Why oh why Tracy Morgan?
This would be such an awesome show if that wooden buffoon Tracy Morgan could act. He totally ruins the entire series with what he calls 'acting'. It brings the entire show and it's writing down.
shareI feel like you may not understand the character that Tracy Morgan is playing. If you watch the evolution of the character it would indicate that he played the part almost flawlessly(as did most of the actors on the show). There is a huge difference in the Tracy Jordan character from the first few eps to the 3rd season and even into the final 2 seasons.
I also have the feeling that you've seen very little if any of Tracy Morgan's other work. Its cool if you don't like Tracy Jordan, but it may be unfair to blame Tracy Morgan's performance for that dislike.
"I'll show you Heaven, if you let me."
Sorry, dead wrong. Tracy Morgan made frequent, egregious errors of acting technique in the first four seasons of the show. It wasn't him playing Tracy Jordan as a slow-witted fool. That was just Morgan screwing up as an actor.
Baldwin, Fey, McBrayer, etc. have all talked about Morgan was extremely bad about remembering his lines. It's so obvious from watching the show: those slack cues where he just stares blankly at his scene partner are him trying to remember his lines. He wasn't acting.
But not the last three seasons?
He was on his game in season one; and progressively stopped trying as the show went on. The Emmy loss was the point where he completely stopped caring.
Also, your little "cue" thing (a term no one in the industry actually uses) that you continually bring up means nothing because there's an editorial cut after almost every line of dialogue. You have no clue what is a natural pause vs. what is tightened or expanded in the editing for time reasons.
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Much better than the other 8 Stubby's
He is awful. The man has no believable acting emotions, and his line readings are stilted, perfunctory regurgitations. I'm sure as a writer and a stand up performer he is quite adequate, but as an actor, he is just appalling. And I mean REALLY appalling.
What were they thinking? It's so clearly a form of friend nepotism giving him a job. But why did it have to be an on camera job? This isnt cable tv, there has to be some limits drawn. And putting your friends who can't act in front of the camera is one of them.
It wasn't really an act of nepotism. The basic narrative premise of inserting this ghetto-black comedian into a sketch comedy show was sound. Doubtless Tina got that idea from having worked with Morgan at SNL, so the natural thing to do was cast him in the role. Now, should it have occurred to her that the ineptitude and lack of professionalism she was parodying in Tracy Jordan were things she'd have to deal with as real production problems in working with Tracy Morgan? Absolutely. But Tina had never run a sitcom before. It was a rookie mistake.
It's really Lorne Michaels' fault. He should have stepped in and insisted that Morgan take his role seriously, work with an acting coach on his line readings, be reliably off-book before shooting, etc. They couldn't threaten to write him out of the show, of course, but they could have leaned on him. Apparently they never did and he only got better as an actor when he cleaned up his drug problems on his own.
"Be realiaby off book before shooting"??
Seriously, dude? No television actor is ever "off book".
They get the script three days before shooting starts,
there isn't time to commit the whole thing to memory.
They learn what they need to get through *that day*...
Do you know *anything* about television production?
Their sides are never more than an arm's length away.
Listen and learn.
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Much better than the other 8 Stubby's
Yeah, thats a great personal problem you seem to have with wab, you should discuss it one day. Somewhere else. With someone else.
And your argument that Tracy Morgan is (apparently) an acceptable actor is...?
Good lord, how many sock puppets do you have, Wubby?
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Much better than the other 8 Stubby's
And your argument that Tracy Morgan is (apparently) an acceptable actor is...?
To be fair, Morgan's acting on 30 Rock finally became acceptably adequate in Seasons 6 and 7. He was at least sharp on his cues and didn't chew every phoneme as if it was sorghum.
i never watched this show but glanced a few clips. i dont get tracy Morgan and wonder why he's ever on the silver screen. there's plenty so-called comedians that dont make me laugh but morgan causes me to cringe. basing this on his career not the show.
racial alert...i'm black
He was the worst part of the show. Can't watch it because of him.
shareHe was cast because Tina had worked with him on SNL and she knew him to be a stereotype of the typical ghetto comedian. Sometimes, when you're creating a show, it's easier to just pick a character off the shelf ready-made and plug them in. When the creators of Taxi were creating the show, for instance, they just hired Kaufman for his funny foreigner character and made it into Latka.
It wasn't very original of Tina to do that with Tracy, but she had never created a sitcom before. Had never written anything longer than a sketch. She had no experience creating fully-fleshed characters from scratch.