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Did ’30 Rock’ Take a Swipe at Canceled NBC Sibling ‘Animal Practice’ Last Night?

Oct 19, 2012  •  Post A Comment

Just a few hours after news broke Thursday that NBC had canceled the freshman comedy “Animal Practice,” a subplot aired on another NBC sitcom, “30 Rock,” that may have been a poke in the eye at the canceled show, TheWrap.com reports.

The subplot was about a comedy series bringing a monkey on board for some cheap laughs, the story reports.

“Coincidence? The timing certainly was. ‘30 Rock’ had no way of knowing ‘Animal Practice’ was going off the air,” the piece reports. “But the storyline may not have been. ‘Animal Practice’ emerged as an anti-‘30 Rock’ when NBC announced plans to push broad comedies — the kinds with animals and kids — rather than the acclaimed but low-rated comedies it has aired on Thursday nights for years. ‘30 Rock’ is the most acclaimed of those shows.”

The report adds: “The monkey appeared Thursday in the midst of a fight between Liz (Tina Fey) and Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) over whether women are funny. Jordan concludes that monkeys are funnier than women, and lobbies to feature one on the ‘30 Rock’ show-within-a-show ‘TGS.’"

A spokeswoman for the network told TheWrap today that the plotline had no connection to "Animal Practice." But the website notes that "30 Rock" has targeted NBC before with its satires.

“In the era when GE owned NBC, executive Jack Donaghy tried to peddle ‘funcooker’ ovens as well as TV shows,” the piece reports. “As Comcast took over the real NBC, the NBC of ‘30 Rock’ was taken over by a Comcast-like company called Kabletown.”

3 Comments

  1. wouldn’t that actually represent cross-channel promotion for Jane/Jenna’s Trop 50 commercial with the circus monkey?

  2. The answer to the headline question is “No.” The episode in question is from a few years ago, long before Animal Practice was even greenlit.

  3. Sorry. I was incorrect and jumped the gun on that one.
    I was thinking of two separate episodes: The episode where Jenna adopts a monkey that Tracy brings on to the show to rehearse for him & the episode where Tracy and Jenna fight over whether women or black people have it harder in the workplace.
    Once again, sorry.

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