By Curt Schleier
Some years ago I spoke with the then head of HBO about The Larry Sanders Show. It was a funny, creative take off of a late-night show and I couldn’t understand why it attracted so small an audience. He suggested that the program might be too hip for the room. That is, it was too in, too chic, too Hollywood for the great unwashed. For want of a better explanation I accepted it.
But now it’s what 15 years later. So how to explain the crummy ratings last season for 30 ROCK, the brilliant Tina Fey sitcom? By her own admission, only about 18 people watched the show last season. (Actually the numbers were higher – between 5 million and 6 million folks tuned to her show – but that’s hardly a drop in the TV bucket.) Could it be the Larry Sanders Effect? I doubt it.
Times have changed a lot since then. The great unwashed are more sophisticated. They’ve seen London. They’ve seen France. They’ve seen Brittney without her underpants. There isn’t a rationale explanation, so there’s no sense dwelling on it. Suffice it to say that the show is back for its second season, and is better than ever. And considering it was the best comedy on the air last season – it did win the Emmy – that’s saying a lot
Like the rest of us, THE GIRLIE SHOW with Tracy Jordan is back from hiatus. Producer and head writer Liz Lemmon (Fey) broke up with her boy friend, but no one cares. They have their own problems.
Tracy (Tracy Morgan) was caught with a transvestite hooker, so his wife left him. But it’s all mistake. “I minister to the transvestite people,” he explains. He was just trying to get her into computer school.
Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) spent the summer on Broadway starring in a musical. Unfortunately it was Mystic Pizza: The Musical, which required her to eat 32 slices a week. She now looks like a small houseboat.
Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) has thus far kept his heart attack a secret from network executives. But he is still as ambitious as ever and his track record this summer was extraordinary. His reality shows were big hits.
There was MILF Island – “25 super-hot moms and 50 eight grade boys. No rules.” And who could forget America’s Next Top Pirate?
But Jack has come up with an even greater coup. He was able to digitally re-master the old Seinfeld shows removing and saving Seinfeld so that his image can now be inserted into the network’s top hits. Seinfeld stars in HEROES. Seinfeld on LAW & ORDER.
Donaghy feels he’s safe, but Seinfeld hears about it and returns. “I was vacationing in Europe in a country only rich people know about.”
They reach a detente – payment of a large sum plus free plugs for Seinfeld’s BEE movie, so everyone is happy. Lemon spotted and buys the perfect wedding dress. And she really is beautiful in it. Now all she needs is…well.
The point is if you’re one of those people who never saw the show, go out and buy or rent the DVD. If you missed this first episode, it’s available at NBC.com. This is like hearing about IBM when it was $5 a share. Trust me. You’ll thank me in the morning.