30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan Wears an EGOT Necklace on National TV!

December 4, 2009 · Posted in General, Videos · 86 Comments 
Wow

Wow

I’m one of the few that actually watches NBC’s programming these days and one show that I find consistently funny each week is 30 Rock.  This past week’s episode titled “Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001” had me do multiple double-takes and jaw drops.  There was a side story in the episode where Tracy Morgan’s character becomes obsessed with winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award after going into a jewelry shop and seeing a bling necklace pendant that read EGOT.  Yes Pinoys, you read that right, EGOT.

Morgan’s character becomes so obsessed with this notion that he purchases the EGOT pendant and wears it with pride throughout the episode.  I was waiting for a Filipino character to show up and tell him why it was pretty screwed up to see a black guy wearing an EGOT pendant but that never happened in the episode.

The emmy award winning writers for 30 Rock are typically savvy in finding double meanings in things but this time, the EGOT joke got past their pop-culture radar.  You see, the 30 Rock episode was referencing the term EGOT from 80s TV star Philip Michael Thomas as he used it as an acronym for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony as those were the awards he planned to win in his career.  Yes, there is humor in envisioning Tubbs winning a Grammy but what the 30 Rock folks didn’t research was the fact that the term “egot” is the equivalent to the n-word in Filipino slang.  Don’t believe me? Go visit the entry for “egot” on the Urban Dictionary and read it for yourself.

Here’s the episode. You got until December 14 to watch it online (or sooner once NBC catches wind of this).