--- title: Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Allegations: Tina Fey's 2009 30 Rock Joke description: A subtle joke from a season 3 episode resonates much more clearly now canonical: https://time.com/3615987/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-allegations-30-rock/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-03T16:49:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:14:58.211Z og:title: Did '30 Rock' Call Out Bill Cosby for Sexual Assault Five Years Ago? og:description: A subtle joke from a season 3 episode resonates much more clearly now og:url: https://time.com/3615987/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-allegations-30-rock/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf8f6aba2af98f243/69876b09f887dc9d85e889be/bill-cosby8.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Bill Cosby 7th Annual "Stand Up For Heroes" Event - Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Did '30 Rock' Call Out Bill Cosby for Sexual Assault Five Years Ago? twitter:description: A subtle joke from a season 3 episode resonates much more clearly now twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf8f6aba2af98f243/69876b09f887dc9d85e889be/bill-cosby8.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Did _30 Rock_ Call Out Bill Cosby for Sexual Assault Five Years Ago? by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Dec 3, 2014 4:49 PM UTC  Bill Cosby attends the 7th annual Stand Up for Heroes event at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Nov. 6, 2013 Bill Cosby attends the 7th annual Stand Up for Heroes event at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Nov. 6, 2013Jemal Countess—Getty Images by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Dec 3, 2014 4:49 PM UTC Back in 2009, a particularly memorable episode of _30 Rock_ called “The Bubble” featured guest star Jon Hamm as a [really, really ridiculously good-looking](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/giphy.gif) doctor who, as a result of said good looks, never experienced the humiliations, inconveniences and general unpleasantness of everyday life. (As a result, he never really had to learn anything — so he was also tremendously dumb, which [made for some fun jokes](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/b1a42-jonhammwithhookhands.png).) But anyway, during that episode, the _30 Rock_ writers seemed to reference Bill Cosby’s [alleged history of sexual assault](http://time.com/3592547/bill-cosby-rape-allegations-timeline/), which only very recently became the subject of widespread national attention. The folks over at Crushable [noticed the reference](http://www.crushable.com/2014/12/02/entertainment/30-rock-bill-cosby-sexual-assault-the-bubble-season-3-episode-15/), which most of us probably missed at the time. It comes up during contract negotations between Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin) and Tracy Jordan (played by Tracy Morgan.) Tracy has quit his job on _TGS,_ so Jack hires a Bill Cosby impersonator named Rick to try to convince him to come back. You can watch [the full clip here](http://classicajays.tumblr.com/post/103409794462/with-bill-cosby-in-the-news-for-sexual-assault-i), and read the exchange below: --- > “” --- At the time, it was probably easy to overlook this exchange because Tracy was known for spewing total non-sequiturs, telling outlandish stories about his family history and generally being an unreliable narrator. But now that a number of women have [publicly accused](http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/timeline-of-the-abuse-charges-against-cosby.html) Cosby of sexual assault, this hardly feels like a throwaway one-off joke. Also, keep in mind that in October, former _30 Rock_ writer Hannibal Buress [publicly called Cosby out](http://www.vulture.com/2014/10/hannibal-buress-called-bill-cosby-a-rapist.html) in a rant that helped ignite the ongoing national discussion. Granted, Buress began writing for the show after the episode in question aired, so he probably wasn’t responsible for this scene. But chances are he’s not the only member of the _30 Rock_ team — or the comedy community in general — who has been deeply frustrated for many years about the lack of attention given to the allegations against Cosby. Of course, it’s possible that it’s all a weird coincidence and that this _was_ just another example of Tracy being Tracy. But knowing [what we know now](http://time.com/3602131/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-allegations-guide/), it’s hard to believe this was not an intentional (if subtle) jab. ([h/t Crushable](http://www.crushable.com/2014/12/02/entertainment/30-rock-bill-cosby-sexual-assault-the-bubble-season-3-episode-15/)) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3615987/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-allegations-30-rock/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3615987/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-allegations-30-rock/"},"headline":"Did 30 Rock Call Out Bill Cosby for Sexual Assault Five Years Ago?","datePublished":"2014-12-03T16:49:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:14:58.211Z","description":"A subtle joke from a season 3 episode resonates much more clearly now","url":"https://time.com/3615987/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-allegations-30-rock/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Sexual Assault","Television","tina fey","NBC","Bill Cosby topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf8f6aba2af98f243/69876b09f887dc9d85e889be/bill-cosby8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf8f6aba2af98f243/69876b09f887dc9d85e889be/bill-cosby8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Bill Cosby 7th Annual \"Stand Up For Heroes\" Event - Arrivals","caption":"7th Annual \"Stand Up For Heroes\" Event - Arrivals","creditText":"Jemal Countess—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3615987/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-allegations-30-rock/","name":"Did 30 Rock Call Out Bill Cosby for Sexual Assault Five Years Ago?"}}]}] ```