In a season five episode of the estimable sitcom 30 Rock, itself based on the goings-on of a network television show closely modeled on Saturday Night Live, the writer and producer Aaron Sorkin makes a cameo as himself. Introduced to Tina Fey’s ever-acerbic head writer Liz Lemon, Sorkin demands they execute his signature walk-and-talk power move, as she excitedly lists the various award-winning films and television shows that he has been involved in. There is, however, one exception. When she mentions the name of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a Sorkin-created drama that purported to go behind the scenes on a show equally closely modeled on SNL, Sorkin simply says, "Shut up"—a nod to the series’s swift cancellation after a single season, Sorkin’s sole show not to be renewed.
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