For the past seven years, we've tuned in to 30 Rock to meet Liz Lemon, the overworked and under-appreciated writer of a late night variety show. We've learned a lot about this character, including the fact that she will never wear sandals without socks and that she dresses up like Princess Leia with panache. But tonight, like all good things, the show comes to an end.
While we say goodbye to our night-cheese eating, Snuggie wearing lady hero, we'd like to take a moment to get you fully acquainted with the creator and star of the show: Tina Fey. So, without further blergh, here are 30 facts you didn't know about Tina Fey. Shut it down.
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She is Saturday Night Live's first-ever female head writer.
Adam McKay, who directed Anchorman, taught Fey's first improv class at Second City in Chicago. He's also the one who hired her at SNL when she was 27.
Her first writing gig was an anonymous column for her high school newspaper, The Acorn, under the alias "The Colonel."
She voiced the British and German princesses for the Medieval Madness pinball machine.
Before Fey became a featured player, the writer would appear as an extra, often as an audience member.
Her first SNL sketch to air starred Chris Farley in a Sally Jessy Raphael spoof where he played a giant baby.
Fey made her rap debut in June of 2012, when she appeared on Childish Gambino's song, "Real Estate". Childish Gambino, also known as Donald Glover, used to write for 30 Rock.
Fey wrote the pilot for 30 Rock by herself.
As a kid, Fey was not allowed to watch The Flinstones because her dad said it was a rip off of The Honeymooners.
Fey bid on the rights to Queenbees and Wannabes, the non-fiction book that Mean Girls is based on, without realizing it lacked a plot.
She drew some inspiration from her own high school career for Mean Girls and relates to "art-freak" Janis Ian the most. Janis Ian, the musician, was on the first episode of SNL ever.
Before Lohan hosted SNL in 2005, Fey and Lorne Michaels held an intervention to try and curb the actress' hard-partying ways.
With Amy Poehler, Fey taught Rajiv Surendra, who played Kevin Gnapoor, how to rap for Mean Girls.
Fey played Frenchie in the Upper Darby High School production of Grease.
Fey's mainstage review at Second City, "Paradigm Lost," is the main focus of the documentary Second to None.
She performed on Second City's mainstage with Scott Adsit (Pete from 30 Rock) and SNL castmate Rachel Dratch.
When 77-year-old Rip Torn, who guest-starred as the CEO of GE on 30 Rock, "gazed admiringly" at Fey, she said, "I'm married, you know. I love my husband and I have a child."
One of her favorite (cautionary) books is the autobiography of Leni Riefensahl, Hitler's favorite filmmaker who made Triumph of the Will.
Fey's husband Jeff Richmond composed the 30 Rock theme music.
She did not lose her virginity until she was 24 years old, and it was to her husband.
Her Sarah Palin impression gave SNL its biggest ratings since 1994, when Nancy Kerrigan hosted after Tonya Harding's hired man busted her leg.
While Oprah Winfrey was filming her guest-starring role on 30 Rock, Fey would be watching YouTube clips of Sarah Palin between takes in preparation for its live taping on SNL that same night. Noticing this, Oprah told her: "You may be overextending yourself."
Fey told NPR that one of her favorite guests was Senator John McCain.
In her high school yearbook, Fey predicted that in 10 years she would be "very, very fat."
In her SNL office, Fey had a nude portrait of Blaze Starr.
Fey cemented a friendship with Amy Poehler when Poehler was impressed with a play Fey wrote, which was about Catherine the Great having sex with a horse. They performed improv together on their team, Inside Vladimir, named after a gay adult film.
On Family Guy, Lois Griffin admits that Tina Fey is the only person better than Jesus.
She filmed a commercial for Mutual Savings Bank.
According to her husband, the scar on Fey's left cheek was caused by a stranger who slashed her face in the front yard of her house when she was five years old.
Fey is trying to develop a musical for Mean Girls with her husband.
