Watching Studio60

As a follow-up to yesterday’s recap, here are some memorable lines from Studio 60’s fourth episode, “The West Coast Delay.”

Ricky: Ninety seconds. That’s what he’s asked for. Ninety seconds of material from the writer’s room. Was the request patronizing and a veiled insult? I think so.
Ron: I don’t think the insult was that veiled.
Ricky: Me neither. But not being able to contribute 90 seconds to a 90-minute telecast is a good way to demonstrate that we’re people who should be insulted.

Ricky: If we’re going to do a sketch calling the president of this network a drunken sex addict, I’m not going to be the one to write it.
Writer: It’s self-deprecating!
Ron: Self-deprecating would be if we were drunken sex addicts.

Ricky: (reading from Hal’s computer) “At schools today, all the kids are diagnosed with stuff like dyslexia, hyperlexia, ADD, ADHD. In my day, you were just stupid. ‘What’s wrong with my son? Oh, him? He’s stupid.’ Next! America’s the most overweight nation in the world. We’ve got so much food here, we drop it on people along with bombs. If you really wanna mess with somebody’s head, drop a cruise missile and a couple of tons of Hot Pockets on their ass.”

Harriet: I want you to tell me that you have no intention of trying to win me back.
Matt: Well, we have a problem there.
Harriet: Yes, I know. You’re a northeastern Jewish liberal atheist and I’m a Southern Baptist who believes that you’re going to burn in hell.
Matt: Two problems.

Harriet: So, we have closure.
Matt: Yes.
Harriet: We are closed.
Matt: You feel alright about it?
Harriet: I’d feel better if you appeared even a little ambivalent.
Matt: I’m extremely ambivalent. What I’m exhibiting are leadership skills.
Harriet: Well done.

Harriet: That’s his phone number?
Matt: What did you think it was?
Harriet: I just thought it was his uniform number. You know, they sign their name, and then write the number.
Matt: Yeah, they do do that. You thought his uniform number was 3,106,786,5– He was asking you out!

Matt: You gave me a used cocktail napkin, basically.

Harriet: I didn’t give it to you on purpose!
Matt: You put a ribbon on it, knocked on my door, and handed it to me.

Matt: He’s a pitcher! You know what his job is when he comes to the plate? Stick out his bat and hope for the off-chance that the ball will accidentally hit it on its way to the catcher’s mitt.

Harriet: Are we done?
Matt: I’m certain we’re not!

Jordan: He’ll make stuff up.
Martha: Why?
Jordan: There’s a good living in it.

Jordan: What would possess me to marry him, do you suppose, and did I not have a friend who would tackle me to the ground on my way down the aisle?

Martha: You can be a woman, look like you do, have the power you do, but not all at the same time.

Martha: Google me, and you’ll find a lot worse than a DUI in Sag Harbor.
Jordan: I know.
Martha: Trust me, it’s like seasickness. You think you’re gonna die, and everybody else just thinks it’s funny.

Harriet: You know, maybe the reason Darren Wells and I get along so well is that he likes to both talk and listen.
Matt: Or, maybe the reason they get along so well is they both have roughly the same chance of getting a hit in a Major League baseball game.

Tom: I’d like to be your wingman.
Matt: Well, I appreciate that, but I’m not flying anymore.
Tom: You need a wingman, and you’ve always been mine.
Matt: I have?
Tom: You could start.

Maisy: Are you going to do something stupid?
Matt: It would certainly appear that way.

Matt: I’d like one of your boots.
Wendy: My boots?
Matt: That you’re wearing right now. And then I need you to sign the inside of it, “Call me, baby,” with a comma after “me,” and then I need you to add your measurements.
Wendy: Sure.
Matt: You don’t want to know why?
Wendy: I just did two shows, Matty, you really want a therapy session right now?

Matt: He wrote his number on the bat. Harry says she thought it was his uniform number.
Wendy: Maybe she did.
Matt: 12, 22, 7, these are usually the kinds of numbers you see on athletes. They don’t typically run to ten digits.
Wendy: And, you’re using me to make her jealous.
Matt: Yeah, does that bother you?
Wendy: No, you know what bothers me?
Matt: What?
Wendy: This is lame.

Matt: Wendy, I can’t, I’m the guardian of the employment of about 150 people. And there are also issues having to do with the fact that she’s insane.
Wendy: Well, you would know about sanity, because you’re here at midnight on a Thursday getting a used boot signed.

Matt: When she’s performing, if I subscribed to this kind of thing, I’d swear God was messing with me. She believes the world was created in six days, and that’s not even among the top three reasons we’re not together. How much evidence do you need that two people are wrong for each other? Except when I watch her onstage …
Tom: Your chest hurts?

Danny: Things happen around here. People blowing smoke out of their office windows at night.
Jordan: Tell me nobody’s getting high in this building, Danny.
Danny: You’re shocked that drugs are a part of late-night comedy? “The Coneheads”? “Toonces the Driving Cat”? Think Belushi and Farley died from Lou Gehrig’s Disease?
Jordan: Tell me it’s not happening here.
Danny: It’s not happening here.

Danny: (to Martha) Nice rack, by the way. Tell Jordan I’m not 15.

Danny: Maybe by the time we get back, something funny will have happened.
Matt: I don’t write the news. I can’t wait for something funny to happen. I have to make something funny happen. (He sits, holding baseball bat over his shoulder, and breaks the glass wall behind him.)
Danny: Well, you’re the best.

Matt: He’s got a walk-to-strikeout ratio that could only be impressive in T-ball, and once tore a rotator cuff drying his hair with a towel.

Danny: Between writing the show and getting a stiletto boot signed at the Roxy, I’m surprised you had time to memorize his pitching stats.
Matt: How did you know about that?
Simon: A stiletto boot?
Danny: I miss nothing.

Simon: He’s big.
Matt: It’s not hard to be big.
Danny: That’s right.
Matt: Let’s see this guy make the dean’s list eight semesters in a row as a Contemporary Dramatic Lit major.

Jordan: Sharks gotta swim, bats gotta fly, I’m gonna get screwed by this man till I die.

Danny: You and Matt are both worried about people laughing too much.
Cal: I’m worried about they turn off the electricity at 10:00.

Matt: One of the Bombshell Babies gave me really good advice.
Tom: I dare you to say that sentence again.

Matt: What about all the other couples in show business. Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland. Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe.
Tom: Things worked out well for those guys.
Matt: The Carpenters.
Tom: Siblings, but again, she’s dead.

Cal: I gotta get on the phone with the broadcast center in New Jersey.
Jordan: Our broadcast center’s in New Jersey?
Danny: It’s confidence inspiring the president of the network doesn’t know that.
Jordan: I’m new.
Danny: Bayonne, New Jersey. They send it up to a satellite, which you keep in outer space.

Jordan: Is this going to work?
Cal: Sure!
Jordan: You’ve done it before?
Cal: A hundred times. Or really no, never, but I can’t think of what the problem would be.
Jordan: Sure, what could possibly bo wrong.
Cal: There you go.

Danny: Harry, isn’t Matt’s psycho-obsession with you problematic enough for us without you making out with baseball players in front of him?

Harriet: You know where I grew up, if this had happened? There’d be a town meeting, and everybody would be there. And the guy would have to sit and listen while Reverend Tillinghouse gave a sermon on honesty and character.
Simon: That’s exactly what would have happened where I grew up, except we’d have driven by the guy’s house and shot him.
Harriet: See? There’s more that unites us than divides us.

Jordan: The guys in the red bandannas, are they Crips?
Cal: No, red bandannas mean they’re Bloods.
Jordan: OK, are we insured for any of this?
Cal: I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think so. Suzanne? We’ve got to move the woman in the fishnet top. She’s not wearing anything underneath.
Danny: It looks like the grand opening of a head shop.

Ricky: People aren’t even going for funny anymore, Matt. They’re just trying for your respect.

Matt: It looks like there are bench warrants out for half our audience.
Danny: No, they’re good people. They like to laugh.

Suzanne: Miss McDeere? Jack Rudolph. (handing phone)
Jordan: My boyfriend’s calling me. Hey, Jack?
Jack: (heard yelling through phone) What the hell is going on over there?
Jordan: It’s all under control. Plus, if you had any money on the Bangalore Union Cricket Club, then it’s your lucky day.

Danny: Just one more time. Give me Cally, get Jordan a drink, send Jack Rudolph a nice thing of balloons.

Did I miss one of your favorite lines from this episode? Share it in the comments.

Studio 60, NBC, The West Coast Delay, memorable lines