Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Guide, DVD

On this page are the following:

What do we know about the Show Within the Show?

• Both the series and the show within the show are called “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”.
• Although they are named the same, they do have different logos.
• The show within the show is “the flagship program” of the National Broadcasting System (NBS).
• NBC exists in the same universe with NBS and “Saturday Night Live” exists in the universe of the Friday night show on NBS.
• Although the NBC series is currently on Monday nights, the show within the show (on NBS) is live on Friday nights.
• NBS is owned by the Tuning Media Group (TMG). NBC is owned by G.E.
• The show within the show has been on the air for 20 years in 2006 (the series about the show starts September 18, 2006).
• The show within the show now reaches an average of nine million households each week.
• Wes Mendell had been the Executive Producer from the very first episode of the show to the pilot of this series when he has a rant on live TV and is fired and Matt and Danny are brought in to deal with the fallout and then go on with the show.
• Wes Mendell was complicit in letting Matt and Danny go four years before.
• The show within the show “used to be cutting edge”.
• Matt and Danny worked on it until they were fired/quit/”were pushed out” in 2002.
• “Official” site from NBS on its show “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”

Subjects covered by the rant that got Wes fired (this is a first draft of that rant - corrections to come)

“It’s not going to be a very good show tonight — and I think you should change the channel. Change the channel! Go ahead, right now! Or better yet, turn off the TV, okay. No, no, I know like it seems like this is supposed to be funny but tomorrow, tomorrow you’re going to find out it wasn’t and by that time I will have been fired. No, this is not suppos— this is not a sketch.

“This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it’s gotten lobotomized by a candy-assed broadcast network, hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience. We were about to do a sketch that you’ve seen already about 500 times. Yeah, yeah, no one’s going to confuse George Bush with George Plimpton. Now, we get it. We’re being lobotomized by this country’s most influential industry - that’s just thrown in the towel on any endeavor to do anything that doesn’t include the courting of 12 year old boys; and not even the smart 12 year olds, the stupid ones, the idiots of which there are plenty thanks in no small measure to this network. So, why don’t you just change the channel. Turn off the TV! Do it right now! Go ahead…..

“There has always been a struggle between Art and Commerce and now I’m telling you, Art is getting its ass kicked and it’s making us mean and it’s making us bitchy. And it’s making us cheap punks. That’s not who we are.

“People are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump…. We’re eating worms for money. Who wants to screw my sister? Guys are getting killed in a war that’s got theme music and a logo. That remote in your hand is a crack pipe. Oh, yeah every once in a while we pretend to be appalled…. Pornographers. It’s not even good pornography; it’s just this side of snuff films. And friends…. And the two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and the psycho-religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott…
this thorougly unpatriotic, mother—”

The Pirates of Penzance skit in #102 “The Cold Open” (the last song in the show, and the opening number of the show within the show)
With reference to the version by “threeinchheels” posted on New Television Without Pity Studio 60 Forum Site (to which we referred for some of the following):

The S60 Cast:
We’ll be the very model of a modern network TV show
Each time that we walk into this august and famous studio
We’re starting out from scratch after a run of twenty years or so
And we hope that you don’t mind that our producer was caught doing blow

Chorus:
They hope that you don’t mind that their producer was caught doing blow
They hope that you don’t mind that their producer was caught doing blow
They hope that you don’t mind that their producer was caught doing mounds of blow

The S60 Cast:
Yes it’s hard to be a player when at heart you’ve always had a hunch
To bite the hand that feeds you is a scary way of doing lunch
But still when we walk in to this august and famous studio
We’ll be the very model of a modern of network TV show

Chorus:
But still when they walk into this august and famous studio
They’ll be the very model of a modern network TV show

Harriet: I am a Christian tried and true baptised at age 11
So, unlike the liberals, gays, and Jews I’m going straight to heaven
Others: But if you feel you’ve been cheated and our sordid content lets you down
We’ll happily do the favour of an intellectual reach-around

They’ll happily do the favour of an intellectual reach-around
They’ll happily do the favour of an intellectual reach-around
They’ll happily do the favour of a hundred-dollar hooker’s reach-around

Harriet - aside to the Conductor
–That wasn’t the same thing we said…–

Chorus:
They’ll happily do the favour of a verbal euphemistic reach-around

The S60 Cast:
We know the Evangelicals are lining up to tag our toe
And then the corporations will not hesitate to pull their dough
But still when we walk into this august and famous studio
We’ll be the very model of a modern network TV show

Chorus:
But still when they walk into this august and famous studio
They’ll be the very model of a modern network TV show
But still when they walk into this august and famous studio
They’ll be the very model of a modern network TV show

Actually see and here this: