TVSquad

(S05E26) Driving home tonight, I got a text from my wife: "Wow wow wow Office... just wow! Rivals 'Casino Night!'"

That kind of praise has the potential to ruin what would normally be a very good episode, if only because you're prepared for something extraordinary. So far, only three things in my life have ever lived up to the hype: Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, sex, and Cadbury Flake bars. Everything else has been kind of a letdown.

I was worried, then, that my wife's words would condemn tonight's Office to be more meh than magnificent. After all, we're not at the end of a grand storyline like we have been the last few season finales -- part of what made "Casino Night" so special was that it was the culmination of two years of Jim's pining away for Pam.

I just didn't think "Company Picnic" would be able to pull off that kind of greatness as a standalone episode ...

Like Bob wrote the other day in his TV Squad review, 30 Rock is the kind of show that you have to watch and really pay attention to in order to get all the great lines and jokes. That includes the lids on Judah Friedlander's noggin. At a recent event, a New York Observer reporter cornered 30 Rock's Frank with a few questions ... all about his hats.

The baseball caps that Judah wears in every show -- and you never see him sans-hat -- are his own creation. It's a shtick that he began nearly two decades ago. "I've been making my own hats for years. I've been doing stand-up for 19 years and my hats have always said world champion in some language." See, the joke is that he's not the world champion of anything. Now, as one of the writers on TGS, Judah tailors his hats to the individual episode. Some are obvious jokes, some are in-jokes, nothing is accidental or unplanned.

Ninja Expert. ESP Tutor. Extra Sausage. Joystick Master. Bahama Trapezoid.

What do all these phrases have in common? They're all slogans that can be found on the many hats worn by the character Frank Rossitano on 30 Rock. Of course, if you read the headline to this post, you probably already figured that out, but thanks for playing anyway.