David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. NBC and Tina Fey: Different shades of green
NBC’s “green” initiative began in earnest on Monday (technically, it began with Sunday football, when they lit the halftime show set with candles, giving it more the ambiance of an upscale romantic restaurant than a football show), with the “Today” show’s globetrotters and the primetime gimmick of having every show include some sort of ecological message.
“Chuck” was content to shoehorn an environmental group’s booth in the background of a few shots and in the foreground of a couple more. “Heroes” cooked up a story of a quarantined world due to a virus that, when Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) traveled to 2008, had killed 93% of the planet. All week on NBC, storylines will be disrupted or jiggered in order to include these hat-tips to the planet.
And it’s all Al Gore’s fault.
No, seriously, if Thursday’s episode of “30 Rock” has any credibility.
Stuff like this seems like a nice idea, but it no doubt had more than a couple showrunners grumbling, and you wonder how many if any people will sit through these shows and be inspired to reduce their carbon footprint.
So cheers to Tina Fey for calling NBC on their gimmick (of course, she had the most perfect vehicle with which to do so). Thursday’s episode actually incorporates NBC’s “green” initiative into its storyline while parodying it: Jack (Alec Baldwin) announces that NBC-Universal GE Kmart is having a contest among its divisions to see who can “make the most money from this environmental trend.” To that end, he’s cooked up corporate mascot Greenzo (David Schwimmer), the “first nonjudgmental business-friendly environmental advocate.” Jack’s idea of saving the planet is to have Greenzo go on the “Today” show and encourage viewers to buy a new GE washer that uses less water.
Meredith Vieira tells the corporate flunky, “Thanks for getting the message out, Greenzo. You’re saving the world.” Which propels Greenzo into a monumental power and ego trip.
Could’ve done without the subplot involving Kenneth the page throwing a party, with rumors swirling as to who may be attending. But Al Gore’s cameo – much of which you may have already seen in promos for the episode – is very funny, as he pokes fun at his reputation.
Fey’s fatalistic final lines of the episode – “This earth is ruined – we gotta get a new one” – may not be referring specifically to our Earth, but it does sort of tidily sum up her ideas about NBC’s stunt – er, initiative.
- “30 Rock:” 8:30 p.m. Thursday, NBC Channel 4.