History Fridge / ThirtyRock

* In-universe, in one episode, Liz eats a pop tart she finds on the floor of her apartment. She later finds Pete in her apartment playing sex games with his wife, with a poptart in bed with them. Liz frantically asks what they do with the pop tart.

* Liz explains to Drew that he's treated differently due to his "Disney Prince" good looks, causing him to believe he's much more capable than he truly is. He replies that footage of him from his high school swim team was used as a reference for Prince Eric from ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''. Prince Eric drowned.

* While explaining to Drew that treatment due to his "Disney Prince" good looks cause him to believe he's much better at things than he truly is. He replies that footage of him on his high school swim team was used as a reference for Prince Eric from ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''. Prince Eric drowned.

* [[TookALevelInJerkAss Carol's]] HellFaceTurn in "Double Edged Sword" is immensely terrifying version of an abusive boyfriend, even going so far as to [[spoiler:pull a gun out on Liz when she threatens his authority as Air Pilot on the plane, after stealing it from the air marshal]]. In other words, [[spoiler:Liz could've been murdered during a domestic argument IN FRONT OF EVERYONE ON THE PLANE]]. As far as we know, he might've not even be arrested for attempted murder!

* Jenna quotes Roy Batty's final words in ''Film/BladeRunner'' during her final appearance in ''Film/GossipGirl'': "Oh, the things I've seen. The first Clinton administration. The Nagano Olympics. Microsoft Windows '95. But I'm 41 now. Time to die." Jenna's short shelf life as a female actress mirrors the short lifespan of Roy Batty and the other replicants.

* Kenneth's immortality is confirmed in the final episode with the "100 Years Later" joke. However, this means that Kenneth will literally be head of NBC ''forever.'' Who knows where that will go? He's not always the most stable guy.

* The Netflix for the show logo depicts a young Alec Baldwin as [[Film/TheHuntForRedOctober Jack Ryan]]. Why? Because [[TheMirrorShowsYourTrueSelf The HDTV Shows Your True Self]]. 30 Rock? In HD. On Netflix.

* The Netflix logo depicts a young Alec Baldwin as [[Film/TheHuntForRedOctober Jack Ryan]]. Why? Because [[TheMirrorShowsYourTrueSelf The HDTV Shows Your True Self]]. 30 Rock? In HD. On Netflix.

* Liz briefly has a doctor boyfriend who is in "the bubble", where no one will ever say anything bad to him. As a result, he has no idea he's bad at cooking, tennis, sex, and being a doctor (Liz has to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself, because he doesn't know how)... He's probably lost A LOT of patients.
** FromBadToWorse ''He was a pediatrician.''

* In ''Series/ThirtyRock'', for a long time I had no response to the slogan of NBC's parent company: "You can always tell a Sheinhardt". It seemed like an entirely standard slogan. Eventually it struck me... that's a ''terrible'' slogan for a ''wig company''. - Tropers/WhogusTheWhatsler
* There’s a moment of fridge feminism in the episode “Black Light Attack!” When Jenna plays the mother of a character on Gossip Girl, one of her lines contains an extended echo of Roy's death monologue from the movie Blade Runner: "Oh, the things I've seen. The first Clinton administration. The Nagano Olympics. Microsoft Windows '95. But I'm 41 now. Time to die." The crew applauds and cries, just as the crew did after Rutger Hauer's performance in Blade Runner. The allusion is apt. Like all replicants in the movie, Roy dies 4 years after his inception; like most other female actresses, Jenna faces reduced prospects for work after 40 because of double-standards that have been allowed to persist for decades in the media.
* Another ''Series/ThirtyRock'' example. Jack mentioned in the pilot episode that his father once lured him to the edge of a pool using a puppy and then pushed him in to teach him how to swim. Jack was two years old, which meant that his father left shortly after. Jack had a collie named "Pop" who got run over by a milk truck. "Pop" might be the bait puppy, the last thing with which he could really associate his father before his dad started ditching his family. This show has layers. {{Tropers/mari-ko}}
* At one point, Liz is at a wedding, and meets a cute guy. Then she leaves in disgust when he immediately introduces himself as a member of the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom, and goes on to enthusiastically describe the fandom as people who put on mascot costumes and yiff in hotel rooms. It seemed like the writers were being lazy and using the stereotypical view of furries, which seemed odd given their OneOfUs tendencies. Before the next scene was finished, I realized that the type of furry who is... ''socially impaired'' enough to walk up to a complete stranger and introduce himself like that probably has a warped view of the fandom. They normally don't clean up so well, but it still makes sense. -- {{Tropers/Jonn}}
** The real FridgeBrilliance of that scene is that the perverted furry at the wedding is played by the same actor who appeared earlier that season as Liz's dream guy, Astronaut Mike Dexter.
** It's a Comedy show on NBC. It's pretty obvious its just simply that "furry" in that sense is "creepy nerds having sex in fur outfits" because that is what most people know. This isn't a furry webcomic who will want to portray being furry as completely normal, it's an NBC Comedy.
** Being nerdy also doesn't mean you don't think that furries are weird. "OneOfUs" isn't referring to what you seem to think it is.
* In the college episode we see Jack feeling jealous that the Microwave department created this cool voice activated microwave without any input from him. A few episodes later he's trying to impress the new Kabletown exec with a voice activated remote, that unfortunately doesn't work as well as the microwave
* In an early episode "Jack-tor," Jack Donaghy reveals that he's always been terrible at acting, an assertion backed up by a flashback to a childhood play he failed. Much later, in season 5, Jack further reveals that as a child, his father disapproved of a role he had in a play, causing him to freeze up and fail. It's possible his inability to act stems from this experience.
* Tracy Jordan has a son named Tracy Jr. The obvious assumption is that he's named after his father, but it is eventualy revealed that Tracy has a dog named Tracy Sr. Tracy Jr. isn't named after his father, he's named after his father's dog.
** I always thought Tracy Sr. was named because in dog years, Tracy Sr. was older than Tracy.

* In Season 3, Episode 13 "Goodbye, My Friend", it is revealed that Tracy does not know his own birthday. As a result, Kenneth decides to use Jenna's birthday party to also celebrate Tracy's (much to Jenna's horror). This results in Tracy adopting Jenna's birthday as his own. Then, in the final season, [[spoiler:Liz adopts biracial twins who not only have a striking similarity to Tracy and Jenna....but naturally also have the same birthday.]] - @/RisingRah

* In-universe, in one episode, Liz eats a poptart she finds on the floor of her apartment. She later finds Pete in her apartment playing sex games with his wife, with a poptart in bed with them. Liz frantically asks what they do with the poptart.
* [[spoiler: Kenneth's immortality is confirmed in the final episode with the "100 Years Later" joke. However, this means that Kenneth will literally be head of NBC ''forever.'']] Who knows where that will go? He's not always the most stable guy.
** More importantly, what kind of shows will Kenneth pick/develop? Gold Case wasn't exactly a hit.
** Considering NBC's reputation for low ratings (which the show regularly lampshades), the mere fact that it's still around a hundred years in the future probably counts as a point in favor of Kenneth's leadership abilities.

[[AC:FridgeLogic]]
* From "Reaganing": The episode's main Liz storyline is driven by Jack's decision to drive Liz to Newark Airport to meet Carol because she can't catch a cab on account of the Greece v. Pakistan soccer match. But if she can't catch a cab, why doesn't she just take the train? UsefulNotes/NewJerseyTransit runs trains from New York Penn Station--not too far from 30 Rock--directly to the airport every 10-20 minutes on weekdays, and the train ride is typically only about 20-25 minutes (going up to 30 or 35 minutes factoring in the subway trip to Penn Station). Driving from Midtown to Newark Airport takes about half an hour with no traffic (which on a weekday afternoon in New York is as likely as the Knicks winning the NBA Championship), so basically she's balancing 10-20 minutes of delays because of traffic against 10-20 minutes of delays because she ''just'' missed the last train. Jack might not have thought of this--he doesn't even know how the Subway works--but Liz commutes by subway (she takes the B train), and seems to know her way around the transit network OK. Granted, their going together (and getting stuck in a traffic jam) helps us get to the bottom of some of Liz's hangups, but this seems somewhat out-of-character for Liz. What gives?

* In Season 3, Episode 13 "Goodbye, My Friend", it is revealed that Tracy does not know his own birthday. As a result, Kenneth decides to use Jenna's birthday party to also celebrate Tracy's (much to Jenna's horror). This results in Tracy adopting Jenna's birthday as his own. Then, in the final season, [[spoiler:Liz adopts biracial twins who not only have a striking similarity to Tracy and Jenna....but naturally also have the same birthday.]]