Tina Fey and the cast of the acclaimed sitcom have returned for a lockdown special that addresses recent controversies and a different
comedy landscape
As a promotion for the
Super Bowl in 2012,
NBC higher-ups corralled all of that TV season’s talent for a video rendition of the toe-tapper Brotherhood of Man from Broadway classic How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Notwithstanding the jack-in-the-box horror of the brief shot of an Apprentice-era
Donald Trump, selling this massive corporate interest as one big happy family would prove a big pill for America to swallow, and so the producers of this segment wisely turned to the cast of 30 Rock. The sitcom’s characters opened the segment with some sound one-liners about executives hoarding pay, and more importantly, established a crucial tone of self-referential self-deprecation. The show had never been shy about the incestuous love affair between art and commerce, and so it proved a workable vessel for a commercial that needed to be delivered with a no-BS wink. If we’re going to sell to you, the opening tacitly stated, the least we can do is show a little shame and get some laughs out of it.
Related: Parks and Recreation: was the quarantine reunion episode worth it?