We've known that about the black Donaghy clan since last season. Jack's cousin is a corrupt basketball official, his siblings are either drunkards or con men, and his mother, Colleen (Elaine Stritch), is a shrew. So it's about time Liz Lemon introduced us to her red-sweater family: dad Dick (Buck Henry), mom Margaret (Anita Gillette), and mentally stunted brother Mitch (Andy Richter). Golly-gee, they're swell. Almost sickeningly so. Jack, who prides himself on knowing every possible angle, was initially baffled by their good humor. He mistook Margaret's compliment of Liz for sarcastic taunting, and when they showered him with praise — Dick said Jack resembled an Arrow shirt model — his unsure response was ''Why don't we cut the charade and you two tell me what exactly you want from me.'' But eventually their relentless geniality won him over, and before long, he was sharing muffins and contemplating Disney vacations with the Lemons.
Henry was destined to play Mr. Lemon. After all, the Oscar-nominated writer was the inaugural member of SNL's ''Five-Timer's Club,'' and Tina Fey shares a similar comic DNA. Ditto for Richter, who played the defective 40-year-old bro psychologically frozen in 1985 by a traumatic teenage ski accident. Not even Cerie's ''filthy Christmas miracle'' could snap him out of his haze when she responded positively to his pickup line: ''Do you like Wham!? Because I'm kind of like the George Michael of my school.'' The gifted comic deserves his own show — oh wait, he had one. Andy Barker, P.I. was fresh and funny, but NBC axed it after six episodes last spring. Try not to think too hard about that when you're pulling lint from your navel during Clash of the Choirs or American Gladiators.
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