Tracy Jordan

Tracy "Tray" Jordan
File:Tracy Jordan.png Tracy Jordan
First appearance	"Pilot"
Created by	Tina Fey
Portrayed by	Tracy Morgan Elijah Cook (as a child in "The Source Awards" and "Rosemary's Baby")
In-universe information
Nickname	"Tray"
Gender	Male
Occupation	Actor Comedian
Spouse	Angie Jordan
Children	George Foreman Tracy, Jr.
Relatives	Thomas Jefferson (ancestor)

Tracy Jordan is a fictional character on the American television series 30 Rock, played by Tracy Morgan.

Brief overview

The character is a successful 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 chagrin of Liz and Jenna, 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 repeatedly 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 Late Night with Conan O'Brien. ("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")
• Believes he said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing", though this is attributed to Edmund Burke. ("Sandwich Day")
• Forgot his name while being arrested in a Chuck E. Cheese's. ("Believe in the Stars")
• Yelled at a pair of nuns thinking he was at his high school reunion. ("Reunion")
• Hides his money in Kenneth's page jacket. Also created a panic from comments on Larry King Live. ("Larry King")
• Showing his bare bottom on live TV and his own commercial, shouting, "Here comes the Funcooker!" ("The Funcooker")

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 "Blue Man", with whom Tracy takes issue for his apparent lack of feet.

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 Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby, Condoleezza Rice and Gordon from Sesame Street) seems to actually exist in the show's universe, and Tracy ran away from New York when the group came after him for his embarrassing behavior. When he returned for the Season 1 finale, however, the group member who had been watching him walked away from the set and Tracy got back to work.

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, where he puts on a ski mask. 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 two sons, named Tracy Jordan Jr. and George Foreman Jordan. Tracy and his wife briefly separated at the start of Season 2 but got back together at some undisclosed point afterwards. In "The One", Tracy claimed that he has never cheated on Angie, and that he only parties with women to keep up his rap credentials.

Tracy always refers to Liz by either her last name or her full name (e.g., "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 thoughtless or inconsiderate, so Liz doesn't take his behavior 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. It should be noted, however, that Tracy often helps Kenneth with Kenneth's shyness involving women. Tracy once fired a woman whom Kenneth had a crush on, who began to date Dot Com before Kenneth could ask her out(Jackie Jorp Jomp). Tracy also acted as Kenneth's voice for a date with a blind woman whom Kenneth was too shy to speak to (St. Valentines Day). Kenneth may be the only person involved with the TGS show that Tracy Jordan actually cares about. When Tracy quit the show after finding out he no longer needed the money he earned on it, it was Jack's threat to fire Kenneth that changed Tracy's mind in order to keep Kenneth employed (The Bubble). Kenneth acted as an asexual, de facto on-set wife to Tracy during his brief Season 2 estrangement from Angie.

Tracy and Jenna have been shown having several disagreements, such as a feud over how much Tracy should have compensated Jenna for her help with his video game (Do-Over), or whether it is more difficult to be a black man or a white woman in America (Believe in the Stars). However, they have also had friendly interactions, such as their joint (failed) attempt to help out the crew during "Flu Shot".

Career and history

Tracy Jordan is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings. Tracy's age is unknown, as he has no birth certificate. He was born in Yankee Stadium. He was given the honorary birthday of February 24, shared with TGS Co-star Jenna Maroney and male supermodel Steve Harnden in the March 5th, 2009 episode Goodbye, My Friend.

As a child, Tracy was a castmember on the Nickelodeon show Ray Ray's Mystery Garage. He lived with his single mother in 1979, dropped out of Frank Lucas High School over his inability to dissect a frog, 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 has starred in 15 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. (Reference to The Shaggy Dog)
• Samurai I Amurai, spent nine months in Japan filming this movie.
• Death Bank, film with the tagline "Money is the Root of All Evil." (Possibly a reference to The International)
• A Blaffair to Rememblack, a remake of An Affair to Remember. The title parodies many blaxploitation movies, such as Blacula and Blackenstein.
• "Not-hit comedy" Cruise Boat, in which he declares, "I'm getting too old for this ship!"
• A Rapping Grandma movie, costarring Betty White, where Tracy plays the rapping granny.

He was also in a Western in which his entire role was done without leaving his car. He was supposed to star in Rush Hour, but was replaced at the last minute by Jackie Chan. 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. He also tends to play multiple roles in his films, much like actors Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy.

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. At one point, Tracy owes Quincy Jones $75,000.

His volatile personality took its toll on his movie career, however, as his reputation for being uncontrollable and his habit of insulting powerful movie executives cost him roles. 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. 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. They have clashed over who has it harder in modern society, women or African-Americans.

Tracy is not overly interested in politics. Jack Donaghy tried to recruit Tracy to join the Republican Party, but Tracy came to realize that African-Americans would never support the GOP. Tracy then made a PSA that advised them not to vote at all.

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 Hebrew phrases to use in it.

He once acted in an unnamed animated feature film starring him and Shaquille O'Neal, which won a Kids Choice Award. He claims to have done the entirety of the work from his home, and have gained $3 million dollars and a yellow Bentley.

He created an adult video game called Goregasm: The Legend of Dongslayer after trying to decide whether to watch pornography or play video games. Frank play-tested it for three whole months without a break. Tracy was later sued by Jenna for not giving her a fair share of the profits for her hard work on the game.

Despite the apparent low quality of his work, Tracy is very successful financially, earning over $300,000,000 in the year 2008 by investing profits from the massive sales of his video game into a company that dismantles bank signs (Jack notes that "they're doing very well.")