Production
"The Break-Up" was written by that season's co-executive producers Brett Baer and Dave Finkel, and directed by Scott Ellis. This episode was the first writing credit for both Baer and Finkel, and the first one Ellis directed for 30 Rock. Baer and Finkel would later collaborate on the episode "Fireworks", that aired in the show's first season on April 5, 2007. "The Break-Up" originally aired on NBC on December 14, 2006 as the eighth episode of the series.
This episode was actor Dean Winters' third appearance on the series as the character, Dennis Duffy, a former boyfriend of Tina Fey's character, Liz Lemon. He appeared in the episodes "Jack Meets Dennis" and "Tracy Does Conan". Finkel has appeared on the show in a 10-second internet sitcom, Makin' It Happen, alongside staff writer Kay Cannon. The two play husband and wife. A series of Makin' It Happen was produced and the webisodes aired on NBC.com.
Rachel Dratch, longtime comedy partner and fellow Saturday Night Live (SNL) alumna of Fey, the latter who was the show's head writer from 1999 until 2006, was originally cast to portray Jenna Maroney. Dratch played the role in the show's original pilot, but in August 2006, actress Jane Krakowski was announced as Dratch's replacement. Executive producer Lorne Michaels announced that while Dratch would not be playing a series regular, she would appear in various episodes in a different role. In this episode, Dratch played Pamela Smew, a group therapist in charge of sensitivity training between Tracy and Toofer. This was Dratch's fifth appearance on the series. Various other cast members of SNL have appeared on 30 Rock. These cast members include: Chris Parnell, Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis and Molly Shannon. Fey and Tracy Morgan have both been part of the main cast of SNL. Chris Hansen of Dateline NBC's television segment To Catch a Predator appeared as himself in this episode, in which he confronts Dennis on To Catch a Predator.
Read more about this topic: The Break-Up (30 Rock)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“Perestroika basically is creating material incentives for the individual. Some of the comrades deny that, but I can’t see it any other way. In that sense human nature kinda goes backwards. It’s a step backwards. You have to realize the people weren’t quite ready for a socialist production system.”
—Gus Hall (b. 1910)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)