History Series / Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip

* RunningGag: Sorkin loves to incorporate throw-away running gags, often with each instance rephrasing the joke from a different angle. For example, one episode supposedly had off-camera guest-host (and real-life {{Malaproper}}) JessicaSimpson filling in extra airtime at the end of the fictional show's live broadcast:

An NBC ensemble show that premiered in 2006 about life behind the scenes at a fictional failing sketch comedy show. No, not the one with Creator/TinaFey. You're thinking of ''Series/ThirtyRock''. This one was the one created by Creator/AaronSorkin, was an hour-long, had a much more dramatic slant, and ended up lasting only a single season.

Nowadays largely known as Aaron Sorkin's FollowUpFailure to ''Series/TheWestWing'' and for being DuelingShows with the aforementioned ''Series/ThirtyRock''. Funnily enough, this was the show that had NBC's hype machine behind it, while ''Rock'' was seen as ItWillNeverCatchOn. An understandably miffed Tina Fey included various [[TakeThat Take Thats]] against the show that largely ceased when ''30 Rock'' [[GrowingTheBeard grew the beard]] and ''Studio 60'' was cancelled. [[HilariousInHindsight Living in 2014]], we can say that Fey was right.

Nowadays largely known as Aaron Sorkin's FollowUpFailure to ''Series/TheWestWing'' and for being DuelingShows with the aforementioned ''Series/ThirtyRock''. Funnily enough, this was the show that had NBC's hype machine behind it, while ''Rock'' was seen as ItWillNeverCatchOn. An understandably miffed Tina Fey included various [[TakeThat Take Thats]] against the show that largely ceded when ''30 Rock'' [[GrowingTheBeard grew the beard]] and ''Studio 60'' was cancelled. [[HilariousInHindsight Living in 2014]], we can say that Fey was right.

* AuthorAvatar: Matt. Oh so very much
** Although both Matt and Danny actually display symptoms of this, when you take into account Danny's (and Aaron Sorkin's) history of drug-related problems.

* AuthorTract: This show took the preachiness from ''Series/TheWestWing'' and turned it UpToEleven.

** Many viewers were disturbed by this storyline, since it appeared to be asking us to root for Danny despite his acting more like he was going to kill Jordan.
* StopBeingStereotypical: Simon is disappointed and almost depressed that a heavily praised black stand up comedian he has gone to see performs nothing but cliched racial humor and WhiteDudeBlackDude jokes. However, the comedian who goes on ''next'', though not very funny in that particular performance, has legitimately witty things to say and is recruited onto the the ''Studio 60'' writing staff to help nurture his talent and bring a new perspective to the show.

* InformedAbility - Matt's sketch-writing
** Harriet's comedic talents and singing ability definitely count too. The former is especially noticable because Aaron Sorkin can write comedy pretty well.

* AbortedArc: Wasn't there a reporter writing an article?

* BrokenAesop: On the Nevada Day episode of , The writers clearly tried to get across a message about how not everyone in small towns is an unreasonable, stuck in the dark ages bible bashing gun-nut (To the point where John Goodman's character actually says something to that effect). Its a nice if glaringly obvious aesop that gets broken because the Judge was giving them every reason to believe that he really was as bad as they thought he was. When he comes into the sheriff's office, He puts a holstered gun on the table,refers to nearby chinese people as "Japs", refuses to listen to any legal arguments from the attorney and threatens to have him shot if he keeps talking (I.e, actually trying to defend his client) and claims to have never heard of the station they work for. He then has a good laugh at their expense and chastises them in a manner clearly directed at audience members who had made their mind up. Its like calling someone a racist name and chastising them for assuming you're racist. The judge even tells Tom that he doesn't like his show in a manner that basically says "I don't like what you do for a living so I'm not going to be fair or do my job right". The only thing that saves Tom is having a brother in the army and we never get a sense that the judge would have been fair or lenient otherwise. It also doesn't help that the show has previously shown Tom's parents from the midwest as so hopelessly out of touch with pop culture that they've never heard of Abbot & Costello despite presumable growing up in the 1950's.

* AllStarCast: This was a TV show with a feature-film-worthy cast of regulars. A large part of the reason the show didn't get renewed for a second season was because the cast was just so darn expensive.

* TheDanza (Matthew Perry as "Matt")

* DirectedByCastMember

* DuelingShows: ''Series/ThirtyRock''. If you went back in time to 2006 and told someone ''30 Rock'' would last seven seasons while ''Studio 60'' would only get one before being unceremoniously canceled, [[ItWillNeverCatchOn you would have been laughed out of the room]]. Oh, and just add in the fact that ''30 Rock'' has won three straight Emmys for Best Comedy while ''Studio 60'' never even managed a nomination for Best Drama and then they'll really think you must be joking. ''Everyone'' expected ''Studio 60'' would be the next ''West Wing'' and that ''30 Rock'' would be gone long before. That said, TinaFey has said that Sorkin had nothing but the best wishes for her show, even sending her a dozen roses the week ''30 Rock'' premiered.
** Sorkin cameoed as himself in a fifth-season episode of ''30 Rock'':
--->'''Sorkin''': I'm Aaron Sorkin. ''Series/TheWestWing'', ''Film/AFewGoodMen'', ''Film/TheSocialNetwork''...\\
'''Liz''': ''Studio 60''?\\
'''Sorkin''': [[SelfDeprecation Shut up.]]

* FollowUpFailure

* PlayingAgainstType: Matthew Perry in a serious role.

** In "The Wrap Party," Tom says that his parents seem not to understand that he could "buy [their] house four times and turn it into [his] ping-pong room." In "4 AM Miracle," Matt talks about other people claiming they wrote a script of his and dismissing it because "if they’d written it, they’d have written it." Both lines are echoed in ''TheSocialNetwork.''

--->'''Sorkin''': I'm Aaron Sorkin. ''TheWestWing'', ''AFewGoodMen'', ''TheSocialNetwork''...\\

* CastingGag: Openly bisexual Sarah Paulson as the conservative Christian Harriet Hayes, whose ambiguous feelings about gay marriage factor significantly into the plot of "Nevada Day."

[[caption-width-right:320:A.K.A. The ''other'' NBC behind-the-scenes sketch show.]]

[[caption-width-right:320:A.K.A. The other NBC behind-the-scenes sketch show.

An NBC ensemble show that premiered in 2006 about life behind the scenes at a fictional failing sketch comedy show. No, not the one with Tina Fey. You're thinking of ''Series/ThirtyRock''. This one was the one created by Creator/AaronSorkin, was an hour-long, had a much more dramatic slant, and ended up lasting only a single season.

* ProductPlacement: InUniverse, the network wants ''Studio 60'' to incorporate PP in the show but Matt is against it. Then he realizes he can put it into the Sunset Strip backdrop, which is already full of ads.

* ProductPlacement: InUniverse. The network wants "Studio Sixty" to incorporate Products in the show but Matt is against it. Then he realizes he can put it into the bakdrop, which will resemble the Sunset Strip - full of ads.

An NBC ensemble show that premiered in 2006 about life behind the scenes at a fictional sketch comedy show. No, not the one with Tina Fey. You're thinking of ''Series/ThirtyRock''. This one was the one created by Creator/AaronSorkin, was an hour-long, had a much more dramatic slant, and ended up lasting only a single season.

* CastingGag: Out lesbian Sarah Paulson as the Christian Harriet Hayes, whose ambiguous feelings about gay marriage factor significantly into the plot of "Nevada Day."

An NBC ensemble show that premiered in 2006 about life behind the scenes at a fictional sketch comedy show. No, not the one with Tina Fey. You're thinking of ''Series/ThirtyRock''. This one was the one created by Aaron Sorkin, was an hour-long, had a much more dramatic slant, and ended up lasting only a single season.

** Matt gets plenty of atheistic Take That's in against Christianity, Christians, Harriet's faith, and people of faith in general. Everyone will tell you that. What no one seems to want to admit is that Harriet generally wins these arguments whenever she gets Matt to shut up long enough to EXPLAIN her position.

** Aaron Sorkin based the character of Harriet Hayes (the ex-girlfriend of his self-insert character Matt) on his ex-girlfriend Kristin Chenoweth (with permission), and aims several Take Thats at Chenoweth through the character's interactions, specifically regarding Chenoweth's decision to appear on ''The 700 Club'' and an FHM bathing-suit photo-shoot of Chenoweth's, employing the other characters to lambaste Harriet for her decision to do a lingerie shoot.

* CrossesTheLineTwice: Subverted (off-camera), and deconstructed in "The Option Period", when Matt complains about an (unseen) sketch, "QuentinTarantino's Hallmark Movie 'Turkey Won't Die'", that a clueless special-effects guy ruins by curtailing the scripted excessive blood, thereby un-crossing the second line, so to speak. [[invoked]]

--> '''Matt''': It's called "Quentin Tatantino's Hallmark Movie, ''Turkey Won't Die.''" It's about a mortally wounded bird that will not die, ''even as it's being served.'' Did he find the premise realistic?... If [[{{Gorn}} geysers of blood are gushing out]], then I get the Tarantino joke, and [[BloodyHilarious it's funny]]. If it's just a ''realistic'' amount of blood, then it's... ''[[{{Squick}} extremely]]'' [[KickTheDog disturbing...]]

After the creator of failing sketch-comedy show "Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip" is fired for launching into an angry improvised rant on the state of television during a live broadcast, former writers Danny Tripp (now a producer barred from his next Hollywood film for testing positive for cocaine) and Matt Albie (presumed AuthorAvatar for Sorkin) are called in by plucky new network executive Jordan [=McDeere=] and her amoral boss Jack Rudolph to save the ShowWithinAShow, which stars Harriet Hayes (a fundamentalist Christian and Matt Albie's ex-girlfriend), Tom Jeter (all-American midwesterner with a brother serving in Afghanistan), and Simon Stiles (the TokenMinority and not particularly pleased with it). Each week the cast deals with personal and professional issues in front of and behind the camera as they try to make sure the show gets off the ground. And politics. Lots and lots of politics. For some reason.

** Harriet's comedic talents and singing ability definitely count too.

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