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. Originally a supporting character in the first two episodes, the show's producers see him as an example of a breakout character.

Biography

Kenneth is a perpetually cheerful NBC page, who hails from Stone Mountain, Georgia, where his father was a pig farmer. An awkward yet polite rube, he is always smiling, and is excited and happy to do his menial job, which is due to his great love of televison, as well as his devotion to the NBC network. He has stated in "Believe in the Stars" that he only loves two things: "Everybody and television". In "Blind Date", Jack reveals that Kenneth's "Myers Briggs psychological testing shows a rare combination of extraverted, intuitive, and aggressive", the same as his.

In "The Ones", he exclaims, as he passes out from strawberry poisoning, 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. 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". 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, 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.

In 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 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.

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 "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.

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 wears a concealed weapon, as seen when 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.

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.

Age

While Kenneth appears to be in his early to mid-twenties, it has been implied numerous times since the third season 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 named Sonny Crockett for over 60 years, which makes it unlikely it was named for the Miami Vice character as initially implied. 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 the program when the primate served as the show's mascot from 1953 to 1957. In "Black Light Attack!", Frank's phone has a low frequency tone that only people who are over the age of 40 can hear, something that Kenneth is heavily affected by. When he is asked if he "Want[s] to be a page forever", Kenneth nervously asks "Who said I've been alive forever?". In "Future Husband", Kenneth states that he remembers Jenna's first acting role in a commercial about 1970, commenting that she was "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". 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". 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. If this theory is correct, it would explain how he appears to be physically younger than he actually is (however, in an 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 eight years-old. In "Queen of Jordan", Kenneth's chyron reads "Kenneth Parcell: Elderly Page". 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 27, 1781, although the second digit is partially obscured by a leaf in multiple shots. In the episode "Today You Are a Man", when Suze Orman asks him his age, he does not answer her question, simply replying "Don't worry about it". In

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Religious and political views

Kenneth is a very religious person. 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.

Kenneth's family 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. 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.

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").

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". 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.

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.