Floyd (30 Rock)

Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) gets a surprise phone call from her ex-boyfriend, Floyd DeBarber (Jason Sudeikis), who says he will be coming to New York and wants to have dinner with her. She begins to hope that the two can get back together, however, while watching The Today Show she discovers that he is marrying Kaitlin (Kristin McGee). Her boss, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), warns her not to attempt revenge; nevertheless, Liz invites Floyd to a seafood restaurant where she had food poisoning on three separate occasions. He does not get food poisoning, but instead, Floyd, a recovering alcoholic, gets drunk off of the whiskey-based fish sauce. The two get into an argument, and after Floyd insults her, Liz leaves the restaurant. The next day, Floyd appears on The Today Show, but still drunk from the night before, refuses to leave the 30 Rock building. Liz apologizes to both Floyd and Kaitlin for getting him drunk. They accept the apology, and Kaitlin asks Liz to be a participant in their wedding, to which she agrees.

At the same time, jealous of the publicity that Danny Baker (Cheyenne Jackson) is getting after receiving a Juno Award nomination, Frank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander), James "Toofer" Spurlock (Keith Powell), and J. D. Lutz (John Lutz), the staff writers from TGS with Tracy Jordan, print a fake, embarrassing New York Times interview with him and circulate it throughout the 30 Rock building. Danny brings the upsetting article to Jack, but Jack quickly figures out that Frank, Toofer, and Lutz are the ones behind it due to the writer being "Seymour Nips." To get back at them, Jack and Danny trick them into thinking the building has been invaded by a "Cloverfield-type monster" and stripping in front of the TGS dancers. Frank, Toofer, and Lutz, however, via a remark from Jack, discover a secret code from the "Twig and Plums" prank society that Jack belonged to while attending Princeton University. Frank realizes he can use this to manipulate him, which works - Jack must exit the room whenever the code is spoken. As a result of this, Jack threatens to sleep with Frank's mother, and promises to find Toofer and Lutz's mothers as well, which prompts them to ease off on their pranks.

Finally, to keep Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) and Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) distracted from Danny's fanfare, TGS producer, Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) sends them to the makeup department to have plaster face-prints made while NBC page Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer) talks to them. Jenna and Tracy are plagued by erotic dreams involving Kenneth, and to stop having them, they decide to stay awake. This fails, so they decide to "Elm Street" Kenneth by killing him in their dreams. They wake up (believing they are still dreaming) and attack Kenneth. Witnessing this, Pete tells them they are wide awake, and that it is morning, which prompts Jenna and Tracy to realize that they slept through the night without having any dreams of Kenneth. They apologize to Kenneth for attacking him, and he accepts their apology.

The episode ends with Pete scolding Tracy and Jenna for their bad behavior, and the two apologize, promise to be good, and are about to sing Pete a thank you song, only for Pete to awaken (this having been a dream) at his desk. Kenneth arrives, and it soon turns out that Pete is having an erotic dream about Kenneth and Liz. Pete is unable to wake up, and he screams in horror.

"Floyd" was written by series producer Paula Pell and directed by Millicent Shelton.^[1][2] This episode was Pell's first writing credit and the second episode for Shelton who had directed the March 26, 2009, season three episode "Apollo, Apollo".^[3] "Floyd" originally aired in the United States on March 25, 2010, on NBC as the sixteenth episode of the show's fourth season and the 74th overall episode of the series. Pell has appeared on the show as the character Paula Hornberger, the wife of Pete Hornberger, played by Scott Adsit.^[4]

"Floyd" was filmed on January 27^[5] and February 3, 2010.^[6] Comedian actor Jason Sudeikis, who played Floyd DeBarber in this episode, has appeared in the main cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL),^[7] a weekly sketch comedy series which airs on NBC in the United States. Tina Fey, the series creator of 30 Rock, was the head writer on SNL from 1999 until 2006.^[8] This was Sudeikis's tenth appearance on the show.^[9] Actor Cheyenne Jackson made his fifth appearance as Danny Baker. Jackson previously appeared in the episodes "The Problem Solvers",^[10] "Secret Santa",^[11] "Black Light Attack!",^[12] and "Winter Madness".^[13] In an interview with The New York Times, Jackson revealed that the song he sings in the episode was composed by Jeff Richmond, the show's composer, and said that the song was "actually a little longer" and that they shot a "whole" music video to accompany it.^[14]

"Floyd" featured cameo appearances from The Today Show correspondents Meredith Vieira, Lester Holt, Kathie Lee Gifford, and Hoda Kotb. In the episode, Vieira introduces Floyd and his fiancée, Kaitlin, as finalists competing to have their wedding featured on The Today Show.^[15] In one scene, Danny runs into the writers' room where Frank, Toofer, and Lutz are. He turns on the television to see Holt who reports, "We're now getting reports that the toxic leaks have created a Cloverfield type monster in the building. The monster cannot detect the smell of human skin. Anyone still inside should disrobe immediately."^[16] Jack calls Liz into his office and shows her that Floyd, drunk from his dinner with her, is still in the 30 Rock building, where he is shown interrupting a segment featuring Gifford and Kotb.^[17]

In the beginning of the episode, Liz tells Jenna about a bad date that she had with someone she met on the personals section of the Kraft Foods web site, K-date.^[18] Pete congratulates Danny on his Juno Award nomination for his Canadian pump-up song for the National Hockey League team, the Ottawa Senators. Danny replies, "It's an honor to be nominated in the same category as Sir Dave Coulier", the latter is an American actor.^[14][19] Liz imitates singer-songwriter Christopher Cross while singing "All my days I've been waiting, for you to come back home. Moonlight of New York City", after revealing that she hoped to end up with Floyd one day and Cross would sing a romantic song about them.^[20] This song would be extended on the 30 Rock Original Television Soundtrack by Cross himself. Liz makes reference to the fact that once, on television, one could not say the word "crap", but "then they let that slide and now we can say whatever we want." She and Jack exchange the words, "Douchebag", "asswipe", and "Anal rot", as examples.^[21] Later, Liz tells Jack, "I don't care. I'll start my own group. Rejection from society is what created the X-Men", which references the comic book superhero team, the X-Men, who are rejected from society due to their mutant special powers.^[19]

In the false breaking news story, Lester Holt references the 2007 monster movie Cloverfield.^[19] After learning about the toxic leaks in the building, in which Frank, Toofer, and Lutz need to strip down, Frank says "So much of my life was wasted creating hats!" This is a reference to Judah Friedlander, who portrays Frank in the show and who is known for his trademark trucker hats which he wears in and out of the Frank character.^[21][22] When Liz tells Floyd that she saw him on The Today Show, on which she learned he is getting married, Floyd says "Dammit! I could have sworn you watch The Early Show on CBS", to which Liz replies, "The Early Show? What am I, in a hospital?".^[21] Liz reveals that she once participated in a reenactment on America's Most Wanted playing a woman who is strangled on a toilet.^[21] Jenna and Tracy, who are having strange dreams about Kenneth, decide they "have to Elm Street this. We have to go to sleep and kill Kenneth in our dreams!" This references the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series, in which the movie's main character—Freddy Krueger—stalks and kills his victims in their dreams.^[19][23]