Cal Shanley quotes from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Ah, this is not going to be a very good show tonight. And I think you should change the channel. Change the channel, go on, right now... or better yet, turn off the TV, okay? No, I know it seems like this is supposed to be funny, but tomorrow you're gonna find out that it wasn't and by that time I'll have been fired. No, this is... this is not... this is not a sketch. This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it's gotten lobotomized by a candy-ass broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience. We're about to do a sketch that you've seen already about 500 times. Yeah, no one's gonna confuse George Bush with George Plimpton. Yeah, we get it. We're all being lobotomized by this country's most influential industry that's just throwing in the towel on any endeavor to do anything that doesn't include the courting of 12 year old boys. And not even the smart 12 year olds. The stupid ones. The idiots. Which there are plenty, thanks in no small measure to this network, so why don't you just change the channel? Turn off your TVs, do it right now, go ahead.... A struggle between art and commerce. Well, there's always been a struggle between art and commerce. And now I'm telling you art is getting its ass kicked. And it's making us mean, and it's making us bitchy. It's making us cheap punks. That's not who we are! People are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump?... We're eating worms for money. Who wants to screw my sister? Guys are getting killed in a war that's got theme music and a logo? That remote in your hand is a crack pipe. [monitors] Oh yeah, every once in a while we pretend to be appalled.... Pornographers! It's not even good pornography. They're just this side of snuff films. And friends, that's what's next because that's all that's left. And the two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott. These are the people they're afraid of – this prissy, feckless, off-the-charts, greed-filled whorehouse of a network. And you're watching this thoroughly unpatriotic Mother-

Cal

Go to VTR, now!

Danny

Are they fixing it?

Cal

In a manner of speaking, yeah.

Danny

What does that mean?

Cal

They don't know how to fix it.

Jordan

So, I'm hiding here tonight. This is like, for me, Superman's Dome of Pleasure.

Cal

Fortress of Solitude?

Jordan

Yes!

Cal

Well, enjoy yourself.

Jordan

I believe I will!

Cal

Danny had to have Jessica Simpson fill. Nice girl, nice performer -- don't want her to extemporize on our air. She had time to thank her pets, and then she asked us all to pray for peace in the Midwest.

Ron

[laughing] I'm sure she meant the Middle East.

The snake's blocking the exit. That's why the coyote won't come back. He's afraid of the snake.

Cal

And the ferret?

He's afraid of the coyote.

Cal

I tell you, man, this lacks the feel of professionalism!

Cal

They're supposed to be indestructible.

Danny

Yeah, they are, unless you drop an 80-pound hydraulic axe on their head.

Danny

... it's Jordan's, and she bet me that I couldn't keep it alive, and I was doing fine until Sacco and Vanzetti decided to CHOP THE BABY'S HEAD OFF!

Cal

We can't air the dress tonight.

Jack

Why not?

Cal

We record the signal in RGB, we were missing the B.

Jack

You didn't record the color blue at the dress!?

Cal

(referencing the teenagers who'd just called in a fake threat to the building)Can we determine if there actually is a bomb in the building?

Jack

I trust them, but just in case why don't we handcuff them to the building overnight.