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. Continue reading →
