Conan O’Brien failed to manage expectations as he kicked off Sunday night’s “30 Rock” reunion, a benefit at Radio City Music Hall to celebrate the beloved sitcom’s 20th anniversary.
“Welcome to the biggest night in entertainment history!” » he declared from the stage to loud applause. “My name is Conan O’Brien and I’m known for exaggerating.”
His comments didn’t seem hyperbolic to the 5,000 rowdy fans in the audience, who spent a handsome sum of money and braved a rainstorm for the chance to watch the event live, which will never be televised. The crowd’s cheers were almost deafening as O’Brien introduced the cast — Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski — and they kept the enthusiasm going for surprise guests like Jon Hamm, Tom Hanks, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Will Forte and Brian Williams.
“What you’ll see tonight is, in true ’30 Rock’ fashion, an overly ambitious bag of nonsense,” Fey said. Created by Fey, “30 Rock,” which ran for seven seasons on NBC from 2006 to 2013, takes place behind the scenes of a fictional “Saturday Night Live”-style sketch show called “TGS With Tracy Jordan.” Fey plays head writer Liz Lemon, Baldwin plays NBC boss Jack Donaghy, and Krakowski and Morgan are actors Jenna Maroney and Tracey Jordan.
The cast reunion also served as a charity fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem, an organization they wanted to honor for two specific reasons. “We chose the Boys and Girls of Harlem because they are a great New York institution,” Fey said. “But also because we felt like we kind of owed them something because of the difficulties Tracy Jordan had filming the commercial he directed.” (In one memorable Season 5 episode, Tracy couldn’t remember his lines while filming a PSA for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.)
Before passing the mic to the cast, O’Brien took a moment to lament his all-too-brief role on the show (he played himself and once dated Liz Lemon) and teased Fey for casting a group of hot men as her character’s boyfriends.
“After my stellar debut, I was quickly relegated to being a cheap and easy off-camera reference. I was described as simply ‘this tall, lanky, ginger guy’ and ‘a giant lesbian,'” Conan said. “So who did getting to play Liz Lemon’s love interest? I’ll tell you who. Total units like Jon Hamm, Jason Sudeikis and Matt Damon. Drop a lot of acid, Tina?
Fey revealed that it was Jack McBrayer who suggested a 20th anniversary reunion. “He probably meant dinner with the cast. But I’m not a good listener, so here we are,” Fey said. “I wanted to party at Radio City because I like feeling small.”
She designed the evening to be “more than just a question-and-answer session,” filling the 90-minute event with elaborate musical numbers, game show and other “30 Rock”-themed skits, and moments for the cast to reminisce about making the beloved comedy.
“No one has ever seen this show before, including us, because we haven’t rehearsed it,” Fey said. “But one thing I can promise you, from the bottom of my heart, is that we will have microphone problems.”
If you couldn’t “go for it”, as Liz Lemon would say, Variety compiled the best moments of the evening:
Tom Hanks accepts the award for Best Guest Star on behalf of Elaine Stritch
“30 Rock” had no shortage of A-list guest stars, from Carrie Fisher (as fictional comedian Rosemary Howard) to Steve Martin (as Jack’s neurotic friend Gavin Volure) to Oprah Winfrey (as herself). “It was pretty wild,” said Judah Friedlander, who played “TGS” writer Frank Rossitano. “You never knew who would show up. One week it might be Al Gore, and the next week it might be Queen Latifah.” Katrina Bowden, who played Liz’s beautiful assistant Cerie, asked, “Wait, these are real people who lived?”
But only one bold name could win the coveted “Best Guest Star” award, which went to Elaine Stritch as Colleen Donaghy, Jack’s overbearing mother. She was (posthumously) nominated against Marcella Roy as young Liz Lemon, Sherri Shephard as Tracy’s wife Angie Jordan, and Kelsey Grammer as her heist-wielding alter ego, “Frajer”.
“Unfortunately, Elaine can’t be here tonight to accept her award because she died,” Bowden said, deadpan. (Strich died in 2014 at age 89.) “So here to accept on her behalf is two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks.”
Hanks was apparently lured to attend the party while he was a block away, near 30 Rockefeller Plaza. “I was on my way to dinner at the Rainbow Room,” Hanks said. “I eat there every evening to avoid Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax. »
’30 Rock’-stradomus
“30 Rock” is famous for predicting a bunch of things that turned out to be eerily accurate. “Even though we were exhausted and writing absurd nonsense, a lot of what we wrote actually came true,” the show’s writers said from the stage. Highlights of a montage of prescient jokes include Jenna’s “Free Lyle Menendez” tattoo (the brothers recently got an early parole hearing) and Tracy’s call with someone posing as Bill Cosby – “You have a lot of nerve calling me after what you did to my Aunt Paulette!” – long before the comedian was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women. Then there was Jenna’s weight-gaining role in the fictional “Mystic Pizza: The Musical” (which now exists and began a national tour this fall) and the iconic series-starrer “MILF Island,” which paved the way for the very real HBO Max reality series “FBoy Island.”
Tina and Tracy play “What’s my next line?” »
McBrayer put Fey and Morgan’s memories to the test, feeding them niche quotes from the show to see if they could remember the wacky things their characters said over the course of seven seasons. They started strong; Fey knew the reason why “there’s no party like a Liz Lemon party” because “a Liz Lemon party is obligatory.” And Morgan remembered the “seminal advice I wish I had received when I was your age” which was to “live every week like it’s Shark Week.”
And then things changed. Fey was perplexed by a clip of Liz, dressed as Princess Leia from “Star Wars” in an attempt to evade jury duty. “Because I can read minds?” » Fey guessed. (Her actual line was “Because I’m a hologram.”) But she bounced back with the memory of her character being on the “Big Sister” program. (“This little girl taught me how to use a tampon.”)
When Morgan couldn’t think of the punchline to “What is Horseville?” he turned to the audience to provide the answer. Everyone shouted, “Because I’m surrounded by naysayers. Pun intended!” Morgan couldn’t remember any other Tracy-isms, like: “I don’t understand why people like brunch. What’s the benefit of combining breakdancing and lunch?” and “I was just thinking how weird it is that we eat birds.” But he had a good excuse.
“Am I supposed to remember that?” » said Morgana. “You need to give me a break. I got hit by a truck!”
Dr. Leo Spaceman gives medical advice
Chris Parnell’s wacky doctor Leo Spaceman, promoted to Surgeon General of the United States at the end of the series, was on hand to “clear up any confusion regarding our official health recommendations.” A sample of his frequently asked questions: “Do vaccines cause autism? Or does autism cause billionaires?” (“You’re in trouble anyway, family.”) “Is it safe to eat lettuce yet?” (“No, that’s never been the case. Stick to the paleo food groups: beef, meat, and Zyns.”) “Can I give my spouse a GLP-1 without him knowing?” (“Now, any doctor will tell you: If you don’t know the law, you can’t break it.”) That should clear some things up!
“What would Jack Donaghy say?”
Since the series went on hiatus in 2013, “30 Rock” guest star and former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams admitted he missed Jack Donaghy’s pithy advice and commentary on the state of the world. One of the most pointed sketches of the evening – presented by Williams – involved Jack responding to major news events of the past 13 years.
— In 2014, Jack’s assistant Jonathan (Maulik Pancholy) told his boss that his emails had been leaked during the infamous Sony hack. “The one where I tried to drag Tracy into the women’s flick ‘Ghostbusters’?” Jack asks, to which Jonathan responds, “No, I never sent that one.” This is the one where you propose to give Jenna to Kim Jong Un if that helps.
— In 2017, Kenneth, the enthusiastic page played by McBrayer, revealed that he was “#MeToo’d by a lady on the film crew.” He elaborates by saying, “She asked me what my ideal last meal would be, and I said chickpeas and Mountain Dew.” She said, “Me too!” And then we congratulated each other so hard that my pants fell down.
– In 2021, Jack shamed the insurrectionists who stormed the capital on January 6. “When I defecated on Nancy Pelosi’s desk,” he said, “I looked her straight in the eyes like a man.”
— In 2023, Jonathan celebrated a box office rebound — “Sir, ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ were a huge success. The movie business is back! — and Jack retorts: “And more importantly, now, when you Google ‘Barbenheimer,’ that’s what comes up, not Cody Barbenheimer, the young man who mysteriously drowned in Lindsey Graham’s bathtub over Memorial weekend Day.
Jane Krakowski’s musical medley
Fresh off her run in “Oh, Mary!” On Broadway, Krakowski wowed the audience performing many of Maroney’s biggest hits. Dressed in a shimmering silver dress and flanked by dancers in page uniforms, she opened…
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