(Try to get that song out of your head. It won't work.)

In the beginning, I thought I'd end up hating her, but she's totally one of my favorites now. Equal parts ambitious and clueless, she really does make for funny TV. Jenna with the Paris Hilton nose never fails to make me giggle.

I'm one of the few people who liked her from the start. I can't believe there are people today who still don't like her! I think she's underused, but hopefully, it'll be changed next season.

Jenna absolutely annoyed me in the beginning of the season (I damn near loathed her at certain points in "The Rural Juror"), but somehow she really did grow on me and I really like what Jane brings to the role. She completely owned me in "Hard Ball".

Jenna can be insanely ditzy, self-involved and needy, but I think there's this underlying vulnerability and insecurity beneath it all that endears me to her. I really hope she gets more airtime next season. I'd love to see what Jenna's parents are like.

And I still laugh out loud whenever I watch the scene where she tells Liz she's the lady at home who watches "Sex and the City". So cruel, awesome, and funny.

I think my favorite Jenna moment was in "Jack-tor" when she wanted perform her hit single from Israel "Muffin Top". I couldn't stop laughing when she was making those moaning noises and then when you finally heard how the song sounds, you think how is this a hit anywhere? Still a great moment for Jenna.

That Jane K. can deliver lines like "You know I've always reminded myself of Grace Kelly" believably is a real gift.

Another wonderful Jenna moment: gagging on a spoonful of non-dairy creamer while using her SEX!uality on Jack's "boss" Ron in Jack-tor.

I had my eye on Jane back in the teen years when she played T.R. on "Search for Tomorrow;" in fact, she's the only thing I recall from that show. Something about that big blonde hair drew me in, even in elementary school. It's wonderful to finally see her potential realized, though I guess her turns in Grand Hotel and Nine were pretty good too. (ba-dum-bump.) Also saw her in a semi-forgettable version of Mack and Mabel in LA years ago, and those legs do really go all the way up. Perhaps she can do a run in Xanadu if the famed writers' strike really happens.

Meanwhile, on to Jenna: I agree that she grated at the beginning. Was she trying too hard? Was Tina? Unknown. But I totally get Jenna now. And love her. In fact, I would love to hear a blown out "I Love America" or whatever from "Hard Ball" because Jane really knocks that song out of the park.

Resurrecting a link that I think someone posted in the old 30 Rock thread. Yowza, can Jane ever sing, dance, and strut. No muffintop in sight here!

And don't miss her "Call from the Vatican" (from Nine) that comes up on the same page. It shows why she won that Tony award for the role.

One of my favorite Jenna moments is in Jack Meets Dennis when Jack asks Jenna asks her age and the two go back and forth with Jenna finishing up by saying "What's a drive-in?" Awesome, hope to see more interaction between Jack and Jenna in season two.

And in Hard Ball, when Jack smiles and says to Jenna "I can't wait to renegotiate your contract," doesn't she reply with "Thank you"? Totally oblivious because everything's always a compliment from Jenna's perspective! (As we see again when she smiles and replies "Thank you" to Chris Matthews' complaint that all she did was sing 4 bars of something called Muffintop and tell a disgusting story about Fleet Week!)

My favorite part of that bit is the slight hesitation Jenna has where you can almost SEE her inner monologue playing across her face: "Should a 29-year-old know what a drive-in is?" before she comes back with "What's a drive-in?". Good acting there.

I think the turning point for her character was the exchange she had with Frank about her being so superficial. It's like she finally got her heart. (She does remind me of the cowardly lion in The Wiz)

Wait...the lion gets the heart right?

...I was joking...

(No, the lion gets courage [he's the Cowardly Lion, remember?]. It's the Tin Woodman who wants a heart.)

I love this bit from her bio on Wikipedia:



Amazing what you can learn from a brief Barbara Walters interview.

She's been around forever. I still cannot forget her as Randy Quaid's daughter in National Lampoon's Vacation. The scene where she is on the seesaw with Chevy Chase's daughter bragging about how her dad says she's the best French kisser in the family is so gross and so funny, especially how she sticks her chest out like a tramp at the camera as she goes up on the seesaw again. I seriously think it's the funniest scene in that movie.

I think Jenna walking into the writer's room wearing the striped outfit is what got the biggest laugh out of me in the premiere. She just seemed so delusional about the whole thing, like she'd practiced what she was going to say and what she thought everyone's reactions would be for the past half hour before doing it.

She does that a lot, doesn't she? And I love how it totally throws her when reality doesn't work out like the scene she's created in her head -- once she notices, of course. Poop. Monkey butt.

I just got Muffintop stuck in my head and I had no idea why. Then I realized I have Hard Ball on the tv for background noise.

It's just been announced that Jane Krakowski will star in a limited run of Damn Yankees this summer (courtesy of Encores!'s Summer Stars series, which began just last year, with Gypsy). She sounds like unexpected but good casting for Gwen Verdon's role.

I'm not so sure about Sean Hayes as the Devil, but it's probably good for him (like anybody else who played an extreme character on TV for a long time) to do something different onstage and jolt his image in audiences' eyes.

As weeks have gone by, I'm adding more just-announced news about the Damn Yankees production: Ana Gasteyer stars as Gloria (the reporter), Randy Graff as Meg (the wife left behind), and Cheyenne Jackson is the male lead, Joe Hardy. This in addition to the previously announced Sean Hayes as Mr. Applegate and Jane Krakowski as Lola.

John Rando directs, Rob Berman conducts, and the Bob Fosse choreography will be re-created.

It will play at NY City Center from July 5 to 27.

Do you think we've been seeing less of Jane lately because she's in rehearsals?

No, not if they're still casting, and performances don't start till July. Long-running Broadway shows rehearse for 4 or 5 weeks, and a short-run stripped-down production would probably rehearse less. (The Encores! productions in the spring only rehearse for a week -- but they're in concert format with everyone holding scripts; the new summer Encores! productions like this one are slightly more complete than that, but only slightly.)

Saw Jane at LaGuardia around 6 pm. She was on a flight from New Orleans.

Well, that's where her timeshare is (and she's renting it back as a jail cell?) Ka-ching!

I believe Jenna own's a condo in Clearwater, FL and "bought some land in the Ninth Ward after Katrina" and is now "leasing it back to the government as a prison. Ka-ching!"

I hang my head in shame. Of course you're right, adverlingus.

Didn't mean to bring any shame on another 30 Rock fan :)

I flipped by Letterman last night, and lo and behold, the lovely Jane was on! She plugged her new movie- she's in "Kit Kittredge, An American Girl" which comes out next week I guess. And she flustered Dave, with stories from some plays she's been in. Good to see JK! (I don't see any video links up on the Letterman page yet.)

What caused Dave to be flustered? I can so see JK's ability to do this.

Video. Also here.

Thanks for that, Bachmann-- Jane is adorable, though Dave was clearly bored to tears by the theatre talk!

Eeek. That was a wee bit of a trainwreck, though I think they started to salvage it a little.

And to be fair to Dave, Jane was getting way too theater-geeky at the outset when talking about the irony of the dance moves and it being an iconic Gwen Verdon role, etc. This wasn't an interview with Playbill, fercryinoutloud. It's a TV talk show for mass consumption and she was going over a lot of people's heads. I've consumed more than the average share of Broadway musicals, but I could see where Dave felt he needed to throw in the red flag. He probably could have done it with a little more finesse, though. But I thought Jane recouped like the trouper that she is.

The anecdote about Guys and Dolls in London was pretty funny--and amazing! Clearly Dave was fed that anecdote in advance to even pursue it, but I give him some credit for trying to get the conversation back on track with a theater topic that his viewing audience could identify with and enjoy.

But then he really bungles it again at the end by forgetting her movie and just cramming that in there.

Oh well. Jane came out a trouper, for sure.

I saw Jane in Damn Yankees during a visit in NYC last week (it closes this weekend). She was terrific -- very funny, sexy, limber (they reproduced the original Fosse choreography), and charismatic. I enjoyed the whole show, especially the chance to see it uncut and unaltered in all its 1955 glory, with the full orchestra of 25. And it helped to have such a tip-top cast for the Summer Encores format, which has been called "summer stock with the A Team" (because they do about 2 weeks' rehearsal and then run for just a month): Sean Hayes, Cheyenne Jackson, Randy Graff, John Selya, Michael Mulheren, P.J. Benjamin, Veanne Cox. It was a most pleasurable experience.

Two videos are available: a preview as they started work, with interviews and glimpses of rehearsal, and a post-opening one with interviews at the cast party and some clips from performance. And photos: this article has one with Sean and Jane as it looked in performance, this one has a series from opening night (mostly the curtain calls), and here are some from the rehearsal period.

She answers questions -- some silly, some not -- from fans here, and gets to talk about 30 Rock.

Thanks for the links, Rinaldo! Jane looks so stunning in that scarlet strapless sheath dress. Yowza.

Just one more: Playbill just posted an article about the end of the Damn Yankees run (today). If you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see a still I haven't seen elsewhere, with Jane in the iconic "Whatever Lola Wants" hands-on-hips pose, just like Gwen Verdon on the original posters and record cover.

Holy moly. No sign of Mystic Pizza: The Musical there! ;-)

So... according to the broadway.com vid, she's single? Does one just write to "info@broadway.com"? ;-)

Her interview just proves again that we need more out-takes and deleted scenes! We need to see Jane perform all her musical skits!

For a former Mouseketeer who was educated on a ship (a Disney cruise ship?) and who celebrates Christmas with a surrogate family of four gay guys (her entourage, including Patrice?), I'd say she's remarkably grounded.