I read this once about Tina Fey's comedy and now I can't unsee it - there's an undercurrent of meaness to it.

I loved 30 Rock, so maybe the writer's room helped create a great product.

On the other hand, as a genX myself, maybe now we worry too much about being nice. Maybe everything doesn't always work out. Maybe the world can be m ean. I grew up with movies like pretty in Pink and 16 candles and characters were perhaps more realistic (sort of). There was and is bullying. People are mean.

YOU NEVER SAW MEAN GIRLS?! That one is the best.

Anonymous wrote:30 Rock is absolutely my favorite show of all time, and I think Tina Fey is brilliant on it.

Everything else she is just awful. She is a great writer/show producer/creator - I love Girls 5 Eva, Kimmy Schmidt - but her guest spots on those shows are not great.

Worst on the list is Haunting in Venice - she drags down that movie so badly. An absolutely insane casting decision.

Agree 30 rock is incredible and overall she is not a great actress. But I also question why 30 Rock was so great but much of her other writing has been average imo. I thought Kimmy Schmidt was very very average. Jane K was her old character from 30 Rock, although not nearly as funny. And the rest of the cast were decent but forgettable. I’ve tried to watch it twice now and stopped each time after a few episodes.

I can’t think of another show that is as good as 30 Rock (in that genre at least). Arrested development I guess. Maybe The Office comes close. Or Better Call Saul although that is not exactly a comedy

Anonymous wrote:I'd be curious to hear from anyone who saw her recent tour with Amy Pohler. Neither of them were stand ups coming up, so I'm curious what that show was like and how funny it was.

I saw Tina and Amy when they were on tour. It was great, but hard to define. Funny, sure, but it was mostly just their chemistry that made it so entertaining.

30 Rock is absolutely my favorite show of all time, and I think Tina Fey is brilliant on it.

Everything else she is just awful. She is a great writer/show producer/creator - I love Girls 5 Eva, Kimmy Schmidt - but her guest spots on those shows are not great.

Worst on the list is Haunting in Venice - she drags down that movie so badly. An absolutely insane casting decision.

Anonymous wrote:She seems like a mean girl and very full of herself (not in a good way). Much prefer her counterpart Amy Poehler.

I actually like this aspect of Tina's personality because it's very Gen X. I wouldn't want everyone to be this way (judgmental, cynical) because that would be miserable, but sometimes the swing in the other direction with Millenials is annoying.

I listened to Amy interviewing Tina for her podcast recently, and they had a conversation about "selling out" basically, with Tina taking the attitude that she doesn't like when people who are already very rich come up with these money-making side projects. Like when a successful actor launches a tequila or something. Amy's perspective was "I think you need to get over it, this is the world now." I am not even sure which one I agree with -- I was born in 1980 and the Gen X part of me kind of agrees with Tina and the Millenial part of me kind of agrees with Amy. But I like that there's an argument at all and appreciate that Tina and people like her still make these arguments. Friction is actually good and we need people in society who challenge and criticize and raise moral and ethical issues, even if they are sometimes wrong. Sometimes it is not, actually, "all good."

Anonymous wrote:She seems like a mean girl and very full of herself (not in a good way). Much prefer her counterpart Amy Poehler.

Agree. But 30 rock was amazing. One of the top 5 comedies ever. I just can’t believe the person who wrote that also wrote Four Seasons with its weak, situation comedy set up jokes

NP. An aside, but Amy Poehler's memoir was great.

She seems like a mean girl and very full of herself (not in a good way). Much prefer her counterpart Amy Poehler.

I think the writing on Kimmy Scmidt is great- especially Titus Andromedon's lines. Kimmy can't be that funny because she's in a 14 year old brain time warp and Jane Krakowski just plays the same character with the same beloved out of touch lines. But the writing is really there and hilarious. Agree not as good as 30-rock but better than so much else out there.

30 Rock has an insane joke-per-minute ratio. The cast and topic lent itself to it -- they'd throw constant side jokes into every bit if dialogue because so many characters had these weird quirks and back stories. I think when she wrote that show, having just come off SNL where you have to just constantly produce jokes and bits on a tight schedule around the clock, she was just in peak joke writing form.

Kimmy Schmidt was similar, but the premise didn't lend itself to quite that level of jokes-per-minute. It sought to be slightly kinder and less cynical than 30 Rock.

I think now she's just entered another era where she's not as interested in writing jokes, and she wants to write real people and just find humor in more normal and identifiable situations. I think it's honestly harder than what she did before and she's not as skilled at it as she was at just cranking out bits for weird characters played by ridiculously skilled comedic performers.

I'd be curious to hear from anyone who saw her recent tour with Amy Pohler. Neither of them were stand ups coming up, so I'm curious what that show was like and how funny it was.

Four Seasons was such a bust. I can’t wait for her next amazing project. She can be hilarious!

I'm a long time Tina Fey fan and I do like 30 Rock. I liked Kimmy Schmidt, but not as much and I did like 4 seasons. Have you seen Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I think she wrote the mayor. And she's in Soul.

She's funny. I liked her work on SNL and her book Bossypants. Mean Girls the movie and musical are pretty good, too, although can't top the Heathers OG movie.

I never saw mean girls though

Kimmy Schmidt. Decent but not great
Four seasons. Decent but not stellar

Thoughts?

Whoever wrote most of 30 rock is a comedic genius imo