All hail Jack McBrayer!

After going so long without a new "30 Rock" episode, do you know which character I miss most? No, it's not Liz Lemon and her acerbic wit. (Heck, I couldn't even be bothered to watch Tina Fey host the ho-hum-phant return of "Saturday Night Live" last week.) It's not Tracy Jordan, who, aside from his hilariously unsuccessful foray into dog fighting, hasn't had much to do this season. It's not even Alec Baldwin's bulldog boss, Jack Donaghy, whose now-defunct romance with a liberal Vermont congresswoman provided the season's best storyline, as well as its best visual gag. ("It turned the children orange!")

Instead I find myself longing to see the smiling face and sharp blue jacket of NBC page and fervent TV-aholic Kenneth Ellen Parcell, played by the equally ebullient Jack McBrayer. I say this, knowing full-well that if I ever met someone like Kenneth, someone so joyfully optimistic, so naively sweet, so aw-shucks good-natured, I'd want to give him a sock in the jaw.

But safe behind his glass TV screen, Kenneth delights me. And thankfully, "30 Rock" is not the only place to catch McBrayer's Southern charm. (He really is from Georgia, and yes, he really does talk like that.) Just this week, McBrayer popped up somewhere so unlikely, it makes perfect sense: Mariah Carey's new music video.

Caution: With Carey skanking it up in lingerie and various other skimpy clothes, video may be unsafe for work.



Jack plays a Geek-Squad-like tech nerd, summoned to Carey's house to fix her computer, show her how to turn it on, etc. It plays out like oh-so-many dirty movies, where the gorgeous, lonely woman greets the pizza boy/delivery boy/Jehovah's Witness boy at the front door, dressed in lingerie and a robe. Mariah gets Jack feelin' emotions, if you catch my drift, and the video seques into a dream sequence. Jack pillow-fights Mariah wearing a Viking helmet and bow tie, Jack and Mariah play laser tag, Mariah takes her pet unicorn for a stroll. (There's probably some symbolism there, but I'm still scratching my head.) Jack, channeling George McFly, is hystercial throughout. And Mariah, channeling 1990s-era Mariah Carey, holds her own, even if the song itself is absolute garbage.

Thankfully, there's even more McBrayer action coming our way, courtesy of the new Judd Apatow comedy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." Starring fellow TV alums Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars") and Jason Segel ("Freaks and Geeks," "How I Met Your Mother"), Jack plays a newlywed honeymooning in Hawaii, whose bride turns out to be ... kinkier ... than he expected. McBrayer is an old hand in the Apatowverse by now, having popped up in the director/producer's "Talladega Nights" and "Walk Hard."

And for even more Jack McBrayer, the guy has tested the waters of the Intertubes, producing a couple of online videos for comedy site Funny Or Die. Entitled "Living 'Neath the Law," the shorts play on Jack's nice-guy persona by having him dish out advice on how to live like a thug. After lamenting on the viewers' need for prescription drugs and delivering my new personal catchphrase, "That ain't no way to live!", Jack demonstrates the proper way to get crack from a dealer, then cut him and leave him for dead in a Dumpster. You can find the videos here and here, but again, be warned, for there is some naughty language.

Until "30 Rock" makes its way back to TV on April 10, these short bursts of McBrayer McGenius will have to suffice.

- Adam Reinhard, lifeisfunnybutnothahafunny@gmail.com