Sublime, Meet Ridiculous

I watched the live 30 Rock last Thursday.  It sure gave the show a jolt, and part of the fun was watching them adapt a snappy one-camera show into a stage performance. In fact, they intentionally created obstacles just for the joy of overcoming them. (If anything, there were too many stunts, with all the doubling and guest shots and fake old TV shows.)

I got the West Coast feed, which was the second performance of the day, done live on the East Coast at 11:30 pm their time.  So thank goodness for On Demand, which offers both shows. It was an odd experience, watching the earlier version--sort of like hearing an alternate take of a song.  Many of the differences were small, but showed how just a slight change of emphasis or timing can make or break a joke.  But some of the changes were big--totally different jokes and different actors doing the same parts.

The biggest change had to be the "surprise" cameo, and it made the East Coast version clearly superior.  They got Paul McCartney. We got Kim Kardashian.

(For a helpful rundown of the differences, here's a piece in The Hollywood Reporter)