“Reaganing”

Tom Bergeron is currently the host of Dancing With the Stars and America’s Funniest Home Videos. Although some people find him annoying, he did play a TV News Reporter in Gremlins, so that’s pretty cool.

Albert Pujols plays first base for the St. Louis Cardinals. He’s originally from the Dominican Republic and he’s regarded as one of the best players in the game today.

I am Jack’s hubris. He’s high from having a perfect day, so now he’s going to foolhardily tackle Liz’s nigh unsolvable problems. Oh sitcoms, how you do love to create sticky situations!

Jack loves Reagan. He just does. I suppose I could read up on what sort of political views Jack embodies and relate those back to Reagan’s, but that’s a whole world of US politics I’m not so interested in. But, my loyal readers, if anyone wants to write something it I’ll happily post it in place of this delightful paragraph and credit you for the win.

The Pakistan national football team (yes, soccer is called “football” everywhere in the world except North America) has, in fact, never played Greece. Ever. This is more of what I like to call 30 Rock Random Racism. It sounds racist, but they basically pick nationalities at random and attribute them with something weird. In this case there’s a bit of truth to it; most NYC cab drivers are Caribbean, Indian, and yes, Pakistani. Not many Greek, though.

MSNBC is a cable news channel, a partnership between Microsoft (MS) and NBC. NBC owns the majority share.

Rachel Maddow is openly gay and has her own show on MSNBC. Her hair also looks startlingly like Jack’s, especially in this picture.

K-Swiss is a brand of shoes.

And there doesn’t seem to be an “MTV International Video Music Awards.” There’s the “MTV Video Music Awards” and the “MTV Video Music Award – International Viewer’s Choice,” and Tracy Morgan has never hosted either.

I think this is more Random Weird Things Attributed To Ethnicities. Although Japanese girls are known to giggle. Song-wise, Xzibit has a song called ”Choke Me, Spank Me (Pull My Hair)”.

There is indeed a Boys and Girls Club of America, and they help youths to “reach their potential.” It seems like the kind of organiation people may get sent for community service. But the Coast Guard? That’s just crazy talk!

This is based (very closely) on Lindsay Lohan being given a Free Ice Cream For Life card from Carvel, which Lindsay’s mother, Diana Lohan, abused to the point the card was revoked. I mean, what’s wrong with you? Your daughter makes millions of dollars, I’m sure you’re set for life. But no. You figure you’re entitled to raping your daughter’s free ice cream card to the point they revoke it and then you make a huge deal out of them rejecting your abuse of their present to your daughter. You’re bizarre.

The float Jenna’s riding on reads “Kids 4-Eva,” which doesn’t seem to be a real anything. And the Thanksgiving Day Parade is in fact the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, started in 1924, and known for its huge procession of floats.

And this is, as usual, Jenna having to show up anyone (Tracy) receiving more attention than her.

The Macy’s Parade is also known for its huge balloon characters which float over the crowd. Spider-Man was featured in 1987 and 2009.

Liz has a thing for ham. This is not the first incident.

This is both creepily hilarious and a reference to the short story Button, Button by Richard Matheson, which was made into a 1986 episode of The Twilight Zone, and was the basis for the 2009 movie The Box. In the story (The Twilight Zone version, anyway), a couple is given a box and they’re told if they press it, someone, somewhere will die, and they will receive $200,000. It’s one of the few Twilight Zone episodes I remember really well. Because it was fantastic.

Fantastic;) I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before. “Beast with two backs” is British slang for sex, first used in 1603 by Shakespeare in Othello: “I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.” Boning means the same thing, but its origin is far less storied.

Carol is Liz’s pilot boyfriend, played by Matt Damon, introduced in the Season Four finale.

Greta Van Susteren is an American journalist and TV personality on Fox, and she had plastic surgery. Not a head transplant. But before and after pictures are fun, right?

Fort Knox is actually not Fort Knox. What everyone calls Fort Knox is actually called the United States Bullion Depository (which stores a large portion of the US gold reserves), and sits right next to Fort Knox, which is a US army base. It has become a symbol of security, synonymous with being locked down tighter than a nun’s hoo haa.

Shawn is played by Seth Kirschner who we first saw in S04E02 “Into the Crevasse” where he was the director of Jenna’s Icelandic werewolf movie. In S04E21 “Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land” when he was the director on Garfield 3. Tracy was his feline star but walked out while filming because he suddenly needed to do something with more emotional gravitas. Happily the world will probably never have to endure a real Garfield 3 movie.

That’s not their real motto. It’s the slightly more verbose “To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.” I kinda like the 30 Rock version.

Gilbert Gottfried is a horrid, squinty eyed, gravelly voiced, “comic” or “personality” or whatever you’d call him. His claim to fame is screeching obscenities in place of humour. It’s sometimes funny;)

Flashbacks!

• “Sex always makes things worse!” – from S03E21 “Emmanuel Goes To Dinosaur Land”
• “Jack, why don’t you just say you want some… [makes weird hand motion]/Is that sex, Lemon?/It is the way I do it.” – from S04E13 “Anna Howard Shaw Day”
• “We are lovers./Oh, that word bums me out unless it’s between the words ‘meat’ and ‘pizza.’” – S02E08 “Secrets and Lies”
• “Och! She likes that?” – scene one from this episode;)

Everybody Loves Raymond was a (not funny) sitcom that ran from 1996 – 2005. And I’ll leave this one as an exercise to the reader: Here’s a photo of the cast. Pick out the sluts.

Dennis was Liz’s crazy obnoxious (but wicked funny) boyfriend from seasons past. However, I think this is the first mention of Joel Suchecky.

Carvel has their products online, but no prices. Anyone know if this price is accurate? Critically important to the survival of mankind, I know.

Grift is a swindle or confidence game, but I can’t find any reference to an “Arizona Double Back.”

Ha! Second mention of Gremlins! Okay, the first reference was pretty weak, but I love that movie.

Ronald Regan’s nickname was The Gipper, which is acquired in 1940 when playing George “The Gipper” Gipp in the film Knute Rockne All American.

And apparently Reagan used to call his wife Nancy “mommy.” That’s just creepy as all get-out.

Dorothy Hamill is the 1976 American Olympic figure skating champion, and she did have that freaky-assed bowl cut, which was very similar to baseball star Pete Rose’s also very disturbing haircut (well, the photo’s the more disturbing part).

Tom Jones is a fantastic and famous Welsh singer.

Liz’s other posters:

• Grizzy Adams – Played by Dan Haggerty in the 1974 – 1982 TV series in The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.
• Larry Wilcox – Pictured in his role as Officer Jonathan “Jon” Baker in the 1977 – 1983 TV series ChiPs.
• Han Solo – Played by Harrison Ford in the original Star Wars Trilogy. Oh and in the Star Wars Holiday Special;)
• Tug McGraw – Baseball player for the New York Mets and later the Philadelphia Phillies.
• Mike Schmidt – Also baseball player for the Philadelphia Phillies.
• Kermit – The Frog.
• Gunther Gebel-Williams – Was a circus animal trainer, famous for appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

There’s no such thing as a Friendship Castle. It’s just Kenneth being super cute.

Cookie Puss is a character that Carvel makes out of ice cream products in their store.

Also, after this episode aired, Carvel said they loved being included in the episode, and presented the 30 Rock writers with a 30 Rock-themed cake, reading “Tank Yow 36 Rock from your Frinds at Carvel” along with a note saying they shouldn’t try to return it for cash.

Kenneth is retelling the classic fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk, about a naive boy who is given the family’s only cow to sell at the market, but he’s swindled by a man into selling it for some “magic beans.” He gets in trouble, but it turns out the beans are magic, leading him into adventures ending in fame and wealth. Actually, seeing as it’s a fairy tale, the original version probably ends up with Jack crushed to death and his family burned to death.

Normally it’s “take five,” meaning “take a five minute break.” Tracy’s asking for… close to an eight and a half hour break.

Sisyphus! Nice reference. Greek mythology tells us that Sisyphus was a really bad house guest and constantly pissed off the gods. After his death, the gods punished him by forcing him to endlessly roll a boulder to the top of a steep hill, only to have it roll back down over him as he neared the top. So a Sisyphean task is a difficult, terrible, and in the end, impossible task. And a fun word to say.

George Shultz was Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State, and Jack is being kind when he says Reagan’s mind was “resting” — in 1994 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, but this was five years after he had left office as the President.

And Reagan did love jelly beans, starting when he was governor California and continuing all the way through his Presidency.

The address Kenneth is writing on the envelope is:

Parcell Farm
(just past the tire fire)
Stone Mountain
Independent Nation of DeKalb County
Georgia

Stone Mountain, GA has long been established as Kenneth’s home town. There have been no major tire fires near Stone Mountain, which is good, as they’re nasty pollution-spewing things that are very difficult to put out and can burn for a decade or more. And Stone Mountain is in DeKalb County, but it’s not really an Independant Nation, although Jack did mention that Kenneth’s county never re-joined the Union in S05E03 “Let’s Stay Together.”

Kelsey Grammer was the star of the TV show Frasier from 1993 – 2004, which was a spin off of Cheers, an earlier sitcom in which he also starred. I didn’t watch Frasier much, nor did I read The New Yorker cartoons, but I’m going to go out on a very thin limb and say they reminded me of each other.

Grammer’s TV show Frasier’s opening theme song, sung by Grammer himself, is a jazz tune called “Tossed Salad and Scrambled Egg”.

This is a great homage to Kirk’s cursing of Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should watch the clip. If you do, you’ll probably watch the clip just to see it again;)

Eight hundred dollars… Each cake, according to Kenneth earlier, is $23.94, which comes out to a little over thirty-three cakes. Evil!

Referring back to a little earlier when they mentioned Cookie Pus, the Carvel ice cream cake character.

Heh… This is Grammer trying to scam the scammer with the age-old con where you promise someone a large sum of money, but first you need a smaller amount from them. Of course, once you get that smaller amount you take off and the person never sees the large promised amount. It actually has a name! It’s called the “advance fee fraud,” also known as the Nigerian Letter (also called the 419 fraud, Nigerian scam, Nigerian bank scam, or Nigerian money offer), the Spanish Prisoner, the black money scam as well as Russian/Ukrainian scam.

The Hindenburg was a German airship famous for being the largest ever built and its destruction at Lakehurst, New Jersey where it burst into flames, crashed, killed many, and single-handedly brought about the end of the airship era. There is video of the crash, which is spectacularly horrific, and I’m sure spawned a number of disaster movies all by itself. The duralumin framework of the airship was salvaged and shipped back to Germany where it was recycled and used in the construction of military aircraft for the Luftwaffe. All this combines to imply Liz’s sexual prowess is especially bad.

Typical baby changing tables in public washrooms probably aren’t rated for more than.. oh… 80 pounds of weight? I mean, how much does your typical child in diapers weight? 30 pounds max? Double that, a bit for extra safety margin, and… This isn’t a good idea.

Penn and Teller are an illusion and comedy Las Vegas headliner duo. They’re more associated with gory tricks, exposing frauds, performing clever pranks, atheism, and scientific skepticism, and less so with romance and foreplay, but Liz Lemon’s a weird duck, so maybe that’s her thing.

What’s New Pussycat? is one of Tom Jones’ more famous songs. Funny story. I used to sit right across from a guy whose name was actually Tom Jones, and every time he’s pick up his phone and say “Hello, Tom Jones,” I’d get another Tom Jones song stuck in my head. Three months with nothing but What’s New Pussycat?, It’s Not Unusual, and Delilah running through my head, and I still love Tom Jones. The singer, not the one I worked with. Though he was a good guy, too. He named his son Indiana. I’m not kidding.

Tom Jones (the singer) also has curly hair, which looks permed, but isn’t.

Electroshock therapy (a.k.a. electroconvulsive therapy) is when they basically electrocute your brain to help with severe mental issues (depression, mania (often in bipolar disorder), and catatonia), and, as you may imagine, is only used as a last resort. Oddly enough, there aren’t really any large negative side effects. I thought you’d end up a drooling vegetable or at least forget how to pee standing up with enough of this, but nope. It’s relatively benign. Weird.

Ahhh more flashbacks! Here we go:

• “How was the sex?/Fast and only on Saturdays. It’s perfect.” – from S01E06 “Jack Meets Dennis”
• “I have been sexually rejected by not one, but TWO guys who later went to clown college –” – from S01E18 “Fireworks”
• “…and one time at summer camp I kissed a girl on a dare, but then she drowned.” – from S03E02 “Believe in the Stars”
• “He was the first gay guy I ever kissed!” – from S03E05 “Reunion”
• “Standing up? What? How does that even work?” – from S01E12 “Black Tie”
• “You haven’t had sex?/Shhh! We have, of course, pleasured one another./No. Stop. I will leave.” – from S03E12 “Larry King”
• “Och, stop staying relationship./I’m sorry. I was going to say climax.” – from S05E01 “The Fabian Strategy”