Tina Fey is high fiving a million angels. She and Robert Carlock are set to receive an honor from The Writers Guild of America, East, a press release has announced. The “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” co-creators will be presented with the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence at the 70th Annual Writers Guild Awards ceremony, scheduled to take place February 11 in New York.
Awarded to “writers who embody the spirit, commitment, and comic genius of Mr. Sargent,” the honor also recognizes its namesake’s “dedication to mentoring new writers.” Sargent served as president of the WGAE for over a decade and, like Fey and Carlock, he wrote for “Saturday Night Live.”
“We are honored to accept the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence,” said Fey and Carlock, who both serve as executive producers and writers on NBC sitcom “Great News.” The Emmy and WGA Award winners added, “This is particularly meaningful for us as Herb created Weekend Update, which is where we first worked together in the late nineties. Like Herb, Tina grew up in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. And, like Robert, Herb was a Caucasian male, which used to be cool.”
Fey made history as “SNL’s” first female head writer, and went on to create and star in “30 Rock,” a much loved series about a sketch comedy show that’s filmed at 30 Rockefeller Plaza — the same building “SNL” is performed in. “30 Rock” ran on NBC from 2006–2013.
“Tina Fey and Robert Carlock have been my mentors for the past ten years, ever since they hired me as a writers’ assistant on ‘30 Rock,’” said “Great News” creator and actress Tracey Wigfield. “They are genius writers and taught me everything I know about how to make a television show. Now, 10 years later, Tina and Robert are executive producers on my show ‘Great News,’ which they helped me pitch and develop for NBC. I’m so lucky that the two of them took me under their wing. I feel like the drunk Irish guy who got to tag along with Wonder Woman and Chris Pine.”
“Great News” is currently in its second season on NBC. The show centers on a local news producer (Briga Heelan) who is forced to work alongside her overbearing mother (Andrea Martin). “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” will return for a fourth season on Netflix sometime in 2018. Ellie Kemper stars as a woman who moves to NYC after escaping from a doomsday cult.
