30 Rock (season 1)

season of television series

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30 Rock (2006–2013) is a primetime sitcom about a sketch comedy show originally called The Girlie Show and its head writer Liz Lemon.

Jack: [to Liz] I like you. You have the boldness of a much younger woman.

Tracy: Yeah yeah yeah, I like risky. See, me and you, we play the game. We know how to be acceptable. Hello great meeting, I drink coffee please. This show is our chance to break the shackles cause the white dudes want to see us fail.
Liz: What white dudes?
Tracy: All of 'em. Jack Donaghy. General Electric. George Bush. Karl Robe.
Liz: Karl Robe, you say?
Tracy: Affirmative action was designed to keep women and minorities in competition with each other to distract us while white dudes inject AIDS into our chicken nuggets. That's a metaphor.
Liz: Sure.
[Jenna and Liz are discussing actor Tracy Jordan.]
Jenna: There is no way that I am working with that guy. Do you know that he once got arrested for walking naked through LaGuardia?
Liz: Yeah.
Jenna: And that he once fell asleep on Ted Danson's roof?
Liz: Yeah, Tracy has mental health issues.
Jenna: He bit Dakota Fanning on the face.
Liz: When you hear his version, she was kinda askin' for it.

Tracy: So, how you doing over there, Theo Huxtable?
Toofer: I'm doing good.
Tracy: Nah-uh. Superman does good; you're doing well. You need to study your grammar, son.
[Tracy leaves the room.]
Frank: [to Toofer] Wow, that was embarrassing for you.
Tracy: But I want you to know something... You and me, it's not gonna be a one-way street. 'Cause I don't believe in one-way streets. Not between people, and not while I'm driving.
Kenneth: Oh, okay.
Tracy: So, here's some advice I wish I woulda got when I was your age: Live every week like it's Shark Week.

Tracy: Dress every day like you're going to get murdered in those clothes.
Pete: So, first you thought he was illiterate and now you think he's lazy? Liz, you are racist.
Liz: No, Tracy took advantage of my white guilt, which is supposed to be used only for good, like over-tipping and supporting Barack Obama.

[Jack in an internal GE training video being shown to the writers.]
Jack: All you have to do as the writing staff of an NBC show is incorporate positive mentions, or "POS-MENS" of GE products into your program. For example you could write an episode where one of your characters purchases, and is satisfied with one of GE's direct current drilling motors for off-shore or land-based projects.
Dennis: Hi. Dennis Duffy, Beeper King.
Jack: The Beeper King, really?
Liz: Dennis has his own business. Yes, he's an entrepreneur. He's very successful.
Dennis: You've probably seen my ads on the seven train, right?
Jack: I didn't know they served chicken nuggets at this restaurant.
Liz: It's cod, it's uh, they made it special. Dennis has some dietary restrictions.
Dennis: Actually, I'm allergic to all fish unless it's fried, you know.
Jack: That's a sharp tie you've got there, Dennis.
Dennis: That douchebag up front made me wear it.
Jack: Does he know you're the Beeper King?
Dennis: I don't think so.
Liz: Anyway, thanks for the hook-up. This is clearly the nicest restaurant we've ever been to.
Dennis: Hold on a second, this place ain't that nice, alright. It's got rats and roaches like every other restaurant.
Liz: No rat talk tonight, okay.
Dennis: [to Jack] You know there are 17 rats per person in Manhattan. You eat a pound of rat crap every year without even knowing it, huh?
Jack: I think I read about that in The New Yorker. [pause] Um, anyway, we'll leave you two to your meal. I hope you enjoy the choices that you've made.

Jack: Whenever I have a problem, I tackle it head on. A year ago I was an inch and a half shorter. Sheer willpower.

Tracy: I need to protect my reputation. You take away my street cred, and I am Wayne Brady.
Liz: Nuh-uh. Wayne Brady has three Emmys. You have a People's Choice Award that you stole from Wayne Brady.
Jack: Conan, Tracy’s really excited to be back on your show.
Conan: I don’t know. He’s kind of a loose cannon, and I like to surround myself with people who don’t try to stab me.
Jack: Well, Tracy’s feeling a lot better now. He’s under a doctor’s care.
Conan: That’s what they said about Hasselhoff, then he tried to make out with me during a commercial break.
Jack: Conan, this is important to me. So, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way.
Conan: What’s the hard way?
Jack: You do a live Christmas Eve special from Kabul every year until the War on Terror is won.
Conan: Tell Tracy I’ll see him tonight, you Black Irish bastard.
Jack: Back at you, Red.

Liz: Why are you wearing a tux?
Jack: It's after six. What am I, a farmer?
Tracy Jordan in drag talking with Frank Rossitano
Frank: Yeah it's pretty good but I think the boobs should swing more.
Tracy: Yeah then I could go "Rodney, don't make me come over there and beat you in the head with one of my boom booms."

[Man walks up to Liz at the bar]
Gentleman:Excuse me, is this seat taken?
Liz: [sighs] Really, dude? I got to move my coat? There are like four empty seats over there - can't you just be cool?
[Man leaves]
Jenna: That guy wanted to buy you a drink!
Liz: Really? But I already have a drink. Do you think he'd buy me mozzarella sticks?

Dennis: [Reading from a letter] Dear Liz Lemon: While other women have bigger boobs than you, no other woman has as big a heart. When I saw you getting ready to go out and get nailed by a bunch of guys last night, I knew for sure it was over between us, and for the first time since the ‘86 World Series, I cried… I cried like a big, dumb homo. And if it was up to me, we’d be together forever. But there’s a new thing called "women’s liberation," which gives you women the right to choose and you have chosen to abort me, and that I must live with. So tonight, when you arrive home, I’ll be gone. I officially renounce my squatter’s rights. I'll always love you. Goodbye and good luck. I'll never forget you.

The Baby Show [1.9]

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Liz: What's going on, business got ya down?
Jack: Business doesn't get me down, business gets me off.

Tracy: This is untoward! This is not toward!
Jenna: Hey, I've gotta miss an hour of rehearsal today 'cause I just found out from my publicist that I've been booked on The View.
Pete: Oh, Jenna, that's great. For the first time in your life, you'll be in a room full of women and you'll be the least crazy one.
Jenna: Yeah, I know!

Tracy: So GE will produce the Tracy Jordan Meat Machine?
Jack: Oh no, no. GE could never make something so... unique. We'll have to pass this off to one of our subsidiaries. [Jack rolls down a complex organizational chart ] You see, GE owns KitchenAll of Colorado, which in turn owns JMI of Stamford which is a majority shareholder of Pokerfastlane.com which recently acquired the Sheinhardt Wig Company which owns NBC outright. NBC owns Winnipeg Iron Works which owns the AHP Chanagi Party Meats company of Pyongyang, North Korea, and they will make the Meat Machine.
Tracy: I'm gonna make you a mix tape. You like Phil Collins?
Jack: I've got two ears and a heart, don't I?

The Head and the Hair [1.11]

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Jack: I wanted to talk to you about our corporate "Bottoms-Up Day." Once a year all the senior V.P.s spend one day doing the job of one of our lowest level employees. This year I'll be a page for a day and you'll be my boss.
Kenneth: Thank you, sir!
Jack: That's how the "Bottoms-Up" program works. I'm going to be your bottom, Kenneth, and I want you to ride me as hard as you can.

[Jack, who has traded jobs with Kenneth, has bought Josh the wrong salad]
Josh: Oh, no! Dude, is this spinach?
Jack: Yes. You asked for [pulls out a sheet of paper] one spinach salad.
Josh: Actually, I wanted the stuff that comes on the spinach salad, but I wanted it with romaine.
Jack: Should I take it back?
Josh: I'm supposed to treat you like Kenneth, right?
Jack: That is correct.
Josh: [angrily] Well then yeah, genius, get me a new salad. Or, get me a time machine so I can go back and smack your mom for smoking crack while she was pregnant! [to Kenneth, who is standing in the doorway] Too much?
Kenneth: No, that's usually how it goes.

Black Tie [1.12]

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Liz: You've already made up your mind about this, haven't you?
Jenna: Oh, you're right, Liz! I should go for it!
Liz: You're not even listening, are you? Poop. Monkey butt.
Jenna: No, you're a good friend and thank you.

Jack: Lemon, I want to thank you. For showing me that I could have a pleasant evening with a woman my age.
Liz: I'm 12 years younger than you.
Jack: A woman your age then.

Jack: I had lunch with Martha Stewart and "dinner" with her daughter Alexis.
Liz: Gross.
Jack: I want back all the jewelry I ever bought you.
Bianca: Fine.
Jack: I want the art supplies I gave you on your fortieth birthday and any subsequent art projects you made with them.
Bianca: Fine.
Jack: I want all of our love letters.
Bianca: [laughing] Fine.
Jack: I want all of your parents' love letters.
Bianca: Fine.
Jack: I want full stake in the Arby's franchise we bought outside of Telluride.
Bianca: Oh, dammit Johnny, you know I love my Big Beef and Cheddar.

Josh: Cerie said she would do it with you.
Kenneth: Well that just makes me perspire.

Floyd: I work up in Legal, and —
Liz: [interrupting] You're a lawyer?
Floyd: I prefer... Law Stylist

The C Word [1.14]

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Jack: I've asked Tracy to join me at G.E. Golf tournament in Connecticut.
Liz: Was Courtney Love not available?

Tracy: Damn straight. I'm delightful.

[looking at a basket of kittens]
Liz: Oh...Look at theeese guuuys
Cat Wrangler: They like you. They're very good as sensing debilitating loneliness in a person. Do you wanna adopt one?
Liz: I can't. I'm allergic to anything warm and adorable.

[attempting to explain the word used to insult her]
Liz: It rhymes with your favorite Todd Rundgren album.
Frank: It rhymes with Hermit of Mink Hollow?
Dot Com: Yo, Kenneth, we need to talk now.
Kenneth: Oh, I've had this conversation before. You're marrying my mom, aren't you?

Jenna: Second of all, if the president is so serious about the war on terror, why doesn't he hunt down and capture Barack Obama before he strikes again? It's time for a change, America. That's why I'm voting for Osama in 2008.

The Source Awards [1.16]

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Tracy: If you get rich off this stuff, just take care of my family. I don't want my kids to have to go to college.

Liz: I truly don't like you as a person. [inspirational music starts playing] Can't one human being not like another human being? Can't we all just not get along?
Steven: Liz, I wish it could be like that... and maybe someday our children or our children's children will hate each other like that, but it just doesn't work that way today.
Liz: So what you're saying is that any woman that doesn't like you is a racist.
Steven: No, no, no, no, no. [music stops] Some women are gay.

Jack: That's where Donaghy Estates comes in. Now as you may have read in Robert Parker's Wine Newsletter, "Donaghy Estates tastes like the urine of Satan after a hefty portion of asparagus."

Tracy: Wow. The manatee becomes the Mento.
Tracy: So what's your religion, Liz Lemon?
Liz: I pretty much just do whatever Oprah tells me to.

(during Tracy's testing session while being recruited into The Church of Practicology)

Tracy: I believe that the moon does not exist. I believe that vampires are the world's greatest golfers but their curse is they never get a chance to prove it. I believe that there are 31 letters in the white alphabet. Wait... what was the question?
Kenneth: So Mr. Donaghy, what can I do for you?
Jack: I heard you were talking to my colleague Devon Banks. Did he tell you why he was in New York?
Kenneth: No sir, we just talked about Anderson Cooper mostly.
Jack: You should get to know Devon, tell him all of your television ideas. You know he started off as a page just like you.
Kenneth: Really? So did I!
Jack: You say the right things, ask him the right questions, I'm sure he could open some doors for you.
Kenneth: Ok. What kinds of questions?
Jack: I'll write them down for you. You call him and tell him you have two tickets for A Chorus Line for tonight. Now Kenneth, have you ever used bronzer?

Jack: Devon, what can I do for you?
Devon: I think we're way past that Jack. Let's be honest with each other. I'll go first. I'm gay and I want your job.
Jack: Devon, I'm straighter than you are gay, and I leave particles of guys like you in my wind. I'm not afraid of you.
Devon: Yeah? Well you should be.
Jack: Let's just see how it all shakes out in the meeting.
Devon: Yeah, let's... Oh, by the way, little slim-waisted birdie in a page jacket told me you got nothing! You're going down.
Jack: No, Devon. I don't do that.
[Liz enters a room and stands behind Jack]
Jack: You've been avoiding me, Lemon.
Liz: How do you do that without turning around?
Jack: To be perfectly honest, the first couple of people I did that to were not you, but... here we are.

Jack: I'm not a creative type like you, with your work sneakers and left-handedness.
Phoebe: You know how John Lennon was better than all the rest of the Beatles but he never realized it until he met Yoko? Well I'm gonna be Jack's Yoko!
Liz: You want to be Yoko?!

Floyd: If the whole world moved to their favorite vacation spots, then the whole world would live in Hawaii and Italy and Cleveland.
Colleen: [referring to Phoebe] All right, scout's honor, what do you think of her?
[Jack gives Liz a look]
Liz: She's very well-read... and she's very stylish, don't you think? And you know the most important thing is she makes Jack very happy. She's like a... white geisha.

Colleen: Tell him his mother's here! ...And she loves him! ...But not in a queer way!

Jack: You've got to get back to work and come up with something with or without Tracy, or we are gonna be screwed.
Liz: Okay.
Jack: Maybe this is the drugs talking, but I think I got Nixon to agree to come on the show and say "Sock It To Me."