Director Dean Holland: Go Big or Go Home (S3E1)
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Welcome, everybody, to Parks and Recollection with me, Rob Lowe, and Alan Yang. This is amazing. We're season three. Season three. We made it. We made it. They said it couldn't be done. We made it.

We made it. Season three of Parks and Recreation. This episode is called Go Big or Go Home. And not only is it season three premiere episode this week, but we have one of our favorite guests back, Mr. Dean Holland, who directed the episode. Hi, Dean. Welcome. Hi. What up, Dean? Thanks for having me back. Of course. Are you responsible in any way for the horrific...

on Parks and Recreation that begins this episode. I love welcoming the guests with that. I love welcoming them in.

You know, I wouldn't take responsibility for it, but it was a request from the network and they made us do it. I think the actual president of the network is the guy doing the voiceover. Really? It's the voice. I think so. I think there were there was even time where Mike and I were like, well, let them fucking cut it. We didn't want to do it at all. We really didn't. But if you remember, we were supposed to be on in the fall.

And then they pushed us for that amazing show that replaced us, Outsourced. That's right. Yes, Outsourced.

Right? Yes. I have another pod about Outsource. Outsource and Recollections. I'm taping this out. It's got huge ratings. It's much bigger than this pod. So apologies to the fans of that show. Yeah, we're really sorry about that. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. But so then we got pushed to, I guess, maybe January or something like that. That's right. So it had been eight or nine months before of us not being on television. And the network...

It was like, nope, you got to remind everybody where we were. I remember agonizing over what the VO would be. I remember, I think I was in some of the edits. I wrote this episode. I have the writing credit on it. And so we discussed it and no one, none of us on the creative team wanted to do it. But there it is. And his tone, it's almost like from the 70s or something or the 80s. Yes. Leslie loves whipped cream, dancing with friends, and working hard for the Parks Department of Pawnee, Indiana.

I think, to be honest with you, we had so many people read, and the problem was is it just didn't work, period. Yes. So we were never going to find a voice that told the story well because we shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

Well, you know what? It's a great episode, in my opinion. I really like it. You did a great job. It first aired January 20th, 2011 is when it aired. That's when season three premiered. Written by Alan Yang, directed by Dean Holland. All right, let's do some Nopes Notes, some fun facts about the episode. You ready? All right. The first Nopes Note, this episode is the very first in Parks and Rec history to feature

Number one, Adam Scott. Number two, Rob Lowe. Number three, Jim O'Hare. Number four, Retta as regular cast members instead of guest stars. So what does that mean? You see them listed on screen as regulars. You see their names in the credits. It's an upgrade. So those four very funny, very beautiful, very handsome people all got added to the show.

All right. And one more notes note, the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, very popular amongst many, many people is similar to or some would say a rip off of the Pyramid of Success used by John Wooden. And for those of you who are too young to remember this or not sports fans or not basketball fans, John Wooden was largely considered the greatest college basketball coach of all time. He coached UCLA.

and coached them to many, many, many titles. And he was kind of this old school coach who had a pyramid of success that, again, I think we all took stabs at writing jokes for the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, which, you know, kind of a rip off the wooden pyramid. So that was that. I don't think it's an exaggeration. We spent two full work days on that. So that kind of thing. Yeah. And here's the synopsis for my synopsisters and brothers. After three months of closure, D.

Due to the Pawnee budget crisis and government shutdown, the Parks Department has since been reopened, although on a shoestring budget. Meanwhile, the always optimistic Chris, played by Rob Lowe, continues trying to convince Ann to go on a date with him. Ann finds him too intense, but Leslie convinces her to accept a date and try to persuade Chris to increase the park's budget.

Ben restarts the youth basketball league with only two teams. They're coached by Ron, who's extremely strict with his players and Andy, who is very laid back. Tom, who referees the game becomes jealous when his ex-wife, Wendy arrives to support Ron and find she actually enjoys her day with Chris, especially learning about why he feels fortunate to be alive every day.

Leslie crashes the date to help Ann persuade Chris to increase the park's budget, but to her surprise, Ben also arrives, having predicted Leslie's plan. Leslie excitedly declares mission accomplished after Chris talks about increasing the park's budget, accidentally giving away her scheme and prompting Chris to leave. Ann apologizes to Chris later and asks for another date, to which he happily agrees.

Since his kiss with Anne, Andy's been trying to get back in touch with April to no avail and is happy to see April in the Parks Department. But an unimpressed April explains she's been in Venezuela where she met her new boyfriend. A discouraged Andy seeks advice from Leslie, who encourages him not to give up and to, quote, go big or go home. It's a tally episode inspired by her own advice. Leslie proposes restoring the Parks Department with a grand idea.

harvest festival impressed by the team's enthusiasm. Chris and Ben agree to the idea. A lot going on in this episode. It's a season premiere. Season premiere is always tough because there's so much to kind of recap. Even without a VO, they're tough. But with the VO, yeah, this was a big one. I remember brainstorming this one.

Yeah. And I also remember, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm jumping all the way to the end because I think there's some really fun stuff to talk about in this, but didn't we kind of rewrite and reshoot that ending? Yes. I think the ending got actually almost totally reshot. It's basically just one scene, but something about it, it was like, it was getting the energy up. I, I,

I love when they cut to Chris and he's crying. I love when, you know, she puts on the music, the Chicago Bulls music, and we wanted some epic feel to the end, right? I think that was because we were launching. So ultimately a little bit of backstory, you know, look, we had to come back from the government shutdown storyline. And so it was kind of hotly debated in the writer's room about what to do to solve that and to incorporate Chris and Ben into the show. And one pitch was this Harvest Festival pitch, which is,

weirdly named after a bumper sticker I used to see in my hometown. There's something called Harvest Festival in my hometown of Riverside, California. I think in retrospect, it was some kind of religious event, but I didn't know what it was. So just the name just stuck in my head. So I wrote it. I wrote in the script and I pitched it as the idea of Go Big or Go Home was you go

you're down in terms of money, but if you throw a big thing, you could raise money. And so the objection from the logic police, the people in the writer's room who want to adhere to the rules of logic was like, well, you wouldn't spend more money if you're already in the hole, but...

To me, the greater idea was this show is about optimism. This show is about government succeeding. And this show is about a can-do spirit. And the idea that Leslie wants to bring back this tradition and really swing for the fences. And if the Harvest Festival works, it will raise money. And that's ultimately the idea we ended up going with. And so this launch is essentially a seven-episode arc, right? So that's why that ending needed to be really sort of grand and meaningful.

And it was, and I think like there was also a lot of eyes on it. There was a lot of critiquing of it from the network and stuff like that. And obviously with that wonderful opening, you know, previously on, they just, they kind of really got their hands on it. But in the end, I think we came out with the better ending. Yes. I love that ending. Getting to do that reshoot really was great. And, and it,

it sort of springs you into the arc, right? It springs you into, okay, Chris and Ben are, are integrating themselves into the show. There's clearly something going on with Chris and Ann. There's something brewing with Leslie and Ben. And ultimately those story arcs really paid off for us. And, and, um,

But there's a lot of just fun shit in the episode, too. Like, I love the basketball stuff, right? It was like that. Oh, I remember. Don't you remember? I think I came to you and I was like, all I want to do is to see Nick walking through with balls going like this in his foreground that he would never, ever even –

His guys are trained so well that they wouldn't hit him, you know? And then there's that, there's that transition between Ron's team. And then you pan over and see Andy's team and it's pure chaos. Yeah. And of course he's wearing the red sweater, kind of a Bobby Knight homage and throws the chair. Of course the,

Which we shot exactly the way it is in the video. Yes, we pulled up a YouTube clip. And I'm a huge basketball fan, so this was really fun for me. We did the whole Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness. If you freeze frame it, you can see all the little jokes on it. I would say you could do an entire podcast just on...

The pyramid of greatness. I feel like we wasted weeks of writing time on that. Don't you? It kept getting better and better. Don't you remember? I remember when the last...

stint of like working on the pyramid of greatness i think you mike me morgan and maybe someone else was in mike's office and we added like three more lines to it the pyramid just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger i noticed one like i remember i think i pitched this one i hesitate even say what he's like you know you you basically you never eat fish fish meat is basically a vegetable the

There's one I love, which says, in the background, you can't even see it. It says, you know, usually it's like honor, strength, courage, all this stuff. One of the boxes just says, old wooden sailing ships. They're beautiful. It's like, that's on the pyramid? It's like, that doesn't have much to do with basketball. But yeah, I love that shit. I think that's probably one of the most downloaded things from our show. I mean...

that's incredibly popular yes and this whole for good reason this whole episode is so fast paced and and it feels like I know we shot season three very soon after season two but it felt like even having watched the season two episodes the show just is more confident it's really it's it was so fast I could barely type my notes you know it was really just like energetic and fun and

I think we were hitting our stride. I think so. We were hitting our stride. This is one of maybe my favorite seasons. And how about the depth that Chris Traeger, when he's kind of explaining his positivity, I wasn't ready for that in this episode. It was awesome. Meaningful. Meaningful, right? What was it like shooting that, Rob? That was one of the reasons I love playing Chris, was that every once in a while,

you know, there was a reveal to him that he was more than the optimistic machine. And, um,

And that was a, you know, to be able to do something that has that kind of tone and, as you say, depth to it within the context of the kind of show that we're doing, you don't get to do on a lot of comedies. And I was really happy to be able to do that. It's a very sweet scene. Yeah. You know what I think you did so well in that, Rob, was...

Right. So you have Chris Traeger, who's up here all the time. Right. So if you're up here with positivity and upbeat attitude, you didn't have to go so low because just bringing it down to almost like a normal level made it seem like Chris Traeger was really going deep. Yeah.

You know, it was like, because you, like, I think a lot of people would have taken it like darker and deeper or not darker, maybe more sad and emotional. And it just worked. It was like, it felt like Chris Traeger was being so honest and it made you think, oh my God, he's actually honest about all this shit that he does. He's really, he's good at that. Like, this is the way he is. He truly is this person. So, yeah.

I think it really helped his character. Yeah, and it's a good sort of reveal, and I think it's a good example of how well Mike was building the show in terms of giving the characters dimensionality. And on a lot of sitcoms, you would take this stereotype of a character and just push in that direction, push, push, push, push. But it's sometimes more valuable to...

you know, explain and to give these dimensions so that in future episodes, when they're funny, you understand why and you just accept them more as a person. You care, you care more about them as opposed to just joke machines and broadening them and broadening them. Like, why don't you try deepening them a little bit? So, you know, a little bit of that goes a long way, but I think it's like, oh, I buy this and I buy why Ann would continue to like him and try to date him. Right. So I thought that was a good explanation. By the way, it's,

it's the third episode that Rob's in, right? Technically. Yes. And we're already, and, and Perkins is impersonated. That's right. Right. We're already like, he has one catchphrase after three episodes. That's gotta be a record. I know. How did that? I know. I'm actually serious. How did that happen? I don't really remember. I think, I think what happened was I told Mike in the first meeting that

I started talking about Tom Cruise and there was a minute where there was a little bit Tom Cruise was in the mix of how, of Chris's intensity. And we even did the thing of where Chris ordered a water. And then the pointing came, I think out of that because he was pointing at the waitress. And, and then the next thing, you know, it became the, the pink, the, the pointing when I met them. But now in this episode, what I like is I do at the end of it, I do the,

When I realized that Ann Perkins really didn't want to go on a date with me because she didn't, she was only doing it to try to get money out of me for the parks department. And there's no Traeger that was more fun to play than disillusioned Traeger. And, and, and his disillusioned Ann Perkins like made me laugh. And what I realized is like sometimes two words as an actor, if you can get,

out of two words and make them mean a billion different things, that's really fun. On the West Wing, for me, it was thank you, Mr. President. I could make thank you, Mr. President mean 5,000 different things. And in Parks and Recreation, it was Ann Perkins. Yeah. It really did. It's really like already, again, it's your third appearance in the show and it's already, yeah, I see that. I get it. Like, I get this guy. He's already doing it. And I have to also say kudos to, you know, Alan, you and Mike and all the writers because it's,

And this like misunderstanding with with Chris Traeger and Ann Perkins, like many shows would make that continue on. But yet we just go to the next day. Ann Perkins shows up and she's like, Leslie's my best friend. I would do anything for her. So I did it. But I really like you and I want to date you again. And it was Ann Perkins. And it was over. It was like, don't carry that crap on. Exactly. And it was such a smart way to do it.

And you liked those characters for it. You like them. You like, you go, oh yeah. Like, you know what I mean? Like you go. It made sense. Yeah. You loved Ann for coming in and you, and you, and immediately owning it. And you love, there wasn't a reaction shot of me considering it. Nope. Or any of that bullshit. I was just like, Ann Perkins. And off we went. Yeah. No bullshit. 2130. We didn't have time for the reaction shot. It's in the editors assembly. Yep.

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Dean, let's talk about the Chris Traeger tears, because you and I had so much fun with that. Oh, my God. So at the end of the show, and it is, it's the ending that we've been talking about this. It's this wonderful ending. It's to Vangelis's Chariots of Fire, if I'm not mistaken. Yep. And Amy has this amazingly wonderful West Wingian speech. And you cut to Ben, who's...

not really buying it. He's kind of like, I don't know. And then you swish pan to Chris and I'm weeping. And it made me laugh out loud watching it again. And I just remember, Dean, you and I having...

so many conversations because i think in the script it said ben doesn't it literally said alan you wrote it you know i think it said ben is non-plus chris is misty-eyed yeah but there was never it wasn't like tears streamed down traeger's face and that's what we wanted we're like let's just let's we're like you know we started talking about what level of tears and everything like that and i think both you and i agreed right away that you should just be bawling yeah

And it worked, you know. But also, I think we also cut it in a good way because you disappear for like 15 seconds of her speech. And it allows us to earn that cry, you know. And that's the thing about just the nuts and bolts of editing. There are other iterations of an edit of that scene where that joke does not land at all.

Yeah, there's, there's, that's the mystery of editing sometimes. And Dean knows this better than anyone. It's like, sometimes you think it's like 10 seconds is too short. 20 seconds is too long. You come for some reason when you watch it. Oh, that, oh, that like the time for some reason, the alchemy works and it's, you're laughing. And I don't know. I definitely laughed when seeing it this time. Yeah. It's always all about feel right. Like you just, that's why you always, you put it out there, you cut it and then watch it. And does it feel right? If it doesn't feel right, you'd,

try another way and you just keep going until you watch it and go, there it is. Now it feels right. It's trial and error. One thing I always realize, because this was only my third episode.

This was the episode where I think I really got plugged into who Chris was. And it was a couple of things. It was the tears because we did no tears where I was just like, you know, emotional. We did a little bit of tears and then we did what is in the show, which is literally, it's like a waterworks festival. And what I learned is, and we did, we continued through my whole run of the show, uh,

you know, varying levels of Traeger, like you were talking about Ron Swanson. And invariably, no matter how hard we tried, it was always the biggest version. Well, right. Chris Traeger is always all in. Yeah. Right. Whatever his emotion is, he gives it 100%, you know. And I think, I mean, look at that. Even just your first talking head in Master Plan is that, you know, scientists say that

You know, a human being will live to 150 years. I believe I am that human being. I believe I am that human being. I believe I am that human being. Written by Alan Young. The other thing is, you know, I remember in the scene in this where we go to the bar. Chris doesn't know it's a gay bar. Right, Dean? I'm already laughing. And I'm dancing. I go, this is outstanding. And, like, I...

The bigger I got with outstanding, the more Amy, it got to the point where we were cracking each other up by how broad I could be and still have at work.

I it's, it's actually a really fun scene in the bar. And when you go over it, like the guy asks you, I tries to buy you a drink and you go over and like, I'd like to buy all you guys drinks. It's like, that's, it's so, it's so, it's like whatever the, I know we talked about character damaging moments in other, in another episode, whatever the opposite of character damaging is, that is what that was like. Oh, you really like this guy. This is the nicest guy in the world. He just bought a bunch of other guys drinks. Like it's, it's so, it was so funny, man. I mean,

For being so welcoming. Yeah, for being so welcoming. Man, it's a pretty great Traeger episode. It is. Again, I want to compliment Dean on the beginning, too. I love the beginning. It's kind of a montage of building the team. It's kind of like a heist movie, right? It's like...

Wasn't it great? Yeah, we kind of conceived of it that way. Yeah, exactly. It's The Sting, it's Ocean's Eleven, and it's like, you see everyone working at these other jobs. That was really fun to write, too, right? Oh, and it was a blast to shoot. It was so fun to put all of our characters in different worlds.

that we've seen them in for two seasons, you know? And obviously it was so great to see this masterpiece that Jerry is painting and she just hooks it in the water. You don't need this anymore, Jerry. I still wonder if those are still in the water. So I have a lot of photos from this episode because obviously I was on set and there's a hilarious photo of Jim just...

beautifically painting this thing. You know, it's like, and I was like, I think I posted it on Instagram. Somebody's like, you don't want to know what's, or on Facebook, maybe at the time, like you don't want to know what's about to happen to this painting. But yeah, before the episode came out. And then I loved putting all of them in the car with the Zs between Retta and Jim and just,

Crushing him. The whole point was like, I just want to see this. It's exactly what she's like. I caught shotgun. It's like, what are you guys doing, man? What are you guys doing? This episode also has what I think is one of the first Ben good lords. Good lord. A lot of catchphrases. I love the contrast between Chris and Ben in that story, right? Because you guys both do such a great job. I think, like we were saying, it's fun when Chris...

Chris is able to be, like you said, on the broader side, but still be likable. And Adam is just doing such, I really respected what he did this episode because he's so dry. He's so subtle and so real, but it somehow fits in with the cast. It's like, you need that energy. I always feel like that. I talk about sort of balance and chemistry and casts and writing the characters to a show and,

it's great when you brought two guys in and one's really high energy and positive and the other guy's really dry and sort of not sarcastic, but you know, the realist, right. And it, and, and his scenes with Leslie are good, right. It's like, there's, he also, he also did a great job at doing that, but giving us a little hint that, you know, he's going to loosen his tie a little bit. Yes. Right. Even just at the very end when he says, okay, and Leslie tosses the pumpkin or he tosses it back. You get it. It's like, that becomes this connection between the two of them.

And, uh, it's great. And, and there's just a little, there's a little bit of piecemeal backstory, not just about Chris, because he talks about why he's so positive, but about Ben explaining a little bit more about his backstory where he, he reads that, you know, the, the headline, right? Ice town costs ice clown. His town crown is the headline. It's amazing. They love puns in my hometown, but, but,

But this is – Ice Town, a shout-out for me was the name of an ice rink in my hometown. So that was why this guy named it Ice Town. And it was like just a weird nod to a random-ass ice skating rink. But, yeah, it was – he does such a great job. It's just the beginning for Adam on the show. But, Greg, you got a question. I see you raising your hand. Yeah. Well, something that we talked about in a previous episode, Dean, is just that you can't fake –

chemistry between actors, right? You can write as best as you can, but seeing two people shooting a scene together. So when we talked about the hunting trip episode with April and Andy, that chemistry that Aubrey and Chris had was palpable that we then realized

wrote towards that. And you were just talking about Adam Scott and Polar, you can't fake that chemistry, like they instantaneously had something in maybe two or three moments ago in this episode. I'm curious if you could talk about being on set with them and seeing that happen.

Well, I think like I feel like there's a history there anyway and a mutual respect of what each of them do as actors, you know. So to have them both come on board and be able to to play those moments, it was kind of it was in the cards. It was going to happen no matter what. But I think I truly believe that comedic actors can.

are the actors who can play anything, right? It's very difficult to get a dramatic actor, a really great dramatic actor to come in and be funny. But,

But you can get a comedic actor who's absolutely hysterical and they can go turn around and play a dramatic role and they crush it because comedy requires all those emotions. Right. So you can have literally a look from Adam and a look from Amy and it tells you their future and they know how to do that.

That's one of those things that we were talking about. Like, I don't know how editors do what they do, all this stuff. I don't know how they do it, but they just connected in that one moment. And it's like you watch the show and you go, well, now I know where that's going to go. Those two are going to either be friends or even more. It just – you know that that's going to be a great relationship there. Yeah, and I forget who said it, but there's something like –

Uh, sometimes instead of writing seven, seven pages of banter where people are bonding, it's like, let's shoot them looking at each other. Like, let's just shoot them looking at each other. The audience fills in all of the experiences they've had when they've connected with people. Yeah.

It's just more elegant. It's just so expressive. And again, you're relying on your actors and you're relying on them to be talented and charismatic and expressive. But it often is just really, really helpful in that sense. And it's hard sometimes. You give a script like that to a network and they're like, well, we need more. How are you going to convey that in two looks? But it's hard to convince them of that until they see it.

But, you know, you have to know that it's that you have the actors that can pull that off. You know, it's like Rob pulling off. Like how how how can someone be so optimistic and positive and and you still like them as a character? You know, and it's he did a great job at finding that you're you're waiting for him to be annoying. By the way, I loved I wrote on a couple of things that Rob said that I love that. I love dates talking head. They have all been either great or phenomenally great.

Which is amazing. I also liked when you said, what a magnificent flip. The phenomenally great and the great and phenomenally great is so wonderful when it's paid off. When Amy goes, how's it going? And he goes, it's going phenomenally great. It's going phenomenally great. Yeah. Oh, wow. You're like, oh, it's one of the better dates. I feel like this little...

threesome we got going on here is the inside Chris Traeger brain. I really do. It's Yang, Dean Holland, and me. Those are the people operating the at-at that is Chris Traeger. It's also like three people who have too much energy, right? It's not a coincidence, right? It's not a coincidence. Everyone else is like, oh man, will those guys sit down? Why doesn't Dean talk a little softer? And why

Doesn't Alan stop walking around the room? I totally, I hate myself. If I were anyone else, I would never be my friend. Way too much energy, loud talker. I am a horrible person. Yeah, and you kept long hours too in the post-apart, right? I feel like you were always there. I was there 16 hours a day every single day. So just to tell you guys a little bit about the

layout of the Parks and Rec sort of HQ where we were sort of writing and editing the show. One wing. It's all the same floor. What was it? The third floor or the fourth floor? Do you remember, Gene? The whole third floor, yeah. Okay, it was the third floor. So we're on the Radford lot, CBS Radford lot in Studio City. Beautiful Studio City. I'm joking. It's fine. But we were there in this building.

And on one end was the writers. So it was like there's a big writers room, like a big open space, an office, a conference room with the computers and stuff and the writers offices. And then you go down the hallway and

in the middle was the kind of bathroom area. And then on the other end was post. So that was where Dean was the king and, and, and all of the, all the editors, assistant editors, all the edit bays. And so you, so production too, Morgan was there. It was like production and post. Yeah. Yeah. So production. So our line producer, our accountants, accountants were in there, right? Too. And so, so that was the kind of layout of it. And so occasionally as a writer, you'd be able to go in and look at your episode and, and, and work with Dean and the editors and then, you know, work on a cut with them and,

And that was fun because it was all centralized, right? It was all centralized and that allowed Mike to go back and forth and edit as well as write. So I would always come barge into the editing room. You'd come hang out for a while. Yeah. I love, cause I love editing is my favorite part of the process by far. I love it. I could be in an editing room all day long. I like it too. It's the best. Yeah. And by the way, like I, I probably cut this episode, but,

It definitely started in the beginning of season three, where I started directing too much that I couldn't edit anymore. And I remember there was a sign on my door that said...

Dean Holland is not editing dailies because I was always doing everything but editing and I was always behind on my episodes. Yeah. Because, I mean, I was scouting, I was directing, I was scouting with other directors because I prepped with every single director. And so that's why, like, you know, come eight o'clock at night, that's when I'd go, all right, now I need to start editing. And it just, like, it started to be too much. And so that we had to

hire another editor to replace me. Yes, that makes sense. And that's the reason I brought up him being there late is because when the writers were there late, I felt like sometimes I'd walk down to the other end and Dean would be there and we'd chat or whatever, like, or we play video games and waste our time, right? There was a little bit of that. I'm not going to lie. But yeah, that certainly was a big part of the show in terms of

you know, that whole brain trust on the post department end. Yeah. Call of duty. Greg Levine says call of duty. Call of duty happening. Mike, Mike would come down. I think Mike, when he needed a break from the writer's room, he'd come down to the edit room and he'd be like, come on, Dean, let's edit. And, and both Mike and I would sit on the couch and the desk and the editor would edit and we would accomplish one good thing. And Mike would be like, well, I mean, yeah,

That's a good edit, right? We should probably play Call of Duty now. And while we were editing, do you remember the noise if you took your mouse and scrolled it over? The things that would go... Yeah. And he would just do that all the time when we were editing. And we're like, so do you want to play, Mike? And the production team hated us because we screamed and yelled. Very nice.

Oh, it was so bad. We were so annoying. Now I feel bad. Yeah, these idiots like plague. Come on, man. We want to go home. It's like, yeah, well, we got the show done. Then we would have this bullpen out in that area with all the offices around it. And Mike and I and Mort, we would just throw a football over everyone's heads. Oh, man, there was a lot of that too. Oh, we were so bad. It was just like...

when you're kind of grinding like that and trying to finish the show, it's like anything to keep you sane. You gotta have these breaks. Anything to keep you sane. And then Rob would come up and be like, I just got off a boat in Sardinia and I was like, on vacation. I was like,

And just being like, yeah, okay, you got a good life, man. You got a good life. I remember those visits. I like that life. Yeah, I remember those visits. Oh, Dean, I wanted to ask you one thing if you remember this about the episode. Because to me, it shows like the fallibility of your sensibility on the day. Like, look, ultimately, all you have to do is trust your instincts, right? That's all you have.

So in the tag, do you remember shooting this tag where Pratt has like, he's combed his hair and he comes in and he's going in to talk to Aubrey and her boyfriend? I remember on the day, I don't remember exactly what you and I wanted him to do, but we wanted Pratt to do something. I don't even remember what it was, but we kind of like kept giving him the note of some kind. And then I don't know if you remember. And he wouldn't do it, right?

And then we got in the edit, and it was perfectly fine. Do you remember this? Am I hallucinating that? No, no. You're 100% right, and it's hard. I can't remember. I think what we were looking for is that Pratt might have been coming in doing kind of a bit, right? And maybe we were saying, like, this is the one time where we're going to see Andy Dwyer as real as possible. Right. And...

And even the combing of the hair might have been too much for us. We're like, you're doing a bit, but he was right. He was right. Because I remember sitting with you in the edit. I'll never forget this because as I went on to direct episodes of my own and then work on other shows and stuff like that,

You know, we both you and I were convinced we saw it one way. And sometimes I'm not saying all the time, but sometimes the actor is trusting their own instinct of the scene. And I'll never forget that because we I sat there in the edit with you and we watch it. I was like, it works. I was like, it works. And he was perfect.

probably right. I'm not saying we were necessarily wrong because we didn't see necessarily our quote unquote version, but whatever Pratt believed and he wasn't being mean about it or anything. He didn't say, no, I won't do it. It just never quite was exactly what we pictured, but whatever he did worked like it worked. It's a small scene, but it's important. And like, I'll never forget that. So that was very seminal for me. And I remember you being there too. I remember sitting on that stage with you.

Yep. It was a – because you carry that weight when we're doing it. You know what I mean? You're sitting there going, oh my god, it's not going to work. It's not going to work. But that's also part of the reason in comedy, maybe in everything, I don't know. But in comedy, it's like you just want –

Tons of options. Yes. So that when you're in the edit room, I know I've got Pratt doing it three different ways. So let's see what which way works. But it clearly was great. I'm glad he combed his hair. Yes. It was like it was Andy Dwyer's really small way of showing that he cares about April. And I think what his reason was, I'm probably making this all up.

but was that he was staying true to Andy Dwyer. Yep. Right. He was go, I'm going to remain Andy Dwyer. And Andy Dwyer's way of doing this is I kind of don't behave any different. I just comb my hair.

I don't disagree. I don't disagree. Because Andy Dwyer is kind of an 11 year old kid. Yeah. And so the 11 year old kid says, Oh, if I want to look presentable, I just comb my hair and now I'm presentable and still behave the same way. That makes sense. And it worked out. And I think, I think what Dean says is really smart about, we always want options in the editing room. We always want options. We always want levels because when you get in there and you have say five takes of something, seven takes of something, you know,

it is terrific to be able to kind of craft a scene. You don't necessarily want to Frankenstein everything together, but you get these levels because you never know if you need a little bit of an adjustment. And if you have seven identical takes, you've done yourself a disservice. Also, if you do start your cut at 35 minutes long and you cut it down to 21 minutes, you now have a different story. So when you get different performances...

that now adapt to that new story, it helps, you know? And so it's always good. Even if something is brilliant and great, do your last take. If, if, if, if Rob is supposed to play Chris Traeger and enjoy something, enjoy it in every take. And in the end, give me a take where you don't enjoy it. Just, just to see what happens. Yep. There are some actors that have a very hard time doing that because when you, in this

And this is clearly could not be is not the case on this show. But when you're working with people that you don't trust, it is very, very, very difficult to give an alternative performance.

That is not your natural instinct because you don't trust your partners and you'll go to the movie and there's that one fucking take that you didn't want to do that you didn't think worked. And by the way, you were right.

And there it is on the screen. So you will get actors who won't do it because they've learned how to protect themselves. And I will be honest with you, the longer you work as an actor, the more likely you are to be that person. Because not everybody's talented. And I totally sympathize, especially, you know, I've talked about this with actors.

it is so difficult to relinquish control in that way because they're not in that editing room. Other than Rob popping by and saying hi to us, he's not necessarily pushing the buttons on the show. And so it takes a phenomenally high level of trust to give those different levels. And I was about to compliment the actors on this show because they would do it naturally. They wouldn't necessarily even, we wouldn't even have to

ask them sometimes like Pratt or Rob or any of these actors you know offer men like that you're just giving different levels light and you know not even necessarily wild swings we talked about earlier the scene where you're crying we did one not crying one tiny bit of crying one full-on crying then you're then then you have a great freedom in the editing room and Rob trusted the auspices of the show and we did the funniest version right so so it's all it's all a

a circle of trust kind of. But, but yeah, you know, and it's also like, you don't want to say, you don't ever want to go to an actor and say, Hey, for the sake of like a bunch of different options, let's do it this way. It's more like, Hey, can you get there? And does it make sense for the scene? And let's do it. Look, only do it. If you feel like you can do it well, of course, like that's, that's the other thing is I think it's, I think it's easier. It Pratt's talked like the talked about this a lot. And I agree.

particularly as he's gone on to do, to carry movies. And that's where I come from is the same movies is that you, when you're a leading man and you find yourself in comedy, it's so freeing. And there's, because there's no vanity. In fact, the less vain you are, the funnier it is. And so you're freed. You're 100% freed.

And when you're freed in that level, you're also freed to do a thousand iterations of a moment because it's not a drama.

It's not all hanging on you. You're not the leading man of it all. And that's what I, at the end of the day, found so unbelievably refreshing and fun about my time on Parks was I just was nothing but – it was just fun, fun, fun. And it's also – it's our job as a director or writer or showrunner to –

almost instantly try to get the actors to trust us right it you know that that is that is one of the many jobs that we have you know we we have to we have to get you to trust us and and see what we do and what we can accomplish to you know give you that comfort to perform yeah and i think on that tip about being comfortable performing greg you had a a point you wanted to make

And we said there are two great reasons to visit the Parks and Rec set. And I think people will be interested. My own personal one was I liked going to Crafty. The best snacks after lunch were at Crafty. But the second reason were the Fun Runs. And Dean, have you ever actually used anything from the Fun Run in an episode? You know, we definitely used stuff from Fun Runs. Absolutely. Yeah.

Not always, but we definitely used them. I mean, it'd be the kind of thing where it's a scene where I'm in the whole scene. But in the fun run, maybe I decide to leave the scene, literally just leave and then come back. You know what? I mean, it literally was sky the limit. And I think I mean, Pratt in particular always went sort of apeshit in the fun runs.

Don't you think? Morgan and I would be upstairs and we would get a call and it would be Pratt's trying to jump over something. And we'd have to run downstairs because we're like, Pratt, you have to stop doing stunts. There is no stunt person here. You can't be on rollerblades and jump over the counter. You're going to get hurt. And there was no stopping him. He would do anything. Dean, do you remember the time you asked me to jump up

Well, I think I might have suggested it. We were doing this, like, Chris Traeger athletic stuff in the office, and I was like... I had been training where I was doing a lot of standing box jumps at the time, and somehow I thought I could jump from a standing position up onto the top of my desk. Do you remember this? And we...

which would have been fun and funny. Well, I ate shit. I didn't make it and did such a head plant and all my Chris Traeger vitamins went flying everywhere. And that was, that's, that's something we did in a, in a fun rhyme and never made it onto the air, but it was, it was humiliating, but also very funny. You never know, man. You never know.

Okay, we have an oops moment in our episode. It's specifically when Leslie and the Parks Department pitched their plan for the Harvest Festival to Chris and Ben. So they're all together holding the banner from the old Harvest Festival and standing behind Leslie. And once the proposal gets approved, they celebrate and you see that Jerry is now the only one holding the banner, but

immediately after that, Ben throws the pumpkin he's holding to Leslie and you see Leslie catch it and behind her, everyone is holding the banner. Report it to IMDB. Get your internet points. One of those moments, guys. This kind of thing happens in editing sometimes. So a couple things just behind the scenes information. The person whose job it is to identify this kind of stuff is the script supervisor who's in charge of continuity. And so that's a person who sits watching the monitors with you and says, oh my God,

Leslie used her left hand to drink that coffee. And this time she's using her right hand and that shit won't cut together because it'll jump from, it'll jump from hand to hand and you will notice generally. So we loved our script supervisor in Parks and Rec. Her name is Valeria, Valeria Collins. She,

has an insane resume. She's done the Fast and Furious movies. She's done a bunch of Paul Thomas Anderson movies. She did Punch Drunk Love, I believe. Anyway, fascinating person to talk to. I always try to hire her on every show. Love Valeria. So that's one way it can fuck up if there's actual... But in this case, I believe it's more of an idea of we stitch together takes from different takes and

And in the edit, when you're editing the show, so in this case, it might be that it was out of order or something like that. So we're jumping back and forth in time. But you sometimes come up against a dilemma in the editing room where you have something you really want to get across. You have a joke you really want to use. You have a story point you really want to hit in a certain order. But if you do that, there will be a continuity error.

And so as the director or showrunner or boss or whatever, you often have to make the decision. And in this case, clearly Mike decided it was worth it because he knows that the banner's in the wrong place when we go back to Ben throwing the pumpkin. But you take the hit and then 10 years later, Greg points out that you made a mistake. You're welcome. Ha ha ha!

And guys, this is a big episode, and I know we've recently been picking our MVP, most valuable Pawnian, and I think we can all agree that our MVP for this episode is none other than Ron Swanson and his Pyramid of Greatness. Yes! Anytime you can, uh...

produce a prop that gets sold in the NBC Universal store. I'm serious. You can go buy it right now. You have to do that. I'll just always remember him in his red sweater being on set with him and Pratt doing those basketball scenes. And in my office to this day, I still have a framed photo of Nick in his sweater with all those little kids. And it sits behind me in my office. So...

Pyramid of Greatness, Ron Swanson, congratulations. Buy it now in the NBC Universal Store.

Because that's...

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What do you say we take a trip to the town hall? What do you think, Rob? I think we should. I think you should choose where we're going to town hall this one up, though. Well, you know what? I really enjoyed the Chris and Ben and Leslie and Anne scenes at the Bulge. Let's do it at the Bulge. We're doing it. That's outstanding. That's outstanding. That's outstanding. So we're going to take this question from Jessica from L.A., and the question is, if you could work for any park in the world, what would be the park, and what would you do? Okay.

Central Park would be great. I mean, let's face it, it's the best park in the world. Petco Park? I could work for the San Diego Padres. That is thinking outside the bun. That is thinking outside the bun, Rob. Petco Park. I'm going to think outside the bun even more. Disneyland. Disneyland Park, man. Disneyland, motherfuckers.

You win. I would work at like the Star Wars ride or something like that. Seems pretty fun. I had my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law worked at Magic Mountain. He was a he was a churro boy. So that was what I was very popular. Yeah, exactly. What do you know? I don't know. I recently went to Zion and it was pretty great. I go to Zion. That's pretty nice, man. Are you not your

an outdoorsy kind of guy, right, Dean? Do you do like that kind of stuff? I like that stuff. I like hikes and stuff. I mean, I'm pretty, I'm basically Mr. Glass. Everything breaks on me, but I still like it. I walked the narrows, which the whole thing is in water on rocks. And so I had two hiking sticks and both braces on my ankles and oh, it was brutal. Meanwhile, I'm over at Disneyland having a ball, not getting injured. But yeah, enjoy it.

I should take yours. The notion of the phrase, he was the churro man. He was the churro boy, man. Yeah. The churro boy at Magic Mountain feels like there's a billion amazing jokes around that phrase. He's had a lot of jobs. He was a valet parker. Yeah, he's in a lot of stuff, but yeah. Great band name, someone says in the chat. It is, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah, so I think that's all we got for the Town Hall. Let's take our leave from the Bulge. Had a great time. Thank you for being so welcoming at the Bulge. I think we're wrapping it up, yeah? You know what? Remember behind the scenes we had a little happy birthday to me at the Bulge? Do you remember that? Oh, Dean's least favorite thing, right? You hate your birthday, so we did a birthday song, right? I hate my birthday. I hate any attention on me, and you guys got...

150 extras to sing happy birthday to me. At the Bulge. Or really it was Morgan, but yeah. We got video of it. We got video of Dean celebrating his birthday at the Bulge like he always dreamed. I think there's only one way to sign off this podcast. Happy birthday to Dean. Let's get all our listeners to sing a song. Happy birthday to Dean. That's what we get. There it is. Wish Dean a happy birthday if you see him on the street. Yeah.

Thanks, everybody. This was a fun, fun get-together, as always. Next week, another very, very funny episode. We've got some good stuff coming up for you. And by the way, you're in this with us. So download our whole seasons here. That's what we need. And don't forget to go to Apple and give us a good rating. Rate and review, five stars. Thank you to Dean Holland, and thank you to producers Schulte and Greg. Bye for punny.

Parks and Recollection is produced by Greg Levine and me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Alan Yang for Alan Yang Productions, Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn are our talent bookers. The theme song is by Mouse Rat, a.k.a. Mark Rivers.

with additional tracks composed by John Danek. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on Parks and Recollection. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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