Rock It

By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 27, 2007 3:06PM

NBC is counting on a new rhyme to advertise its Thursday night lineup, “Comedy Night Done Right”. It’s not quite as catchy as "Must See TV," and it sounds a bit …simple, but Vince Manze, President and Creative Director of The NBC Agency says, “It has all the great ingredients: It says there's a night of comedy and, of course, it rhymes.” The lineup includes "Scrubs," "My Name is Earl," "The Office" and "30 Rock." We bet Vince paid a pretty penny for the new rhyme, but we would have given him a slogan for free if he had asked us:

Cancel "30 Rock" and we'll never watch your stupid station again, dude.

It doesn't rhyme, but we still think its effective.

Producer Tina Fey brought a lot of Chicago friends to "30 Rock," including Rachel Dratch, Jack McBrayer, John Lutz and Scott Adsit. It's paid off too, because "30 Rock" is one of the best shows on TV. It has the everyday funny of Seinfeld (including hilarious movie titles, "Rural Juror" sold us on the show), but the characters on "30 Rock" are fallible. They fall down and screw up and hurt their friends by mistake. Fey has captured the type of woman who hangs around men all day. Her sarcasm and intelligence cause problems when she tries to date "normal" men; intimacy remains elusive. Alec Baldwin won a Golden Globe for his hilariously bizarre turn as the network honcho, and sweetheart Jack McBrayer steals scenes from all of the above.

"30 Rock" is scheduled to go on hiatus March 13 to make room for another Chicagoan — Andy Richter in "Andy Barker, PI" — but it’s scheduled to be back on April 19 for another round of “Comedy Night Done Right.”

It better be, or else we're going to have to approach NBC with our new slogan, and we're pretty sure they're not going to like it.