The Best Days of My Flerm

One week later, I realize there are some 30 Rock characters I wouldn’t have minded seeing in the final season. In order from plain ol’ beloved to sorely missed:

Josh Girard

Phoebe of the Avian Bones

Avery Jessup

Liz’s terrible agent, Simon

Astronaut Mike Dexter, who appears in more episodes that you might think

Angie Jordan

D’Fwan

Diana Jessup

Any of the Jong Il clan as portrayed by Margaret Cho

Dr. Drew Baird

Jenna DeCarlo, a.k.a. the alternate universe Jenna Maroney and the role Rachel Dratch was supposed to play before my favorite show did something awful to her.

But good on the show for giving us one last moment of Kathy Geiss and no harm in skipping over Danny. And one remaining 30 Rock question: With the exception of Dennis, all of Liz’s boyfriends’ names are puns of one sort or another — Floyd DeBarber, Wesley Snipes, Carol Burnett, Criss Chross. But what joke is Jon Hamm’s character supposed to be making with the name Dr. Drew Baird? Is it just supposed to be Dr. Drew?

Finally this, still good, a full week later:

The complete lyrics to the “Rural Juror song are posted over at Vulture, by the way.

Fake Jimmy Fallon and the Existential Implications of the “Fart So Loud” Song

In the 30 Rock universe, there is no Saturday Night Live. TGS is the stand-in for SNL. However, Jimmy Fallon has played himself on 30 Rock, and since Jimmy Fallon only got to host his own talk show because he got famous from being on SNL, the 30 Rock version of Jimmy Fallon, if you want to get technical about it and I obviously do, has to have some alternate backstory where he got famous through a means other than SNL.

Besides, wasn’t Josh the 30 Rock universe stand-in for Jimmy Fallon anyway?

See, and you though this song was just about farting.

You have to wonder, though, since the 30 Rock universe lacks the actor Alec Baldwin — on account of the fact that otherwise that the celebrity paradox rule stating that his character would never be able to get anything done because everyone would be telling him, “Wow, you look exactly like Alec Baldwin!” — does that mean that all the other Baldwins also don’t exist? Does this mean that the 30 Rock-verse never got The Usual Suspects? Is my fanfic inaccurate if I have Toofer making a Keyser Soze joke?

Liz Lemon Meets Dracula

At last, my hours spent writing 30 Rock fan fiction have paid off! Alan Moore noticed!

What you see is a panel from the newest League of Extraordinary Gentleman comic, Century: 2009. And yes, rather than allude to esoteric novels from turn-of-the-century Britain, Moore gives shoutouts to works that exist in more contemporary fictional universes — occasionally like Driveshaft from Lost or Who Dat Ninja? from 30 Rock, but more often BBC shows that I’ve never heard of and might as well be esoteric novels from turn-of-the-century Britain. Still, that is Mina Murray walking in front of a representation of the same fictional universe that gave us Jackie Jormp-Jomp, and I like that.

As for the comic itself, it’s better than I expected but not great. It all gets wrapped up in an extended Harry Potter riff that I wasn’t into. That said, 2009 features enough of Moore’s famously layered references to win me over. Case in point: In this universe, Emma Peel from The Avengers is Emma Night, who by 2009 has risen to the head of MI6. Yes, she’s the new M, in the style of Judi Dench in the latter-era Bond films, and on top of that, her name is Emma. Emma is M. And on top of that, as pointed out in the Annotated League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, artist Kevin O’Neill thoughtfully placed a framed photo of a man who looks a great deal like George Lazenby on Emma Night’s desk, presumably a reference to the fact that the actress who played Emma Peel, Diana Rigg, also played the love interest in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in which Lazenby played Bond.

And basically every panel works like that. Sure, you need the online version of Cliffs Notes to understand what you’re looking at, but if it just had references to American sitcoms, you might think this comic book about British literary superheroes seemed slightly silly.

I Am Only Going to Stay Here for a Few More Jokes

Dude. If this 2004 SNL sketch isn’t the genesis of Dr. Spaceman, then it’s totally a forerunner.

Right?

Team Faye

Mad Men spoilers abound, but watch the goddamn episode already. Why are you reading a blog when you could be downloading it right now?

I just finished the last Mad Men of the season, and damn, did I underestimate this show's ability to surprise me. Though I suppose I should have figured that Faye's potential as the new Mrs. Don Draper ended when we found out that she just can't deal with children, since that nixed her from the life of the new, (somewhat) more moral Don.

A thought on her name: I wonder if I'm overreaching in wondering if Jon Hamm's experiences on 30 Rock might have played a role in naming Faye. After all, is Tina Fey not a woman who kicked ass at what many had considered to be a men-only job? Is Liz Lemon not a woman in a similar plight of the impossible balance between a woman's career and her desire to have a family? I'm sure Fays and Fayes and even Faes abounded in the 60s, but it was only tonight — when I realized I wouldn't be thinking about Dr. Faye Miller anymore — that I considered that Hamm's absorption into the Saturday Night Live-30 Rock clique has such that it might have just crossed Matthew Weiner's mind.

And it's not like Mad Men characters' names don't sometimes reflect personalities. Just see how much mileage you can get with Don Draper.

The Sweet and Sour Lover

After scouring the “L” sections of my various word books for something good enough for both the next entry in my strange words series and my first entry following an unplanned hiatus, I found one. Major points, here: I’d never heard it before, it makes for nice wordplay and I think I can relate it to 30 Rock fairly easily.

leman (LEH-men or LEE-men) — noun: 1. a sweetheart or lover. 2. a mistress

The entry in The Superior Person’s Book of Words also claims that one author cites “LAY-men” as a valid pronunciation, though none of my dictionaries offered it. If such a pronunciation does exist, I’d be all the more amused that this word leman can be pronounced three different ways that each don’t bring to mind the kind of person for whom you would sprinkle rose petals on the bedspread or with whom you’d duck into a dark alley. (Hey, everyone loves in their own way.) Superior also notes that the “lemon” and “layman” pronunciations “offer obvious opportunities.” Indeed they do, although I also see opportunities in that this archaic word either may or may not designate a gender — and when it does, it’s not the gender you might think the word part -man would signify. This is some Twelfth Night shit over here.

That -man at the end is exactly what you think it is, so the fact that leman would have eventually become associated with women in certain senses seems awfully strange. The rest of it traces either back to the Middle English leof or leif, both of which mean “dear.” (For all I know, both leog and leif are modern transcriptions of the same thing.) One source even makes a connection between leof and the Old English lufu, meaning “love.”

The implications of the word make for an interesting reading for Liz Lemon, Tina Fey’s stand-in for herself on 30 Rock, which I sometimes forget is a vaguely autobiographical sitcom. The Wikipedia page on Liz Lemon cites a now-removed YouTube video in the explanation of where the name came from. No way to check it now, but it allegedly had Fey explaining that Lemon is “apparently intended to imply an acerbic personality and possibly also to make her full name alliterative.” But the fact that much of the show concerns Liz’s lovelife means she’s frequently also the other thing associated with the pronounced sound “leh-men.” A sour dud and lining up dates nonetheless: That’s good news for all of us — these guys in particular.

Previous words of the week:

• adulterine, ambeer
• barrack, bissextile, breastsummer
  
• catholicon, cecaelia, cranberry morpheme, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate
  
• epeolatry, espalier
  
• fabiform, fissilingual
• gallinipper, grandgore
• honorificabilitudinitatibus
• itaiitai, ignivomous
  
• jehu, jumentous
  
• kaffir, kakopygian
• lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, mongo
• nobiliary particle
• ooglification, ordured, orf
• pareidolia, pismire, pong
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh
• roynish
• scrutator, shebang
• tiffin, tittery-whoppet, toby
• ucalegon
• veneficial
• witzelsucht
• xenodocheionology
• ypsiliform
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic

Handshakefulness

Tonight marked the first rerun of the 30 Rock episode “Retreat to Move Forward.” Aside from being a thoroughly funny episode, it is also notably the one whose plot involves the Wikipedia profile for Janis Joplin being edited to include such misinformation as that her legs bent the wrong way, she speedwalked everywhere, she ate cats, she feared toilets, and that she had a signature cocktail made from cherry juice, buttermilk, and tequila, all in an effort to make Jane Krakowski’s character appear stupid.

The last first time the episode aired, Joplin’s actual Wikipedia page had to be locked to protect it from vandalism inspired the show. Tonight, the Wikipedia nerds are on high alert since they realized that the episode was airing again. This in itself strikes me a damn hilarious, but one particular discussion on the article’s take page took the cake.

Oh, coprophobia, when will you stop being relevant?

Alternate title for this post: “Robot Penis.”

Jupiter Jazz

Look beyond here and find a more interesting there — online, I mean.

• Pajiba reviews the Tracy Jordan feature film A Blaffair to Rememblack.
• The newspaper industry begins to implode right before the eyes of June Casagrande.
• A review of one of the strangest movies I have ever heard of: the made-for-TV wonder The Twonky.
• One hundred well-illustrated film posters. (via Stale Popcorn)
  
• A kickass collection of public domain book illustrations: Granda’s Graphics.
  
• Anatoly Liberman on the seeming lack of logic directing English spelling.
• Weird architecture in the U.S.
• Merry Swankster breaks down Okkervil River’s “Plus Ones,” the lyrics of which mean more than you might have realized.
• In defense of American Dad — and I have to say he makes some valid points.
• The curious tendency for video game protagonists to be depicted as darker and grittier has the series progresses.
  
• Watchmen goes manga — shades of Watchmen Babies.
• Eight awkward Berenstain Bears books.
• Daisy — that is, the female counterpart to Donald Duck — is apparently kind of a ho.
• Bjork explains how her TV works.
• New Kaiser Chiefs single bears a passing similarity to “Five Little Speckled Frogs.”

And finally, from the always phenomenal PCL LinkDump, is an early version of the Muppets singing “Mah Nà Mah Nà.” A reworking, featuring the Birdo-like Snowths, would become the first-ever sketch aired on The Muppet Show.

This above sketch features “Little Anything” back-up singers and a prototype version of the character Bip Bippadotta, whose name sounds a lot like the lyrics song before the “mah nà mah nà.” But it’s the “mah nà mah nà” part that Bip sings. The finalized version of the character appears in the more familiar version of “Mah Nà Mah Nà” with the Birdo-like Snowths singing back-up.

How’s Your Mom’s Pill Addiction?

I knew I recognized her from somewhere.

In the end credits to the most recent 30 Rock — which concerned Liz Lemon’s high school reunion and which was amazing — I saw the name Robyn Lively. In the episode, she played Kelsey Winthrop, a popular girl who tormented Liz during their high school years.

A check at IMDb revelas that Lively is, in fact, the actress who also played Lana Budding Milford, the Twin Peaks character who appeared regularly in the show’s second season as the woman who would seduce men who would then die. The death touch didn’t prevent her from marrying both the mayor’s brother and, after he died, the mayor himself within the span of a few episodes.

Extra random: She’s also the older sister of Gossip Girl star Blake Lively, which would make sense of the fact that I read online that the younger Lively would star in a 30 Rock episode this season in a flashback to Liz’s high school years. It would have been great if Lively Junior had been the one to play the younger Kelsey Winthrop.