Production
This is Jack McBrayer and Will Arnett's third time working together. McBrayer "memorably" made guest appearances as a country club waiter in "Burning Love" and "S.O.B.s", two episodes of the situation comedy Arrested Development. Arnett, a member of the main cast of Arrested Development, played George Oscar "G.O.B." Bluth II in that series. The plot of the Arrested Development episode in which McBrayer appeared revolved around G.O.B. accidentally becoming a waiter at the Bluth family's country club.
This episode was, as NBC advertises these events, a "supersized" episode meaning that the total runtime of the episode was extended from 30 minutes to 40 minutes. It also resulted in the episode airing at 8:40 pm, after "The Negotiation" which is an episode of The Office, as opposed to 9:00 pm which was the series' usual timeslot.
The husband and wife characters who appear in the 10-second internet sitcom, Makin' It Happen, are played by Dave Finkel and Kay Cannon. Finkel and Cannon are both staff writers on 30 Rock. Cannon was, at the time, also married to guest star Jason Sudeikis and Finkel co-wrote this episode. A series of Makin' It Happen was produced and the webisodes aired on NBC.com.
Star Wars is frequently referenced in 30 Rock, beginning with the pilot episode where Tracy Jordan is seen shouting that he is a Jedi. Liz Lemon admits to being a huge fan of Star Wars, saying that she had watched it many times with Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit), and saying she dressed up as the Star Wars character Princess Leia during four Halloweens. Fey, a fan of Star Wars herself, said that the weekly Star Wars joke or reference "started happening organically" when the crew realized that they had a Star Wars reference "in almost every show". Fey said that from then on "it became a thing where tried to keep it going", and that even though they could not include one in every episode, they still had a "pretty high batting average". Fey attributed most of the references to Robert Carlock, who she described as "the resident expert". In this episode, Star Wars is referenced twice: once when Liz tells Floyd that she and Pete are watching the movies on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list, but they only own Star Wars and Tootsie so they keep watching those two films. It is again referenced during Tracy's dream, when Thomas Jefferson holds his hand up to Tracy and says "May the Force be with you always".
Read more about this topic: Fireworks (30 Rock)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)