourite corn chips are “Sabor de Soledad”, which translates to “Flavour of Loneliness”. And they have their own Facebook page. Of course they do. Our yardstick of civilization is weeping.

Also, turns out The Sarah Silverman Program S02E07 (“High, It’s Sarah”) used almost the exact same chips-diarrhea connection.

Sweet Jesus. I was going to go through the members of Congress and see which fit this description. Did you know there are 435 members (one representative per district) of the United States Congress? I sure as hell didn’t. Then again, I’m Canadian, so at least I have an excuse.

I did find a few things. The only current actor-congressman is Ben Jones (4th District of Georgia, and played Cooter from The Dukes of Hazzard!), but there are a bunch of other actor-politicians, including Arnold Schwartzenegger (Governator of California), Clint Eastwood (Mayor of Carmel, CA (which is gorgeous, you should go there), Ronald Regan (deceased, former president), Jerry Springer (mayor of Cincinnati, OH), and Jesse “the Body” Ventura (Governor of Minnesota), who, MOTHER OF GOD looks like ass! Check it out: now and then.

Looks like 17% (92 members) of Congress are women.

As for former athletes? Well.. Schwartzenegger and “the Body” Ventura would count. No idea on the others. I’m sick of digging through congress statistics now;)

The “lobotomites” is a made up word which I think should join our lexicon, implying the members of Congress have had lobotomies. Feel like watching one? Horrifying. They used to do this to calm the mentally disturbed. You basically shove something into the front part of someone’s brain and scramble it like an egg. The effects of this are about what you’d expect.

Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845) was actually a real man and legend has it he wandered the countryside planting apple trees, which he actually did. But more in nurseries than randomly, and he had something of a business plan, but was very generous. He had two siblings and ten half-siblings, so there are probably a lot of descendants, some of whom may indeed be litigious, and may succeed due to the Right of Publicity, where a person has the right to defend the commercial user of his or her image. But I’m not looking up actual descendants. Aren’t Mormons good at this whole genealogy? I need me a Mormon with some spare time, here.

No Bananaseed nurse killer exists, though there was a Jerry Brudos who killed Portland women in the late sixties, but even this sicko didn’t kill nurses.

Thinly veiled reference to Vagsil. For all of your vaginal needs. Funny, this week’s South Park’s episode was Vagisil-centric. That and NASCAR.

NBC show references!

• Wow. Inside Schwartz is obscure. It was a 2001 sitcom that ran for a single season.
• Twenty One was a famous game show from the 1950’s infamous for its corruption and subsequent senate hearing, and inspired the movie Quiz Show.
• Hill Street Blues, police drama show from 1981 – 1987.
• Wings: 1990 – 1997 sitcom.
• Golden Girls: 1985 – 1992 sitcom.
• Quantum Leap: 1989 – 1993 sci-fi dramedy/social commentary.
• Outsourced is a brand new sitcom from NBC, which airs an hour after 30 Rock.
• Friends was a famous 1994 – 2004 sitcom which was a great success for NBC.

Pageanizing is not (yet) a real word. I fear the day it becomes one. Child pageants are just creepy. Let your little girls play with their friends, barbies, tea sets, and whatever else my sister used to do when she was little. Massive pressure and dressing five year olds up in teenage whore makeup is bizarre. Stop it. Just stop it.

Okay I’m done. Resume reading.

So the slap and the “We’ve already started” sounds like it has to be from a movie or something, but I can’t find it. Anyone know where this is from?

Jack’s business babble is pure business babble.

Rob Reiner indeed won two Emmy’s. For All In The Family, where he played Michael “Meathead” Stivic. All In The Family was a landmark 70s sitcom that addressed a number of then-taboo topics like racism, homosexuality, and women’s lib, starring Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) as a stubborn working-class bigot whose outdated views clash with everyone else around him.

Big Oil typically refers to the six largest non state-owned oil companies, but Jack is probably just referring to the three big American companies, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips.

Microsoft is the world’s largest software company. Unless you count Apple as a software company, in which case Microsoft is #2.

In both cases, however, I’d say American Big Oil and Microsoft are stagnating and on their way to becoming failures. Big Oil has terrible PR in general, and the world is convinced they’re destroying the environment, and Microsoft has been stagnant since dominating the PC industry and is currently having its lunch eaten by Apple in mind share and profit.

Jack’s clever speech mimics the type of political maneuvering characterized by choosing some all-American target and twisting the facts until it seems that your opponent is against that target and therefore evil. “How can you vote for a man that wants to tax gasoline? The very gasoline your mom uses to take her home made apple pie to the farmer’s market? This man hates apple pie! And your mom!”

Rob Reiner is indeed the acclaimed director of When Harry Met Sally! Rob Reiner is also talking about Rob Reiner in the third person.

Shockingly, opinions are mixed on this topic. But yes, a lot of Christians believe that everyone who hasn’t been baptized or repented their sins before they died is indeed sizzling in hell. On the upside, this isn’t a real song.

There was another Mickey Rourke reference last episode. I still can’t make any real connection. It’s just some odd senseless running joke.

Rhode Island is a tiny northeastern US state, and its first (of two) Congressional District is actually represented by Patrick J. Kennedy, not Queen Latifa😉 Congressional Districts each elect a single member of congress. It’s not that diverse a community (85.7% white), though it is about 19% Italian, but not a heavy criminal community.

Luckily we have a native Rhode Islander among our readers to explain: “The “jags at Brown” is meant to refer to the Ivy League Brown University, located in Providence, RI. The comment plays to the stereotype that all students at Ivy League universities are spoiled rich kids whose parents buy them everything.”

“The thriving Italian criminal community in Providence refers to Providence’s history as a stronghold of the East Coast Mob – the famed Federal Hill area of Providence used to be a hotbed of Mob activity, and there were rumors that former Providence Mayor, Buddy Cianci, had Mob ties. Ironically, the man who was the Mayor of Providence when the episode aired, David Cicilline, (who is now filling the Congressional seat vacated by Patrick Kennedy) was a graduate of Brown University, and he and his father were highly successful defense attorneys, serving many accused Mob members.” Well done! Thanks, RI Native!

Wilco is an American rock band. From what I can tell, their fans are unrepentantly white.

Law & Order was a long running (20 seasons) police drama series, and was cancelled — its last episode aired May 24, 2010. Although it is survived by its children, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Los Angeles, it follows its fourth child, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, to the grave. I can’t find any strong reason it was cancelled, aside from it was on for twenty years and has three spin-offs. Sometimes a parent has to die to make way for its children.

At first I thought this was a reference to something else, but after an exhaustive search, I’m pretty sure it’s just really funny.

THIS is funny. Kind of an inside writer’s joke. When an audience murmurs in the background, it’s usually unfinished snippets of dialog over and over, saving the writers from having to come up with something for every individual to say, and is sometimes referred to as “rhubarb” or “peas and carrots” because instead of even having snippets of dialog, the audience would just be told to mutter things like that. It should probably never be the focus of attention, though;)

Tracy Jordan spelled backwards is Nadroj Ycart. Barely pronounceable, but does kind of sound like a name George Lucas may have thought up for a the pilot of the shuttle seen in a deleted scene for 1/10th of a second. But I’m sure they made him into an action figure. They did for the noble Willrow Hood and his bold fleeing of Cloud City and saving an innocent ice cream maker. Now you too can buy your very own Willrow Hood Star Wars action figure. Bless you, George Lucas, inventor of capitalism!

Dotcom’s full name is Walter “Dotcom” Slattery.

Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker. I assume this joke refers to the fact that everyone likes to say they read the intellectual magazine The New Yorker, but it doesn’t happen nearly as often as people claim. Malcom Gladwell wrote an article titled “Small Change” (five pages, related to new media like Twitter), published October 4th, three days before this episode aired. They may have been referring to this article, though that’s mighty close to the air date, but the last article before that was published May 17, 2010.

A Kindle is an e-reader. So reading The New Yorker on a Kindle is about the most trendy, brag-worthy thing Liz could do.

The Chinese DID build a lot of the railroads, at least the Canadian and Central Pacific railroads. So did the Irish, so I’m not surprised their were also used as labour for jails. As for filling them, that’s related to the stereotype of Irish working as cops. Or maybe thieves;)

Community is an NBC comedy TV show, and airs in the time slot just before 30 Rock. I assume Liz’ pronunciation of Donald Glover as “Dah-nahl Glover” is to show her deep knowledge of his African American heritage, using the original Nambian pronunciation.

No, I made that up. Liz is just weird.

Grandstanding, as marvellously illustrated by Queen Latifa, is overacting in an attempt to play to the political grandstand. I think she based her entire performance on Martin Luther King Junior’s speeches. Don’t get me wrong — he was an amazing individual, and his speeched deserved the gravitas his speech patterns gave them, but used for her babble it’s pretty funny.

This is based on the myth that the Inuit (native North American arctic aboriginals) have tons of words for snow. They actually don’t. They just use compound words like the Germans. For instance, “is covered in frosty sparkling snow” in Inuit is “patuqutaujuq”. There. I’ve done my civic duty.

Heh. I said “duty.”

Toofer would. As explained in S01E02, he’s called Toofer because “he’s a black guy and a Harvard guy.”

And apparently, at Harvard, they’re all rebels. Because masturbation is an honour code violation. Because the pipes can’t handle it. You can’t make this kind of shit up.

Liquor lockers at the opera?? I like to imagine there is such a thing, but I can neither confirm nor deny this.

Hair extensions are an adding of artificial hair into someone’s natural hair, and are glued or woven/sewn in. I don’t think this is usually done on someone with hair as short as Kenneth’s.

Body shapers?? For Kenneth? He’s already built like a pretty girl. Anyway, body shapers are modern equivalent of girdles. Like Spanx.

And penile sleeves? Ahhh, the joys I get out of researching weird 30 Rock shit… In my extensive research, apparently these are for the pleasure of women, for men, or for two men. I’m going to carefully link to this now, but I encourage you to NOT open it. NSFW: Sex Toy – Penile Sleeve.

Yup, looks like foreclosures in Texas are up this month. Topical, 30 Rock, TOPICAL!

And just above the two recycling bins are two signs: “Colored” and “White”. Gee, in a racial diversity-based episode, I don’t see how this could go wrong.

Al Green is a gospel and soul singer, and Let’s Stay Together was his biggest hit.

Kelsey Grammer most famously appeared on Cheers (mentioned at the end of the list), and its spin off Frasier. Ahhh I’ll just link to them all. They’re all NBC shows:) The Golden Girls, My Name is Earl, the A-Team.

And at the end of his amazing performance, Kenneth rips open his beautiful blue-sequened jacket to reveal the NBC logo across his chest.

It definitely means “The Badger”.

The first reference to Liz’s badger face was in S01E10 “The Rural Juror,” when Jack says “ I’ve never seen her so worked up. She came at me with that angry little badger face of hers. there it is right now.” “El Tejón” is a new twist, though;)

Tinnitus is a ringing in the ears. It’s just not a very funny joke. 30 Rock, I expect better from you!

Ha! As far as I can tell there are no women-specific sports bars designed to curb cramping. There are women-specific sports bars, though. Like Luna. Apparently Lutz is a woman. I’m sorry if I ruined this for you.

Wall Street is the financial district in Manhattan.

Sex and the City was an HBO Manhattan-based dramedy, and there are a number of walking tours.

And the Magnolia Bakery, on Bleeker Street in Manhattan, was made famous by appearing in Sex and the City. It is delicious, but not as much as the hype would suggest. Though binging until your thighs rub together would be worth it.

Don Imus is a radio shock jock, contemporary and rival of Howard Stern, and involved in a scandal related to racist remarks on the air.

Dance steps! Jenna’s babbling on about dance steps. New to me, but here’s a dictionary of them if you’re interested. And here’s the Shim Sham Shimmy step.

Sizzler’s a chain of steak houses. Quite the carrot!

Jenna described in an earlier episode (can’t find it now) how she used to take a boat to school.

And Jenna is doing a pretty good impersonation of her mother;)

Jenna’s real name was first mentioned in S03E13 “Goodbye, My Friend”. Sounds Yugoslavian.

I bet Right On is based on some pre-existing show, but I wouldn’t know what it is. Anyone?

The Tri-States, when talking about the New York area, are New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Liz once before referred to the crew death, from S03E17 “The Pelican Grief”: “Okay, guys, I just want to say congratulations on our 50th show — 50 hours of comedy, over 300 sketches, one unsolved crew death, and an Emmy… magazine cover story!”

Angela Lansbury lawsuit?? This is just random and hilarious. There’s no reference I can find to Angela Lansbury ever suing anyone. Man I hope they revisit this one, especially because of how incongruous this is with the sweet-as-pie actress Angela Lansbury.

Arthur Ashe was a professional African American tennis player and known for his efforts to further social causes.

Black Jesus! Funny;) Races all across the world tend to depict Jesus as one of their own race. Not surprising, seeing as it’s easier to consider someone your saviour if they look like you, and if I was a church, I’d slyly encourage this. All of it’s kind of stupid though. Jesus was a Galilean Jew, so he would have looked much like a modern Semetic Jew (olive skin, dark curly hair).

And Liz makes a massive racial faux pax by assuming the first white man she sees on set is their boss.

Palo Alto is in California and home to quite a number of computer companies, and is mostly white and Asian. But Jonathan does a fine Indian accent when pressed.

In S01E02 I wrote up the history of Studio 6H.

The Congressional Black Caucus is a real thing, open only to black members of Congress and currently has a membershop of 43. And they’re very good at raising money. But no one’s ever crashed a motorcycle into one.

If anyone asks me to explain this I will kill them. A lot.

I love writing this stuff up but I almost hope the writers of 30 Rock never look at it. There’s nothing more painful than someone explaining one of your jokes. Maybe I’ll just choose a certain cut-off level of obviousness above which I can live with myself;)

Ahhh here they are! All the apartheid jokes in one place. The US’s historical ownership of slaves and the South’s loss to the North in the Civil War and subsequent freeing of their slaves still left a lot of the oppression intact. Jim Crow Laws were enforced, creating separate facilities (sections of the bus, eateries, drinking fountains, washrooms, etc). And to identify said separate facilities, they would hang signs reading “White” and “Coloured”.

White Devil is a racial slur meaning “white man” usually used by non-white people.

Native names are funny;)

Hillbillies are dumb redneck mountain folk. Oh it’s derogatory, by the way. In case my definition didn’t give that away. Made particularly famous by Deliverance.

I’m pretty sure counties didn’t individually join the Union. I think they did it by state. So.. still funny;)

Tavis Smiley is an African American talk show host, political commentator, entrepreneur, advocate and philanthropist. He does have a foundation, but no awards as far as I can tell.

Ahhh! No such stickers out there. So sad.

This last bit is a good trick. Want some applause? Some cheering!? Who likes food?? Who loves CHILDREN? WHO LIKES MONEY?! MONEY, PEOPLE!

Gets ‘em every time.

“Luffing” your sail is a mistake in sailing; when you don’t have your sail at the correct angle and the front edge ripples in the wind, a spinnaker is a large bilious sail on the front of a sailboat, and a regatta is a boat race (or series of races). All very hoity toity and upper-crust, what what?

Flag troops?? She’s not even making sense anymore. She’s just throwing together random Americana. Freedom Fries! Apple Pie Constitution! LIBERTY HANDGUNS!!

Ooo! Chillingly accurate.

Hate crime = crime where the motive is.. hate. Of someone. Usually due to race or religion or something. Poor choice, hate crimers!

The “we were here first” refers to the Inuit being aboriginal North Americans, and here before the first “settlers” arrived.

Dog being a guy who sleeps with a lot of women. Kind of a male slut.

John Amos is the main character of this “Let’s Stay Together” show, is an actor and former football player, and was nominated for an NAACP award. I don’t know if he was chosen for this role for any particular reason aside from he looks damn good doing it.

This entire “Let’s Stay Together” show-within-a-show feels incredibly familiar, but I’m not sure why. Maybe the writers just channeled every nugget of 70s and 80s nostalgia and distilled it into 60 seconds of pure retro. Nice work, anyway. Even the “ain’t life a bitch” feels like it’s someone’s catch phrase, but I can’t figure out where it’s from.

The show ends with a “Dotcom Productions” logo. And if you look closely, the shadow behind it reads “Tracy Jordan”;) I love these guys.