Watching Studio60

Making a round-up of memorable lines from a Sorkin show is a tough task, because they’re all memorable. Really, I should just find a copy of the script somewhere on the internet and reproduce the whole darn thing here. Short of that, I’ve picked out some that really stood out. Enjoy them as a follow-up to yesterday’s recap.

Jerry: I’m in charge of broadcast standards and practices. I’m not in charge of funny.

Jerry: What do you want me to say to the 50 million people who are going to go out of their minds as soon as it airs?
Wes: First of all, you can tell them that we average nine million households, so that’s at least 41 million who are full of crap. And the second you can tell them that living where there’s free speech means that sometimes you get offended.

Cal: Tell the writer’s room they’re going to have to stretch it another 25 seconds, and I’m sure that making it longer was the missing ingredient to making it funny.

Felicity Huffman: Wes, is there anything you can tell me that will make me feel better about the monologue?
Wes: Your instincts aren’t wrong. It’s not funny.

Felicity: I need the very slutty dress … and somebody else to wear it.

Wes: I know it seems like this is suppposed to be funny, but tomorrow you’re going to find out that it wasn’t, and by that time I’ll have been fired. 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 you’ve seen already about 500 times. Yeah, no one’s going to confuse George Bush with George Plimpton, we get it. We’re all 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 many, thanks in no small measure to this network. So why don’t you just change the channel. Turn off your TVs. Do it right now. Go ahead. [Wes continues, but we hear control room chaos instead] There’s always been a struggle between art and commerce, but now, I’m telling you, art is getting its ass kicked. And it’s making us mean, and it’s making us bitchy. It’s making us cheap punks, and that’s not who we are. People are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump? [More control room] We’re eating worms for money? Who Wants to Screw My Sister? Guys are getting killed in a war that has 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. [More control room] Pornographers! It’s not even good pornography, it’s just this side of snuff films. Friends, that’s what’s next, because that’s all that’s left. And the two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott.

Jack: Somebody want to get rid of the bong and the loose joints?
Jordan: I’ll grab the loose joints.

Jordan: I’d say they’ve heard of Paddy Chayefsky, that’s a step in the right direction.

Jack: I hire these guys back, I’ll look completely deballed.
Jordan: You don’t need all the fingers on one hand to count the people who care about your balls right now.
Jack: I’ve got news for you, sister, as long as I’m one of them, so are you.

Jack: I’m not like every other heterosexual male in show business, Jordan, I don’t find you charming. And you’ve earned the loyalty of absolutely no one. So you go ahead, take your first steps, Jordan, make us look all classy again. We’ve been waitin’ for ya.

Matt: The woman I broke up with a cast member, and it would be awkward if I went to the party and killed her in front of all those people.

Danny: Accepting awards in front of ballrooms full of people is the only place he is okay.

Harriet: There had to be a lot of confusion. It’s not like there are rules or procedures for this kind of thing.
Cal: No, there are strict rules or procedures for this kind of thing. I just didn’t follow any of them.

Cal: I faced off with Standards during a live broadcast, Harry. The guys I know who’ve done that feel lucky if they get a job directing Good Morning El Paso.

Tom: Were you offended by the sketch?
Harriet: I was offended I wasn’t in the sketch.

Jordan: All I need you to do is come down to the studio, make your peace with Jack Rudolph, take over the show, and then knock it out of the park for me.

Danny: I have no reason to trust you and every reason not to.
Jordan: Why?
Danny: You work in television.

Matt: I said, “He’s never not been there for me,� and then there was a follow spot on a basket of dinner rolls.

Danny: We’re not shooting in Vancouver. I’m drawing a line on the insanity. Vancouver doesn’t look like anything. It doesn’t even look like Vancouver. It looks like Boston, California.

Jack: I know I can count on you to answer questions in a way that won’t embarrass the National Broadcasting System. Will that be hard for you?
Matt: I wouldn’t think it would be hard for anybody. ‘Cause if you pointed a camera at two people masturbating, it would be among the least embarrassing things on the National Broadcasting System. I’ll tell Blair to start working on the deal.
Jordan: (to Jack) I’ve already got a dual masturbation show in active development, so …
Jack: Keep laughing, Jordan. This is all on you.

Suzanne: Are you coming to save us?

Matt: I’m your boss now, so we’re going to have to postpone this fight for a couple of years.

Harriet: Could you stop telling people we broke up because of the National Anthem? It makes me sound like an idiot.
Matt: Actually, consensus is, it makes me sound like an idiot.

Matt: You put on a dress and you sang for a bigot.

Danny: Matt, you can get another director. You can get someone good.
Matt: I don’t want someone else. I want you.
Danny: The joke was that I don’t want someone good, I want you.
Matt: I know where the joke was.

Danny: (of his drug relapse) I had eleven years. Now I have eight days.

Matt: When I screw up, you know about it.
Danny: When you screw up, I read about it.

Matt: It’s going to be our show now, and only one of us can screw up at a time, and I think we both know that most of the time, it’s going to be me.

Matt: You’re paying Beavis and Hack-Boy $30,000 an episode?

Danny: You got to give her style points.
Matt: Yeah.
Danny: And you got to ask yourself …
Matt: What?
Danny: What if she’s for real?

Danny: Cal — if you’d left him on for 54 seconds, I’d have given you a raise.

Matt: It’s a nice studio. It’s a great studio, with an incredible history. The people who have had this …
Danny: You like it?
Matt: Yeah.
Danny: Good. ‘Cause we live here now.

Did I miss any of your favorite lines? Share them in the comments. Then come back tomorrow for Five Questions about the Studio 60 pilot.

Studio 60, NBC, pilot, memorable lines