The Thing About Tina Fey's Garnier Commercial

By now you may have seen the Garnier hair color commercial featuring Tina Fey. It's perky, it's bouncy, it's shiny, it's everything a good hair commercial should be.

But I feel uncomfortable watching it. Particularly the short version where you don't see her glasses or green converses.

I keep waiting for Tina to make some sarcastic comment or crack a joke with a pop culture reference thrown in for good measure, but she never does.

And then I'm just left sitting there like, oh, maybe she just...likes this hair dye product. That's not nearly as fun. And then I feel let down. And then I feel bad for feeling let down because Tina Fey decided to do a commercial with no jokes. Like I can't just let her be a real person who happens to like nourishing hair dye and doesn't wear her glasses sometimes.

But it's not my fault Tina Fey is hilarious 99.9% of the time. She's created a precedent in my mind. I'm trained to see Tina Fey and think, Oh man. This is going to be good. Just wait. Just wait to see what funny thing she's going to say next. But in this commercial it never happens.

It's like I'm sprinting down one of those unexplained paved roads in the middle of a desert that mysteriously drops of a cliff without warning, and I'm left suspended in mid-air bicycling it like Wile E. Coyote, holding up a sign that reads "Help!" before I plummet to the ground below, landing in a cloud of dust and leaving a coyote-shaped hole in the dirt. That's what it's like to watch this commercial for me. Every time.

I think it's that Tina is hardly ever that enthusiastic about anything, at least when it comes to tone of voice, so when I hear that chipper "this hair color is AWESOME you guys. It makes my hair shiny!" and see her twirling around in a skirt, I shift in my seat and glance to my left and right like, "Am I supposed to laugh? I don't know if I'm supposed to laugh. Is this supposed to be that ironic type of funny? What's that? I think I hear the oven timer going off..."

I need someone who knows Tina well to sit beside me when I watch the commercial so I can lean over and whisper, "is this Tina Fey being serious? I can't tell. Her face is unreadable. I need to know how to react." Or maybe just hold up my Wile E. Coyote sign to her real quick so she can give me the signal and I'll know whether or not to say, "thanks Tina Fey for that informative and convincing sales pitch" or "hahaha, Tina Fey, you slay me." Is that too much to ask?

Am I over-thinking this? Almost certainly. But I've seen this commercial enough to know that this feeling isn't going to go away, and I need to know if you feel the same or if I just have too much social anxiety about people I don't even know.

So, tell me: does this commercial make you want to buy Garnier hair color or take imaginary cookies out of the oven?

Is James Marsden 30 Rock Material?

James. James Marsden. Pull up a chair.

Enough time has passed where I feel like I can give you a fair assessment of your presence on 30 Rock. And I must say, I'm not entirely convinced.

I liked you in Hairspray. You make a pretty good Cyclops. And what girl didn't love 27 Dresses?

But are you quirky enough to live in the world of 30 Rock? I'm just not so sure. Look at the other people Liz Lemon has dated: Carol, a delusional people-hating pilot, Wesley, an obnoxious British guy she couldn't stand, Jon Hamm (whose character name I can't remember), the dumb yet handsome guy who lived in a metaphorical bubble, Dennis Duffey, the worst ever...and you just waltz in with your nice-guy slacker routine and your second-rate ((The standard is obviously Jack. After all, he has the piercing blue eyes of a Siberian Husky. Or a winter crystal.)) blue eyes and expect us to get on board?

I mean, you're nice enough, but where's your tragic flaw? Where are your hook hands? Where's your balloon boy reenactment?

I know, I know. None of those crazies worked out for ol' Liz Lemon. But come on, give us SOMETHING.

Plus I think you're a little too good-looking to be believable as Liz's boyfriend. Let's just be real. I mean, Tina Fey is pretty in real life. I'm not denying that. But they make so much over Liz looking sloppy and nerdy that they can't just throw in the same guy who played the prince in Enchanted as a feasible long-term option for her. (Jon Hamm of course was handsome, but in an ironic way. And he more than made up for it with his nonsense.) Also you also look significantly too young for Liz. You just do. IMDB says you're only 3 years younger, but somehow you've managed to stay perpetually 28. (Congrats on that, by the way.)

Your relationship makes very little sense and I'm still having trouble suspending my disbelief.

This is Liz Lemon we're talking about. We won't sit idly by as she dates a normal. I think this is that part of the show where the thing the main character has been longing for has to resolve and it's all wah-wah sad trombone (see: life after Jim and Pam get married), but I hate that part of the show. And I think 30 Rock is better than that. There's got to be a better way.

At least Liz is back to her pessimistic, sweatshirt-wearing self now. For the first few episodes, I was worried your presence had transformed Liz Lemon entirely into a boring happy person. Now that she's grumpy at work again I'll let you slide there.

James, I know you're new to 30 Rock. It's hard to measure up to that amount of quirk. But it CAN be done. Avery is one of my favorite characters on the entire series, and she was an add-in. Measure up to Liz's crazy like Avery measures up to Jack's. That's all I'm asking. I can't wait for Avery to come back and say more awesome things like "Ugh, is there gay juice in the champagne?"

Speaking of, where are your memorable quotes, James Marsden? ((I realize this is entirely up to the writers, but this letter is written under the inaccurate assumption that you are 100% responsible for this character.)) I can't quote a single one of your lines since you've been on the show. And that's saying something, because I quote 30 Rock almost daily.

I like you fine. I mean, I would never be tempted to punch you in the face or make you listen to Kenneth read a script out loud. But I also probably wouldn't notice if you just didn't show up the next 10 episodes (Danny, anyone?).

I don't like being wishy-washy about characters. Give me a reason to love you or a reason to hate you. That's all I'm saying. Or else we're revisiting Astronaut Mike Dexter.