mitchco a go go!

I know that I said I don’t watch much tv, but let me amend that– I don’t watch much tv NOW. When I was growing up, I was a complete Nick at Night junkie.

When I was in junior high, Nick at Night had “Block Party Summers,” and Monday nights were “Mary Mondays,” with six episodes of the Mary Tyler Moore Show in a row. Between those and other odd bits of programming, after a year or so I’d seen all seven seasons.

It was a sweet cultural immersion in the mores of 1970s Minneapolis (not to mention a perfect distraction from my own puberty), and most fabulous of all, it was one of those rare, character-driven sitcoms that makes you feel like each episode is a colorful missive from your old friends. (As an added bonus, which I didn’t realize at the time, I was also being inoculated with second-wave feminism. Hurrah!).

Fast forward to now. Most television gives me hives, but one show that I (and most of my friends) watch with no small fanaticism is 30 Rock. It’s also a character-driven sitcom, with absurdly witty writing and more than a touch of contemporary feminism. And like the Mary Tyler Moore Show, it’s also about the behind-the-scenes production of a fictional tv show. And also satirizes contemporary media. Actually, the similarities stack up so eerily that last night I had a realization: 30 Rock IS an updated version of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Let’s examine this further. Character by character:

Mary Tyler Moore plays a character named Mary Richards, a 30-something woman who’s never been married and moves to the big city to start over. Elizabeth Stamatina “Tina” Fey plays a character named Liz Lemon, a 30-something woman who’s never been married and is living in New York and writing for a comedy show. Similar? Can you say Patty Duke?

Lou and Jack aren’t really all that similar except for in their relationships with Mary and Liz, respectively. I think a lot of this has to do with the ways that 30 Rock has been updated to reflect at least slightly more modern office politics. But they’re both secretly caring bosses who fake an “all-business” exterior, and who develop more as characters and in their relationships as the series progress.

Ted and Tracy are both the faces of their respective fictional meta-series, and are also both buffoons who are kept in check only through the constant vigilance and effort of everyone behind the scenes.

Phyllis is one of Mary’s best friends, and Jenna is Liz’s BFF. They’re both superficial and self-absorbed. And hey, check out that hair.

Georgette and Kenneth are both naive, gentle souls, known best for their big smiles and their sweetness (which frequently leads them to be taken advantage of by other characters). And if we’re going for analogies, Georgette is Ted’s wife, which would make Kenneth Tracy’s… very special friend. After last night’s episode, I think this stands up to scrutiny.

Okay, so I lied. Liz Lemon isn’t really Mary Richards– she’s more an amalgamation of Mary and Mary’s other best friend, Rhoda Morgenstern. Mary is independent and intelligent, but Rhoda is pure verve; you can’t make Lemon without some acerbic wit. I think this is another way that 30 Rock is clearly an updated MTM: Liz is not only passively funny, for her fuck-ups, but also actively funny, in her verbal wit.

So there we have it! 30 Rock: The postmodern Mary Tyler Moore Show. Except, of course, in the ways it isn’t.

Tags: 30 rock, mary tyler moore, tina fey

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 11:25 am and is filed under television. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.