NBC Thursday Comedy Night: Parks & Recreation, the Office, 30 Rock

NBC's Thursday night comedy night has it all. Generally, the barage of commercials on the big networks is a turn off. I still wish the networks could do a mid-show intermission and load it up with commercials leaving the first half and last half of the show commercial-free. I guess the advertisers have figured out the quick sell every five to seven minutes works better for their purposes. The string of commercials is still over the top. The other night, I counted five pitches in one quick seguay. However, I will not be deterred from my Thursday night comedies.

Park & Recreation:

Amy Poehler is back as a mid-management Park & Recreation city employee. Her character Leslie Knope tries desperately to keep her belief in public service in gear. Her first big project in the small town in Indiana is to gain approval for filling in a huge pit located in a neighborhood. The pit was created when the developer-owner abandoned the lot because he went bust. The problem surfaced when a nurse, the girlfirend of garage band fun guy demanded the city do something because "fun guy" fell in the pit and broke both legs.

The trials and tribulations of a mid-level city employee trying to get something done is a riot. Her co-worker is busy playing computer match Bingo with her boss. Her boss, Swanson loathes his ex-wife and has an equal disdain for government. He thinks Chuck E. Cheese should operate Parks & Recreation, not taking into account he would be out of job. Albeit, some stimulus dollars are on the way and Swanson is on board for creating a park where the pit blights the neighborhood. The trials and tribulations for Leslie Knope have just begun, creating a sub-steering committee, public comment and advocates for keeping the pit surface. It is the stuff that happens every day in local government and it is a riot.

The Office:

The established comedy show, The Office took a funny twist recently. The Scranton Dunder Mifflin Paper Company was reorganized and Steve Carell, (Michael Scott) defected taking Jenna Fischer (Pam Beesley) with him to form the Michael Scott Paper Company. The new digs are located in a hefty size walk in closet in the Dunder Mifflin building. As expected, Dwight can hardly wait to get the ear of the new boss and dump his friend Michael. The story unfolds with hysterical office gamesmanship with all right with the world results.

30 Rock:

Tina Fey (Liz Lemon) is faced with budget cuts on her production and decides to use her womanly wiles to woo the management consultant hired to make the cuts. She gets to keep almost her entire staff, but ends up in Human Resources' Sexual Harrassment classes and is suspended for two weeks. She hooks up with some apparant free spirits in her building and does the girl thing. Spas, shoe shopping, repartie and wine.

Liz Lemon is having the time of her life without regret. The apparant fun girls are in reality searching for some kind of oomph in their lives. Liz Lemon is confronted with a girlie version of Fight Club. She can hardly wait to get back to normal with Alec Baldwin. 30 Rock is funny, sharp and consistently good comedy in every single episode.

Check it out, Thursday night on NBC is a barrel of laughs.