Tina Fey credits TBS for making Mean Girls a classic, discusses how female TV writers were once treated like "expensive cappuccino machines"

Variety

Fey says she was inspired to turn Mean Girls into a musical after seeing "people from TV" -- South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone -- conquer Broadway with The Book of Mormon. Without TBS, she adds, her new Mean Girls musical wouldn't be possible. “I think so much of that credit goes to TBS,” she tells Variety. “Isn’t it always on TBS? Thank you, TBS!” The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and 30 Rock honcho also spoke about the Time's Up movement, saying it was always her goal to put females in writers' rooms. “I think in comedy rooms, especially, women are treated like expensive cappuccino machines,” she says. “Where it’s like, ‘We have one. Why would we have two?!’ That’s too much pressure on that one person — to carry that, to be the African-American writer, the female writer. It’s always about changing the chemistry of the room. The more diverse the room is, it automatically becomes better.”