Subject: 30 Rock

• Marty Stuart's American Odyssey Does Houston

  April 11, 2008

• Welcome Back to Work...

  So, the boss made you come in the day after Thanksgiving, huh? Yeah, and we're guessing there isn't a whole lot to do seeing as how everyone else's boss gave them the day off. (Luckily for us, the news never rests! ... or something.) Well, nod off not, Internet friends. Hair Balls is here with links to Web sites to help pass (read: waste) time until your boss says "Hey, since you came in the day after Thanksgiving, why don't you leave an hour early." Really, a whole hour? You shouldn't have. (

  November 28, 2008

• 30 Rock Takes Another Little Piece of Port Arthur

  One of the only things Rocks Off loves as much as Tom Petty and chicken-fried steak is NBC's brilliant, multiple Emmy-winning 30 Rock, which he thinks is the best TV comedy since The Larry Sanders Show. Now he loves it even more after last night's deliciously twisted episode, "Senor Macho Solo." Besides baby-crazy lead Liz Lemon's (Tina Fey) ill-fated romance with a dwarf (Peter Dinklage, The Station Agent) after mistaking him for a child, and her boss Jack Donaghy's (Alec Baldwin) t

  January 9, 2009

• Will the Texan 30 Rock Writer Please Get in Touch?

  This is starting to mess with Rocks Off's head just a little. Last week's Janis-Joplin-movie subplot made him wonder, because it was hardly the first time Southeast Texas was used as a punchline, but now he's sure there's some sort of subversive Lone Star conspiracy afoot behind the scenes of NBC's Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning 30 Rock. In a combination zombie-movie spoof and caustic health-care commentary, the crew of The Girlie Show suffered from the flu as head writer Liz Lemon (T

  January 16, 2009

• Upcoming Texas Twists on 30 Rock

  Regular readers may be aware that Rocks Off has become somewhat obsessed with NBC's 30 Rock lately. Actually, that's not true. He's been obsessed with the show since the first time he saw it - Alec Baldwin is a comedic genius, and oh, that Tina Fey - but its recent tendency to insert plotlines about Janis Joplin and allusions to ZZ Top has really driven him around the bend. Like the guy at the end of the bar still convinced Martians killed JFK, Rocks Off is sure there's a red-blooded

  January 22, 2009

• 25 Super Bowl Memes You'll Be Sick Of

  It's Super Bowl week. The game is on Sunday, but by the time kickoff rolls around we're going to be so sick of the hype that nobody is going to care about the game. The memes have started coalescing, so here's a little primer for every storyline that you will be sick of come Thursday evening once NBC's pregame coverage starts following the end of 30 Rock. 1. Did you know that Kurt Warner is a Born-Again Christian? Be prepared to hear a lot about this one. 2. Did you know that Kurt Warner

  January 27, 2009

• Aftermath: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Super Bowl XLIII

  Part 1: "10th Avenue Freeze-Out" and "Born to Run" Score another one for the old folks. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's quarter-hour onstage at Super Bowl XLIII Sunday night may not have been the most contemporary booking the NFL could have landed - but, and we'll get to this in a minute, maybe it was - and yet it's hard to imagine Lil Wayne, the Jonas Brothers or Katy Perry putting on nearly as soul-stirring a performance, let alone one that wasn't upstaged by a fireworks

  February 2, 2009

• Tonight: Battle of the Bar Bands at House of Blues

  A more cutthroat distant cousin to the rock/soul package tours of the late '50s and '60s, "Battle of the Bands" competitions were never really in style - except maybe in the Sunset Strip hair-metal heyday of the mid-'80s - but they never really go out of style either. Tonight at House of Blues, the old BOB warhorse gets trotted out once again, with an interesting local twist: six Houston groups will meet in six-string combat to determine Houston's best bar band. Winners get a one-year membe

  March 26, 2009

• 25 Super Bowl Memes You'll Be Sick Of

  It's Super Bowl week. The game is on Sunday, but by the time kickoff rolls around we're going to be so sick of the hype that nobody is going to care about the game. The memes have started coalescing, so here's a little primer for every storyline that you will be sick of come Thursday evening once NBC's pregame coverage starts following the end of 30 Rock. 1. Did you know that Kurt Warner is a Born-Again Christian? Be prepared to hear a lot about this one. 2. Did you know that Kurt Warner

  January 27, 2009

• Making Sense of a Trying Year

  December 11, 2008

• Turkeys of the Year

  DA Chuck Rosenthal flies off with top honors

  November 27, 2008

• Wayne Brady

  Actor/Comedian/Singer fronts Houston Symphony

  October 9, 2008

• Disney Channel fits Texan Demi Lovato for a glass slipper

  Wishing Upon a Star

  May 29, 2008

• No Drama for Baby Mama

  Neither Tina Fey nor Amy Poehler seem the least bit invested in their surrogate mommy comedy

  April 24, 2008

• First Sunday

  Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan get religion

  January 10, 2008

• Transformers, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Crazy Love and Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film

  October 18, 2007

• Seasons in the Sun

  September 6, 2007

• Tony Bennett

  August 23, 2007

• Hitchcock on Holiday

  May 10, 2007

• The Best Thing on TV

  A look at The White Rapper Show

  February 1, 2007

• The Week in TV: "I'll Have...A Birthday Cake!"

  ​It was a pretty fun week in TV Land: Most of the fall programs are beginning to settle in, the CW continued its inexplicable existence, and David Letterman hit it with some employees. Insert your Worldwide Pants jokes here, and let's get to it! • I won't go into much here about FlashForward, since I've started blogging it all official-like for the HP. But this show has the potential to be the most epic cheeseball sci-fi show on the air right now. Like when one guy said to another of t

  October 5, 2009

• The Week In TV: Seriously. You Need to Watch Community

  I know you think the only event of note last week in TV Land was the sad departure of Tom DeLay from Dancing With the Stars. But Dazzle Me Dreamy's punk out was only the beginning. NBC canceled Southland, which is officially the first victim of uber-hack Jay Leno's primetime talk show. Granted, the cop show wasn't stellar, but it was consistently good; it was basically The Wire: Lite with prettier and whiter people. But it had solid stories, and more importantly, it was the kind of quasi-su

  October 12, 2009

• TV Land: 30 Rock Is Back! And Some Other Stuff Happened Too

  It was a long week in TV Land, so let's get some Cheesy Blasters and do it to it: • 30 Rock is back! 30 Rock is back! I know that some of you -- most of you? -- probably thought that Texas' victory was the best thing on TV this week, but that's because you're young and don't know much yet. Trust me: Skillful works of art will outlast the games, no matter their glories. Because seriously, 30 Rock is the new Arrested Development, and its fourth-season opener was jammed with quick jokes, great

  October 19, 2009

• The Office: Meet Blind Guy McSqueezy

  I'm running out of ways to say just how great The Office still is, six seasons in. This week's episode, "The Lover" -- written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky and directed by Eisenberg -- was a textbook example of how to make a great half-hour comedy feel fresh even while relying on characters that have been doing the same things for years now. Michael has had awkward relationships before, and Dwight has done quasi-Machiavellian things, and etc., but the episode was still a strong install

  October 23, 2009

• The Week In TV: The World Series Ruins Everything

  Parks and Recreation, yet another reason to love NBC​The weather is cool, Halloween is in the air, and I just redesigned the Pontiac Aztec. This is the week in TV Land: • For being a weak network overall and the home to some truly awful medical dramas, NBC can bring the funny. This week it handed down full-season pickups for Parks and Recreation and Community, both solid shows that have been holding fairly steady in the ratings while also being, you know, entertaining. This week's Comm

  October 26, 2009

• The Week In TV: Trauma Dies On the Operating Table

  It's a beautiful weekend, the rain has stopped, and my Batman voice sounds like Cookie Monster. This was the week in TV Land: • I take nothing but pleasure in the misfortune of the untalented, which is why it's my pleasure to pass along the news that ratings for Comedy Central's The Jeff Dunham Show dropped 55 percent in their second week. The show had set a ratings record for the network when it bowed the week before, the kind of debut that forces you to think about the morality of a chaotic

  November 2, 2009

• This Week In TV: Miracle Cures From Alien Civilizations

  The Yankees won, Doug Hoffman lost, and I'm thinking of joining a neighborhood dad garage band. This was the week in TV Land: • 30 Rock continues to be the quickest comedy on the air and the spiritual descendant of Arrested Development. This week's episode was stuffed with more meta-jokes than ever, including Liz and Pete's multiple looks into the camera, Jack's dismissal of the Olympics as pointless just before plugging NBC's impending coverage, and the hilarious use of Cisco Systems tagline

  November 9, 2009