Kenneth Parcell

Kenneth Parcell
Kenneth Parcell
First appearance	"Pilot"
Created by	Tina Fey
Portrayed by	Jack McBrayer
Information
Nickname(s)	"Kenneth the Page"
Gender	Male
Occupation	NBC page
Family	Jesse Parcell (cousin) Steven (cousin) Clay Aiken (cousin), 9 unnamed siblings (3 of which were given up for adoption)
Religion	Christianity ("Eighth Day Resurrected Covenant of the Holy Trinity")

Kenneth Ellen Parcell is a fictional character in the comedy television series 30 Rock. He is portrayed by actor Jack McBrayer and first appeared on television in the 30 Rock episode "Pilot" on October 10, 2006. A supporting character in the first two episodes, the show's producers see him as an example of a breakout character.

Primary character traits

Kenneth is a perpetually cheerful NBC page who carries his mother's middle name, and hails from Stone Mountain, Georgia (the actual hometown of former 30 Rock writer, and star of Community, Donald Glover), where his father was a pig farmer. In "Blind Date", Jack reveals that Kenneth's "Myers Briggs psychological testing shows a rare combination of extraverted, intuitive, and aggressive", the same as Jack's. He exclaims as he passes out from strawberry poisoning in the episode "The Ones" that his real name is Dick Whitman (a reference to the AMC drama Mad Men). Kenneth's family appears to have been in poverty; as stated in "Somebody to Love" the Parcells are neither wealthy, nor circumcised. Kenneth mentions that the Parcells "have eaten [their] share of Rock Soup and Squirrel Tail" (but also mentions that they've known "lean times" as well). At some time during his childhood, Kenneth's family lived in a militia camp. The Parcells were supporters of the Confederacy, as in "Flu Shot", Kenneth reveals that his family's traditional burial for Parcell men is that their body is wrapped in a Confederate flag, fried, and fed to dogs. In "Respawn", Kenneth has a family recipe which he has tinkered with, saying he has replaced the ingredient of Union Soldier meat with boiled potatoes.

The Parcells also had bizarre intercourse rituals, where if a, presumably, male succeeded in getting a mate, they would lay their woman across their Grandmother's lap in the "mating shed" (Kenneth mentions that Albinos would be in there as well, as they are the "Watchers").

After Kenneth's father died, his mother's "friend" Ron moved in. It is heavily hinted that his mother had a sexual relationship with Ron, but Kenneth remains blissfully unaware of this, though it is hinted that he has a great hatred towards Ron.

At Kentucky Mountain Bible College, Kenneth majored in television studies and minored in bible sexuality, and his favorite subject was science, "especially the Old Testament." He considers his mother his best friend, and credits her with his persistent optimism, since she taught him that no matter how bad things seem, there is always someone else having a worse day, "like being stung by a bee, or getting a splinter, or being chained to a wall in someone's sex dungeon." At the end of "The Baby Show", it seems as though Kenneth had preserved his mother's corpse à la Psycho, but it is later shown that his mother is alive (the skeleton was a Halloween decoration, and his mother was talking to him on the phone). Aside from being a pig farmer, not much else is known about Kenneth's father, although according to Kenneth in a deleted scene of "The One with the Cast of Night Court", his parents were first cousins (a fact which Kenneth's father kept from Kenneth's mother, since if she knew she would not have married him), and in "The Collection", he tells Jenna that his father died of a heart attack. It is also later established in the episode "Kidney Now!" that Kenneth is the cousin of American Idol 2nd-season runner-up Clay Aiken. He is almost never seen without his page uniform, even in his free time, and he once cried out, "Oh god it hurts" when he watched his jacket catch on fire.

An awkward yet polite rube, he is always smiling, excited and happy to do his menial job, which many people do not understand. He has explained in two episodes ("Pilot" and "The Head and the Hair") that this is because he loves television so much. His love of television and his unending devotion to the NBC network are two of his most defining character traits. For example, he told Pete that he didn't want to "disgrace the peacock" in "The C Word," and, in "Corporate Crush," he was seen knitting a woolen bikini with the NBC Peacock on it for his grandmother. He has stated in "Believe in the Stars" that he only loves two things: "everybody and television." He also named his parakeet after Sonny Crockett.

Kenneth is generally well-liked at NBC, but has a determined nemesis in Head Page Donnie (Paul Scheer), who forced him to go through a humiliating series of tasks to get a new page jacket in "Rosemary's Baby" and who worked overtime to subvert Kenneth's application to work at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing in the episode "Cooter". In real life, McBrayer and Scheer are friends who have an acclaimed two-man comedy improv show together.

As seen in "Hiatus," Kenneth has a considerably less friendly and more violent cousin, Jesse Parcell (Sean Hayes), living in Needmore, Pennsylvania.

In "Apollo, Apollo", it was shown that Kenneth sees everyone as muppets. In "Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001", he appeared as a muppet while walking by an HD camera.

In different and numerous episodes, Kenneth is shown speaking different languages. These languages include Mandarin in "Cooter", French in "Flu Shot", German in "Episode 210", and Latin in "Audition Day". This adds to the myth that Ken is older than he looks due to how fluent he seems to be in all of these languages. He can also speak backwards fluently, and in "Kidney Now!", he is shown to be able to talk to without moving his lips. In the episode "Succession", he is able to guess cards with ease, although Grizz doesn't tell him he can.

Kenneth is proven to be completely selfless in "Believe in the Stars". In this episode Kenneth becomes trapped in an elevator which Jack claims to have hermetically sealed. Jack announces that there is enough air for 8 people, while the elevator contains 9, and therefore "one of us . . . must die." Kenneth expresses appall at Jack's grisly statement, but, when Jack tells him that he has "placed a pistol loaded with one bullet" in the emergency box, without hesitation Kenneth quickly removes the gun, holds it to his head and pulls the trigger, not just once, but twice when it does not discharge the first time. Finding the gun inoperable, he slips his own belt around his neck and urges the others to strangle him, ignoring his inevitable resistance, which is "human nature." Jack, disgusted to find that Kenneth's total selflessness is genuine, abruptly opens the elevator door, saying, "What is WRONG with you?" In "The Ones", Kenneth willingly sends himself into anaphylactic shock by drinking water tainted with strawberries so that Jenna might see a local paramedic she has a crush on. On another occasion, while observing from afar the antics of the other cast members, he vehemently argues aloud with an unseen entity named Jacob (a reference to the character from Lost), professing the good in them, and claiming he needs more time, similar to the biblical character Lot.

It is revealed in "I Do Do," that Kenneth the Page wears a concealed weapon when, after Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) is ordered by new NBC owner Kabletown to fire Kenneth for giving an improper studio tour, he places not only his beloved NBC ID badge on Hornberger's desk, but a pistol as well.

In "The Collection" Liz Lemon asks Kenneth if he can walk and talk. This makes him uneasy, realizing that now he's thinking about walking and talking in addition to walking and talking, and for a few moments he struggles immensely coordinating his gait before the tension leaves and he is once more able to do both things simultaneously.

Kenneth has technically died two different times. Once in "The Ones" when he purposefully gave himself a strawberry allergic reaction (So Jenna could get the number of a paramedic she liked) and was legally dead for five minutes before the paramedics came. And again in "College" when he got hypothermia on the balcony to Jack's office and briefly died, returning with a message from God he forgot.

Kenneth's age

Kenneth appears to be in his early- or mid-twenties (McBrayer is actually in his thirties), but it has been implied numerous times since Season 3 that he is actually much older; in the episode "Into the Crevasse," Kenneth appears dancing in the 1950s flashback "doin' the Microwave;" in the episode "The One with the Cast of Night Court" Kenneth states, "I've worn this old jacket since 19-hubeduh," intentionally mumbling the year, and in the episode "Cutbacks," Kenneth says that he's had a pet bird for over 60 years. In a deleted scene of "Mamma Mia" it is implied that he is a veteran of World War II when he is recognized by an elderly man as one of his war buddies (coincidentally like Dick Whitman in "Mad Men").

In Subway Hero, he recognizes a celebrity who was described as being active in the "40s and 50s" much to Jack's puzzlement. Similarly, in the episode Verna, Kenneth says that The Today Show has not been as good since chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs was featured on the show, implying that Kenneth watched Today when the chimp served as the show's mascot from 1953 to 1957. In "Black Light Attack!", Frank's phone has a low frequency tone that people over 40 can hear, something that Kenneth is heavily affected by. Kenneth's actual birth-date would therefore be some time in the mid-1920s or earlier. Another possible hint in that episode about Kenneth being older than he appears is when he is at the Black Light party. Tracy asks him why his (Kenneth's) teeth aren't glowing, and Kenneth replies with "You'll have to ask the fellow who whittled them for me!", which may be a reference to Kenneth losing his real teeth due to his old age and thus needing a false pair. (Although this is somewhat of a stretch as it is most likely to be a satirical reference to Kenneth's poor/"hillbilly" background and implying that he has wooden teeth).

When asked if he "wants to be a page forever," Kenneth darkly and nervously asks "Who said I've been alive forever?" In "Future Husband", Kenneth says he remembers Jenna's first acting role in a commercial circa 1970 ("You were a fat little baby"). When NBC was bought out by Kabletown in "Don Geiss, America and Hope", Kenneth became worried and asked if they would be having new rules for pages, such as "age limits and age verification." He is also shown to need medication or else he begins acting like a donkey. In Season 5's "When it Rains, it Pours", Kenneth is seen nostalgically packing away a signed photograph of Fred Allen from 1947 dedicated: "Kenneth, you're the TOPS!" into a box marked "NBC Memories 1945-1967". Kenneth's page jacket could also be an underlying running gag implying his age and longevity at NBC because those jackets were discontinued by the NBC page program many years ago in favor of grey jackets. In "Operation Righteous Cowboy Lightning" Kenneth reveals that when he looks into a mirror "there is only a white haze" suggesting that he is a vampire thus explaining how he appears so young but implied to be much older (however, in the earlier episode "Klaus and Greta", Kenneth sees his reflection in a mirror).

In "¡Qué Sorpresa!", when he comes up with the idea of BlaBar, the black bar covering the lower half of a TV screen to censor material considered inappropriate; he mentions how older viewers are offended by certain things on television, subtly gesturing to himself while saying so. In the episode "TGS Hates Women", Kenneth comments that Shirley Temple taught him to roll cigarettes at NBC when she was 8. This implies that he was at least born before 1936 (8 years after Shirley Temple's birth). Assuming NBC pages are 18 years old, Kenneth was born in 1918 at the latest. In "Queen of Jordan", Kenneth's chyron reads "Kenneth Parcell: Elderly Page". However, many assume that the jokes regarding Kenneth's age are mere personality quirks and that he is in his 20s as he appears. During a flash-forward in the episode "100", Kenneth, Tracy, and Jenna speculate where they will be in five years. The scene then shows three tombstones, with Kenneth's date of birth appearing to be listed as May 27th, 1781, although the second digit is partially obscured by a leaf in multiple shots. When asked his age, by Suze Orman, in "Today, You Are a Man", Kenneth replies "Don't worry about it".

Role on the show

In initial episodes, it appeared as though Kenneth was not very familiar with some of Liz Lemon's staff, or even Liz herself. In the pilot episode, Liz refers to Kenneth only as "that NBC page." As the show progressed beyond its initial episodes, the character became more familiar with other staff of TGS with Tracy Jordan.

Kenneth is often shown creating his own ideas for rather unusual television shows and one (a game show called Gold Case) became a reality in "The Head and the Hair," though it turned out to be very ill-conceived and was promptly shut down. When he pretends to be interviewed by Conan O'Brien on the empty set of Late Night with Conan O'Brien in the episode "Tracy Does Conan," it is shown that Kenneth dreams of making "hit movies" with Zach Braff and that he is skilled at clogging. In real life, McBrayer performed in numerous skits on Late Night before being cast on 30 Rock. On the August 10, 2007 episode of Late Night, McBrayer made a cameo appearance as Kenneth. He also appeared as Kenneth on the third episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

As seen in the episode "Blind Date", Kenneth is a very good poker player due to the fact no one can read his thoughts, since, according to Frank, "he doesn't have any." In a high-stakes game with Jack Donaghy, Kenneth is goaded into betting his job and loses. However, Jack gives him his page jacket back and tells him that he isn't really going to fire him, but just wants to remind him that he could. Jack then tells Liz that "in five years we'll all either be working for him... or be dead by his hand."

Kenneth often acts as Tracy Jordan's personal assistant, even going so far as to get him nachos from Yankee Stadium. He is sometimes seen trying to impress or emulate Tracy, even wearing Tracy's chains when he wins them in a card game. A running gag with his character is the taking of his sandwich, which both Tracy Jordan and Jack Donaghy have done.

"Up All Night" hints at the possibility of romance between Kenneth and Cerie. In "The Aftermath," they are seen dancing together on Tracy's yacht. Kenneth's innocence and sweet nature are a constant running joke. In "The Collection", after insulting Jenna to get her to eat (using words written by Liz), Jenna starts kissing him seductively and later tells Jack that "I guess we have to get married now." Kenneth hosts occasional parties that no one but Liz ever attends, until a series of lies about music stars and celebrities turns one such party into such a destructive bacchanalia that Kenneth sternly reprimands the staff for their behavior, and then says he will never host another party again.

In "Ludachristmas," it is revealed that Kenneth had "a 'coke' problem during his 'Wall Street days.'" This turns out to mean that he used to work at a Blockbuster Video and was addicted to The Soft Drink around the time that the 1987 film was popular on home video.

In "Episode 210", Kenneth tries coffee for the first time and is immediately hooked. When he sees himself in a mirror, he becomes depressed because he realizes he has broken the second of his two promises to his mother, that New York City wouldn't change him (the first was that if he found any "MacKenzies", he would kill them). Kenneth leaves to return to his mother's home, but returns during the show-ending musical number, singing that he missed the Midnight Train to Georgia because the train actually left at 11:45PM and he was misinformed about the time.

In "Sandwich Day" Kenneth reveals during the drinking contest against the Teamsters that unknowingly he had alcohol before, what he calls "hill people milk" and, because he has been drinking it "since [he] was a baby," he has a very high tolerance, managing to keep up on his feet while the Teamsters and the writing staff get blind drunk.

In the Season 2 finale "Cooter", Kenneth is determined to be a page for NBC's coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Head Page Donnie tries to ruin his chances by giving him false information and setting up a phony menial task so that Kenneth will miss the application deadline, while Jenna and Pete help him finish the application and get past Donnie. Kenneth gets his application in and is shown, in the episode's last scene, sitting in a Beijing hotel room with an attractive woman. She says in Mandarin, "Kenneth, I like you, because I'm attracted to your two healthy kidneys." This catches him by surprise (it is shown earlier in the episode that Kenneth speaks Mandarin fluently), and then an armed man bursts into the room and Kenneth says in Mandarin, "What! This is unbelievable!" as the episode and season ends.

Religious and political views

Kenneth is very religious. It is revealed in "The Fighting Irish" that his religion is called "Eighth Day Resurrected Covenant of the Holy Trinity". It seems to be an extreme sort of Charismatic Christianity. In the episode "Greenzo", Kenneth says he intends to "party like it's 1999," which according to his Bible will be in seven years. He often doles out folksy religious advice, for example advising Pete to think of God to prevent him from cheating on his wife in "Black Tie." His church (which was in the basement of a Cuban restaurant) has a fire-and-brimstone preacher, who scared away Tracy when Kenneth brought him there. It is revealed in "The C Word" that he attended Kentucky Mountain Bible College, where he studied television theory, and where the Old Testament was a part of science class. In "Black Tie," Kenneth referred to Footloose as the movie where "those evil kids won in the end." Also, he reads the Bible in German, because it is the only way "to get all the versteckte Bedeutungen (hidden meanings)." In "Episode 210," he says he does not drink any hot beverages, for that is "the Devil's temperature."

In "Subway Hero", Kenneth reveals that he has no political views because "choosing is a sin." Instead, he always submits write-in votes for God. However, according to Jack, those count as Republican.

In "Christmas Special", when Liz (believes) she got ripped off by two adults who scammed her through the letters to Santa program, Kenneth refuses to believe anyone would scam a Christmas charity (he further demonstrates his naïvety when he asks Liz, while trying to prove his point that people would not do something as wrong as scamming on a Religious holiday, "when has Religion ever caused any trouble?").

It is hinted that he is not very educated/respectful of other religions, such as when he wished Josh Girard a "Merry Jewish". Another example is in "100", when Jenna tries to seduce him so she can have a baby, he refuses on the grounds that they're unmarried and are a part of different religions. In "Secret Santa," he sets up a multi-faith holiday display which includes a framed photo of Barack Obama "for the Muslims."

Kenneth has said he does not believe in hypothetical situations because its like "lying to your brain" ("Believe in the Stars"). When Jack tells Kenneth he knows the ten commandments, Kenneth snorts and says "Ten?" implying he follows more.

Although he is very respectful towards the other staff, male and female alike, he is shown to have some views on women that are somewhat misogynistic. In "The Funcooker", when he is put in charge, his first act is to have all menstruating women go home immediately. In "TGS Hates Women", Kenneth reveals that he wants his legacy to be a Sesame Street-esque show that "promotes illiteracy in girls". Another example is in "100", when Kenneth states that he believes it is "crazy" that women have the right to choose their own haircuts.

Unsurprisingly, Kenneth does not believe in Darwin's Theory of Evolution. However, he does believe that Candles, Incense and Disco Music are a part of the "Easter spirit". It is also hinted he prefers the clean shaven look, as when he was placed in charge (see above), he forbade beards and moustaches in the workplace.

In "Gavin Volure," Kenneth admits to having $76,000 in Confederate currency.

Jack has said that Kenneth's "county never rejoined the Union", as to why he was considered foreign.

Critical response

Slate Magazine named the character as one of the reasons they were looking forward to the return of the show in fall 2007.

In 2009 McBrayer received an Emmy nomination for his work as Kenneth.