30 Rock Wiki
Register
Advertisement

"Tracy" redirects here. For the actor, see Tracy Morgan


Tracy Jordan is a fictional character on the television series 30 Rock, played by Tracy Morgan. The character is a successful African-American movie star with a reputation for unpredictable, highly erratic behavior. This reputation is well-earned and much of it is an intentional attempt on his part to maintain his "crazy" persona in the eyes of the media.

In the pilot episode, Jack Donaghy forces Liz Lemon to hire Tracy as the new star of her sketch comedy program The Girlie Show. To the disquiet of Liz, Jack renames the show TGS with Tracy Jordan in the following episode. Tracy has remained the star of TGS ever since.

Personality[]

Tracy is often, especially in earlier episodes, played as a dim-witted, self-centered, prima donna. Erratic behavior depicted or mentioned on the show includes:

  • Running down the 405 in his underwear while shouting "I am a Jedi!". ("Pilot")
  • Trying to stab talk show host Conan O'Brien and claiming to be a "stabbing robot" while he was being interviewed on his show. ("Tracy Does Conan")
  • Getting arrested for walking naked through LaGuardia Airport. ("The Aftermath")
  • Falling asleep on Ted Danson's roof. ("The Aftermath")
  • Biting actress Dakota Fanning on the face (Liz mentions that Tracy's version of the story makes it sound like she deserved it). ("The Aftermath")
  • Doing the robot walking backwards into a Starbucks while holding a dog that he had apparently stolen (although this was in fact misinterpreted as an act of normalcy). ("Jack Meets Dennis")
  • Looting a television "because the Jets lost!" (Cleveland)

Tracy is being treated for mental health disorder by Dr. Leo Spaceman, a sleazy quack who describes Tracy's problems as "erratic tendencies and delusions brought on by excessive notoriety and certainly not helped by [Spaceman's] highly experimental treatments". Prior to appearing on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Jordan had reactions to the various medications he is on, causing delusions of a blue creature that Jordan referred to as "The Blue Dude".

Tracy also believes in a variety of bizarre conspiracy theories that assume the existence of shadow organizations or supernatural creatures such as vampires. One of the former (the "Black Crusaders", which includes Bill Cosby and Gordon from "Sesame Street") seems to actually exist in the show's universe.

In Mad's cartoon "30 Crock," Tracy's insanity is parodied by having a character like Tracy making outrageous demands.

Relationships[]

Tracy has been married to Angie Jordan for seventeen years as of the 2007 episode "Up All Night", implying that they were married around 1990. According to Tracy, they like to roleplay, including playing rape. Tracy admitted in "Tracy Does Conan" that he often walks around his house naked to show his oldest boy "who got the biggest ding-dong". He has at least two sons, but does not have any daughters at the start of the show ("The C Word"). His and Angie's daughter, Virginia, is born in 2010. Tracy and his wife briefly separated at the start of Season 2 but appear to have gotten back together since then.

Tracy always refers to Liz by her last name, her initials "LL", or her full name (i.e, "Too late, Liz Lemon!"). It appears at times that Tracy has little or no respect for her or her job, generally only communicating with her when he asks/demands for things to go his way. He also considers saying "Hi, I'm Liz Lemon! I like to wear man shirts! Watch me skateboard!" in a high-pitched voice to be a stinging impersonation of her, despite the fact that she doesn't skateboard. But it is worth noting that Tracy usually orbits too far from reality, with his celebrity and mental heath issues, to be seen as thoughtful or considerate, which should not necessarily be taken as a sign of disrespect. For instance, he thanked Liz for being his secretary in "The Collection".

Tracy often lurks around the studio with his entourage of Grizz and Dot Com. Tracy thinks of himself as a mentor to Kenneth Parcell who willingly runs errands for him and puts himself in harm's way to help out Tracy, even though Tracy is often indifferent when Kenneth asks for Tracy to help him.

Career and history[]

Tracy was born to a prostitute named "Lickerish" after a failed abortion attempt, his father is believed to have been one of her clients.  As a child, Tracy was a castmember on the Nickelodeon show Ray Ray's Mystery Garage. He lived with his single mother in 1979 and was discovered after doing stand-up comedy at the Apollo Theater in 1984. Tracy claims to have no memory of this, but it was allegedly listed on Wikipedia. (This fact was made self-referentially in the episode "The Head and The Hair") Tracy Jordan believes he is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings. However, this is based on information given to him by Dr. Spaceman.

Tracy has starred in at least 14 movies, including:

  • Who Dat Ninja?, where he plays an African-American ninja. (Portrayal of a non-Asian ninja might be a reference to Beverly Hills Ninja) Early episodes show the spelling in the poster found in Tracy's dressing room as being 'Who Dat Ninga.'
  • Black Cop/White Cop ("One does the duty; the other gets the booty!"), in which he plays a Black cop who disguises himself as a White cop. (Reference to White Chicks)
  • Black Cavemen ("So simple, a Black Caveman can do it!"), in which he plays a Black Caveman who, along with his friends, tries to fit into a society which is slow to accept them. (Reference to Geico Cavemen)
  • Honky Grandma be Trippin', in which he portrays a Black man who disguises himself as an overweight elderly White woman. (Reference to Big Momma's House)
  • President Homeboy, in which he plays a Black president. (a reference to Head of State)
  • Fat Bitch ("She's off the leash!"), in which he turns into a dog. Don Geiss wanted a sequel made, despite the fact that Coco (Fat Bitch) died at the end.
  • Samurai I Amurai, spent nine months in Japan filming this movie. (Title is a parody of Dr. Seuss' character "Sam I Am", from Green Eggs and Ham)
  • Hard to Watch: Based on the novel "Stone Cold Bummer" by Manipulate, for which he won an Oscar. (Title is a parody of Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire)
  • Sherlock Homie, in which he plays Sherlock Holmes. Not much is known about this film; the only clue we get is the poster which shows Sherlock Homie holding up a magnifying glass to a girl's butt.
  • Death Bank, whose tagline was "Money is the root of all evil."
  • A Blaffair To Rememblack, a re-make of An Affair To Remember.
  • Cruise Boat, a "not hit comedy" in which Jordan uttered the line "I'm getting too old for this ship."
  • An unnamed "rapping grandma" movie with Betty White, where Tracy played the rapping grandma.
  • The Chunks, a parody of Eddie Murphy's The Klumps, whose sequel The Chunks 2: A Very Chunky Christmas Tracy considered trying to bury in the lead-up to the Golden Globes when he was nominated.
  • Tracy Jordan's Aunt Phatso Goes To The Hospitals Goes To Jail, a parody of Tyler Perry's Madea movies
  • Tracy Jordan's Aunt Phatso's Jack Donaghy's We At It Again, another Madea parody
  • I Did Your Wife, "from the producers of Who Dat Ninja" (S4E15)

He was also in a Western in which his entire role was done without leaving his car. He had a cameo appearance in Leap Dave Williams in which his only line was "Give me your wallet, old man!" His current project in development is called Jefferson, where he plays Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings and King George III. Tracy put together a truly abysmal short trailer for his prospective film that Don Geiss watched and said was horrifyingly bad. It is mentioned to come out in Christmas 2008.

He also tends to play multiple roles in his films, much like actors Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy. According to Jack Donaghy, Tracy's movie career has taken a downturn because of enemies he has made in the industry.

Tracy did a Christmas album in 1998 and is a big fan of Pat Benatar. In addition to his acting career, he writes a column in Ebony Magazine called "Musings". He owns several houses and later got into debt because he didn't make the payments on them. Tracy owes Quincy Jones $75,000.

When Jack Donaghy is made the new Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming at NBC, he forces Liz Lemon, the head writer of The Girlie Show, to hire Tracy as the show's new star. When Tracy joins the cast, the show is re-named TGS with Tracy Jordan. Jack is constantly doing anything that he can to keep Tracy happy, but most of the cast and writing staff is unhappy with Jack's decision to hire Tracy because they do not respect his unprofessional demeanor or his film career. However, writer Frank Rossitano enjoys Tracy's films, while writer "Toofer" Spurlock is offended by his behavior and believes Tracy acts demeaning to the entire black community. Jenna Maroney, another actress on the show, feels upstaged by Tracy and becomes angry when she learns that he does not even know her name.

He also once wrote a novelty song entitled "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah", which he recorded for Geffen Records. The lyrics include "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, spooky, scary! Boys becoming men, men becoming wolves!" His attorney Harvey Lemmings (who Liz is not sure actually exists) helped him record the song by teaching him Jewish religious phrases to use in it.

This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).
Advertisement