30 Rock, a critically acclaimed American television sitcom that aired on the NBC (National Broadcasting Co., Inc.) network from 2006 to 2013. The series, created by the American comedy writer and actor Tina Fey, is based on Fey’s experiences as a head writer and performer on Saturday Night Live, a long-running sketch-comedy and variety television series on NBC. 30 Rock earned Emmy Award nominations for outstanding comedy series for each of the show’s seven seasons and won the award three times (2007, 2008, and 2009). In total, the series won 16 of the 103 Emmy Awards it was nominated for over its 139 episodes. 30 Rock also received a Peabody Award in 2007 “for creating television that laughs out loud at television.” The American Film Institute included 30 Rock in its list of top television programs of the year in 2007 and 2010.
The show’s name is short for 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a skyscraper in Manhattan that houses the real-life NBC Studios. The series itself is a half-hour, single-camera comedy with no live audience (with the exception of two live episodes) or laugh track. It is known for its smart writing, memorable characters, and quotable lines, often consisting of throwaway jokes and non sequiturs delivered at lightning speed. 30 Rock centers on the character Liz Lemon (played by Fey), an uptight head writer of TGS (an abbreviation for The Girlie Show), a sketch-comedy program that has been having trouble finding an audience. In the series’ first episode Liz’s boss dies, and the arrogant but charismatic television executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) is hired to take his place. To boost the show’s ratings, Jack insists that Liz hire Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan), an immature, erratic movie star, to join the cast of TGS—which is then renamed TGS with Tracy Jordan. This move upsets Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski), the vain, neurotic star of TGS who is also Liz’s best friend. 30 Rock follows Liz’s attempts to make the show a success and to fulfill her own aspirations while dealing with the inflated egos of cast members and television executives alike.
Other prominent characters on 30 Rock include Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer), an NBC page who leads studio tours and assists in the production of TGS with Tracy Jordan. Kenneth is a cheerful, sweet, naive man from Stone Mountain, Georgia, who loves everything about television and treasures his job as a page. Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) is a producer of TGS with Tracy Jordan as well as Liz’s friend and confidant. Frank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander), a lazy, unkempt writer, is a reliably wisecracking presence in the fictional show’s writers’ room. James (“Toofer”) Spurlock (Keith Powell), a straightlaced Harvard graduate who shares an office and occasional shenanigans with Frank, is another writer for the fictional show.
Although 30 Rock was a favorite with critics, the series has been faulted for its treatment of race and racism, including its stereotypical presentations of the characters Tracy and James. In an unsuccessful attempt to satirize how Hollywood studios have often excused the use of offensive blackface makeup in film and television, four episodes of 30 Rock showed actors wearing blackface makeup. Following the real-life murder of the Black man George Floyd by a white police officer in 2020, Fey and fellow 30 Rock showrunner Robert Carlock asked streaming services to remove those four episodes from the series. 30 Rock has also been criticized for its portrayals of LGBTQ characters and those of Latin American or Native descent.
In 2020 NBC aired the one-hour 30 Rock: A One-Time Special to mixed reviews. The special brought back most of the series’ regulars for a reunion episode that also functioned as a promotion for NBCUniversal’s 2020–21 television lineup.