What They Did Before 30 Rock

Tracy Morgan in “The Other Black Guy” from a 1997 episode of Saturday Night Live. It’s a sketch that pretty much speaks for itself on where his career was at the time.

The “other” black guy to Tracy’s “Other Black Guy” is Tim Meadows, by the way–who probably felt the exact same way when he started on the show in the early 90’s when he was the “other” to Chris Rock.

It’s good to remember that Morgan and the rest of the top names on NBC’s Emmy-hogging 30 Rock weren’t always top of bill stars, so this post is a little flashback to the formative years and undercard roles of the cast of 30 Rock.

Here’s Jack McBrayer (aka Kenneth) playing a rather stale piece of eye candy in a scene from the 2004 Rob Corddry vehicle “Blackballed” about professional paintball:

–if you are a passenger in a Rob Corddry vehicle, it’s time for an agent-change.

Alec Baldwin, way before his iconic scene in Glengarry Glen Ross, and before he haunted Wynona in Beetlejuice, was on nighttime soap Knots Landing, a spinoff of Dallas, from 1984 to 1985. He played evil Joshua Rush, and below we have his ignoble demise, falling to his death while his female parent hollers “I don’t care that I was a bad mutha!” –shut yo mouth!

Jane Krakowski gets the highest marks for the success of her early appearance–she had a small part in the comedy classic Vacation from National Lampoon, starring Chevy Chase. Her hair style on the other hand… well it was 1983. Here she shows us what a shoebox is good (hint: you can put your w**d in it)…

And lastly, and waaaay most obscurely, according to the never ever wrongness of IMDB, Tina Fey’s voice appears in the 1999 video game Deer Avenger 2: Deer in the City along with Amy Poehler and other pals of theirs.

strange, but also true.