The Funcooker

Everything Tracy Jordan Said

Fans of 30 Rock are familiar with Tracy Jordan’s episodic spurts of undecipherable wisdom. Aaron of Unlikely Words, certainly is, and he brought it upon himself to provide the fans everything Tracy Jordan said during season 3. That’s right, every single mind-numbing, yet somehow alluring, uttered word from the enigmatic star of TGS with Tracy Jordan.

“Look, when I was a kid growing up in the projects, I would look up at the stars and dream of going into space. Of escaping the slums. Of killing the Ewok!”

30 Rock: Jackie Jormp-Jomp

The funny chubby HR representative finally has a name. I have no idea how it’s spelled, but it’s pronounced “Weiner Slave.” And he was conducting a seminar on sexual harassment in the workplace. Brilliant. This was only his third appearance on the show, but he’s already ahead of Lutz on my list of favorite 30 Rock cursory characters. His moments were short and quick, but quite funny. And so went the rest of the episode. The overall stories were nothing special, but the episode was overloaded with rapid-fire one-liners and non-sequiturs that kept me laughing.

Jenna’s opening scene with Jack had the feeling of a twisted Burns and Allen skit. Jack, as always, played the straight man to Jenna’s ridiculous babbling. Jenna’s always been the weakest link in the main four, but this episodes, and this opening sequence especially, had her at a tolerable and funny level. From reading the focus group results upside down, her feud with Raven Simone and her night vision sex tape where you can “see that his buddy is robbing me,” Jenna’s delivery was bubbly, sharp and not the least bit self-aware. It’s taken three seasons, but it looks like the writers have found Jenna’s best voice.

Her “fake death” storyline was pretty straightforward, and basically served has the base to set up a number of quick hitting bits. There was, of course, the non-Janis Joplin biopic movie name change to “Jackie Jormp-Jomp.” Not having the life rights to Joplin has been a great running joke all season, and I loved seeing Jim Hendrixson playing the sax at Woodstocks. Other great bits included seeing the Kids Choice Awards having an “in memoriam” montage that included Rusty the Bear, Jenna getting bumped off the red carpet by Backpack from Dora the Explorer, and Peter Honrberger’s reaction upon hearing the fake news of Jenna’s death: “I don’t feel anything. What’s wrong with me?”

Meanwhile, Liz was going nuts not being able to be at work while serve her two-week suspension. I love that this was carried over from last week’s episode instead of just jumping ahead in the timeline to where Liz would already be back to work. I didn’t really care for the story arc, but again, it still offered up a number of great laughs. Besides the funny scenes with Weiner Slave, Liz had a great single camera monologue where she tried to convince herself she couldn’t spend a Friday relaxing, all while going through the motions of a relaxing day. It was a clever way to present what might normally be a montage of the day’s events. Her conversation with Jack about her situation made hilarious use of Indigo Girls references. And though I wasn’t enamored with the rich divorcee characters, I was pleasantly entertained when the whole things turned out to be a fight club.Kenneth and Tracy took a backseat in “Jackie Jormp-Jomp” with a small dancer love triangle story. Again, the arc was weak, but there were still a few great lines. Tracy’s honest “This is the point in my process where Liz Lemon steps in and takes care of everything” was a highlight, as was what followed: “Heavy is the head that eats the crayons.” So true, Tracy. So very true. Looking back overall, the stories in “Jackie Jormp-Jomp” were bland and had very little effect. But they worked as great backbones for the jokes and bits used to flesh them out.

-Robert Canning

Tina Fey spoofs Steve Jobs on 30 Rock.