TVSquad

(S02E12) "Save it for your iVillage blog, Lemon." - Jack, to Liz

Tonight's episode of 30 Rock had more jokes and one-liners - the kind where you actually smile and laugh out loud - in just the two minute opening teaser than According To Jim and Unhitched have in an entire season (combined). It got me thinking that the show is sort of like the live version of Family Guy: lots of crazy one-liners and non-sequiturs, often punctuated by a bizarre, seconds-long flashback. And I mean that comparison in a good way. There's no other comedy that's running on all cylinders like 30 Rock is right now.

While Liz deals with having Dennis back in her life, Jack looks for a new celebrity spokesman for the Republican party and Kenneth gets involved with an old TV star.

Guest star Tim Conway plays the old TV star, Bucky Bright (great name), who is the person called in when Jack is looking for a new celebrity spokesman to represent the GOP (Bruce Willis and Jim Belushi were both turned down because, well, they both wanted to sing). When Jack tells Bucky that he just isn't right (no one even remembers him except Kenneth), Bucky just leaves the office. But Kenneth loves the guy and decides to show him around the studio.

This was an odd guest role for Conway. When I first heard he was going to guest star, I thought he'd have a really big role, getting involved in one of the main plots of the show with Liz or Jack (like Carrie Fisher did earlier this season), but after a brief moment with Alec Baldwin, Conway just roamed the halls with Jack McBrayer, remembering the old days and completely freaking out innocent Kenneth with stories of keeping opium pipes in his pocket and having relations with men in his dressing room (back then in wasn't gay, it was just men being men). I think they showed an old picture of Conway and the rest of the cast from McHale's Navy, but they blur it out so you can't quite see what it is. But the mental image makes an impact nonetheless. Conway is very funny playing it oddly straight.

Jack finally gets his spokesman - Tracy. He isn't sure if he should do it at first (a black celebrity endorsing a Republican??), but he changes his mind after being visited in a dream by Richard Nixon (another great Baldwin impersonation) and Sammy Davis, Jr. (Toofer!), who was secretly Republican. I'm not sure if this piece of history is even accurate, but it gives Keith Powell a funny scene. The PSAs don't really go too well until Jack gets the idea to have Tracy tell blacks not to vote.

If you're wondering how Dennis, last seen on To Catch A Predator, comes back into Liz's life (personal and professional), he saves someone's life in the subway and becomes a media star. Jack gets him to guest star on TGS, which doesn't thrill Liz until she starts getting used to having him around again (and calling her "dummy" - what is he, Fred Sanford?). She learns her lesson though and is even backed up by Jack, who says that Dennis' 15 minutes are up. Did I notice a slight smile on Jack's face after he told Liz that Dennis wasn't going to be on the show after all, a smile that said that he was doing this for her and not just for the show?

It's really hard to keep track of all of the great lines on this show, but here are several that stood out:

- "It's the same model that's keeping Larry King alive." - Liz, about a humidifier

- "Food Network doesn't have a news show." - Liz, explaining why she doesn't watch the news

- "Thank you Michael Bloomberger...Stern rules! Baba booey!" - Dennis, accepting his award

- "We're like Ross and Rachel, only not gay." - Dennis, about him and Liz

- "I can have any women I want...and not just the fatties and butterfaces!" - Dennis

- "Dennis is like those off brand Mexican Doritos." - Jena, about the generic chips Liz is addicted to

- "400% of my sodium? I should not be eating these." - Liz, about the chips

- "My cologne is distilled from the bilge water of Rupert Murdoch's yacht." - Jack, after being told he smelled like money

- "I didn't run into another person...except a gigantic lesbian. Who's Conan O'Brien, and why is she so sad?" - Bucky, after staying in the studio all night

- "We used to call this 'The Jew Room.'" - Bucky, about the writers room