30 Rock: 10 Most Insecure Moments Jenna Had

A huge part of what made 30 Rock funny was the extreme personalities that worked on the fictional show the series was centered around, TGS. Jack Donaghy was an over the top example of a right wing American businessman while Liz Lemon was an extreme portrayal of a left wing artistic type.

Jenna Maroney, on the other hand, was a larger than life version of a needy actor whose diva-like tendencies were fueled by deep rooted insecurities about herself. Those insecurities often caused her to act out in some ridiculous ways that were frequently left to Kenneth to sort out.

10 Tracy Gets Hired

The Girly Show was created by Liz Lemon and Jenna Maroney as a vehicle for female-driven sketch comedy. Unfortunately, Jack Donaghy, the new GE executive overseeing their show, felt that they needed a stronger male demographic. As such, he instructed Liz Lemon to bring in a well known movie star and The Girly Show became TGS with Tracy Jordan. Jenna took all of this extremely poorly, worrying she was going to be pushed out by the newcomer. She wasn’t but Jenna’s never been good with sharing the spotlight.

9 Cookie Award

After Jenna received an award, Tracy started acting out. Rather than talking to Tracy directly about the problem, a tactic that never worked, Liz Lemon fabricated an award for him to win. Jenna then accused Liz of working harder to placate Tracy than she ever did for her, causing Jenna to act even more unprofessional than usual.

It was an impressive feat, to say the least. Then, Liz revealed that the award Jenna had initially won that started the whole thing was faked to protect Jenna’s ego. Liz just spray painted a cookie gold and mounted it like a real trophy.

8 Salma Hayek Shows Up

Salma Hayek had a recurring role on 30 Rock as Eliza Pedrera, a home care nurse Jack hired to watch over his mother while she recovered from Jack running her over with his car. Jack and Colleen’s relationship is an entirely different issue. Jack and Elisa quickly fell in love, entering into a tumultuous relationship that ended when Jack found out she had murdered a previous partner in a fit of jealous rage. When Jenna met Elisa, her immediate response was to make sure she wasn’t an actress because Jenna didn’t want to deal with competition.

7 Jenna Shares Her Birthday

Because Tracy grew up in the foster care system, there was a lot about himself he didn’t know. Some of it he fully repressed, and justifiably so. But one of the things he lost over the years was his birthday, mainly because he didn’t know what day it was, or exactly how old he was for that matter.

To help him out, Kenneth Parcell asked Jenna to share her birthday. Of all people, you would think Kenneth would know how much Jenna hated sharing. She started faking injuries for attention, though Tracy accidentally fixed everything by using his birthday wish to heal Jenna.

6 Host #1

When Kenneth moved on from the NBC Page Program, Hazel Wassername took his place. She had a very different way of handling the situation at TGS from Kenneth, the main difference being her way was an abject failure. Inexplicably, Tracy and Jenna were once again allowed to host the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City. The problem was Hazel changed their scripts to read “Host #1” and “Host #2.” This immediately undid all the work everyone had done to trick Tracy and Jenna into thinking they were friends over the years as they fought over who was Host #1.

5 The New Actor Can Sing

Jack decided that TGS needed a new actor, something no one was happy about. That included the writers, the producers, and definitely the actors already on the show. Both Tracy and Jenna threatened to kill themselves if it was another blonde woman, which seems like an extreme response.

When Jack “Danny” Baker was hired, Pete found out he could sing and tried to use him to irritate Jenna since singing was her thing. Pete was successful, so much so that she had a nosebleed. She then guilt tripped Danny into singing poorly, preserving her status.

4 Tracy Breaks

During the course of seven seasons, 30 Rock did a couple of live episodes that were actually quite funny. Many of the people on the show worked on SNL, so it was a huge callback to the good ol’ days. In one of the live episodes, Tracy discovered “breaking,” when an actor starts laughing during a scene on live TV. Despite repeatedly being asked not to, Tracy decided to cause an intentional break to get attention. Jenna responded by threatening to “slip a nipple” on live TV, the only thing she could think of in her arsenal of tricks to top Tracy.

3 Kenneth Is Office Funny

The egos of the actors on TGS were directly tied to everyone thinking they were the funniest, most talented people there. As such, it was a huge blow to Tracy Jordan’s ego when Kenneth was funnier at office comedy than he was. Tracy reported this outrage to Jenna, who did not believe that Kenneth was willing to or capable of upstaging them.

Jenna headed for the scene of the crime, the elevator. When Kenneth got bigger laughs than Jenna expected, she broke out into loud, awkward singing. Both Jenna and Tracy were so insecure that they couldn’t even let Kenneth get one laugh.

2 Jenna’s Stalker Leaves

The most heartbreaking moment in Jenna’s life came when her stalker, Maynard, stopped stalking her. Like most people, Kenneth was horrified to learn that Jenna had a stalker and was confused why she would be upset about him leaving her alone. Tracy explained that having a stalker was a huge part of being a celebrity, and not having one was a sign your star was fading. Jenna then started stalking her former stalker to find out why her stalker stopped stalking her. It turned out Maynard had changed his meds and was done stalking. To make Jenna feel better, Kenneth started stalking her.

1 Tries To Ruin Tracy’s EGOT

After Tracy made the movie Hard to Watch: Based on the Novel “Stone Cold Bummer” by Manipulate, he realized that he had the potential to win some legitimate awards and complete an EGOT. The acronym stood for “Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony,” and had been predominantly won by score producers and Whoopi Goldberg at that point.  Not one to generally be super supportive, Jenna tried to sabotage a showing of Tracy’s movie to the Hollywood Foreign Press, which would have killed his chances of winning an award. Fortunately, she came to her senses at the last minute.