“Plan B”

Nice one;) God’s work: referring back to (supposedly) the first story ever told, when Adam and Eve sinned and God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden. Of course this was before clothes (i.e.: modesty) was invented, thus the naked.

“Simba Rafiki click click click” is Tracy’s sad attempt at an African language. He also called the language “African” as if there is only one. There are about 1500. “Simba” and “Rafiki” are two main characters from Disney’s 1994 movie The Lion King, being a lion who’s the son of the ruler of the land and a baboon wise man respectively. There are a few languages with clicks in them, including  Xhosa and Zulu, but all probably adopted the clicks from the Khoisan languages. I found a YouTube video giving a bit a basic language lesson in Nama, one of the Khoisan languages.

Ahhh trotting out the ol’ “oxymoron” jokes this early, huh? I’ll just leave those alone. It’s not like they’re original enough to need explanation.

The Ivy League is actually an athletic conference and is made up of Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. I always thought it was just a generic name for really high-end US universities. And the implication here is that a Chinese guy can’t possibly be a good football player.

I just love this. Power wagging?? Jack’s version does look far more powerful than Liz’s. He’s an old hand at this power wagging, you can just tell. You get a strong impression he’s wagged down the likes of Donald Trump and maybe some sour, disapproving old women.

TNT is a competing network and it runs the show Rizzoli & Isles which I have never even heard of before. Granted, I’m a little insulated in my exposure to new TV, which I hear about only though word-of-mouth or some online recommendation. I’ve just now sort of convinced myself I’m not actually the best person to be running this site;) ANYWAY. Rizzoli & Isles is about a police detective (Jane Rizzoli) and a medical examiner (Dr. Maura Isles).

Named after the Twinkie (golden, of little substance, and full of cream), a twink is indeed “a young or young-looking gay man (in his late teens or early twenties) with a slender build, little or no body hair, and no facial hair.” (Thank you, Wikipedia.) They’re the opposite of the bear.

Apparently gays have an entire set of codes they use online to describe themselves (like NKS: Naive Kinky Shaved). Check this out (also from Wikipedia):

An example bear code is:

B4 s- m g++ w d+c t+ f+ k+ r e+(+?)

Reasonably thick beard, cub tendencies, definite Daddy, (endowment) gets attention, above average fur, loves groping/pawing/touching, (Kinkiness) loves most things, (Muscle) some definition/Blue collar, spends some time outdoors, (sex) plays under special circumstances, tall, bear with a tummy

The list of stories shown on “Gay SportsCenter: The Countdown” are:

• Quest for the Final Four
• Ted Williams Melts
• NHL Divisional Breakdown
• Celtics-Spurs Finals
• AL Central Preview
• NHL Mock Draft Results
• Albert Pujols’ Contract

Yeah I’m not so good with sports. I’ll just leave these lying here for you.

[Update:] Reader Blake pointed out Albert Pujols was actually mentioned before. This season. Shows how good my memory is;) In S05E05 “Reaganing,” Jack mentioned that Liz was “the Albert Pujols of having problems.” Different episode writer, though.

Implying the TWINKS network has a bondage-themed show. I’m going to go ahead and suggest another one: “Will It Fit”?

There aren’t a lot black women’s colleges. Wikipedia says eight, but the list is probably incomplete/out of date.

Harriet Tubman School or Nursing: Not a thing, but Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was real: an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War.

Pete’s jokes sound a little forced this episode. Dead Poet’s Society was a 1989 movie starring Robin Williams where he played a teacher who “inspires his students to change their lives of conformity through his teaching of poetry and literature,” and subsequently gets fired for his unorthodox approach.

So weird. I love it. Looks like she has a Jailbird Jenna Baby, a Clown Jenna Baby, and the “non offensive” racial stereotype Asian Jenna Baby. I suppose it could have been a little more racist if the doll had huge thick glasses, buck teeth, a conical Asian hat, and a single long pigtail, but not by much. Plus Jenna would have never gone for the face being less than “beautiful with a slight hint of Asian.”

The version of that line I’m more familiar with is “Hey, G.I., sucky sucky five dollar,” which probably didn’t make the network censor cut.

[Update:] Reader Deb points out: QVC shopping channel – it’s the same place that Joan Rivers flogs her costume jewellery tat.

Okay I used Google Translate on the subtitles to get the Dutch, and I think I got most of it but I think a few words were different. Oh, by the way, I don’t speak Dutch. Just so you know.

[Update:] Whoa! We have Dutch readers;) Jasper wrote in:

My native language is Dutch and this is what the actice says: “Ik zie een hand die deze mes opheft… het is heel donker, er is een houten klomp en een windmolen! De moordenaar is de eerste minister!”

language police:
the person who wrote this isn’t dutch, “deze mes” should be “dit mes” (~these knife / this knife)
the girl who acted isn’t dutch, she has a great accent but some words like minister are off
and the dutch translation of mentalist is… mentalist 🙂

Looks like a take-off on CBS’ The Mentalist TV show. I know, and I said I didn’t speak Dutch, yet somehow figured that out from the Dutch “De Mentaalist” title. What can I say, I’m a quick study.

And the Dutch are stereotypically known for wooden shoes (clogs), windmills, and tulips. What, no mention of tulips? [Spoiler: Wait for it.]

Ooo nanotechnology! One of my favourite topics. Within 30 years we should have endless free nanobots that can self-replicate and make us anything we can imagine from (basically) free raw materials. It’s pretty much the end of scarcity and poverty. I’m not kidding, it’s going to be amazing. If you’re rich please fund some of this research as 30 years is too long to wait. For an excellent (and entertaining) primer, check out K. Eric Drexler’s (free online) book Engines of Creation.

As for “concentrations,” it’s true. Harvard actually calls them that.

What the hell? How did this reference get into 30 Rock?? iCarly is a kid’s show running on Nickelodeon about “a girl named Carly Shay who creates her own web show called iCarly with her best friends Sam and Freddie,” a.k.a. Fredward. Fine. It’s a reference. But totally the wrong demographic! How would anyone who watches 30 Rock have watched iCarly?? Just bizarre.

I remember Simon from a previous episode but I can’t remember which one. Anyone? [Update:] Reader Jasper comes to the rescue: Simon’s first appearance was in S04E05 The Problem Solvers. Jack offers Liz the chance to star in a new television pilot based on her “Dealbreakers” sketch and Liz signs with a talent agent to explore other options before agreeing to work with Jack.

And everything does have vampires. I walked by Chapters the other day. They had a “Vampires” table.

Not a thing.

My Trinidiadian creole’s about as good as my Dutch. Anyone knows if I spelled that even close to correctly? I can’t find a reference to this anywhere.

John Philip Sousa wrote 136 marches! No surprise he was known as the “march king.” A few I recognize are:

• “Stars and Stripes Forever” (1896) (National March of the United States)
• “The Liberty Bell” (1893) (credits theme for Monty Python’s Flying Circus)

Okay I went through some more but there are so many. And you pretty much recognize all of them because they’ve all been used in old movies or cartoons or something.

Ahhh the football phone. Such an 80s standby, alongside the always classic Garfield phone, huge lips phone, “car” phone, and all manner of other novelty phones.  I don’t know if you can really get them anymore since the death of the land line, except maybe on eBay. The modern replacement would be the football cell phone case.

And the usual expression is something like “pardon my French, but you’re an asshole!”

Knight Rider! Man I loved that show as a kid. Once when I was eight I took photos of the screen and typed up a “report” on Knight Rider. This was before I’d ever done a report in school. That’s how much I loved it. I think I just fatally dated myself. Anyway, I also watched a bunch of the original TV series a while back. Don’t do this. Just let your fond 80s memories of Knight Rider and Michael Knight remain intact and unmolested.

The original Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was created in 1936 to promote, yes, Oscar Meyer weiners. The 1952 version was awesome, but the first one in 1936 was basically just a giant wiener on a wheeled chassis, and had a band that read “Oscar Mayer’s german wieners.” Hmm, I wonder what happened after 1936 for them to drop the “German wieners” from their label?

Black Swan is a 2010 movie starring Natalie Portman. Not sure what Hank thought this would be, but it’s a ballet-based psychological thriller.

Hmmm, tricky. My best guess is Hank, being a traditionalist, is talking about an old western, and “fella with no hair” has to be Yul Brynner, so I’m guessing the movie is maybe the 1960 Magnificent Seven. He was in a few more westerns, but that was the most famous.

Nice! 30 Rock loves them their Star Wars references and so do I. This one’s from Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope, when the Death Star captures the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader senses Obi-Wan’s presense. Devin even gets the cape right.

That’s just hilarious. The actor who played Jaws?? Oh, writers who wrote this episode… You so funny! Jaws was released in 1975. 1975!! My Lord that’s a long time ago.

Ah the old political jokes. Jack, the staunch conservative, would never support Obama. The speech shown was made by Obama shortly after the May 20, 2010 vote by the senate “for legislation designed to reshape U.S. financial regulation and create a new consumer-protection agency to prevent abuses in mortgage, automobile and credit card lending.” Here’s the video from the White House of that speech (from a different angle). You can see there’s actually no one at all next to the president, so all four people including Banks were composited into the shot.

John Paulson is the president of the Paulson & Co. hedge fund. He’s a big financial muckity muck, but I’m sure you gleaned that from the dialogue. Let’s see… anything else interesting in the Wikipedia article? He’s the world’s 45th richest man, worth $12.4 billion by the end of 2010. Oh and he made a tidy profit during the big 2007/2008 crash, so he’s brilliant, evil, or both. And normally it’s just a “sweet sixteen” party for when a girl turns sixteen.

IHOP = International House of Pancakes. I don’t think I’ve ever been there despite the fact I love pancakes. Who doesn’t love friggin pancackes??

Jack was hilarious in this scene! His subtle shift into a catty, gossipy girl and the his derisive snicker at the end were awesome.

Hehe… LinkedIn.com is a social network that concentrates on professional relationships. You usually list what you do for a career, the previous jobs you’ve had, your skills, etc, and you make relationships with other professionals you know or have worked with. It’s like an online resume and a businessman’s Facebook all in one. Although the implication here is if you’re unsuccessful enough to need to be on LinkedIn, you’re career’s already dead.

This episode was a little weird on the Jack’s daughter angle. It constantly pointed out Jack wasn’t with his daughter, wasn’t paying enough attention to her, or was never home. But even closer to the end where he did an about face there was still no Avery and no Liddy.

Mmmm Hawaiian pizza! Seems to me you either love it or hate it. “Fruit!? On pizza?! It’s an abomination!” Not true! It’s delicious. It’s the most popular pizza in Australia. The origins are actually either German or Canadian, but it arose in the 60s.

[Update:] Reader Blake has a good point: They’re a bit weird sometimes with continuity, like here Hank had a heart attack because he saw pineapple on a pizza but in S05E13 “¡Qué Sorpresa!” he was happy he went to an Indian restaurant and tried naan bread.

I’ve still never seen an Amazing Race. It’s a CBS TV show pitting teams of two against each other in a race around the world. It’s been running since 2001 and there are lots of international variants.

The “commenting” thing refers to these certain websites on the Internet that are devoted to specific shows. People find them online, read up on trivia or additional information on the show, characters, and episodes, and gather together in a community to discuss aspects of the show. Like you’re doing. Right. Now.

Took me awhile to find the Olive she’s talking about, but it’s West Olive Avenue in Los Angeles, specifically Burbank. And yes, it just turns into Bartham Road as it goes past Griffith Park.

The Rodney King reference is from March 3, 1991, when he (an African-American) was beaten by (white) police officers and the entire thing was caught on tape. The officers were brought up on charges but acquitted, leading to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which Liz seemed to have stumbled into some time during it’s six-day span.

The Lascaux cave paintings in France were discovered in 1940 by four teenagers, and are thought to be over 17,000 years old. The paintings depict stunning images of more than 2000 animals, figures, and abstract signs, and has been added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The Sing-Off is an NBC television singing competition featuring a cappella groups and hosted by, yes, Nick Lachey, formerly of the boy band 98 Degrees.

Aaron Sorkin, American screenwriter, producer and playwright, did indeed write the 1992 movie A Few Good Men, wrote for the 1999-2006 TV series The West Wing, and wrote the 2011 movie The Social Network. He also wrote the 2006 TV series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which was cancelled after a single season.

I’m guessing the “walk with me” bit is something they do on West Wing all the time. Never seen it, but it seems… presidential.

[Update:] Reader Blake mentions: That is certainly a presidential walk and apparently a Sorkin trademark, they made fun of it in like the first season, I think episode S01E04 “Jack The Writer,” Liz and Pete walk in a circle ending up where they began like they did here, they did it a lot in the West Wing apparently.

Reader CBH also points out: Oh, also, Studio 60 was, in some ways, a competitor to 30 Rock, as their subject material was virtually identical (30 Rock: sitcom about an SNL-like show, Studio 60: dramedy about an SNL-like show), and were picked up in the same season. Before they aired, many thought that one would be picked up but not another.

That would explain why Sorkin was so annoyed by Liz’s jab;) Delicious!

Okay I’ve never seen this show. Someone’s going to have to help me out here. Does Nick Lachey have a penchant for screaming at the contestants?

Ahhh Angry Birds! How many hours have I lost to you, you insidious little App. For the 3% of you out there who haven’t played it, Angry Birds is a simple physics game. You lob various kinds of birds at structures in order to destroy them. Simple, right? But OH how it sucks up time into a black, black void.

And Facebook poking? I forgot about that. Do people still do that? Facebook even has a page explaining poking. You go on someone’s profile and click the Poke button and it shows up on their wall. Telling them that someone poked them. It’s retarded. If you still do this, just stop it.

11-4 is Theme 11 Level 4 of Angry Birds. If you’re truly interested here’s a writeup and a walkthrough. The green guys, after you launch them to the right of the screen will boomerang back to the left side when you tap.

Nick Lachey used to be a member of the boy band 98 Degrees, who released 12 albums. Lachey, since leaving the band, has released two albums on his own.

Friday Night Lights was a 2006-2011 TV series which, during the 2007-2008 writer’s strike, it was speculated it would be cancelled, leading fans to send in light bulbs to “keep the lights on.” It wasn’t cancelled for another 3 years.

Roswell was a 1999-2002 TV series fans tried to save by sending in bottles of Tabasco sauce, a favourite of the show’s aliens. They failed.

Entourage started in 2004 and is still running. It’s a poorly written show targeted at douchebags. No one’s ever tried to save it.

Delicious! Devin’s poor attempts at saving face. “Organ farms” is pretty awesome, though. Evokes Matrix-like images of human battery fields.

“Gaybies”?? Totally a thing, but first I’d heard of it. Brilliant. Though mixing your sperm together with a black man kind of kills the mystery of whose baby it is, no?

Ahhh more gay set ups. Jack is really hilariously terrible at this.

I love this bizarre powerful-titans-of-industry with all of their bravado and scheming filtered through baby talk. It’s a hilarious theme all throughout this episode.

This was just weird. Granted, I’m not a dog owner but I’ve been around enough to know this isn’t a thing. If you did this to a dog I’m pretty sure it would bite you. I’d definitely bite someone if they tried this on me.

I love Hank. Big, goofy, naive, one-note bastion of positivity. There was an implication from an earlier episode that he may be related to Kenneth in some way, and it really comes out now and then. Take Kenneth, age him 30 years (if that’s even possible), give him 30 years of business experience, and you end up with Hank.

Mykonos?? Like the Greek island?

And brilliant writing, this: having Hank and Jack saying the same line at the same time but with completely different meaning was great.

I just love Hank’s baby-friendly versions of Vietnam war stories.

VC = Viet Cong = USA’s enemies in Vietnam.

The movie Lean on Me came out in 1989 and starred Morgan Freeman as a high school principal whose school would be taken over by the government if he didn’t improve the students’ test scores. It was based on a real-life story, and the principal (Joe Clark) got the nick name of “Crazy Joe” Clark by using a bullhorn and a baseball bat within his school to terrorize and intimidate the students as well as the faculty.

In 2001, a week after the September 11 attacks, letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two Democratic U.S. Senators, killing five people and infecting 17 others. The anthrax was delivered in letters as a fine powder. Just… don’t mail anything that even remotely resembles that.

Thorax?? The thorax is basically the ribcage area, not including the limbs. But it’s usually a term for an animal body part.

And oh look they rounded out their Dutch stereotype by mentioning tulips!

This was hilarious. Personally I like the Transformers movies, but I’m a nerd so giant robots always garner a certain number of points, but objectively they were pretty poor. Michael Bay, the director, is known for loud and fairly plot-free movies, culminating in Transformers 2, which Bay even admits the writing was crap (but promises number 3 will be better). They still make assloads of money, though, so expect endless sequels.

This really reminds me of Over Sexed Rugsuckers from Mars. Whaaa? You’ve never heard of Over Sexed Rugsuckers from Mars?! How can this happen? How sad for you! What you should do is go out right now and find a copy of this movie. Here. Here’s a link to it on Amazon. It’s only six bucks. If you like cult-classic, super-cheezy, so bad they’re good movies this one’s perfect.

Funny;) Travel agents are all but dead thanks to the like of Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, and Kayak.com. Why pay someone a commission when you can probably find a better deal yourself? Unless you have lots of spare money and are planning a particularly meandering trip and you have a really good travel agent. Then okay. Go ahead.

American auto workers used to be the last name in quality. Until the Japanese came in with their oh-so-fancy robots and kaizen philosophies and, despite high trade tariffs designed to keep their imports out, still kicked everyone’s ass. To make up for it they moved a bunch of manufacturing plants to the US and Canada. But if you’re still sore about the whole thing, watch in the next few years as the Korean manufacturers do the same thing to them.

And the saxophone solo! Mainstay of 80s rock. Oh how I miss you, saxophone solo. Some dude actually put up an entire site devoted to the 80s saxophone solo and it’s progression through the ages. Worth a visit.

[Update:] Reader Blake pointed out I forgot to mention Friendster,com! It was an early competitor to Facebook. It’s not quite dead, but not quite alive, either. Kind of the walking dead of social networks.

Man Will Arnet (Devin Banks) can deliver a line;) “Do you have any idea how strong I’ll look?” with that victorious twinkle in his eye. Love it! He was brilliant in Arrested Development, too.

Trading Places is a 1983 comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy as an upper class commodities broker and a homeless street hustler respectively who are forced to… trade places. Thus the bum.

Dora the Explorer is a children’s character with a TV show, clothing, toys, kid’s furniture… well really they’ve whored her out and there are very few things you can’t buy with Dora’s face (and creepily almost-missing nose) on. Dora is to girls what Thomas the Tank Engine is to boys, and Benny the Bull is her friend. Though, considering how little I can find on the Internet, not a very popular friend.

Liz? Not hungry? This may be the first time in recorded 30 Rock history. Mark this day!

So, clearly Tracy knows nothing about Africa. He’s just making crap up. I can’t find any reference to them on the Internet, but I swear some books I had as a kid had juju monsters and gum gum trees in them. The horsicorn is awesome, though. Plenty enough awesome for everyone.

Real place! Federici’s Pizza is in New Jersey. Though I don’t know if it’s the one they were talking about considering they’re an hour drive from 30 Rock.

I love Liz’s version of a hooker. It’s perfect and incredibly hilarious.

[Update:] Reader Blake points out they love using the word goon in 30 Rock;) Check out some previous favourites.

Blake also mentions that “when Kenneth freeze-frames at the end, that’s a reference to Night Court. In S03E03 “The One with the Cast of Night Court,” he reveals he was a huge fan of Night Court and when his storyline wraps up (about 19:24) he does the same pose and freeze frames and Tracy worries if he is okay. I think at the end of the show they’d just freeze frame everyone but not like Kenneth who is just holding still while the camera rolls.”

More random things Tracy knows that are vaguely African:

• Ladysmith Black Mambazo: All-male South African a cappella singing group.
• Paul Simon: A singer whose album Graceland was inspired by South African township music.
• Invictus: A 2009 movie about South Africa, Nelson Mandela, and rugby. The title Invictus may be translated from the Latin as undefeated or unconquered, and is the title of a poem by English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) (Wikipedia).

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 movie set in Botswana and South Africa about a bushman whose band knows nothing of the world beyond and his encounters with the world beyond. Tracy truly is a credit to his African-American heritage.

Bird Internet!