The cast of 30 Rock returns on Thursday night with 30 Rock: A One-Time Special on NBC, with Tina Fey revealing how the special came to be.
Fey, who starred in and co-created the series with Robert Carlock, returns as Liz Lemon in the special, along with the rest of the 30 Rock cast.
Fey was joined by Jane Krakowski, Scott Adsit, Keith Powell, composer Jeff Richmond (who is also Fey’s husband) and Maulik Pancholy on Stars In the House on Wednesday, to discuss how the show came to be.
Special: The cast of 30 Rock returns on Thursday night with 30 Rock: A One-Time Special on NBC, with Tina Fey revealing how the special came to be
‘Every year, NBC and every network do a thing called the upfront presentations where all the new shows get announced, basically just a corporate presentation for advertisers,’ Fey began.
‘Obviously none of that can happen this year, and NBC thought it might be nice to broadcast their presentation, and they asked us to write a 30 Rock around that, which I guess makes sense because the show was about NBC and about television itself,’ she added.
‘We said sure, because what else were we doing. We wrote it really fast, we got five or six of the original writers and we we worked over Zoom. Robert Carlock and I wrote the script and it was all done within a month,’ Fey continued.
Upfront: ‘Every year, NBC and every network do a thing called the upfront presentations where all the new shows get announced, basically just a corporate presentation for advertisers,’ Fey began
Fey added that they all shot the special from their own homes, joking that she got to step out onto the street, which was ‘thrilling,’ as Krakowski described filming from home.
‘First of all, if any actor never appreciated the entire crew, this kind of thing makes you appreciate everyone who works on these things, because we were asked to do every job, hair, makeup, set decor, lighting,’ she said.
Krakowski added it was ‘quite ambitious’ to make the special, ‘more than just a Zoom,’ adding her nine-year-old son Bennet was her ‘home helper.’
Thrilling: Fey added that they all shot the special from their own homes, joking that she got to step out onto the street, which was ‘thrilling,’ as Krakowski described filming from home
‘When I needed a fan to hit on one lyric, the boy had it. I had trained him well. He kept saying “Quiet on set” when there was no one home,’ she joked.
Krakowski added it was ‘such a gift’ to see everyone again, and as soon as they did the read-through, ‘it just felt like all of our old energy.’
Fey also recalled how she created 30 Rock with co-creator Robert Carlock, while she was working at Saturday Night Live.
Lyric: ‘When I needed a fan to hit on one lyric, the boy had it. I had trained him well. He kept saying “Quiet on set” when there was no one home,’ she joked
‘I pitched a show to NBC and at the time it was a similar dynamic to Jack and Liz, but it was at a cable news company and back then, they said you don’t want to write about the news, it’s bad,’ she began.
‘Kevin Reilly, the head of NBC at the time, said, ‘Why don’t you write a show about SNL?’ I was like that’s just so lazy, but when I went to re-tool it, if I added Tracy Morgan to this, instead of a two-hander, it could be this crazy triangle of people who can agree and disagree and have different points of view,’ she added.
Fey also revealed the origins from one of the regular sketches on the show within the show, TGS, which came from former SNL performer/writer Al Franken.
Pitched: ‘I pitched a show to NBC and at the time it was a similar dynamic to Jack and Liz, but it was at a cable news company and back then, they said you don’t want to write about the news, it’s bad,’ she began.
‘When I was head writer at SNL, sometimes people who used to work there would send in sketches. Al Franken, more then once, would send in this long sketch called Fart Doctor,’ she began.
‘It was about a doctor who could tell what’s wrong with you by smelling their farts. And it was fine, but it was really long and it didn’t really play at the table,’ Fey added.
‘He would never believe that we wouldn’t use his sketch. So that was my payback for him, was I named the worst sketch on TGS Fart Doctor.’
Writer: ‘When I was head writer at SNL, sometimes people who used to work there would send in sketches. Al Franken, more then once, would send in this long sketch called Fart Doctor,’ she began
Maulik Pancholy also revealed he has a brief scene in the special, where he reveals what his character Jonathan been doing post-30 Rock.
‘Jonathan is now producing horror movies, based on his life experiences with Liz Lemon, so there you go,’ Pancholy said.
30 Rock: A One-Time Special airs Thursday, July 16 at 8 PM ET on NBC.
Brief: Maulik Pancholy also revealed he has a brief scene in the special, where he reveals what his character Jonathan been doing post-30 Rock
New job: ‘Jonathan is now producing horror movies, based on his life experiences with Liz Lemon, so there you go,’ Pancholy said