No. AD used those gags as throwaways. The stair cas wasn’t supposed to be wacky – and it wasn’t most of the time. It was just a car, and the Bluths were treating it as such. It never labored a point, and assumed the audience was smart enough to get the joke or reference instead of stressing it. Also, it had superb comic characters throughout, who behaved consistently in nearly every scene.
Ah, this is a new meaning of the word “realistic” that I wasn’t previously aware of. The characters in 30 Rock are completely inconsistent and do whatever they need to to be wacky (and everything about it stresses how wacky they are), even if it has nothing to do with what has been established about the character, not only over the course of the show, but within an episode, and often within a scene. It’s the Fenimore Cooper approach to characterization.
If more of the jokes were funny, it might be tolerable, but most of them are just plain dumb. When the show happens to have a funny line, it moves on, pretending it hasn’t happened. I don’t think a comedy that makes me laugh no more than twice and episode is particularly good comedy.
Really? Then why when it was on did people create threads here where inevitably someone would say, “I didn’t catch that?” Many of the bits that are now considered classics for the show were often missed by people the first time around – because the show refused to stress the joke, but merely made it and moved on. It’s a show that gets funnier the more times you watch it – as opposed to 30 Rock, which isn’t funny in the first place and which had nothing to offer on repeat viewings.
Neither show is trying to do anything more than be funny, but 30 Rock tries to hard – and makes sure everyone sees how hard it’s trying – that it ultimately defeats itself.
What I find amazing is that this wasn’t a great episode overall - the b-plot of Ted pretending to be Indian was fail from the beginning - but it still had more laugh out loud lines than any show I remember in years. The corporate satire is dead on. The throwaway lines about Phil getting a sports cup in exchange for giving up the pension plan came an hour or so after my wife telling me about what might happen to her pension at her company. This is what Dilbert aspired to be 30 years ago but hasn’t approached in, oh, 28 years.
I love this show. I also love 30 Rock and never cared for Arrested Development, which struck me as so forced that I wanted to turn my head away from the screen every time they wanted to beat me over the head with more wacky. Chanson a son gout.
The funniest lines are the throwaway endings to a conversation, so if you aren’t paying close attention you’ll miss the best bits. Most shows stick the huge yucks into the opening of a confrontation and cut away when they run out of funny so the rhythms of BoT are contrary and take some getting used to. But almost nothing written makes me laugh out loud these days. BoT does. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
As do I. I’m responding to RealityChuck’s bizarre assertion that Arrested Development wasn’t really wacky and didn’t belabor wacky jokes. Not sure what color he sky is in that world. Tell me how the “never nude” idea wasn’t belabored, wasn’t wacky, or was a throwaway. Or Buster’s entire character, every line and all his screen time. Gob’s magic. I mean, geez, wake up and smell the wacky already.
EDIT:
Why did dopers miss some lines? Seriously? Maybe they couldn’t hear over the nonstop chewing, maybe their helmets were covering their ears, or maybe they really are just that stupid. None of the three would be any kind of surprise.
Wow. I sure am glad you guys are around to tell me what’s funny and what’s wacky and what’s not. Otherwise I might’ve liked all three shows, and that would’ve shown everybody what an idiot I am.
I personally maintain that the ‘Jaberwocky’ episode was the best. Maybe if you don’t work someplace where Power Point reigns supreme it won’t be as funny, but I almost fell out of my chair.
funniest fake spot ever - “we care about nature. even when it’s being mean (cue katrina) or stupid (cue dog dressed in a crown and cape)”
but back to the original highjack…
I agree with Ellis Dee and frankly it’s a little shocking to read all the backlash. ED isn’t passing judgement on funny/not funny but wacky/not wacky. funny may be subjective but wacky is more concrete of an idea.
the staircar is JUST a car that HAPPENS to have stairs on it? that’s pretty wacky. and the subtle use of it (springing Bluth sr from Jail?) isn’t really subtle.
nevernude… indefensible
theron being retarded/a spy living in little london? wacktastic.
magic vs illusion? substantially more wacky than jenna’s schtick as a neurotic aging actress or frank peeing in jars to grow plants on a window terrace.
crazy one-armed man who teaches lessons vs a country bumpkin page or a intensely hot/young receptionist?
and an endless string of bad puns and misunderstandings resulting in WACKY consequences like burning down a banana stand, having a surrogate speaker, and every other “memorable bit” AD can claim.
at least 30 rock’s wacky consequences generally has a real-life event to parody. AD is soley the product of renegade imaginations of semi-clever writers.
Oh, please. Most of the humor of Arrested Development was in the arrested development and stupidity of the characters. The characters were consistent throughout, which was part of their humor – they didn’t do anything for a laugh, but rather behaved just the way they always behaved, which is what made the jokes.
You’re focusing on a few trivial bits and not on the show. And, as I said, the jokes were often throwaways that you didn’t get until you watched more than once (the classic “Seaward” line, for instance). Things like the stair car were used matter-of-factly – in many episodes it was merely a form of transportation with nothing about it called to the viewer’s attention.
It also was way ahead as metafiction. Plus the show was so well constructed that jokes would be set up in the first five minutes, then ignored until the last five, when you’d finally get the payoff. Hell, the background of some jokes were set up in one episode but would not have a punchline for several episodes later.
And, my original point, wacky or not, AD did not keep calling attention to how wacky it was. 30 Rock is afraid that their audience won’t understand, so underscores (and boldfaces and italicizes and uses a big red Comic Sans font) every joke. AD didn’t care if you didn’t get the joke; 30 Rock is terrified you might not. It’s basically dumbed down so no one will miss it.
I think we had better define wacky here. I think wacky would be the use of stair cars, magic, etc. virtually all of AD’s joke material. The nonchalant delivery (not as subtle as you think. cite: the family making chicken sounds, the one armed man, gob’s pageantry, etc) doesn’t change the fact that their humor is… more visual. that’s what i mean by wacky. george michael muttering throwaway lines that reference RIDICULOUS situations is still wacky. the fact that the staircar is even a prob makes it wacky.
you seem to think because 30 rock highlights their jokes more, and doesn’t have michael cera out there muttering lines in a pathetic, cracking teenage whisper, then it’s wacky. i don’t think jokes about aging, relationships, nerdisms, etc. even when screamed through a megaphone are particularly wacky. it’s pretty standard fare, comedywise. even tracy jordan’s over-the-top behavior is a parody of real people like tyson, murphy, hip hop in general… he’s not weird for the sake of being weird. he’s mocking people.
arrested development has a lot of jokes that’s weird for the sake of being weird. that to me is wacky. i’m not passing judgement on the comedy. i enjoy the humor. Arrested development was hilarious. however, i don’t see how anyone can defend it as… not wacky.
I’d say the 30 Rock characters are actually more consistent than their AD counterparts. For example, on 30 Rock you’ll never find a character as together as Michael Bluth who lives in a sleeping bag in the attic of a model home. Much less lets their kid live the same way. I’m not putting a value judgement on that gag. I’m saying that it’s completely, 100% out of character both for him to live like that and for him to subject his son to living like that.
Just last Sunday’s episode (on IFC) we see Michael Bluth complain about not being able to spend enough time with his son. This has been a strong running theme for most of the first season. Lindsey convinces Michael she can run the business and sends Michael home. Michael makes a bee-line for George Michael, right? No, of course not, that would be in character. Instead, he blatantly breaks character to go make sand castles at the beach because it’s just so WACKY! Of course the reason he acts this way is because earlier in the episode Maebe is trying to make George Michael feel bad by convincing him his father doesn’t care about him, so as part of this episode’s running gag, Michael has to completely and unbelievably break character.
This is totally false. Virtually every episode they use it Michael calls special attention to it, and if he doesn’t, the friggin’ narrator gives us the tedious backstory one more time.
This is the point that’s flat out wrong. AD went ot great pains to call tons of attention to the fact that it was so darn WACKY!
I get that you don’t like 30 Rock and think it’is beneath you. Bully for you. But your attacks against it are claiming a moral high ground for AD that simply does not exist.