text: the funcooker " the funcooker " is the fourteenth episode of the third season of the american television comedy series 30 rock . it was written by tom ceraulo and donald glover , and directed by ken whittingham . the episode originally aired on the national broadcasting company ( nbc ) on march 12 , 2009 . guest stars in this episode include jackie hoffman , nancy o 'dell , and chris parnell . in the episode , liz lemon ( tina fey ) leaves the the girlie show with tracy jordan ( tgs ) crew unmanaged as she must participate in jury duty for the trial of an oddly familiar woman ( hoffman ) . nbc page kenneth parcell ( jack mcbrayer ) tries to assert control over the crew in her stead and jack donaghy ( alec baldwin ) uses the writers to develop a new name for a general electric product . meanwhile , jenna maroney ( jane krakowski ) seeks dr. leo spaceman 's ( parnell ) help so she can work on tgs and her movie . " the funcooker " received generally positive reviews from television critics . according to the nielsen ratings system , it was watched by 6 . 4 million households during its original broadcast . for his performance in this episode , tracy morgan , who plays tracy jordan on 30 rock , received a primetime emmy award nomination in the category for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series . ken whittingham won the naacp image award for outstanding directing in a comedy series for " the funcooker " . plot tgs head writer liz lemon ( tina fey ) is assigned to solve a public relations problem caused by the show 's stars , tracy jordan ( tracy morgan ) and jenna maroney ( jane krakowski ) , during their hosting duties of the st. patrick 's day parade , in which jenna passed out and tracy cursed during the live television broadcast . to make things worse , liz is summoned to jury duty and cannot avoid it despite claiming to be princess leia . when she leaves for jury duty , she does not leave anyone in charge and allows the staff to go without direction — until later when she puts nbc page kenneth parcell ( jack mcbrayer ) in charge after learning that the staff have gotten out of hand . liz is on a court case about a woman , named rochelle ( jackie hoffman ) , whose work life and frustrations parallel her own ; the two both have employees named tracy and jenna , both believe their employees waste their time , and make their lives difficult . meanwhile , jenna , worn out from working on tgs during the day and on her unlicensed janis joplin biopic at night , visits dr. leo spaceman ( chris parnell ) for help so she can work on both . he gives jenna a military - grade experimental drug currently being tested on rats to stay awake . at the same time , tracy believes that having enough money to pay fcc fines means that he can say anything on television , and he says to liz , " i can even say what ernest borgnine whispered to me . " as a result , tracy curses on the martha stewart show , and after learning that the show 's advertisers are pulling out , due to his actions , decides to sponsor the show . meanwhile , vice president of east coast television and microwave oven programming for general electric , jack donaghy , desperately tries to find a name for a pocket microwave oven that is not offensive in any language . with liz gone , jack assigns the tgs writing staff , frank rossitano ( judah friedlander ) , james " toofer " spurlock ( keith powell ) , j. d. lutz ( john lutz ) , josh girard ( lonny ross ) , and sue laroche - van der hout ( sue galloway ) , to this task . after their unsuccessful attempts , kenneth suggests " the funcooker " which jack decides is the perfect name . back at the studios , the taping of tgs is interrupted by dr. spaceman who desperately forces jenna to sleep because she might die like one of his test rats . tracy creates a diversion by dropping his trousers and exposing his buttocks , which he refers to as the " funcooker " . everyone realizes that this is where kenneth heard the name . fed up with the chaos , liz sends the entire show 's staff — including kenneth and dr. spaceman — to her office . liz ponders over a box of matches and thinks of the woman in court , in which she admitted to committing arson as a way of getting back at her out - of - control employees . she accidentally does start a small fire which is quickly put out but scares everyone out of their bad behavior . production " the funcooker " was written by script co - coordinator tom ceraulo and that season 's executive story editor donald glover , and was directed by ken whittingham . this episode was ceraulo 's first writing credit , and second written episode by glover . this was whittingham 's first 30 rock directed episode , and would later return to helm the fourth season episode " anna howard shaw day " . " the funcooker " originally aired on nbc in the united states on march 12 , 2009 . actor chris parnell , who played dr. leo spaceman in this episode , has appeared in the main cast of saturday night live ( snl ) , a weekly sketch comedy series which airs on nbc in the united states . series ' creator , executive producer and lead actress tina fey was the head writer on snl from 1999 until 2006 . fey and tracy morgan have both been part of the main cast of snl . this was parnell 's tenth appearance as dr. spaceman . actress and stand - up comedian jackie hoffman also guest starred , as rochelle , on this episode . nancy o 'dell , then - anchor of the entertainment news program , access hollywood , played herself in " the funcooker " in which she reads an apology written by nbc on tracy jordan 's behalf . o 'dell had previously appeared in the 30 rock episode " señor macho solo " . star wars is frequently referenced in 30 rock , beginning with the pilot episode in 2006 where tracy is seen shouting that he is a jedi . liz lemon admits to being a huge fan of star wars , saying that she had watched it many times with pete hornberger ( scott adsit ) , and dressed up as the star wars character princess leia during four recent halloweens , and while trying to get out of jury duty in chicago . star wars is also referenced when tracy takes on the identity of the character chewbacca . fey , a fan of star wars herself , said that the weekly star wars joke or reference " started happening organically " when the crew realized that they had a star wars reference " in almost every show " . fey said that from then on " it became a thing where [ they ] tried to keep it going " , and that even though they could not include one in every episode , they still had a " pretty high batting average " . fey attributed most of the references to executive producer and writer robert carlock , whom she described as " the resident expert " . reception according to the nielsen ratings system , " the funcooker " was watched by 6 . 4 million households in its original american broadcast . it earned a 3 . 9 rating / 6 share in the 18 – 49 demographic . this means that it was seen by 3 . 9 % of all 18- to 49 - year - olds , and 6 % of all 18- to 49 - year - olds watching television at the time of the broadcast . this was a decrease from the previous episode , " goodbye , my friend " , which was watched by 7 . 3 million american viewers . " the funcooker " was the ninth highest - rated show on the nbc network during the week of march 9 – 15 , 2009 . tracy morgan received a primetime emmy award nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series at the 61st primetime emmy awards for his work in this episode , but lost it to actor jon cryer . ken whittingham , director of this episode , won the naacp image award for outstanding directing in a comedy series at the 41st naacp image awards ceremony . the episode received generally positive reviews . ign contributor robert canning praised " the funcooker " writing that it was fantastic and " never felt like a moment was wasted or that a scene was extraneous . " he enjoyed all the storylines in the episode , writing they were interesting and funny enough , and complimented the way they all tied together with such ease . canning enjoyed tracy 's actions writing that they fit perfectly for the tracy character , and gave the episode a 9 . 6 out of 10 rating . " holy , did i ever love this episode " , wrote entertainment weekly 's margaret lyons . her only complaint about this episode was scott adsit 's absence . bob sassone of aol 's tv squad was grateful that the episode focused on nbc , tgs , and the work of the staff . sassone wrote that despite " the funcooker " not being " the most laugh - out - loud episode " he believed it was still funny . the a.v. club 's nathan rabin praised jackie hoffman 's performance , noting that her monologue in court was brilliant . he enjoyed all of the episode 's storylines , except for tracy 's , which he opined fell flat . in conclusion , rabin gave this episode a b + rating . television columnist alan sepinwall wrote that an episode like " the funcooker " is " really instructive about why a lot of other shows ... haven 't quite worked . even when they have lots of funny things in them , they never really build to a climax in the way that this one did , as everything went wrong at once . " sepinwall enjoyed tina fey 's liz in the episode , noting that her craziness worked well , but his concern was that when liz loses it " there 's nobody sane for her to push against . "