I thought the “Welcome to Season 4” thing was pretty funny, and the callback at the end might very well be one of the snarkiest things to air on prime time ever. Otherwise, not the show at its strongest – they’re never great when they’re trying to make a political point about Jack. And the strike stuff wasn’t funny.
I loved the “Off-Season Tennis” promo, though. And I would consider watching a half-hour special of Tracey Morgan wandering Rockefeller Plaza trying to act like a normal human, maybe once.
Yeah, the Leno thing had balls. The parts with Kenneth and Jack facing off were good; the parts with Kenneth marching around on the street were boring. Just to get Jack to write “I’m a big ol’ liar.” “Massage it, Kenneth.”
Jack and Liz are watching Jenna’s weird tennis promo, and Jack comments “There’s nothing wrong with being fun and popular and just giving people what they want.” Then he looks into the camera “Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Leno.”
Which was immediately followed by the opening of Leno – with Leno saying “Thanks, guys. It’s time to give America what it wants,” and walking on stage right through the tennis promo.
One does not have to love Leno to appreciate the bit.
It was also pretty funny that nobody on the show could remember this cast member (I can’t think of his name myself), and having them sort of skirting the absurdity that TGS has a tableful of writers and (seemingly) 3 cast members, one of whom does nothing.
What’s funny about Josh in last night’s show is that he was missing for most of last season, only in a handful of epsiodes. His whole “I’m right here!” bit cracked me up… As if he was there every episode last season and we’d just missed seeing him there.
I wonder if when Tracy was wandering around being “normal” if the people he approached were actors or if they were regular people. It had the feel of regular people and I kinda hope they were because I think that makes it funnier.
Here is a link to Tracy Morgan doing standup. Warning: It’s very explicit humor about sex [NSW]. I’m only offering it up to demonstrate that he is, in fact, playing a character on the show.