Liz works to prove to Tracy that women are funny while simultaneously attempting to head off a meltdown from Jenna after some negative publicity. Jack tries out an unconventional dating strategy.
Escalation-driven character comedy sustains 84 jokes across 22 minutes without standout peaks.
Directed by Michael Engler · Written by Tina Fey
WAR
145.2
Wins Above Replacement
“Stride Of Pride” ranks #33 of 138 30 Rock episodes on the Humor Index, scoring 99.4 — Elite. The episode packs 83 scored jokes at 3.4 per minute, averaging 7.9 on craft and 7.6 on impact, with Liz landing the most laughs. Every joke is ranked below with its individual craft and impact scores.
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Top Jokes
Tracy · Liz: Tracy lists funny women at Liz's prompting: 'Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, Lucille Ball, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Carol Burnett, Lily Tomlin.' Liz: 'Yes, thank you, Tracy. Those are all very funny women.' Tracy: 'Funny women? Those are the names of my fingers.'
Tracy Liz Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Misdirection ★ Rewatch Jack: Jack explains: 'Except the father figure. Where is that guy, am I right? The one who falls asleep at the opera, and doesn't notice that she's texting her real boyfriend from his bed. Where's that sucker?' [Long pause. Jack realizes.] 'Oh no... Is it me?'
Jack Setup/Punchline Misdirection Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Tracy · Liz: Tracy: 'Name one funny monkey.' Liz: 'No! I refuse to answer this question with a list. It's insulting to monkeys, and their descendants... Humans!' Tracy: 'I win again.'
Tracy Liz Callback Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Tracy · Liz: Tracy: 'Name one truly funny woman.' Liz: 'No. I refuse to answer this question with a list. It's insulting. You wouldn't ask an Asian person to give you a list of good Asian drivers.' Tracy immediately responds: 'Gary Tang, Ziang Chu, Roy Chung—' Liz: 'Stop it.' Tracy: 'I was done anyway.'
Tracy Liz Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Misdirection ★ Rewatch Jenna: You look like that flash card they told me means sadness.
Jenna Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement All Jokes — 83 analyzed
Show all ↓ Hide ↑ Jack: Jack admits he is on a walk of shame while wearing a flashy 'night tie' and disheveled hair
Jack Character Comedy Observational Liz · Jack: Liz calls Jack a slut, then immediately corrects herself: 'That woman was Pizzarina Sbarro, the heiress to the Sbarro Slice and Calzone Fortune.'
Liz Jack Setup/Punchline Absurdist ★ Rewatch Liz: 'Come on. Walk of shame? I say call it a stride of pride and walk with your arms up, like this.'
Liz Character Comedy Observational Liz: 'I'm 41 years old, Jack. I'm no stranger to the walk of shame.'
Liz Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Liz · Jack: Liz stayed up all night helping Bradley finish 'the Joseph coat.' Jack: 'Just hearing that story tells me that Bradley was gay.' Liz: 'Only sexually.'
Liz Jack Setup/Punchline Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Liz · Jack: Liz describes her new sexual awakening as happening 'in her bathing suit area'; Jack responds: 'Lemon, I've seen your bathing suits. That could be anywhere.'
Liz Jack Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Liz: Liz describes wanting a Sex and the City brunch 'where you talk about dirty stuff and make a lot of puns, like, "and I thought I was eating eggs."'
Liz Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Jack: Jack describes his diverse dating portfolio using The Great Escape as the framework: 'Bronson was the brawn, Attenborough was the brains, Garner was the scrounger, McQueen was the hottie with the body.'
Jack Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jack: Jack describes his rotation: Zarina (society girl), Anne (politics), Tabitha (works the DVR), and 'Mindy is my, uh, sex idiot.'
Jack Setup/Punchline Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jack: Jack imagines his women fighting: 'And if they did come to blows, it would be, uh... Intensely erotic. Like, uh, Steve McQueen on a motorcycle. Trying to jump that fence into Switzerland, but it's too high.' Beat. 'He had a leather jacket.'
Jack Absurdist Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Liz: Liz approaches the writers' room: 'Hey, lady friends. Who would like to join me for brunch? My treat. We could throw back some cosmos, talk about our climaxes...' — Cut to reaction shot of blank-faced writers.
Liz Reaction Beat Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort Liz: 'If you heard my sex stories, you would lose your mind!' — Liz, apparently to nobody interested
Liz Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Unknown writer: 'I'm not even sure they serve brunch after... The '90s.'
Jenna: A magazine reports Jenna is 56. Jenna's publicist-style crisis response: 'God, no... I have children!'
Jenna Character Comedy Absurdist Liz: Liz's crisis management plan: 'Pete, go buy every copy and burn them. Cerie, get out of here. Just go home for the day. And Kenneth, get Jenna's copy out of her dressing room before she sees it.'
Liz Character Comedy Escalation Tracy · Liz: Tracy has tweeted: 'I agree @therealstephenhawking. Women are not funny. Never have been. Never will be.' Liz's response: 'Nerd rage!'
Tracy: Tracy says he never realized Jenna was trying to be funny: 'I guess I just thought she was a wig model.'
Tracy Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Tracy · Liz: Tracy: 'Name one truly funny woman.' Liz: 'No. I refuse to answer this question with a list. It's insulting. You wouldn't ask an Asian person to give you a list of good Asian drivers.' Tracy immediately responds: 'Gary Tang, Ziang Chu, Roy Chung—' Liz: 'Stop it.' Tracy: 'I was done anyway.'
Tracy Liz Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Misdirection ★ Rewatch Tracy · Liz: Tracy lists things men like that women should appreciate: 'Football. Motorcycles. Steak restaurants. Really dark superhero movies.' Liz: 'These are things that suck.'
Tracy: After Liz storms out: 'Well, that went well. See? That's the kind of hilarious button chicks can't come up with.'
Tracy Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Kenneth: Kenneth narrates: 'Mmm, my lips are so dry. I better wet them with this mop.' Then: 'Oh, no. Now my undershirt is wet with mop juice.'
Kenneth Absurdist Character Comedy Physical/Slapstick Jenna · Kenneth: Jenna catches Kenneth and proposes a seduction bit: 'You be the janitor, and I'll be the piece of gum on the floor that you just can't chisel off.' Then: 'Show me that part of your shins that's hairless from your synthetic socks.'
Jenna Kenneth Cringe/Discomfort Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Liz: Liz announces the Jenna age crisis has been solved with a fake Page Six item. 'We did it! Story over.' Then The Great Escape theme plays triumphantly.
Liz Meta/Self-Referential Irony/Sarcasm Jack · Zarina · Mindy: Oh... Zarina, hello. Jack. Uh, this is Mindy. Mindy, Zarina. / Oh, shiny.
Jack: Jack compares himself to 'a silver-backed gorilla or Mitt Romney's grandfather' to explain why he needs multiple women
Jack Absurdist Character Comedy Jack: 'The woman appears to have no hip joints.'
Jack Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy Callback Jack · Zarina · Ryan · Mindy: Zarina's boyfriend Ryan arrives. Jack: 'Ryan.' Ryan: 'What's up?' Mindy: 'Ryan is my sex idiot.'
Liz: Liz's confessional: 'So, the other night my boyfriend and I were making love, and I suggested that we wear sleep masks. I hit my nose pretty hard on the bedside table, but...'
Liz Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort Callback Tracy · Liz: Tracy wants to put a monkey named Professor Wigglebottom on TGS. Liz: 'So no women are funny, but you want me to put a monkey on the show.'
Tracy · Liz: Tracy: 'Name one funny monkey.' Liz: 'No! I refuse to answer this question with a list. It's insulting to monkeys, and their descendants... Humans!' Tracy: 'I win again.'
Tracy Liz Callback Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Jack · Zarina: Zarina tells Jack she understands the arrangement. Jack: 'My generation calls it pokemoning. Gotta catch 'em all.' Zarina reveals she's doing the same. Jack: 'The plural of Pokemon is Pokemon.'
Jack Zarina Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Wordplay/Pun ★ Rewatch Mindy · Jack: Mindy snaps out of her daze when Ryan waves car keys: 'No, Ryan Lochte! Look at me... focus.' [jingling car keys]
Mindy Jack Character Comedy Visual Gag Absurdist Callback Kenneth · Jenna: Kenneth shows Jenna a fake newspaper headline: 'Teens gone wild: Is Jenna Maroney partying too hard?' and warns: 'Be careful, you don't want to turn out like Amanda Byne-us. Did I do it right?'
Jenna: Jenna says she's too old to party: 'I watch Castle, and my purse is filled with sweet'n lows.'
Jenna Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Liz: It's not gonna be a question, it's gonna be a series of mean statements.
Liz Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Jenna: Jenna threatens: 'If I find out that someone around here planted this disgusting story that I'm young, I'm gonna do to them what I did to my own ribs... Take them out.'
Jenna Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Misdirection ★ Rewatch Jenna: Jenna reveals she planted the '56' story herself to skip ahead to being 'an amazing slut who wins Oscars' like Helen Mirren.
Jenna Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Liz · Jenna: Helen Mirren bikini photo discussion: 'She looks amazing for 67.' Jenna: 'Exactly. For.' Then: 'She's actually not that hot. She's got a gut and British legs.'
Jenna · Liz: Jenna is in the running for a Geri-Chair endorsement. Liz: 'I know Geri-Chair. They're the company that makes my bed steps.'
Jenna Liz Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Unknown: [Scene cut] Giggling: 'I'm scared, but it tickles.'
Jack · Liz: Jack is bothered by Zarina pokemoning him. Liz: 'I've seen that look before. When Jack Welch called you Rick.' Jack: 'And I was fine with that too. I mean, he and I had met only, like, a million times.'
Jack Liz Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Jack · Liz: Jack reasons he shouldn't engage with Tracy's women-aren't-funny debate: 'I would love to keep arguing with Tracy about whether women are funnier than monkeys.' Liz: 'I once saw a monkey in a cowboy outfit.' Jack: 'I would love to see the town he's the sheriff of.'
Liz · Jack: Liz celebrates her sex-positive growth: 'We did it in the shower. My shoes got ruined.' Jack: 'I said no!'
Liz Jack Character Comedy Setup/Punchline Callback Tracy · Writers: Tracy arrives with Professor Wigglebottom, an actual monkey in business clothes with a suitcase 'like he's going on a business trip.' Writers laugh; Tracy narrates: 'Why's he being so professional?'
Tracy Writers Physical/Slapstick Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Tracy: Tracy: 'He could play a young Steven Tyler.' Then: 'He looks like me if I were fancy.'
Tracy Absurdist Character Comedy Tracy: Tracy: 'Male nipples, funny. Monkey nipples, funny. Female nipples, useless!'
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist Escalation Liz: Liz: 'Engaging!' — then announces she and Jenna are remounting their 1996 two-woman show to prove women are funny.
Liz Callback Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Jack: Jack receives Zarina's group text and obsesses: 'Sweetie. Why didn't she write "Thinking of you, Jackie-bear"? She could have written this to anyone.'
Jack Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort Jonathan · Jack: Jonathan shows Jack the group email recipient list: 'hip420@brooklyn.beard', 'ryunloktee... misspelled... @swimteam.org', 'kentremendous@fremulon.biz'
Jonathan Jack Visual Gag Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Jack: 'totalpackage58... Wait, that's me.'
Jack Character Comedy Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Callback Jack: I don't care if it takes all day. I want you to teach me how to copy all of those email addresses and paste them into a new email.
Jack Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Jenna: Jenna on the phone: 'That was Gerald Chair, the inventor of the Geri-Chair. They're leaning towards Jamie Lee Curtis. She already beat me out for Activia, and cold flash menopause popsicles.'
Jenna Character Comedy Absurdist Liz · Jenna: Liz pitches re-staging the show as a favor 'for all women.' Jenna: 'Ugh!' Liz: 'We are gonna prove Tracy wrong—' Jenna: 'Bored.'
Liz Jenna Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Liz · Jenna: Liz asks if Jenna is thinking or doing kegels. Jenna: 'Yes.'
Jack · Various: Jack assembles Zarina's men: the sex idiot, the filthy hippie, someone to make parents angry ('It's 2012, sorry Norbert'), the mean Wall Street type, and then Ken Tremendous — revealed as the father figure.
Jack Various Character Comedy Escalation Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Jack: Jack explains: 'Except the father figure. Where is that guy, am I right? The one who falls asleep at the opera, and doesn't notice that she's texting her real boyfriend from his bed. Where's that sucker?' [Long pause. Jack realizes.] 'Oh no... Is it me?'
Jack Setup/Punchline Misdirection Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Announcer/Liz: The two-woman show is introduced as 'a classic sketch from the Chicago area piven-nominated two-woman show, Maroney and Lemon.'
Jenna · Liz: The sketch: 'Doctor, I'm unhappy with me widdle body. Can you help me?' / 'Well, of course. Toddler plastic surgery is an exciting new field. We can take you down an entire diaper size.'
Jenna · Liz: The sketch: Jenna plays a little girl in a cutesy voice: 'Doctor, I'm unhappy with me widdle body.' Liz as doctor responds: 'Well, of course. Toddler plastic surgery is an exciting new field. We can take you down an entire diaper size.'
Jenna Liz Dark/Subversive Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Liz · Jenna: The sketch song: women refusing to prove they're funny with a list of funny women, ending with 'Don't need to prove it to you'
Liz Jenna Meta/Self-Referential Irony/Sarcasm Callback Jenna · Liz: 'Tank you, doctor.' 'Don't thank me, thank Roe V. Wade.'
Jenna Liz Absurdist Dark/Subversive Misdirection ★ Rewatch Tracy: Tracy's response to the sketch: 'That was actually funny, Liz. So why do TGS suck so much?'
Tracy Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy Tracy: Tracy thinks the funniest part was 'when you were, like, "come in, I'm a doctor" and you had on that lab coat, like a doctor. A lady doctor... Oh my God, that is hilarious!'
Tracy Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Tracy · Jenna: Tracy describes Jenna as 'that sad old prostitute trying to look young' — Jenna's delighted response: 'Old? Thank you, Tracy.'
Tracy Jenna Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Callback Gerald Chair: Gerald Chair arrives: 'There's nothing older than trying to be young. And you looked like a million years up there. Congratulations. You are Geri-Chair's new spokes-crone!'
Tracy: Tracy: 'Lolo Jones, a man couldn't even do that doctor sketch. We would've just been sitting there listening to his medical advice.'
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist Callback Liz: Liz: 'You know what? I'll take it. Stride of pride.'
Liz Callback Character Comedy Callback Jenna: Jenna flashes the Empire State Building from the roof at night: 'Sometimes, I like to come up here at night and flash my breasts at the Empire State Building.'
Jenna Character Comedy Absurdist Jack: Jack: 'Is that the only building that you flash? Or do you also flash the Time Warner Center to make the Empire State Building feel like an old fool?'
Jack Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jenna: You look like that flash card they told me means sadness.
Jenna Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Jenna: Jenna advises Jack on aging gracefully: 'I mean, inside, I still feel like a sex idiot. But I have to accept the fact that I'm fake 56 now, and I'm more of a Diane Lane ageless beauty.'
Jenna Character Comedy Callback Callback Jack · Jenna: Jack: 'Do you really want this girl asking you to go hear her friend DJ in Brooklyn?' Jenna: 'No, that sounds exhausting.' 'Do you want to drive five hours to go rock climbing with her, and be expected to have sex after?' 'I do not. I mean, my back.'
Jenna: Jenna's advice on being the older person in a relationship: 'It's fun. You get to say racist stuff whenever you want, and people bring you soup.'
Jenna Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jack: Jack: 'I do like soup.'
Jack Deadpan/Understatement Reaction Beat ★ Rewatch Liz: Okay, so maybe I never got my Sex and the City brunch. And maybe I never got to share the fact that I now know four different sexual positions, one of which involves a chair.
Liz Character Comedy Callback Callback Liz: Liz's voiceover reflection: 'Maybe I never got to share the fact that I now know four different sexual positions, one of which involves a chair.'
Liz Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Callback Jenna: Jenna's Geri-Chair commercial: 'Geri-Chair makes it safe for me to spend Christmas alone.'
Jenna Dark/Subversive Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Tracy: Tracy to Professor Wigglebottom: 'Wait... You're a female? How you doin', girl?'
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Liz: Liz's voiceover: 'Now, this is how people danced before Chubby Checker ruined everything.'
Liz Deadpan/Understatement Absurdist Liz: Liz's voiceover: 'I guess what I'm saying is I need to modify my Zappos order, so please email me back at your earliest convenience.'
Liz Meta/Self-Referential Misdirection Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Tracy · Liz: Tracy lists funny women at Liz's prompting: 'Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, Lucille Ball, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Carol Burnett, Lily Tomlin.' Liz: 'Yes, thank you, Tracy. Those are all very funny women.' Tracy: 'Funny women? Those are the names of my fingers.'
Tracy Liz Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Misdirection ★ Rewatch Tracy: Tracy continues: 'Irma Bombeck, Tig Notaro... Is my impression of a Chinese person.'
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Frank · Tracy: Frank: 'Ellen DeGeneres, Mo'nique, and Roseanne Barr. Now that's some funny women.' Tracy: 'All of whom have screamed at me because they were on their period.'