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Main Characters

Liz Lemon

Elizabeth "Liz" Miervaldis Lemon

Played By: Tina Fey

The showrunner of TGS who has to babysit everyone else.

Allegedly Dateless: Is frequently teased for being undateable, but has several boyfriends throughout the show.
Alliterative Name: Liz Lemon.
All Women Love Shoes: Subverted to show her unfeminine side. Not wearing heels makes her shorter than most everybody else, which adds an element of elfin charm.
Author Avatar: She's based on Tina Fey, whose real first name is Elizabeth.
Big Eater: Liz is a bottomless pit when it comes to food. She'll go so far as to choose a particularly good sandwich over a man.
Rosemary Howard: Are you hungry?
Liz: Always.
Blind Without 'Em: Averted. She is seen frequently without her glasses. Lampshaded when she and Jenna got into a fight.
Jenna: You are a big fake, you know that Liz? (to onlookers) She doesn't even need those glasses!
Brainy Brunette
Brainy Specs: Jenna mentions that she only wears her glasses to look smarter.
Butt-Monkey: Liz is frequently mocked by the rest of the TGS staff, to the point where they use the expression "Lemon'd," to mean "made a mistake" or "behaved improperly."
Catchphrase: "Blerg", "I want to go to there", and "What the what?!".
The Chew Toy: "There's no chance that I'm blowing this."
Deconstructed Character Archetype: Characters like Murphy Brown, women that constantly fight to stand up for themselves and use their sharp wit to sarcastically put down those who are unrighteous. Quite frankly, Liz Lemon is Brown as a borderline sociopath, with a Hair-Trigger Temper, a sarcastic wit that is incredibly vicious, a horrible drive for revenge and a drive to prove herself that goes past feminism and straight into It's All About Me territory.
Establishing Character Moment: The very first thing we see her do is buy out a hotdog vendor's entire stock to prevent someone who cut in the line from getting one. She also delivers a big tirade to the guy that she thinks is righteous (and in some other shows it would be presented as such) but just unsettles everybody else standing in line, doubly so because of the aforementioned act.
Fangirl: For Star Wars and only Star Wars. She dressed like Princess Leia for her wedding and scoffed at visiting Harry Potter World in Orlando: "I'm not some kind of nerdery slut!"
Goofy Print Underwear: Of the childish kind: blue with yellow buses.
Hollywood Homely: Played for laughs. Characters often react with disgust at the idea of anything sexual relating to Liz, but she is played by the attractive Tina Fey. Somewhat inverted, though, in that Liz dates numerous attractive men throughout the series, so the revulsion may instead stem from Liz's behavior and rejection of traditional hallmarks of femininity.
Hypocrite: achingly good Hollywood liberal Liz Lemon becomes suspicious of her Arab neighbour so calls Homeland Security who abduct him and attach electrodes to his genitals. When Pete objects the now paranoid and drunk with power Liz threatens to do the same to him.
Leitmotif: A variation of the very first piece of music heard on the show – the theme song for the TGS sketch "Pam, the Morbidly Obese Woman." See Unique Pilot Title Sequence on the main page. It's very occasionally used behind Jenna and Tracy as well, but nearly all of its appearances are in scenes that feature Liz.
Lost Food Grievance: Do not even think of touching her food.
"WHERE'S MY MAC AND CHEESE!?!
- Also doubles as Hulking Out when she flips the writers table that, in a later episode, almost twelve people cannot even budge.
Lousy Lovers Are Losers: By her own admission, she's pretty bad at sex.
Masochist's Meal: "What time do you start throwing out the doughnuts?"
Meaningful Name: last name of Lemon gels with her tart, acidic commentary.
Moral Guardians: In "TGS Hates Women," she chastises new hire Abby Flynn for her blatant sexuality only to discover that Abby was only doing it to protect herself from her abusive and murderous ex-husband by drawing in a large crowd of men to shield her from another murder attempt.
Mistaken for Gay: A Running Gag that she dresses like a lesbian.
Liz: What made you think I was gay?
Jack: Your shoes.
Liz: Well I'm straight!
Jack: Those shoes are definitely bi-curious.
Ms. Fanservice: Fey shows off her cleavage frequently, but rarely exposes anything else. This includes stripping down to her bra on more than one occasion.
Nerdy Bully: In the reunion episode, Liz Lemon is revealed to have been the school bully (while she thinks she was the class nerd), using insults and comebacks instead of physically bullying other students.
Classmate: Hey Liz, how's the telescope?
Liz: I don't know, Kelsey, how's your mom's pill addiction?
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Tina Fey says her fellow SNL alumnus Julia Louis-Dreyfus was an inspiration for the character. Things get paradoxical in the first live episode, where Dreyfus also plays Lemon so that they can still do the show's trademark flashback cutaways in a live format.
Not So Above It All: She may be the Only Sane Employee, but she has her occasional crazy moment as well.
Obfuscating Insanity: She's gotten out of jury duty back in Chicago several times by acting like a delusional Princess Leia cosplayer. Sadly, this doesn't work half as well in the Quirky Town that is New York City.
Obsessed with Food: Food is Liz's main vice, and she's gross enough about it that it manages to make her Hollywood Homely trait plausible.
Only Sane Employee: While it's clear that she has her own stock of crazy, she's the one who holds things together between the egotistical stars, dozy writers, executive meddling and everything else that befalls the show.
Platonic Life-Partners: As a HR manager put it, her relationship with Jack is the longest and most meaningful either of them have ever had, but they both find the thought of sleeping together repulsive.
Really Gets Around: Not really— she's had a handful of boyfriends but little interest in casual sex— but hilariously, given their respective reputations, invoked by Tracy:
Tracy: Doctor guy, pilot guy, Cleveland dude, British guy, rich dude, James Franco. I've been with the same woman for 22 years. No judgments, but to me, Liz Lemon is a sex maniac.
Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Revealed to be one when she attends her high school reunion.
Self-Serving Memory: Numerous times, most notably when she recalls being the picked on nerd in high school only to return for her reunion and discover she was actually the harsh bully putting everyone down for seemingly no reason. It's shown in a flashback that what Liz once interpreted as being mocked by the popular girl was actually an innocent attempt by said popular girl to make friends with her, all to get Liz to stop with the cruel personal put-downs.
Showrunner: Liz is TGS's showrunner. Tina Fey, who plays Liz, is 30 Rock's showrunner.
Straw Feminist: In spades. When she was in high school, she sued for the right to play football even though she was terrible and didn't even like the sport.
Strawman Political: As Jack is a stereotypical Republican, Liz is a stereotypical Democrat.
Their First Time: Liz was planning on having her first time with then-boyfriend Conan O'Brien before he dumped her. Although Liz would eventually lose her virginity in the makeup room of a clown academy, it is ambiguous whether the in-universe Conan ever punched his v-card.
Trademark Favorite Food: Cheese. Almost all of her favorite food involves some sort of cheese (Cheesy Blasters, Sabor de Soledad, etc.), and her dentist prints out a pamphlet about eating hard cheeses specifically for her because he was so sick of her asking about it.
Unusual Euphemism: Lizzing. Also, Snarting, a Portmanteau of sneezing and farting.
Villain Protagonist: According to The Take, she's the actual villain of the show.
White Guilt: Has her fair share of this, as when she finds it difficult to break up with an annoying black boyfriend played by Wayne Brady for fear of being thought racist. She also admits that she voted for Obama primarily out of White Guilt. She mostly gets over it after a couple seasons of Tracy playing the Everything Is Racist card a few times too often, although characters like his wife Angie can still throw her off-balance by playing off of this trait.

Jack Donaghy

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30rock_jack_7737.jpg

Played By: Alec Baldwin

A NBC executive who regularly calls for changes on TGS.

Accent Relapse: In season 4, episode 8 when he talks to Nancy Donovan he falls back into his native Boston accent.
Ascended Extra: The original plan was to have Jack be the first of an ever-changing parade of clueless, incompetent executives to reflect NBC Universal's parent company General Electric's policy of rotating its executives through all of the corporate divisions regardless of their fields of expertise.
Big Eater: A huge stress eater.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Actually pretty good at his job despite his wacky ideas about interpersonal relations, pop psychology, business tactics, etc.
Catchphrase: "Good God, Lemon."
Celebrity Paradox: In the episode "College", Jack mentions that his vocal recordings had been used for "Thomas & Friends". His actor was known for narrating two seasons of the show (as well as playing Mr. Conductor in Thomas and the Magic Railroad).
Characterization Marches On: Started out as more of a Pointy-Haired Boss archetype who makes Liz's life harder and is willing to fire people without a care. This characterization is quickly tweaked into Jack becoming a mentor and friend to Liz, as well as more caring to the other characters overall. This is likely a result of Jack staying on longer as a character instead of being cycled out.
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Zig-zagged. Although he's a cutthroat negotiator and his chief motivation in life is money, he also cares about his employees, especially Liz.
Deadpan Snarker: He gets all the best lines.
Embarrassing Hobby: Jack had a cookie jar collection as his embarrassing hobby, which he gets rid of in order to get ahead at GE.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: For all his biases and flaws, one of Jack's most redeeming qualities is his unwavering belief that anyone has the potential to be truly great, even women and Italians like Liz and Frank.
Even Evil Has Standards: He's horrified that Devon Banks would destroy thousands of jobs for personal reasons.
Executive Meddling: In-Universe, he does this regularly.
Fighting Irish: On occasion, his temper flares and can get rather violent, courtesy of his Boston Irish-Catholic background.
Flanderization: Initially he was only a moderate Republican and even set Liz up on a date when convinced she was gay. Overtime, he's called Barack Obama a "communist", keeps a framed picture of Nixon in his office, has Avery wear a Reagan mask on webcam, and is constantly making fun of anything he considers liberal. This is likely a joke about Alec Baldwin's staunch left-wing views. In the finale, he reels off a list of "liberal foes" he's "defeated", including Alec Baldwin.
Freudian Excuse: His mother wasn't exactly the nicest one.
I Need a Freaking Drink: His usual reaction to bad news is to pour himself a scotch. On one occasion, he poured the rest of the bottle into his glass.
Invention Pretension: He frequently claims to have invented various business practices, giving them ridiculous names involving buzzwords like "power". Since he's written books and used to give motivational seminars, he may actually be telling the truth about this.
I Was Quite a Looker: He's still pretty good-looking, but apparently when he was young he was so handsome that it bordered on mind control. He spent years thinking he could speak French since no one wanted to tell him otherwise.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He is casually offensive to anyone who isn't a rich White male. However, he does take Liz under his wing and encourage her to strive for more success while also pushing Kenneth to be something more than an NBC page.
Manipulative Bastard: He is constantly pulling strings and playing people off of one another so that he can achieve his goals or simply because it amuses him.
Married to the Job: His single-minded devotion to his job leads to conflict when he finally has a child and doesn't spend enough time with her.
Nerd Hoard: He had a cookie jar collection which he gave up in order to ascend the ranks of GE.
Noble Bigot: Despite his casual sexism and occasional ethnic stereotyping, he's a fundamentally nice person and is also aware that he's very privileged as a good-looking, rich white man (with hair).
Not So Above It All: Although he tries to repress his emotions as much as possible and project an image of being a tough businessman, he also sometimes bursts into tears over silly things.
Oireland: raised as an Irish American although he later discovers his biological father is of English descent. Liz teases him by wearing orange on St Patrick's Day to honour William the 3rd who defeated the Irish Jacobites for the Irish Williamites during the Glorious Revolution (although he was actually supported by the Pope).
Parental Abandonment: He grew up without knowing his real father, and is shocked to discover that he's a former tenant of his mother's who is now a liberal history professor.
Platonic Life-Partners: With Liz. They're both so close they have each other as their emergency contacts, but have never expressed any sort of romantic interest in each other. Quite the opposite. They both seem to actively loathe the idea.
Pointy-Haired Boss: He starts the series as one, as he admits to knowing nothing about TV and comedy but insists on taking an active role in running NBC and TGS. He eventually does settle into his position and become an effective network executive.
Politically Incorrect Hero: Played for Laughs. For example, a Running Gag that he refers to overly emotional people as "Italians", and another that he thinks women are inferior as businesspersons.
Raised Catholic: and suitably guilt ridden. Becomes especially conflicted when he learns his biological father is a Protestant.
Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: At times. Despite growing up poor, spending years at the top of the corporate ladder has caused him to become out of touch with everyday schmucks. At one point he refers to his Puerto Rican girlfriend's "adorably broken English" when she was actually just talking about public transportation in perfectly fine English.
Sharp-Dressed Man: He has almost never been seen without a suit.
Liz: Why are you wearing a tux?
Jack: It's after six, Lemon. What am I, a farmer?
Sidekick Ex Machina: A lot of the plots have Liz struggling when she is unable to call on Jack's omnipotence or her surprise when he steps in and resolves issues far beyond her mortal ken.
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Devon Banks in the early seasons and Kaylie Hooper in the later seasons. He also mentions feuds with various celebrities and public figures.
Strawman Political: His conservative views are a parody of the Republican Party and act as a foil to Liz' stereotypical liberal values.
That Came Out Wrong: He frequently says things which unintentionally sound homoerotic without realizing it.
Upper-Class Twit: Seems to be completely ignorant on how grocery shopping works when attempting to make an analogy to his daughter's nanny.
Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: Notice how Jack wears expensive suits but always buttons the bottom button, which you're not supposed to do^note. This provides a hint that Jack isn't the well-bred blue blood he wants people to see him as.

Tracy Jordan

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30rock_tracy_6628.jpg

Played By: Tracy Morgan

The famous movie star that Jack brings on to TGS.

Adam Westing: Basically playing himself. in "Grandmentor" he shouts "We're on a Show Within a Show! My real name is Tracy Morgan!"
Be Careful What You Wish For: He wishes to be regarded as a serious artist and does so well in this regard that he nets himself an EGOT. However, he discovers that the shift in public perception means that he can't goof around and make people laugh like he used to because everyone reads into what he's doing and considers his actions searing social commentary.
Birds of a Feather: He and Jenna aren't exactly friends, but they're both egotistical and needy actors, so they tend to team up in matters regarding that (when they're not trying to out-do one another).
Cloud Cuckoolander: The biggest one in a show full of them. Especially when he's off his meds.
Eccentric Millionaire: Tracy has... odd ideas about how to spend his vast wealth. He has financed a pornographic videogame, and used his wealth to pay off any fine that he received for cursing on TV like it was no big deal. When he was told the show's sponsors would pull out, Tracy just bought up all the ad space.
Establishing Character Moment: Running through traffic in his underwear while holding a toy lightsaber and shouting "I am a Jedi!!" repeatedly. (See: Cloud Cuckoolander)
Even Evil Has Standards: He is disgusted with the writers making up a religion to deceive Kenneth.
Everything Is Racist: Uses this frequently to try and avoid being blamed. It never works.
- Uses a physical "race card" in the episode "The Natural Order"
Fantastic Racism: Trained his dog to attack white people, because most ghosts are white.
Fiction 500: Tracy is not only insanely rich, he seems to simply stumble into vast amounts of wealth. This includes profits off of his movies, financing a pornographic video game, finding a pirate's treasure while on vacation, and designing Kate Middleton's wedding dress.
Full-Name Basis: He almost always addresses Liz as "Liz Lemon". His wife Angie even does the same.
Genius Ditz: Tracy is an American History buff.
Happily Married: He has a public reputation as a player, but he dearly loves his wife, Angie, and he wouldn't dream of cheating on her. He actually realized in a later episode that his steady marriage and successfully raising his kids, not to mention being a famous movie/TV star and a businessman, actually makes him the most stable adult around.
Hidden Depths: Designed Kate Middleton's wedding dress, and praised her as someone who was a thoughtful subject and that she was also daring in her style.
Hilariously Abusive Childhood: He could be the page quote.
"It's all coming back to me. Oh my God! I slept on an old dog bed stuffed with wigs! I watched a prostitute stab a clown! Our basketball hoop was a rib cage – a rib cage! Why did you bring me here? I blocked all this stuff out for a reason! Oh, Lord, some guy with dreads electrocuted my fish! [Later] All my life I've tried to forget the things I've seen — a crackhead breastfeeding a rat, a homeless man licking a Hot Pocket off the third rail of the G train! [Still later] I've seen a blind guy bite a police horse! A puppy committed suicide after he saw our bathroom! I once bit into a burrito and there was a child's shoe in it! I've seen a hooker eat a tire! A pack of wild dogs took over and successfully ran a Wendy's! The sewer people stole my skateboard! The projects I lived in were named after Zachary Taylor, generally considered to be one of the worst presidents of all time! I once saw a baby give another baby a tattoo! They were very drunk!"
It's All About Me: Has this, but not as bad as Jenna.
Large Ham: One of the most loud-mouthed characters on the show.
Last-Name Basis/The Nicknamer: Refers to people this way.
Lethally Stupid: He once almost stabbed Conan O'Brien for no reason other than that he was pretending to be a "stabbing robot".
Mad Hatter: "Loon" is not strong enough of a word to describe his mental state. It's bad enough that he needs heavy prescription drugs for it.
Manchild: Part of his image since, as a celebrity, he gets to be a Karma Houdini.
Multiple-Choice Past: Generally, he always grew up poor in the Bronx. Details beyond that seem to be somewhat variable and change according to the needs of the current gag. Of course, you can never be sure how much of what Tracy says about himself is true.
Frank (while writing his biography) According to wikipedia you were discovered after doing standup at the Apollo in 1984.
Tracy I have no memory of that. Write it up.
No Fourth Wall: When he's off his meds.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Gets brought up from time to time, that his Manchild antics are actually an act.
Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense
Jack: Tracy, we think your spending has gotten out of control.
Tracy: (while wearing a shirt made of money) Give me an example.
- Later:
Tracy I've put more money into this than my money pit in Connecticut.
Jack You have a house in Connecticut?
Tracy No, I do not.
- Tracy actually admitted he spends money foolishly because he assumed he'd die young. When Dr. Spaceman told him he would live another 30-40 years, he panicked, because he'd have to consider the future.
- In an earlier episode, Tracy claims his extravagant spending is to prevent ever having enough money for Angie to divorce him and live comfortably with the alimony.
Tom Hanks Syndrome: In-Universe example. He tried this kind of image change for a while, which included him only making "movies about the Holocaust or Georgia O'Keefe or both", trying to prevent the release of some trashy comedy film of his, and dressing like a Beatnik. The result is...interesting.
Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: When the Church of Practicology, usually eagerly welcoming celebrity initiates, tried to recruit him, he freaked them out.
Ultimate Job Security: He has it because of his celebrity status.
Urban Legend Love Life: The public thinks he's an unapolegetic womanizer. However, he's actually Happily Married and only visits strip clubs and gets photographed with different women to maintain his image with the full knowledge and blessing of his wife.
Verbal Tic: He has a tendency to repeat the last word of a sentence for emphasis.
Tracy: I think I voted for Nader! Nader!
Villain with Good Publicity: After starring in a tough social drama, he can't get anyone to view him as crazy anymore, much to his annoyance. "I can't stop the horrible respect people have for me."
Walking Shirtless Scene: A very Fan Disservice version. Played for Laughs, of course.
Wealthy Yacht Owner: Invites everyone to his yacht for a party in one episode. Only it turns out the yacht is not his, and everyone is arrested for trespassing.
Would Hurt a Child: Jenna notes in the second episode that Tracy previously bit Dakota Fanning on the face. At the time of the episode's release (October 2006), Fanning would have been 12 years old at the most.

Jenna Maroney

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30rock_jenna_7547.jpg

Played By: Jane Krakowski

TGS's crazy, attention-loving star.

Attention Whore: Big time. She even considered having a baby to get more attention.
- Though she does resort to Suspiciously Specific Denial to try to put bad attention behind her: "I don't know what you're talking about, and that was two years ago."
- When Tracy joins the show, she resents how he gets whatever he wants. Liz quickly reminds her that she has taken years off her life catering to Jenna's every whim (which Jenna appreciates).
Butt-Monkey: Subverted. She's such an Attention Whore that she doesn't even realize she's widely disliked and made fun of by the TGS staff.
Big Eater: Once weathered through eating over 30 slices of pizza a week for months for a musical role.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She's actually a genius TV producer, as she and Pete discover in the season 5 premiere—mostly because she's a heartless bitch and has no problem firing redundant staff. She fires herself as producer in the end, she's so good.
Characterization Marches On: Her character role started out more as second fiddle to Tracy's, as she was TGS' star before Tracy. The initial episodes focused more on her insecurity and disrespect from everyone (likely a carryover from when Jenna was played by Rachel Dratch). Over time, her character developed into more of an unhinged and attention-loving character.
Crippling the Competition: Jenna (a narcissist of the highest order) becomes convinced her co-star is going to try to take her out to take on her part and so begins "preemptive actions" that border on criminal assault. That Jenna is A)not even the lead role and B) playing the woman's mother never enters her mind.
- Liz's reaction indicates this is a common thing as Jenna seems to believe anyone is out to "steal my spotlight" even when she's cast as a nameless extra.
Drama Queen: Ohhhhhhh yes. She's self-aware enough to recognize it, but it's still quite annoying: "Being overdramatic is my thing, and if you take it from me, I WILL KILL MYSELF!"
Dreadful Musician: Actually she's a fairly competent singer, but she always overdoes it to the point where most people find her singing unbearable.
Dumb Blonde: Surprisingly averted. She is, however, monstrously self-obsessed and will do anything for attention.
Expansion Pack Past: Most of 30 Rock's gags involve Noodle Incidents, so it's no surprise that Jenna's past becomes weirder and weirder as the show goes on. By the end of the series, she was born Yustrepa Gronkowitz, she's an Ashkenazi Jew with XXY chromosomes, the only education she ever got was in a completely unaccredited Florida school located in a houseboat, and she's been gradually poisoning multiple celebrities..
Fag Hag: To the point her entourage is full of Camp Gay hanger-ons.
Formerly Fit: Played for Laughs in Season 2. In the premiere, it's revealed that she spent the summer appearing in a musical adaptation of Mystic Pizza that required her to eat four slices of pizza per show over eight performances a week (that's 32 slices, or four whole pies, weekly). Naturally she returns with quite a large gut, although the rest of her is still as svelte as ever. Despite the relatively small size fluctuation, though, everyone acts as if she's now impossibly huge. After covering for a mistake by screaming "ME WANT FOOD!" on air, Jenna is assigned to Fat Comic Relief roles, and eventually decides to embrace her status as a Big Beautiful Woman (though she's not big, or even overweight, by any stretch of the imagination) because it's making people pay more attention to her. Eventually, though, she inadvertently loses the extra pounds and becomes Formerly Fat instead.
Freudian Excuse: Her mother was a Stage Mom who was obsessed about making her into a famous singer through a Hilariously Abusive Childhood, which she saw as more like Training from Hell. It's also implied that her mom's boyfriends were abusive to her.
Generation Xerox: Due to egg donations she has a bunch of biological children with the same looks and obnoxious behaviour as her. The only likable one of the lot is Hollywood Homely.
Hidden Depths: Once proved herself a surprisingly efficient businesswoman.
It's All About Me: She has this bad.
Jerkass Has a Point: Given her closeness to Liz she's occasionally able to call her out when her self-rigtheousness gets the better of her, pointing out how she really isn't in a position to judge other women for their life decisions given how much of a wreck Liz's own personal life frequently is.
Lack of Empathy: "You look like that flash card they told me means sadness." The only way to make her cry about the show ending was to remind her that she would never look in her stage room mirror again.
Noodle Incident: Has an unspecified feud with Raven-Symoné. She also views Jenny McCarthy as her nemesis, and Mickey Rourke has apparently tried to kill her multiple times (although the Grand Finale has her address the audience to reveal that she's never actually met him).
No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: In-universe, her constant need for attention means that any press she gets is a good thing in her mind. She even tries to get Jack to leak her sex tape, in which she is apparently visibly robbed.
Manipulative Bitch
Narcissist:
- A fairly accurate portrayal of a more extreme case. She lacks empathy, has a disproportionately large ego, and is threatened easily by the opinions of others — but she does have genuine affection for a small handful of people, and is capable of (limited) remorse. Her best friend is arguably her mirror, which mirrors the real Narcissus.
- To a point where she ends up dating a man who dresses up as her for a living. Who takes her whole name when they get married.
Parental Abandonment: "My mother's boyfriend raised me to believe..."
Punny Name / Shout-Out: name is a play on Janel Moloney.
The Sociopath: In one episode, Pete and the writers test her to see if she is one. When she shows genuine remorse for hurting Kenneth, however, he deems her an "extreme narcissist" instead.
Suspiciously Specific Denial: She's a master of these. "Jenny McCarthy's dead? But who could have been slowly poisoning her? It can't be me because I'm just hearing about it."
Toothy Issue: She sports a really obvious set of veneers. They once fell off during a one-night stand with Frank, revealing what he describes as little vampire fangs.
Vague Age: Enforced in-universe by Jenna herself, who works tirelessly to keep people from knowing her real age—to the point where she's completely memorized every detail of her alleged high school prom just to appear younger. Everyone knows she's actually in her late thirties, though (she and Liz were roommates, and Liz is open about her actual age), so it's more a case of people humoring her than actually being vague.
Weird Aside: "That's a double edged sword, like the one Mickey Rourke tried to kill me with." "Telling Dennis off last night was so empowering, I was so pumped on the way home that I tossed a brick through the window of a Banana Republic!" "I still think the album would have sold better had he shot me in the face!"
- In the finale, it's Implied in a Medium Aware moment when she says "I've never met Mickey Rourke" that she made up all those stories.
White-Dwarf Starlet: She has all the trappings of one—a somewhat older woman, has a long career that is implied to have done some real damage to her, still trying to act like she's in her twenties, has all kinds of stories about the business, and clearly doesn't appreciate the lack of prestige involved in her current work. That said, it's somewhat unclear how big of a star Jenna was in her prime; in fact, most evidence suggests she was always kind of C-list and she just plays up her past because of her massive ego.

Kenneth Parcell

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30rock_kenneth_8307.jpg

The NBC page who is a Wide-Eyed Idealist despite how he's treated by the staff of TGS. As the series goes on, more and more hints are dropped that he's in reality an immortal being of some kind....not that anyone seems to notice.

Accent Relapse: Occasionally, whin he gits t'thinkin 'bout it he done tawlks lahk diyus.
The Ace: Perfect at nearly everything he does, and rarely faults. He's also selfless, well kept, and much smarter than initially apparent. He is so good that he actively predicts what Tracy wants. Tracy.
- In one episode, he arrives with pizza, only for Tracy to chime in that he wanted waffles instead. Kenneth opens the box... containing a pizza-sized square of waffles.
All-Loving Hero: He has a genuine love for everybody and everything he comes into contact with, despite no one seeming to give much of a damn for him most of the time.
Almighty Janitor: Was one for a little while when he worked as a janitor at NBC and found all sorts of personal secrets in the staff's trash.
- He's also "only" a page, but given that he's an immortal being with untold wisdom, he's still the most powerful person in the series.
Butt-Monkey: Everyone is horrible to him and takes advantage of his kindness and naivete on a regular basis but he's such a Pollyanna that he doesn't care.
- A montage of people abusing him ends with him mentioning those incidents were just the ones that happened on his birthday.
Cloud Cuckoolander: Maybe not as bad as Tracy, but definitely up there.
Bird Internet
Country Mouse: He's from a farm in Georgia. He's also more innocent and pure than most of the people he works with. Which isn't saying much, but considering how nice he is, it might as well.
Deep South: He's from Stone Mountain, Georgia. In reality it's an affluent suburb of Atlanta (and the real-life hometown of 30 Rock writer Donald Glover), but in the series its county technically never rejoined the United States, science classes feature the Old Testament, traditional dishes include Union soldier meat, and there's a constant threat of hill people attacks.
- The closest the show comes to referencing what the real Stone Mountain is like is when Ken is shown attending his high school reunion in a normal looking high school gym where he happens to be the only white person there.
Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu: Considering that there's something...wrong with him, his interactions with the other characters essentially is this, considering that for a Humanoid Abomination, he's so damn nice.
Expansion Pack Past: Along with most people on the show, but him especially. He's lived forever/300 years/at least long enough to coach Shirley Temple, spent a summer captured by hill folk, his family joined a militia, he randomly speaks Latin...
Genre Savvy: He's extremely knowledgeable of television tropes, though sometimes it gets him in trouble.
Gosh Dang It to Heck!: "Sir, I don't mean to swear, but I am irritated right now."
- "You are being a real C-Word. That's right, a Cranky-Sue."
Honest Corporate Executive: By the end of the series, he has succeeded Jack as CEO. And holds the position for the next hundred or so years.
Humanoid Abomination: To begin with, he sees only a white haze when he looks in a mirror. He's also implied to be very old, and according to his mother, said the following when he was born:
Mama, I am not a person. My body is just a flesh vessel for an immortal being whose name, if you heard it, would make you lose your mind.
- Tracy, who had just received an operation to get his sense of smell back, remarks that Kenneth doesn't have a smell.
Kindhearted Simpleton:
Kenneth: There are only two things I love in this world: Everybody, and television.
Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Everyone on the staff treats him horribly, but he doesn't complain because he loves his job.
- Jack goes so far as to fake a "not enough oxygen, Someone Has to Die" scenario just to see how far he'll go. Kenneth tries to sacrifice himself without the slightest hesitation, weirding Jack out.
Innocent Inaccurate: Especially concerning his mother's "friend" Ron. One of the last few episodes had his mother finally tell him she and Ron are married.
- Hilariously averted, after he gives Jack and Tracy some "funny water balloons my mother's friend Ron always asked me to buy", only to whisper "I know those were condoms".
Innocent Bigot: Kenneth is by no means spiteful but this doesn't prevent him from saying rather ghastly things because of his religious upbringing.
Living Bodysuit: According to Kenneth's mother, he told her when he was born that he was an immortal being using Kenneth's body as a vessel.
Never Gets Drunk: He's able to outdrink the Teamsters in a contest after he realizes he's been drinking that stuff since he was a baby.
Older Than They Look: Born "May 27, 1781"
Our Angels Are Different: It's heavily implied that he's some kind of angelic being (to Jenna, after she asks him if she's "the worst person he's ever met" — "Judging's for God and His angels...so yes") sent to Earth for reasons unknown. He frequently communicates with an unseen being called "Jacob" to update him on the progress of a mission of some kind, which appears to be bringing the staff of TGS to the side of good. Needless to say, he has his work cut out for him.
Perpetual Smiler: Seriously, it's becoming a bit creepy.
The Pollyanna: He regards a guy he's known for a few days as his "best friend ever... tied with everyone else he ever met!"
- "I'm gonna be upset until the end of this sentence".
Really 700 Years Old:
Tracey: Ken, you don't wanna be a page forever!
Kenneth: (defensively) Who said I've been alive forever?
Southern-Fried Genius: He's a small-town Georgia boy with an encyclopedic knowledge of NBC and all things television. Eventually, he's rewarded for it by being made CEO of the company.
Stepford Smiler
"Every morning when I wake up, I say "Everything's gonna be okay" but I'm lying. And I don't know how much longer I can do it".
Through the Eyes of Madness: One episode reveals that he sees everyone around him as whimsical, singing felt rod-and-arm puppets. Whether this is joyful, delusional, or genuinely angelic depends on just what the viewer believes Kenneth may be.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Nobody seems to notice or care about the numerous and obvious hints of his immortality.
Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: In later seasons he comes and goes from his job as a page, such as working for another network for a bit (but still doing his page duties out of habit), working in standards and practices for a little while, and being a janitor too. He always seems to come back though.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Maybe.

Pete Hornberger

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30rock_pete_6387.jpg

Played By: Scott Adsit

The beleaguered producer with a big family and a fatalistic outlook.

Charles Atlas Superpower: He finds out in one episode that he is unbeatable at arm wrestling, something he picked up subconsciously from years of trying to manage his hyperactive kids. Subverted in that his entire storyline in this episode was a daydream he had prior to arm-wrestling Frank, a match he immediately loses.
Creepy Child: One of Pete's kids is frequently referenced as "the creepy one".
The Cynic: Easily the most jaded in the entire cast of TGS.
Deadpan Snarker: To Liz at times.
Demoted to Extra: Due to Jack taking up the role that was meant for him.
Dirty Coward: Pete objects when Liz has her Arab neighbour snatched up and tortured by Homeland Security. However he rapidly changes his mind when she threatens to do the same to him;
Liz(paranoid and drunk with power): You know you seem awfully close to Rashid, maybe someone should make a call about you too?
Pete(terrified): What? No! (looks around for hidden microphones) USA number 1!
Expansion Pack Past: As told by Pete in season 6 "My father was a congressman, I was valedictorian at St. Andrew's, an Olympic archer, fourth guitarist in Loverboy as a teenager." Immediately lampshaded by Jack " If it weren't all true I would say it doesn't even make sense."
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: In flashbacks to the 80s he's shown to have once had fairly long hair as well as a mustache.
Henpecked Husband: His wife is rather shrewish, so he avoids spending too much time at home.
Hidden Depths: He's an impeccable archer and a pretty good musician.
Improbable Aiming Skills: He's so good that he can shoot just close enough to Jenna to graze her arm and tear her shirt.
Jaded Washout: Definitely jaded, though not exactly a washout. Although he did get denied the chance to participate in the Olympics, and a DUI prevented him from being a Congressman. He still manages to keep his sanity and tends not to relive his past glory.
Not So Above It All: Has been becoming increasingly unstable as the series goes on.
Only Sane Employee: Slightly less sane than Liz, but that's just because he's far more cynical.
Parental Abandonment: Inverted. Pete confesses to wanting to run away from his wife with each of her seven pregnancies, but he always comes back.
The Straight and Arrow Path: It's rare that it's relevant, but there have been a few times where his archery skills resolved the episode's conflict.

Frank Rossitano

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tumblr_ec4bfaf131e13a747ec7484ba3b7c11b_086fc8b0_640.jpg

Played By: Judah Friedlander

Ambiguously Bi: In season 2, the womanizer Frank meets a cute guy named Jamie and announces that he's now gay. Later, he decides that he's just "gay for Jamie."
Depraved Bisexual: He has shown attraction to multiple women and one of Liz's dates.
Demoted to Extra: Has a large enough supporting role in the early seasons to earn him a spot in the opening titles, but becomes less important as the show goes on.
Different in Every Episode: In each episode he wears a cap with a different color and writing.
Likes Older Women: He also likes younger women, but older women are the only ones he has success with.
Manchild: Frank is often incredibly immature and has no sense of responsibility. This was eventually given a dark justification: Frank's female teacher seduced him in high school, leaving him subconsciously convinced his life peaked at age 14.
Momma's Boy
Never Bareheaded: Always wears the trucker caps with amusing slogans, except for one episode where Jack took him under his wing and had him wearing suits.
Once an Episode: His hat has something different written on it each episode.
If It's You, It's Okay/Single-Target Sexuality: He becomes convinced that he's gay after meeting Liz's date in one episode. Frank discovers he's sexually attracted to Jamie, then discovers he's not gay—the only male he's sexually attracted to is Jamie.
The Slacker
Smarter Than You Look: Despite being an immature womanizing slob, he's actually fairly intelligent and got into law school, but his mother disapproved since she believed he would Turn Out Like His Father and become an Amoral Attorney.

Cerie Xerox

Played By: Katrina Bowden

Liz's young, airheaded assistant, who is treated as the resident hot girl.

Comically Missing the Point: A standard with her Ditz status:
Liz: You need to wear a bra to work.
Cerie: I really don't. They just kinda stay up there on their own, see? *jiggles boobs*
The Ditz: She doesn't catch on when the writers ask her to get things to watch her reach for them, constantly screws up what Liz asks of her, and often can't find her shoes.
Demoted to Extra: In the last two seasons of the show. This is explained in the scene in one of the last episodes where the entire staff of TGS quits, where she reveals that she had actually quit two years prior, around the start of season 6, though it's left unexplained as to why she continued to show up.
Gold Digger: When asked about her career plans, she says she intends to marry rich so she can design handbags.
Hidden Depths: She disapproves of Greek treatment of Cyprus, she knows the exact speed of light, and she's just saner in general than most people at TGS.
Innocent Fanservice Girl: She's often unaware of how the guys in the writing room see her.
Innocently Insensitive: She's not malicious, but sometimes she'll say things to Liz and Jenna that women their age don't necessarily want to hear. She's also lived her whole life in a beauty bubble (see Drew Baird below) and doesn't realize how it's privileged her.
Meaningful Name: She's a copy girl, and Los Angeles is apparently brimming with girls who look exactly like her.
Ms. Fanservice: Goes out of her way to wear revealing outfits, which are often commented on in-universe.
Sexy Secretary: As Liz's assistant she fills this role and has the appearance to match.
Valley Girl: Has the voice and personality, plus its regularly implied she's from a wealthy family.

Toofer

James "Toofer" Spurlock

Played By: Keith Powell

Ambiguously Gay: Pete suggests calling him "Threefer", stating he's also gay, but it may be just a joke as this is contradicted in some episodes like "Stone Mountain", where he goes with Frank and Lutz to a gay Halloween party so they can all meet attractive girls.
Boomerang Bigot: James himself isn't one, but he's horrified when he learns that his ancestor, whom he thought was the highest-ranking black officer in the Union army, was actually a Confederate officer.
Ivy League for Everyone: Graduated from Harvard, and he makes sure everyone knows it.
Stop Being Stereotypical: He's not very approving of Tracy's behavior.
Twofer Token Minority: While not necessarily two minority groups, Liz explains early on in the series that they call him Toofer because he's both Black and Harvard-educated, and brings both perspectives to the writers' room. In "Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter", he asks for a new nickname, and Pete's suggestion is to call him Threefer because he's also gay; it's never confirmed how true this is.
The Whitest Black Guy: He is very against acting like a stereotypical black man, to the point that when he uses his N-Word Privileges, everyone who hears it finds it hateful and vitriolic.

Grizz

Warren "Grizz" Griswold

Played By: Grizz Chapman

Part of Tracy Jordan's entourage.

The Big Guy: He's seven feet tall.
Gentle Giant: Often shown with a very tender side, and generally quite soft spoken.
- He is moved to tears by Liz' apparently nasty sexual behavior. When Liz tries to apologize later, Grizz begins to cry again.
Genius Bruiser
Heterosexual Life-Partners: With DotCom
Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: All his relationships.
Noodle Incident: Used to be secret lovers with Liz.
Odd Friendship: He and Liz had minimal contact in season one but are later revealed to be close enough for him to call her "Beth".
Punny Name: Grizz's fiancee (and later, wife) Feyonce.

DotCom

Walter "DotCom" Slattery

Played By: Kevin Brown

Part of Tracy Jordan's entourage.

Genius Bruiser: A towering figure, but the most intellectual, along with Grizz, of the cast.
Gentle Giant: Not as big as Grizz but he's equally soft-spoken and polite. He seems to be less emotional, though.
Insufferable Genius: How some people see him.
Jack: DotCom, this need you have to be the smartest guy in the room is...off-putting
Ivy League for Everyone: Went to Cornell.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Grizz.
Hidden Depths: Speaks French, did theater in college, and goes on exotic foreign vacations.
Team Chef: Able to whip up a gourmet French meal for Kenneth and his date on Valentine's Day.
Noodle Incident: He used to be part of Phil Spector's entourage...
The Smart Guy
Persecuted Intellectuals: No stranger to verbal abuse from those around him due to his intellect and articulate speech.
Younger Than They Look: A running gag about it being difficult to determine the age of black people included a throwaway revelation that he's only just turned 18.

Jonathan

Played By: Maulik Pancholy

Jack's assistant, who often annoys him and seems to have a gay crush on him.

Ambiguously Gay: Or possibly just If It's You, It's Okay, or a potential Actor Allusion as Maulik is also gay.
Berserk Button: Insulting or lightly joking about Jack is not a good idea around him.
Butt-Monkey: He's constantly put down by Jack and pretty much everybody else, and his devotion to Jack often lands him in embarrassing situations, for which Jack always harshly reprimands him. Moreover, Jack seems to enjoy messing with him to see what his horrified, emotional response will be.
Chew Toy: See above.
Crazy Jealous Guy: Becomes a Jerkass to anyone who might matter to Jack more than him.
Ignored Enamored Underling: While he's heavily implied to be hopelessly in love with Jack (at the very least having a serious case of Hero Worship towards him), Jack regards him with indifference at best and contempt at worst.
Out of Focus: Due to Pancholy taking a job on another show. Lampshaded in an episode.
Politically Incorrect Hero: in "Khonani" he has it in for the episode title character for being Kashmiri.
Single-Target Sexuality
Stalker with a Crush: To Jack.

JD Lutz

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lutz30rock.jpg

Played By: John Lutz

Ambiguously Bi: confirmed in the series finale.
Butt-Monkey: In a series that has many, Lutz is arguably the biggest. It seems that literally everybody hates him and loves watching him suffer.
Liz: Shut up everybody! Shut up Lutz!
- In one scene, Frank pranks him by putting a rat in a donut box. When Lutz eagerly opens the box and sees it, he is so scared that he runs away...straight into a wall, after which he falls down unconscious. At which point a television monitor falls on top of him. Liz is visibly giggling at the result, and Pete reprimands everyone...for destroying an expensive television monitor.
Offscreen Romance: At some point between the series finale and the reunion special, he and Sue started to hook up. Their actors are actually married in real life.
Throw the Dog a Bone: The final episode gives him a win at last by forcing everyone to get lunch from Blimpies.
Who's Laughing Now?: The series finale has Lutz enact his revenge against his years of abuse from the others by going to Determinator levels to make sure they order lunch at Blimpies.

Recurring GE/NBC/Kabletown employees

Danny Baker

Danny (Jack) Baker

Played By: Cheyenne Jackson

Oblivious Adoption: He was raised by Japanese parents and apparently never realized this until Lutz points it out.
One-Steve Limit: His name is actually Jack, but Jack Donaghy forces him to change it to Danny.
Out of Focus: After all of one episode of him being Liz's lover and Jack's best friend, he immediately fell into the same background status as Josh, with the only gag his character has is that ... he is from Canada and sometimes things are a little different there.
Put on a Bus: disappeared after "100" when Cheyenne left the show to protest Tracy Morgan's Real Life homophobic comments
The Bus Came Back: returned in "Live From Studio 6H", with his absence explained as serving time in a Singapore prison for smuggling something for Jenna. He made one final appearance the following season in "There's No I in America," asking Liz to marry him so he won't get deported back to Canada.

Don Geiss

Played By: Rip Torn

Real Life Writes the Plot: Rip Torn's growing personal problems and infamy forced the show to Put Him On a Bus and have it crash.

Josh Girard

Played By: Lonny Ross

Back for the Finale: In a very blink-or-you'll-miss-it fashion; he's in the brief TGS sketch in Greek, standing behind Tracy.
Expy: Very clearly based on Jimmy Fallon.
The Generic Guy: Possibly the main reason he was phased out - nothing really stood out about him. This was Lampshaded when he auditions to be a third cast member after quitting...as a third cast member. He's not hired.
Man of a Thousand Voices: Regularly does impersonations, and has Jack and Tracy down pat. After he outrages them with pranks, they get their revenge by forcing him to fill in for them on unpleasant phone calls (with Jack's mother and Tracy's wife).

Kathy Geiss

Played By: Marceline Hugot

Adult Child: To a frightening degree.
All Girls Like Ponies: She loves unicorns, and since she's mentally a child (except for her crush on Jack), it counts.
Genius Ditz: She does a breath-taking rendition of "I Dreamed A Dream".
Hidden Depths: She has an amazing singing voice.
Oral Fixation: She has a tendency to shove things into her mouth, such as pocket watches or toy racecars.
The Quiet One: She hardly ever speaks.

Devon Banks

Played By: Will Arnett

Foe Romance Subtext: Invoked during the show, as both acknowledge they're each other's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis and have a homoerotic tension.
Stalker with a Crush: Is this to Kenneth.

Sue LaRoche-Van der Hout

Susannah "Sue" LaRoche-Van der Hout

Played By: Sue Galloway

Ascended Extra: She did not have a speaking role until Season 3. Her last name, nationality, and accent were all introduced for the sake of a one-off gag about the name of a new GE microwave being offensive to people who spoke both French and Dutch.
Covert Pervert: Apparently enjoys viewing pornography.
The Exotic Detective: Her last job was working as a psychic detective, even with a show based on her back in her homeland.
Funny Foreigner: She is Franco-Dutch.
Hair-Trigger Temper: She gets angry easily.
Offscreen Romance: At some point between the series finale and the reunion special, she and Lutz started to hook up. Their actors are actually married in real life.
Where da White Women At?: Inverted. She has a fetish for black men, is a virgin "with white guys," and has a half-black daughter.

Hazel Wassername

Played By: Kristen Schaal

Ambiguous Gender Identity: Her real name is Richard. Make of that what you will.
Ax-Crazy: When she decides she wants to be like Liz, she breaks into Liz's apartment at night, steals her lipstick, and declares that she'd like to cut off Liz's lips and wear them.
Cute and Psycho: Basically Hazel's whole shtick.
Depraved Bisexual: Becomes Kenneth's girlfriend but openly creeps on Liz (and Jenna).
It's All About Me: Hazel isn't a celebrity, but she still has Jenna-and-Tracy levels of self-absorption.
Manipulative Bastard: If Hazel thinks she can get something from you, she will manipulate, threaten, or commit acts of violence against you in order to get it.
Really Gets Around: According to her asides, anyway.
Token Evil Teammate: The only TGS crewmember with openly malicious intentions.

Liz's Love Interests

Dennis Duffy

Played By: Dean Winters

Liz's boyfriend at the beginning of the series, a working-class Irish-American who seems to be from Brooklyn or maybe Queens. Generally disliked by all the characters but keeps on finding ways back into Liz's life every so often.

Affectionate Nickname: "Dummy" for Liz, though she's not really a fan.
Crossing the Line Twice: He's a terrible person, but he's so funny that he's a fan favorite character.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: Dennis constantly swings from nearly redeeming himself with some bit of sweetness to committing fresh infamies that earn the wrath of Liz and the audience. By the later seasons, he could make the switch almost instantaneously: For example, he's open-minded enough to adopt and love an African-American boy — whom he calls "Black Dennis" and who he expects to make him rich by becoming a professional athlete when he grows up.
Jerkass: Is verbally abusive towards Liz, and once tried to push her in front of a subway train for attention. He's also makes vaguely racist and sexist comments on a regular basis.
Leitmotif: A wistful, Bruce Springsteen-esque ditty, usually featuring a harmonica if Dennis is actually onscreen. Tellingly, a variation of the same music also plays whenever Liz gets into anything that's crappy and disappointing, not just her relationship with Dennis.
Mirror Character: Despite often being horrified and appalled with Dennis, Dennis often embodies traits that Liz has but chooses to hide including shared prejudices and assumptions. The two actually get along quite well otherwise.
Odd Friendship: Has signs of this with Criss in season 6.

Floyd DeBarber

Played By: Jason Sudeikis

Liz's second boyfriend. A lawyer in NBC's legal department, originally from Cleveland.

The Alcoholic: Liz accidentally follows him into his A.A. meeting.
The Bus Came Back: In season 4.
Embarrassing Tattoo: Courtesy of his season four relapse.
Happily Married: Presumably, after season 4.
Nice Guy: Probably the nicest of Liz's love interests.
Punny Name: A play on Floyd the Barber.
Put on a Bus: When he leaves for Cleveland.
Off the Wagon: After Liz accidentally gets him drunk when he visits NYC with his fiancee.
Shout-Out: To Floyd the Barber from The Andy Griffith Show.

Drew Baird

Played By: Jon Hamm

Originally Liz's downstairs neighbor whose mail was accidentally sent to her. Despite being a doctor, he proves to be a complete moron.

Beauty Breeds Laziness: deconstructed; He doesn't necessarily want to be lazy: he's a medical doctor with various hobbies including tennis, drawing, and cooking. However, Drew is so handsome that everyone always excuses his failures, gives him whatever he wants, and lets him win, so he's never had to try to accomplish anything, to the point where he's not even aware that he's coasting through life—he just assumes everyone's experience is like that. When Liz shows him up by actually putting in some effort at a tennis game, he's genuinely confused about why he isn't automatically winning and ends up throwing a tantrum.
Brainless Beauty: Impossibly good-looking, and impossibly stupid as well.
- How beautiful is he? Calvin Klein (appearing As Himself) walks up to him on the street and offers to make him an underwear model.
The Ditz: In addition to using orange Gatorade as a base for fine dining, he doesn't realize that people are nice to him/give him whatever he wants because he's so incredibly handsome.
Even the Guys Want Him: Literally—a group of gay men happily give up their tennis court to him just so they can see him play.
- In another incident, a cop who's giving him a ticket immediately tears it up upon seeing his handsome face.
Hook Hand: Ends up with two of these by his reappearance, once from waving from a helicopter and once from a fireworks accident.
Hospital Hottie: Works as a doctor, and is quite hot.
Too Dumb to Live: He's a doctor who doesn't know how to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Justified in that he's so good-looking that people have handed him everything on a silver platter all his life, so he's never needed any skills whatsoever. Liz tries to bring him out of this state, which she calls "the bubble," but in the end he refuses to leave, saying he likes the way things are.

Wesley Snipes

Played By: Michael Sheen

An English insurance claims adjustor whom Liz met in the recovery room after a dental operation. It doesn't work well.

Birds of a Feather: Inverted with Liz. The only thing they have in common is their quest to settle down. Other than that their chemistry is spectacularly bad on all fronts.
Fate Drives Us Together: The only reason him and Liz keep interacting in season 4.
Jerkass: He and Liz loathe each other, but he insists this is only a minor impediment to their getting married. He's also portrayed as a smug, irritating bore.
Named Like My Name: In-Universe, this is referenced in the season 4 episode, "Don Geiss, America, and Hope"
Liz Lemon:Wait, your name is Wesley Snipes? That's insane!
Wesley Snipes: This is insane? You know what's insane? That the actor is named Wesley Snipes! If you were shown a picture of him and a picture of me, and were asked "who should be named Wesley Snipes", you'd pick the pale Englishman every time! Every time, Liz!
Small Name, Big Ego

Carol Burnett

Played By: Matt Damon

An airline pilot Liz meets while reluctantly "dating" Wesley in Season 4. They prove to be too similar to work out.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Despite acting nice and goofy around Liz and others, Carol enjoys mistreating airline passengers. In "Double-Edged Sword" he openly tortures his passengers (including Liz) and refers to them as "animals."
Gender-Blender Name: He literally shares his exact name with a female comedian. People are very confused by it.
Special Guest: Granted, most of Liz's boyfriend actors fit this trope but arguably an A-lister like Matt Damon tops any others.

Criss Chross

Played By: James Marsden

Liz's last boyfriend, a hipsterish artist/entrepreneur who tries to run an artisanal hot dog truck. Well, hot dog van. Well...see below.

Last Guy Wins: Criss is Liz's final love interest and the two ultimately get married and adopt.
Mistaken for Pedophile: When selling hot dogs from a van, because he can't afford a food truck.
Nice Guy: Notable in that he is severely lacking in the deal-breaking flaws of her previous boyfriends, or they just enhance his sweet personality.
Official Couple: He and Liz get married and adopt twins.
Shout-Out: Either to musician Christopher Cross or 90s rap duo Kriss Kross. Your pick.

Jack's Love Interests

Bianca

Played By: Isabella Rossellini

Jack's ex-wife.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She acts perfectly polite to Jack's girlfriends, but only when its clear that they'll leave him in the end. Liz could make Jack happy, though, and Bianca hates seeing Jack happy.
Divorce Assets Conflict: She and Jack legally separated in the 1980s, but neither was willing to give an inch regarding property, so they remained married for the next two decades.
Rich Bitch

Phoebe

Played By: Emily Mortimer

Jack met her at an art gallery. She's interested in things other than his permanent love and affection.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Pretends to be an innocent British art consultant, but it's implied that she's not British and she definitely isn't innocent.
Catchphrase: Either "Careful, my bones" or "You probably don't remember me..."
Gold Digger: Heavily implied that this is why she's dating Jack.
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: When arguing with Liz, she slips into an American accent, which Liz catches, but she denies it by spouting stereotypical Britishisms. Ironically, Emily Mortimer actually is British.
Playing Sick: She claims to have a disorder called "Avian Bone Syndrome," meaning she can apparently be hurt by somebody putting their hand on her shoulder. Liz thinks it's ridiculous.
Yoko Oh No: In "Cleveland" she says she wants to be Jack's Yoko. Liz is stunned that anybody would want to be the Yoko.

Celeste "C.C." Cunningham

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cc_6.jpg

Played By: Edie Falco

A liberal Democratic Congresswoman from Vermont, and a high-powered tort lawyer. They prove to be too similar to work out.

Alliterative Name: C'eleste Cunningham. It's the source of her nickname, "CC".
The Bus Came Back: In the season 2 finale.
Dating Catwoman: Mostly Played for Laughs. She and Jack first meet when she's leading the charge to sue NBC's parent company after one their products turned a number of children orange, putting them on opposite sides of the lawsuit, but they become attracted to each other regardless. She's also a Democratic politician while Jack is a staunch Republican who's occasionally involved with party politics.
Lifetime Movie of the Week: Had one made about her life. Kristen Wiig played the fictional actress who played her.
Magic Plastic Surgery: She underwent facial reconstruction surgery after being shot in the face with a rifle and ended up looking even more beautiful than she did before. Downplayed, as it still took six surgeries to get her to where she is now.
Put on a Bus: She and Jack break up because they realize they can't give both their careers and their relationship their full attention.
Sex Goddess: She's apparently really good in the sack. In Jack's words, she "does it like her dad's a minister".

Elisa Pedrera

Played By: Salma Hayek

The Puerto Rican^noteIt's not racist to call her that! nurse Jack hires to take care of his mother after she broke her hips (or rather, after he broke her hips...) in Season 3. Jack gets as far as proposing to her, but it doesn't happen...

The Bus Came Back: Makes a cameo in the finale, appearing so she can join in a threesome between Jack and Nancy. Apparently it was so good it turned her British.
Buxom Beauty Standard: She has a very sizable bust, which is a big part of why Jack likes her. Even Liz is envious of her breasts.
Liz: If I had knockers like that, I'd be thanking God too.
Derailing Love Interests: Ooo boy. After returning from a brief trip away she went from an ordinary nurse whose devotions are centered around her religious faith and her love of family, and having a frustrated disdain with Jack's snobby upper-class world... to a cartoonish character completely oblivious to American culture, suddenly speaking in broken English, and completely out of no where turns out to be a serial killer known as the black widow! Quite possibly the most blatantly over-the-top reason to write her out and keep Jack single a bit longer.
Hospital Hottie: She's a very attractive nurse.
Latin Lover: Almost a self-conscious parody of the trope.
Yandere: She killed her husband because she thought he was cheating on her.

Nancy Donovan

Played By: Julianne Moore

Jack's high school crush. A classic Boston Irish Catholic housewife replete with guilt who spends the better part of Season 4 drumming up the courage to divorce her husband. Part of a Love Triangle with Jack and Avery for that season.

Betty and Veronica: Betty to Jack's Archie and Avery's Veronica. Nancy is down-to-earth, shares Jack's working class background, and went to high school with him, while Avery is a sophisticated, ambitious Republican media pundit.
The Cameo: Appears for the finale during Jack's quest for happiness and meaning. It involves getting into a threesome with Jack and Elisa.
Fiery Redhead: She has a red hair and, being a walking example of Boston stereotypes, is passionate, outspoken, and Hot-Blooded.
Fighting Irish: Jack calls her "a fiery Irish nutjob descended from bog people"
Hollywood New England: Some of her characteristics—including her accent, sports fandom, and attitude towards marriage—are almost ludicrously stereotypically Boston Irish.

Avery Jessup

Played By: Elizabeth Banks

A CNBC reporter. From an old WASP family, she is ruthlessly ambitious, driven, and fiercely attached to her (highly conservative and nationalistic) beliefs. Part of the Love Triangle with Jack and Nancy; she wins (because Jack knocked her up) and becomes Jack's second wife. In the end, they prove to be too similar to work out.

Betty and Veronica: The Veronica to Nancy's Betty.
Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: She once described herself as "slutty Grace Kelly".
Jack: She's like a young Bo Derek, stuffed with a Barry Goldwater.
Clingy Jealous Girl: At times she gets jealous of Jack's relationship with Liz, which is the very definition of platonic.
Determinator: A trait she shares with Jack. Avery refuses to give up under any circumstances.
Put on a Bus: Twice.
- She was kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il at the end of season five and married to his son.
- After being traded back for a North Korean spy, she and Jack conceded that their relationship wasn't working, and she left for good.
Skewed Priorities: She starts going into labor when she and Jack are in Canada. Avery resolves that her child will be American no matter what, and refuses to concede even when she's left with no sane way to make it to the border, all because she's never quit anything in her life.
Strawman Political: As with Jack, her conservatism and loyalty to the Republican Party is exaggerated to the point of parody.
Worthy Opponent: Her ability to play psychological games on his level is what attracted Jack to her in the first place.

Others

“Dr.” Leo Spaceman

Dr. Leo Spaceman

Played By: Chris Parnell

A painfully incompetent doctor.

Afraid of Needles: Bizarrely, he gets squeamish giving other people shots.
Ambiguously Evil: He is extremely sinister. Becomes less ambiguous when it is all but stated that he killed his wife.
Artistic License – Medicine: Constantly. He once claimed "We have no way of knowing where the heart is!" because, as he claims, "Every human is different." He also once stated "Science is whatever we want it to be" (and conversely claimed another time that "Medicine's not a science").
Dr. Feelgood: He's introduced as this to Tracy.
End-of-Series Awareness: His last appearance has him (somehow) being made Surgeon General, and as he exits, he yells "That's a series wrap on Leo Spaceman, suckers!"
Generation Xerox: His father Heinrich was a Nazi doctor who promoted cigarettes for pregnant women. In the present, Leo makes a nigh-identical ad (and isn't worried about calling himself a "Nazi doctor" — he wants people to know) about a class-action lawsuit against the cigarette company for the birth defects this inevitably led to.
In Name Only: He's legally required to put quotation marks around his title of "Doctor".
Its Pronounced Tro PAY: His last name is pronounced "spuh-CHEH-men" by everyone but Tracy, which has the adverse effect of people not believing an unmedicated, unstable, hallucinating Tracy when he calls for "Doctor Spaceman".
Mad Doctor: He's not evil per se — he's actually quite friendly towards the others, but he's invariably not good at his job (he once stared at someone's X-rays looking for his car keys) and is involved in tons of shady business, which includes using his patients like Tracy and Jenna as testbeds for bizarre medications.
Noodle Incident: A lot of the bizarre things he's involved in, like having to stab a dog that attacked him.
Open Heart Dentistry: He handles whatever the plot requires — everything from prescriptions to vasectomies to flu shots. He's actually listed under three different jobs in the Writer's Guild Of America's health manual (fertility treatment, meth addiction and child psychiatry). Of course, he's not particularly competent at anything....
The Quisling:
- Served as a doctor in the First Gulf War. On the Iraqi side.
  "Dr." Spaceman: You have no reflexes, your blood tastes like root beer, and some of your bones appear to have vanished. Now, I've only ever seen this kind of thing on dead people in Operation Desert Storm. I actually wrote a report on it, but the commander refused to pass it on up to Saddam. Kooky times!
- He and his Identical Grandpa are admitted Nazi doctors.
Worthless Foreign Degree: He got it from the Ho-Chi Minh School of Medicine.

Colleen Donaghy

Played By: Elaine Stritch

Jack's elderly mother, who he has confined to a retirement community in Florida, due to their combative relationship.

Abusive Parents: Verbally cruel to Jack for his entire life. She once gave him a myna bird she'd trained to spy for her.
Awful Wedded Life: Her marriage to Jimmy Donaghy was very unhappy and he frequently disappeared for months or years at a time. It got so bad that their priest recommended a divorce.
Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Colleen and Jack may not get along, but they do care for one another.
Boomerang Bigot: Despite frequently spouting racist and homophobic things, "Florida" reveals that in her later years, she got involved in a loving, lesbian relationship with her live-in nurse. Who was black, no less.
Calling the Old Man Out: Once per Episode whenever she appeared.
The Corrupter: Gets the Lemon family at each other's throats in less than an hour.
Evil Matriarch: Her presence evokes equal parts frustration and dread for her son, to the point where even a phone call can drive him into a stress-eating episode.
Hypocrite: Disapproves of Jack and Avery having a child out of wedlock, despite doing the same thing herself.
Killed Off for Real: In season seven, she dies of a heart attack during a carriage ride to the hospital.
Love Redeems: Her relationship with Marta brought out the best in her.
Odd Friendship: Gets along well with Liz, for a given value of "well."
Racist Grandma: Jack describes her as "an Olympic-level racist."
Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Abuses and/or manipulates almost everybody around her, and gets away with it due to her age and poor health.

Characters / 30 Rock

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