How 30 Rock Perfectly Manages Chaos 

I feel like 30 Rock and Arrested Development were two shows that had so many jokes jam-packed into each episode and scene, that you miss half of them when you first watch them. Small little character moments that happen in the background or in the side of shots just slip past you if you don't look for them. I feel bad for people that don't watch them.

Crazy how between 2009-2013 NBC aired Community, Parks and Rec, The Office, and 30 Rock all mostly on the same night.

Lemon: “Businesswoman.” Jack: I don’t think that’s a word.

Good God Lemon

Rural juror. That one cracks me up every time

It's largely because of Alec Baldwin's performance as Jack Donaghy that I have a high degree of tolerance and forgiveness for any of his later foibles. He was just so good in that show as that character, he's still maybe in my top 10 funniest characters on television for me personally, period.

"What a week huh?" "Lemon, it's Wednesday."

It makes me sad how few people I know watched this fantastic show.

4:38 "It's almost cartoonishly horrible" I think it's pretty straight up cartoonishly horrible

30 Rock as an _entire show_ is vastly underrated

30 rock been underrated forever, thanks for talking about it!

This episode and the one where Liz has jury duty and she starts to relate to the arsonist are both fantastic. Tina Fey did a great job with Liz's more unhinged moments.

I’m unnecessarily proud to have watched 30 Rock from the start back when it aired. But I’m also just glad the streaming age has been able to bring new audiences to underrated gems.

Turned around? Some of my favorite episodes are before this one. Hard Ball, Seinfeld Vision, Jack-tor, Greenzo, Rosemarys Baby, Cougars. This show deserves more respect. One of the highest jokes per minute out there. Tina Fey and Robert Carlock are the comedic writing GOATS!

I went to spend a weekend with my bf, and his PS3 wouldn't let us play a game til it updated, so I asked him to stick on a 30 Rock DVD I saw he had, coz I'd only just heard of it in passing and it sounded like fun. He and I are no longer together, but I'll always think of him fondly when I watch it. "Why are you wearing a tux?" "It's after 6, Lemon, what am I, a farmer?"

Every Christmas, I rewatch 30 Rock from start to finish on DVD. It's a good life.

You should do Arrested development. 2 of the absolute best seasons of comedy tv ever!

This and Community are the two most criminally underrated shows of a generation.

Sing Dem Blues White Girl: The Jackie Jormp Jomp Story

That show was like Saturday night ...... without the live....

30 Rock gets hidden behind the hype of The Office/Parks and Rec even though it aired at the same time. It was a really good absurdist show that took its self more seriously with more crazy plots like thgis one

Okay, I'm in. Never gave 30 Rock its fair shake. It's time.

I'm relatively late to 30 Rock, but the episode where this really syncs in for me is the one with Greenzo and Kenneth's Party. Those two plotlines are good enough to carry their own episodes, but they manage to be in the same episode and woven together well. Really masterful writing on 30 Rock I've gotta say.

Very few shows make me consistently laugh as much as 30 Rock does. It's incredible balance of low and highbrow humor along with memorable characters and maybe the best use of celebrity guest stars I've ever seen on television. I actually don't think there's a weak season of the show. They all range from good to great

This show is so great! Love Jack!

Great series and great video, thanks nerdstalgic!

YOU'LL ALL HAVE CHINS! Easily my favorite line of the whole series.

I just finished 30 Rock a few says ago. A truly underrated show!

Wow! Perfect timing!! Ive been having a 30 Rock marathon!

You picked a great example, from a great show, and offered great commentary, which makes this a great video essay.

In Sandwich Day, the sandwiches are an extraordinary and difficult to acquire version of an ordinary item, while in Pretzel Day, the pretzels seem quite ordinary and only distinguished by the fact that they're free.

This show is so sadly underappreciated. I'm happy more ppl are catching on to its greatness. It is also superior to the office in literally ery single way. There I said it.

I think Leap Day is an even better example of the show managing chaos.

"YOU'LL ALL HAVE CHINS!" its just hilarious

I’ve watched this show so many times I know what the characters are saying in the muted parts

Let's not forget my favorite running gag... "rural juror". This show is so clever in so many levels.

I rewatched a few episodes from season 1 and 2 recently, and this show still holds up and aged very well.

I love having Nerdstalgic videos being so frequent.

30 rock is one best tv shows that people forget about which is shame because it inspired so many sitcoms who after 30 rock.

Yay another one!

I love this show

"Good God woman you're eating foil." Best line of the whole series and encapsulates Liz. I am Lizzing

Hey! My name is Andrew Heilman, I’ve been watching your videos for a couple of months and I love all of your videos! I am an aspiring Screenwriter and Cinematographer and I love your take on reviewing film and television. Keep up the great work!

Nice! God I love this show, great video! Though I don't know anyone in the universe who would ever say 30 Rock is "preachy" haha. Ask anyone, that adjective would never come up when describing this show, so I'm not quite sure what you mean by it. But this is a fantastic episode. Certainly not my favorite per se, but really great. Leap Day Williams comes to mind as incredible, but that's the thing with this show, each episode at least guarantees you with a massive belly laugh. The show constantly has multiple episodes a season utilize this multiple branching plotlines that converge, and it does so to master effect. I wish more people would watch this show, on pure joke level, its easily the funniest show I've ever seen.

"You'll all have chins!" is one of the funniest lines in television history.

“Funnier isn’t always better.” You’re gonna have to sell me that harder

I feel like all of 30 Rock is underrated This is the first video essay I've ever seen about it

Great analysis, Mate🙌🙌🙌

Had to watch this episode after. Honestly its best when eating at the same time.

I just finished watching 30 Rock for the first time. This episode was a favorite of mine.

Wasn't this also the episode that won Tina Fey an Emmy? Makes a lot of sense, both on the creative writing but also acting in it.

6:03 Death of a Salsaman sounds like one of those unreasonably hot hot sauces

I miss sitting down to watch this show. :( Thanks for the analysis.

Literally my favorite episode of the show

Jeez now I’m going to have to re watch 30Rock

one of my favorite episodes is the one where they play poker and kenneth is amazing. also the ‘milf island’ episode is absolutely classic.

Best part of 30 Rock was the guy that plays “Mayhem” in those insurance commercials calling Liz Lemon a ‘dummy.’ I still call girls that to this day

"What am I, a farmer?"

Ok completely off topic but when is the As told by Ginger ep coming lol? Great video though, keep up the amazing work

Amazing show!

I started watching 30 rock 4 days ago finally reached this episode....

What a great video. My personal favorite episode is the one where Tracy attempts to write a p0rn video game and Geiss tries to find the next CEO for GE. It always struck me as another balance of the two best elements of the show and is one of my favorite episodes

Could you do a video on Community at some point? I love your content no matter what, it just seems right up your alley.

Your candance changed, it's a bit faster.

As a Teamster I know exactly when my friends get to this episode when watching 30 Rock

“You used Ghostbusters for evil!”

I really related to this episode because I know that sandwich shop.

I love this show i wish i knew more people that wacth it

Best comedy.

People forget that 30 Rock singlehandedly took out Aaron Sorkin's post West Wing series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" which was on opposite. That's pretty sick--Nobody knew who Tina Fey was and Sorkin was sitting on a mountain of Emmy's and Oscar's by then... 30 Rock took them out in one season.

The actor at 2:42 has a great podcast called Hollywood Handbook. Needed to shout it out

They're all good even the banned episodes ESPECIALLY the banned episodes. Hopefully they can take there heads out of their butts and unblock those episodes so people can enjoy them.

Underrated? THIS EPISODE WON AN EMMY!

🍴"You'll *all* have chins!!"🏆

Alex baldwin is... Someone I don't want to know in person but absolutely applaud his craft. He is good at what he does.

You'll all have chins is something I want to say to my co-workers on a regular basis, if they'd only understand the reference.

Liz: "Criss - 2 S's, no H" Jack: "WHY LEMON WHY?!"

WHERE'S MY MAC AND CHEESE???

I would love to see a breakdown on a Nathan for you or a Reno 911! Episode

Wow is It me or has nerdstalgic been releasing his videos really quickly these past few months.

I know someone who works on the SNL crew and he says sandwich day is real.

Brooklyn 99 next, it has yet to be talked about on mainstream RU-vid

My favorite episode is “Apollo Apollo.” But I’m far from able to break it down as thoroughly as Nerdstalgic.

"You will _ALL_ have chins!"

My fav episode...where's my sandwich 🥪!!! And Kenneth's party 🎉

6:03 Death of a Salseman.

This show compared to its fellow NBC sitcoms is so good and I feel like no one cares about it online

to me the perfect episode is the one where they try to find a good name for the funcooker and they use scrabbles letters to randomly pick a name, but every attempt results in a very offensive or dirty word hahahaha priceless!

Dr. Spaceman

❤️

I wish we could get syndicated re-runs of great shows like this WITHOUT subscribing to a damn streaming [dis]service. Entertainment used to get beamed to everyone's TVs - FREE, just had to tolerate the commercials (yeah, that's called top-up your beverage time).

In 2010, I had not seen this show yet. But I must share how I discovered it. I attended a screen writing conference at Emery University in Atlanta, GA (I wasn't a student, it was an open thing). It was hosted by one of the head writers for Dawson's Creek. One of the things he wanted every one to do was pitch an episode of a TV show. One of the actual students of Emery attending this conference pitched an episode of 30 Rock. Even after watching the whole series, I still consider this 18 year old's pitch to be the greatest episode of 30 Rock we never saw I want to share it with people. It opens with Tracy and Jenna in a limo together as he takes her to an exclusive club. Suddenly, the door opens, Jenna gets dragged out of the car, and Tracy tells his driver to get out of there as fast as possible. Tracy acts odd for a little while. People notice Jenna is missing, someone says they saw her leaving with Tracy, and he finally cracks. He confesses that he bet and lost Jenna during a high stakes mancala game. Lemon tells him and the writing group to do whatever it takes to get her back. They bring Two-fer because he's good at mancala. Once they arrive though, they hit a snag. The head of the mancala ring accepted the bet because he and his entourage are Jenna super fans. After a full day of being worshipped, Jenna doesn't want to leave. But the leader agrees to play Two-fer. Two-fer loses but the writing team swaps Jenna with Kenneth in a wig while the entourage is distracted by the game but she keeps trying to escape and return to her fans while they make their escape. I don't remember what happened after that, but the entire room was laughing their heads off with every single plot beat that guy gave us. It was amazing and made me watch the show as soon as I got home because I had to see the show where this was a viable episode.

I don't think this video actually said anything... it was just an 8 minute explanation of the plot of the episode. There were some observations thrown in, but I left this wondering what the narrator was trying to say.

The amount of times I threaten people with '.... giving them a chin....' is greatly outweighed by the amount of people who actually get it. Only one person has gotten it thus far, and she is my best friend....

Community will always be my favorite sitcom, probably favorite show ever but this is definitely on my top 5, maybe 2nd. I get not everybody shares this view but it was truly just so hilarious to me. Also Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy was EXCELLENT and the first time I watched it when I was younger I wanted to be like him, respected, successful, but still has his funny moments

Watching this video while eating a pretty amazing sandwich. Yeah I get it.

Plz do parks and rec. So many good episodes its hard to choose

5:48 - "What? Not fucking Brian Dennehy." "Get the fuck outta here" I can now put a face to that name, never thought to Google it but now I know.

5:53 I know exactly who Brian Dennehy is, he's the guy who's not Brian Boitano

This episode always made me want one of those sandwiches then Babish had to go and make one