It was always an enormous shame they never brought Isabella Rossellini back on the show after they fell into their groove, in no small part because it’s enormously difficult to find someone who can really go head-to-head with Alec Baldwin. He had plenty of worthy scene partners throughout the series run, but it takes the inhumanly beautiful product of two film legends to really bring out the best in him.
Did you know, when you were young, that someday you would live in a world where we would be able to hear Isabella Rossellini hiss “Damnit, Johnny, you know I love my Big Beef & Cheddar!” at any time you pleased? The little flounce she delivers on “Oh, damnit!” The way she brings a jewel-encrusted fist up to her mouth, biting her knuckles ferociously! The delicious twist she puts on “ched-dar!” The severe Edna Mode bob!
When I think that Hazel Wassername was on the show for twelve episodes, and Bianca only two, I could spit nails. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, and you know it.
Tags: 30 rock, arby’s, damnit johnny, isabella rossellini, television
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oh god it’s so good
it’s so good
Isabella Rossellini is a gift to us all.
I just watched Blue Velvet for the first time and I know it’s been nearly 30 years but I still kind of want to ask her if she’s ok.
I think she married David Lynch at some point, right? So I’m assuming she was okay with the whole thing…
They dated, but were never married. I read Isabella Rossellini’s autobiography (Some of Me) a while back. I’m rusty on the details of the content, but I recall her having written that Blue Velvet was the acting role of which she was proudest (as of the publication of that book). She also sort of elliptically suggested that she’d been super crazy about David Lynch, but that the relationship was not particularly good for her. (I remember really wanting to know more, but she refrained from including a whole lot of personal detail on the matter. Which is respectable.)
In closing: Isabella Rossellini is a delightful, brainy eccentric whose recent work includes a documentary about the sex lives of bugs. She is my patron saint.
Also, I just remembered the hilariously painful scene in The Squid and the Whale where the protagonist is trying to get his girl-crush to go on a date with him, and they end up at the movies with his dad watching that scene in Blue Velvet where she’s screaming.
Oh man, the unplaceable yet distinctly European accent kills me every time. She and Mads Mikkelsen need to start a club.
Is it that kind of party? YES YES PLEASE A THOUSAND TIMES YES.
The two of them as a glamorous, unplaceably European villain team. I wants it, precious.
Does this man look like a villain to you?
They can have neon henchgorillas! 😀
And hey, it’s what he always plays in America. You have to go to Denmark for works where he’s not at least medium-evil.
I need to know every single detail about this picture and how it came to be.
He’s such a goof. I met him last summer (no, I cannot resist an opportunity to mention this) and he’s just….an unwashed sweaty goof who only owns one pair of pants and was incredibly good-natured about my fangirl hysterics.
“No, but seriously, where are you even from?”
“*checks notes*…Lithuania? Apparently. Lithuania, yes, that is where I am from.”
I try to be grateful for the Isabella Rossellini I do have in my life rather than the Isabella Rossellini I wish I had. I already have far more than a mere man such as myself deserves.
Any conversation involving the word “Telluride” is automatically funny, so I don’t understand how the unspeakably wealthy manage to avoid cracking up perpetually.
Agree completely on all points.
(As a young lass, Isabella Rossellini provided my first indication that I might not be 100% straight after all…)
Even before I came out as bi, I had a list of “five female celebrities I absolutely would do if given the chance” but mostly the whole list was just an excuse to think about doing Isabella Rossellini.
It should’ve been a clue that when a friend asked “what’s your list of five male celebrities” I could only come up with two. I can no longer remember who they were now, though. William Hurt maybe.
Marvelous, but her Green Porno series is still my favorite thing she’s ever done.
http://www.sundance.tv/series/greenporno
I knew, I KNEW someone was going to bring up the Green Porno series. THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING AS SAYING “DAMMIT JOHNNY YOU KNOW I LOVE MY BIG BEEF AND CHEDDAR”
How about “The Saddest Music in the World”? Oh she’s good.
Okay, but what about her appearance on Tales From the Crypt playing, basically, her mother.
Is that the same thing?
Death Becomes Her?
Came here to make sure someone had already posted about Green Porno.
She is also amazing playing Empress Josephine in a miniseries about Napoleon Bonaparte!
YES. This is by far my favourite line on the show and I will now proceed to send this to everyone I forced to watch it over and over again.
I say it whenever someone brings up Arby’s and no one ever has a clue what I’m talking about.
Agreed, but Hazel’s “I’m a natural blond” as a set up for Jenna’s “That’s insane!” is one of my favorite outbursts of the show.
I love love love Isabella Rossellini, and have ever since I wore out my copy of Merlin ft. Sam Neill as a child.
Hazel was a blight upon my senses, and I will resent her curiously long tenure on that show until the day I draw my last accursed breath.
Oh wow I haven’t seen that version of Merlin in years! I had to look it up as I had completely forgotten that Isabella Rossellini was in it (also Helena Bonham Carter?! What?!) and I was so shocked watching the trailer by how cheap it lokos! I think I was probably only about four when I saw it but at the time it was just all too real! I remember being DEEPLY disturbed by the candle wax sex scene (I think that’s what was going on???) and Martin Sheen when he was in his Nosferatu makeup.
Martin Short, not Martin Sheen.
Ahhh yes! I knew it was Martin Short! I have no idea why I wrote Sheen! Thanks!
I say that every time I go past an Arbys.
My longtime vegetarian husband must have some affection for the Arby’s of his memories, because he keeps offering to buy me an Arby’s sandwich, and I invariably answer “You know I love my Big Beef & Cheddar.” (I do not. I haven’t had an Arby’s since I was a child.)
But by far the most-used Isabella Rossellini 30 Rock line chez nous is when [whatever] “MAKES ME WANT TO SIT ON A KNIFE.”
GUYS. So last year I got to see Isabella Rossalini give a brief talk before a screening of Blue Velvet, and she told the following story:
They filmed Blue Velvet in a very rural town in Tennessee or something. On the day they were shooting the scene where she walks naked and abused through the streets, the whole town decided it was the day to bring a picnic to watch the film that was shooting in town. So Isabella got into her acting zone where she’s barely conscious of anything but the scene, they shot the scene, she looked up and. . .everyone was gone.
She is the best.
I played this to my roommate dubbing it “the greatest joke ever delivered on american television.”
She DOESNT UNDERSTAND THE BRILLIANCE
I have a total of two problems with the final season and one was the failure to bring her back one more time.
The second one is the distinct lack of Wesley Snipes or Handsome Drew.
GANG WAY FOR FOOTCYCLE!
Excuse me, my VELOCIPEDE.
I literally think about this line delivery at least once a day.
And in the same episode we get to hear Paul Reubens yell “CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? FINALLY OLD ENOUGH TO RENT A CAR!” as he waves his tiny jewel-encrusted hand. One of the best episodes all around.
“Only one boob. This isn’t the White House”
I’ve been longing to write a cameo for Francoise Mouly, and now I understand why.
I recently watched Casablanca for the first time (I know), and although I’m sure there are bigger differences in Ingrid Bergman’s and Isabella Rossellini’s voices than my brain/ears can detect, the similarities between them (plus, of course, knowing that IR is IB’s daughter) resulted in me continually imagining Ilsa saying this line throughout the movie. I even had to pause it and explain this to my (patient) girlfriend.
“Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.”
“Dammit, JohnnyRicky, you know I love my Big Beef & Cheddar!”
i was thinking of this line mere hours ago. bless that you have an outlet for your deep understanding of how good this is.
I’m at work so I can’t watch the video, and I’d never heard of Isabella Rossellini before this post. So for now I’m going with my original thought that it’s Emiliana Torrini singing abt beef and cheddar to the tune of Golluim’s Song.
If they ever do a “golden age of television” retrospective about this episode, I hope it’s nothing but this moment on repeat.
If they ever do a "golden age of television" retrospective about this episode, I hope it's nothing but this moment on repeat.
(the page title on the tab says isabelle!) isabella rossellini was a gift too precious for this show tbh.
Excuse me, my VELOCIPEDE.
Just when I thought this was a recipe page but then it’s better haha. that line was precious