Posts Tagged: tina fey

film / links / television — 2 Comments
31
Aug 09

Feyvision

Tina Fey plays her typewriter

Here at the mitchco a go go, we love Tina Fey with the sort of burning intensity that’s usually reserved for describing late-stage STIs. To get your Monday started off right, here are links to four Tina Fey interviews that we enjoy visiting again and again:

  1. Alec Baldwin interviewing Tina Fey, soon after Mean Girls was released and when 30 Rock was still just a twinkle in her eye (if you love 30 Rock, this one is a treat!)
  2. An interview with Tina Fey from a 2003 issue of The Believer
  3. Writer and Actress Tina Fey, on Fressssh Air, right after Mean Girls had come out, April 28, 2004 (audio)
  4. Tina Fey: Sarah Palin And ‘Saturday Night’ Satire, talking about her Palin parody and 30 Rock on Fressssssssh Air, November 3, 2008 (audio)

Whew! We hope that was as delightful for you as it was for us.

television — 2 Comments
20
Mar 09

You can have a town, why don’t you take it?

Nick at NightI 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 →