Huffington Post — Jack McBrayer says goodbye to Kenneth on NBC’s “30 Rock” and hello to Disney’s “Wander Over Yonder”

Jim Hill

12 years ago

Huffington Post — Jack McBrayer says goodbye to Kenneth on NBC's "30 Rock" and hello to Disney's "Wander Over Yonder"

When "30 Rock" officially wrapped production back in December,
it saddened sitcom fans to think that they weren't going to be able to see
Kenneth Parcell anymore. But as it turns out, no one's going to miss this
perpetually cheerful character more than Jack McBrayer, the talented comic
actor who portrayed that NBC page for the past seven years.

"Playing Kenneth was one of the best jobs that I've
ever had. So having to say good-bye to that character as well as all of my 30
Rock castmates made for a very emotional end of last year," McBrayer
revealed during a phone interview earlier this week.

Mind you, what helped Jack get through this particularly
difficult period was — just as "30 Rock" was winding down — McBrayer was out
promoting "Wreck-It Ralph," that Academy Award-winning Walt Disney
Animation Studios production which was just released on Blu-ray & DVD this
Tuesday. Not to mention working on a brand-new animated series for the Disney
Channel, "Wander Over Yonder."

"A lot of what made Kenneth so much fun to play was
that the writers on '30 Rock' really enjoyed writing for that character. Which is
why they kept creating all of this great material for me to perform over the
years," Jack continued. "And the folks at Disney Animation did the
exact same thing with Fix-It Felix Jr. They created this really great character
with all sort of layers that I genuinely enjoyed doing the voice for."

McBrayer was quick to point out the parallels between
Kenneth Parcell and Fix-It Felix Jr. In that both of these characters were
basically sweet, somewhat single-minded, hard-working nice guys who were kind
of oblivious to what was going on around them.

"That's why I really have to commend Rich Moore (i.e.
the director of 'Wreck-It Ralph') and Phil Johnston (i.e. the screenwriter of
this animated feature). It would have been so easy to make Fix-It Felix Jr.
like a lot of the other Disney Villains. That seemingly nice guy who's later
revealed to have a dark side and a hidden agenda," Jack explained.
"But to have Felix actually be what he appeared to be, a nice guy, and
then have this character's eyes opened to the way things really are as he &
Sergeant Calhoun begin game-jumping together, that's some really good
writing."

Speaking of Sergeant Calhoun, one of McBrayer's favorite
moments when it came to working on Wreck-It Ralph was when he got to be in the
recording booth at the same time as Jane Lynch & John C Reilly, his
co-stars on this Disney animated feature.

"Jane and I are both Second
City vets, though we weren't in
that improv company at the exact same time. So we both have this love of
interacting with another performer, of feeding off of someone else's
energy," Jack said. "And John C Reilly, he's one of the funniest guys
on the planet. So just having him say something innocuous like 'Pass the salt'
was enough to set me off in the recording booth."

Of course, one of the perks of being in a brand-new Disney
animated feature was that McBrayer finally found a way to impress his six
year-old nephew. And how exactly did Jack do that? To get the answer to that question (More importantly, to learn where Disney's "Wander Over Yonder" factors into the equation), you can click on the headline above and/or use this direct link to head on over to the Huffington Post's Entertainment page to view the rest of the text for this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-hill/jack-mcbrayer-says-goodby_b_2838715.html?utm_hp_ref=entertainment&ir=Entertainment