Jenna hatches a surprising new plan to get publicity, while Jack finds himself begrudgingly playing parent to his teenage nemesis, Kaylie Hooper. Liz rejects the new authority Kenneth has over “TGS” with his new job in Standards.
Standards obsession backfires: 65 jokes in 24 minutes, yet character depth keeps it grounded.
Directed by Beth McCarthy-Miller · Written by Vali Chandrasekaran
WAR
138.9
Wins Above Replacement
“Standards And Practices” ranks #32 of 138 30 Rock episodes on the Humor Index, scoring 99.4 — Elite. The episode packs 81 scored jokes at 3.4 per minute, averaging 7.8 on craft and 7.6 on impact, with Jack landing the most laughs. Every joke is ranked below with its individual craft and impact scores.
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Top Jokes
Jack: Once again, Lemon, I leave your office more confused than when I entered, but having glimpsed yet another tile in the rich mosaic that is your menstrual history.
Jack Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Tracy: My brain is working overtime. I finally understand the ending of The Sixth Sense. Those names are the people who worked on the movie.
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Jack: I know what it's like not to have your parents around. I once took a log with googly eyes to a father-son picnic.
Jack Character Comedy Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Tracy · Kenneth: Tracy's stand-up is entirely bleeped, with words replaced by random unintelligible phrases — 'cause they love to those big / 'cause they eat all our aloud / housed in a [bleep], boooooy! / You just ate a with extra? / Well, you called the right.'
Tracy Kenneth Visual Gag Physical/Slapstick Meta/Self-Referential ★ Rewatch Callback Jenna: I have six kids. Jerome, share the bronzer, you slut.
Jenna Escalation Character Comedy Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch All Jokes — 81 analyzed
Show all ↓ Hide ↑ Hank: Last time I was this excited was this morning. I saw a cat wearing the same sweater as its person.
Hank Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Kaylie: So, Jack, how's your wife? Still kidnapped?
Kaylie Dark/Subversive Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Kaylie: How's the yearbook going? I heard you made editor... Of the photo captions.
Kaylie Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy Jack · Jenna: Kidz is a hit the whole family can watch together, not your usual sitcom crap full of gratuitous vulgarity and pratfalls. [beat] My penis!
Jack Jenna Irony/Sarcasm Meta/Self-Referential Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Jenna: I'm gonna rub this under my eyes to help me fake it. It's an old acting trick I learned from Glenn Beck's prostitute.
Jenna Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Jack · News Anchor: Well, mark my words, Jenna, tonight is going to be the greatest. [cut] Disaster in the history of television. The young contestants apparently inebriated on live TV.
Jack: That was my angriest hug, 'cause that's how I feel right now.
Jack Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Hank: The Federal Clown Commission. I hope that comes off as respectful. My father was a clown, and I know how hard those men work.
Hank Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jack: I've already detained Brock and Ava under the Patriot Act. People have forgotten about that thing, but any white male can arrest any other person.
Jack Dark/Subversive Irony/Sarcasm Kenneth: Because of last night's cluster-whoops, Darren was fired. Then he threatened to come back with a gun. Then I got a promotion, and the desk closest to the door.
Kenneth Dark/Subversive Escalation ★ Rewatch Kenneth: And a wonderful new show from D.L. Hughley that's already been canceled!
Kenneth Irony/Sarcasm Deadpan/Understatement Tracy: I feel like Oscar the Grouch today, and not just 'cause I woke up in a garbage can this morning, startling someone named Gordon.
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Liz · Tracy: In college, I once went on a hunger strike to protest apartheid... [Tracy] You're the one who solved that? Thank you so much.
Liz Tracy Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy Misdirection ★ Rewatch Unknown: 1997 Heather Locklear, what are you doing here?
Liz: God. Don't adopt. That child is better off in Somalia. It could be a pirate, or a warlord's concubine.
Liz Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Jenna · Liz: Remember my little moneymaking scheme back in Chicago? Cashing your dead aunt's social security checks? No, I'm still doing that.
Jenna Liz Character Comedy Escalation Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Jenna: I have six kids. Jerome, share the bronzer, you slut.
Jenna Escalation Character Comedy Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Jack: I'm a very powerful man, Brock. Little league tryouts are coming soon. How would you like to wind up on a team with... None of your friends?
Jack Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Ava: She's just so cool. Like a human silly band!
Ava Character Comedy Observational Kaylie: I'm tall enough now that there isn't a roller coaster in the world I can't go on. So... You guys drink beer. Or are you babies?
Kaylie Character Comedy Misdirection ★ Rewatch Narrator / Title Card: Jack versus Kaylie, round two, colon: No subtitle necessary.
Jenna: Mommy announcement. I hope we're all waxed, because you're coming with me to my interview tonight for Barbara Walters' 10 most overexposed people.
Jenna Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Jenna: Okay, so, let me just quickly identify everyone's good sides. Left, left, right, right, left... Judy. That's not really on message.
Jenna Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort Jenna: If you want to get to know me, read my 2006 interview in Amtrak magazine. If you want to be my daughter, put on this wig and smile.
Jenna Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Liz · Kenneth: Boy, I am still not comfortable calling you by your first name. Then again, you've never been comfortable calling me by my full Christian name. Kenneth. No, 'Kenneth' is short for andromakennethamblesorton.
Liz Kenneth Character Comedy Absurdist Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Liz · Kenneth: How can we do 'Fart Doctor' without the word 'fart'? I'm surprised they allow you to say 'doctor.' It's so close to 'gynecologist' which is disgusting.
Liz Kenneth Character Comedy Absurdist Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Liz / Writer: Kenneth is being a real... dingbat, which is now the harshest word we are allowed to say.
Jack: Really? What a... dingbat.
Jack Running Gag Deadpan/Understatement Callback Jack: That's why I hired a Cato to attack me at random. Like Inspector Clouseau.
Jack Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jack: Don't attack me tonight, okay? I know I told you that when I say 'don't attack me,' that's when I most need you to attack me, but I'm serious.
Jack Character Comedy Escalation Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Jack · Cato: Cato attacks Jack — Jack cries 'Excellent, Cato, excellent!'
Jack Cato Physical/Slapstick Callback Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Jack: Lemon, you know very well that a Nemesis can be anyone... [cut] Or anything. Autocorrect. I was trying to say 'pen organizer.'
Jack Misdirection Setup/Punchline Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jenna · Unknown: God! You're a winter! I don't know what that means.
Jenna: I'm just gonna choose at random who it's gonna be. Eenie-meenie-miney-moe, out goes Y-O-U.
Jenna Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Judy: Could've just gotten another chair.
Judy Deadpan/Understatement Reaction Beat ★ Rewatch Jack: Surprise. I'm very good at voices, Kaylie. I'm very good.
Jack Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Kaylie · Jack: My mom is in Indonesia visiting her charity where poor children make shoes. Isn't that just a sweat shop? I know!
Kaylie: And then my dad put a Porsche engine in a model T and drove it to Mardi Gras!
Kaylie Character Comedy Absurdist Jack: I know what it's like not to have your parents around. I once took a log with googly eyes to a father-son picnic.
Jack Character Comedy Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Liz · Kenneth: Do you have a second, Kenneth? No, there's only one of me. What? What are you asking?
Kenneth: That reminds me. You can't say 'using' on TV. It implies drug use.
Kenneth Character Comedy Absurdist Running Gag Callback Kenneth: I stole that speech from an episode of JAG, but it applies here.
Kenneth Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy Liz: Anything can happen on live TV. Right, Tracy? [implication: Tracy will act out]
Liz Irony/Sarcasm Setup/Punchline Tracy: I'm still fasting because I misread my calendar. Tomorrow is my colonoscopy. Today was my meeting with Colin O'Scopy.
Tracy Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Jack · Liz: Were you a difficult teenager? Well, I was voted head of the PTA, so no.
Jack Liz Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Jack: Then on to that last bastion of the incompetent rich, USC.
Jack Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy Jack: Once again, Lemon, I leave your office more confused than when I entered, but having glimpsed yet another tile in the rich mosaic that is your menstrual history.
Jack Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Jenna: So Bravo wants to do a reality show about us, and I thought the opening credits could be all of us in a giant dog bed, and you guys are suckling on prosthetic dog teats that I'm wearing.
Jenna Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch One of Jenna's Children: No, Jenna, you. You're so much older than the rest of us, so we're thinking the show is more like The Girls Next Door, and you're that old boat captain that shows up sometimes.
Jenna · Jessica (Jenna's child): That's Hugh Hefner, Jessica. Yeah, we have no idea who that is, so you're kind of just proving our point.
Jenna: Looking for this? [Jenna produces a negotiating chip after being cornered by her kids]
Jenna Visual Gag Character Comedy Reaction Beat ★ Rewatch Tracy: All right, bro-bro, let's just be cool, and sit down and pee in silence, like dudes do.
Tracy Character Comedy Observational Kenneth: It's just stressful enough just having my own wastebasket that I have to fill every day.
Kenneth Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Kenneth: I just wish I had never been born! 'Cause if I can't even get my friend Liz... At least I thought she was my friend... To respect me, how will I ever run a network and boss around those Jewish executives that were trained from birth to argue?
Kenneth Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Escalation Tracy: Bro... You should just smack that Liz in the mouth.
Tracy Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Kenneth · Kenneth Toilethole: I'm Kenneth, by the way. Me too. I'm Kenneth. Kenneth... uh... Toilethole.
Kaylie: I know. I know what I did was stupid, and I've really learned my lesson. Look, if I could go back in time, I'd just... I'd skip clarinet, and I'd go to the spring football with my friends.
Kaylie Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Jack · Kaylie: You told me it was the piano, and that everyone went to the King of Prussia mall. Well... [beat] I don't remember. And I'm just so emotional right now.
Dr. Melvoin · Jack: I'm sorry, how are you related to miss Hooper? I'm her Nemesis.
Jack · Dr. Melvoin: I think that this school has done everything it can for Kaylie, but the only fitting punishment... Is expulsion. It's days like this that remind me why I got into teaching in the first place.
Liz: No, don't listen to Kenneth Toilethole.
Liz Running Gag Callback Callback Liz: Yeah. He's great. We should all go get dinner sometime.
Liz Absurdist Deadpan/Understatement Callback Kenneth · Liz: Then wash my feet with your hair. No!
Liz · Kenneth: We're not even using the word 'dingbat,' Mr. Parcell. A Parcell man has never been called 'mister' outside of an execution chamber. Boy.
Liz Kenneth Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Running Gag ★ Rewatch Callback Jenna: The blonde ones, they turned on me. They threw me away like I was some kind of Judy.
Jenna Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Callback ★ Rewatch Callback Tracy: My brain is working overtime. I finally understand the ending of The Sixth Sense. Those names are the people who worked on the movie.
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Tracy: Yeah, and I just got what you were trying to tell me yesterday. You want me to do my filthy stand-up act instead of reading the cue cards.
Tracy Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy Callback Jack Running Gag Callback Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Kenneth: I'm gonna live bleep him. Normally, I'd have to get permission from Irene first, but there isn't time.
Kenneth Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Tracy · Kenneth: Tracy's stand-up is entirely bleeped, with words replaced by random unintelligible phrases — 'cause they love to those big / 'cause they eat all our aloud / housed in a [bleep], boooooy! / You just ate a with extra? / Well, you called the right.'
Tracy Kenneth Visual Gag Physical/Slapstick Meta/Self-Referential ★ Rewatch Callback Gaylord Felcher · Kenneth: Kenneth, I'm Gaylord Felcher. The head of Standards? I have never seen bleeping like that, so guess what? I'm promoting you, you little -face.
Kenneth · Gaylord Felcher: All right, Felcher, you don't have to talk like that. Well, who's gonna stop me? Who among you has the power to censor the censor?
Kaylie: Enjoying my total lack of adult supervision. I just had fruit roll-ups for dinner... At a strip club.
Kaylie Character Comedy Escalation Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Jack: What I realized too late is you were talking about Beekman Academy, right here in Manhattan, in the neighborhood north of Ware Street, otherwise known as, uh, 'Noware.'
Jack Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Kaylie: He's going to NYU. To study acting.
Kaylie Irony/Sarcasm Deadpan/Understatement Jack: I, uh, couldn't help but notice that lacrosse ball in your backpack. Too bad I'm on the board of the Central Park Conservancy, so Beekman won't have a field to play on next year.
Jack Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Kaylie: Well, good, 'cause I planted that lacrosse ball there to get back at a girl I hate who plays lacrosse. Her name is Jack... ie. Jackie... officecouch.
Kaylie Character Comedy Misdirection Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Jack: Cato? Seriously, not tonight. I mean it this time. Son of a dingbat!
Jack Callback Running Gag Physical/Slapstick ★ Rewatch Callback Unknown (bathroom character) · Kenneth: Every time one of you leaves, the other one comes back. [beat] You know, I'm starting to suspect that I have bad luck.
Liz: You know, I'm starting to suspect that I have bad luck.
Liz Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy Tracy: Dude, bro, where's Liz? You didn't see her? She just left. I gotta go feed the meter.
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist 