30 Rock Turns 20: How TV's Brainiest Sitcom Survived Its Own Scandal Era

Two decades after its premiere, 30 Rock is still standing. The New York Times just ranked it eighth on its list of the best TV shows of the 21st century, a wild outcome for a sitcom that was never a ratings monster and never got the streaming comfort-watch treatment that turned The Office and Friends into eternal background noise. Instead, 30 Rock survived on something rarer: writing so dense you catch a new joke on every single rewatch, plus a surreal streak that no other network comedy has matched since.
That survival wasn’t guaranteed. In 2020, Tina Fey and co-creator Robert Carlock asked streamers to remove four episodes featuring blackface. Fey didn’t dodge it, saying plainly that intent is not a free pass. She also faced criticism over SNL’s cake-eating sketch and casting decisions on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It was a real reckoning, and it raised a bigger question about comedy, race, and what we do with art that both delights and disappoints us.
Here’s what makes the comeback story worth telling: the controversy didn’t erase the show. Fey is now starring in and co-creating a hit Netflix series, and 30 Rock lives on through catchphrases, memes, and its clear influence on brainy comedies like The Other Two. Kenneth the page remains the immortal heart of it all. So where do you land: does 30 Rock belong in your all-time top ten, or does the controversy change how you watch it? Drop your take in the comments.