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Here we are, Parks and Recollection. I'm so happy to have you here, Gay. Wait till America meets you. Let's just hang on for a minute because that's going to be big. But we are here to go over one of the great classic...
Galentine's Day. And you were a big part of that. But I'm going to turn all of that over to my co-star, Alan Yang, who's going to handle all of the proper introductions to this amazing episode. That's right. That's right. Thank you, Rolo. We're here talking about Galentine's Day, which is episode 16 of season two.
First aired on February 11th, 2010. So near Valentine's Day. It was timely. We didn't just air it at a random time. It was during the month of February in the middle of the month. This episode is written by Michael Schur, the show co-creator and directed by the great Ken Kwapis. Um,
Um, we do have a very special guest, Gay Pirello, in this episode. But first, let me give you guys a synopsis of this episode so we know what the hell we're talking about. And you guys do, too. So let's go with the synopsis. Leslie throws her annual Galentine's Day party for her female friend, celebrated the day before Valentine's Day. She asks her mother to tell the story about how she fell in love with a lifeguard who saved her from drowning in 1968, but the two had to break it off over objections from Marlene's parents.
Leslie shares a story to Justin, her boyfriend, who's amazed by the story. He tracks down Marlene's old flame, Frank Beckerson, played by John Larroquette, and convinces Leslie to go with him to Illinois to reunite the two on Valentine's Day at the Senior Center Valentine's Dance, which the Parks Department oversees. Frank is a strange and depressed man who has constant panic attacks. Leslie tries to call the plan, but Justin insists...
At the dance, Marlene's uncomfortable with Frank's overall failure at life. She turns down his offer for a second chance at love, prompting him to storm the stage and denounce her over the microphone. Leslie's later upset with Justin, but has trouble pinpointing the reasons for her dissatisfaction. Ron explains that Justin is a tourist vacationing in people's minds. Later, Leslie breaks up with Justin, which Tom takes especially hard.
Tom invites his ex-wife, Wendy, to his office to disclose his romantic feelings for her, but she rejects him. Tom then attempts to blackmail her into a date using alimony lawsuit as leverage. Tom and Wendy are later shown hugging and presumably making amends, although their conversation remains inaudible using filmmaking techniques.
Meanwhile, April's boyfriend, Derek, and his boyfriend, Ben, mock the senior citizens. April breaks up with them in response and and Mark at the same time celebrate their first Valentine's Day together and describes the relationship as quote unquote good and
but her behavior around Mark contradicts her statement. And he dedicates a song to April, which prompts a jealous and to question April about the possibility of their budding relationship. Is that enough stories for you guys? That is four stories in one episode. It's a packed, packed, packed holiday special episode. And here's our guest, Gay Pirello, the prop master for Parks and Recreation. Now, for people who don't know what Gay does...
It is, it's one of the most important things on, on a show. I mean, any, any object, anything that the story calls for, this is gay's job to go and find it, make it happen, make it beautiful, make it accessible, make it cool. So whether it's the right coffee mug or, or a crazy car, or, uh, I mean, well, first of all, gay, what's the craziest thing you've that showed up in a script?
that you had to go and find? Well, right now I'm making a dildo pogo stick. That would do it. And this is for the show. This is for the show called dildo pogo stick, right? It's a very specific show. It's on Peacock Premium. You guys, I progressed after Parks and Rec and I went into porn. A dildo pogo stick. Well,
I mean, it's funny. And my craziest prop story ever has a similar theme. I was on Californication, a great Showtime show, David Duchovny, and playing one of my favorite characters, Eddie Nero, that I ever played. And there was a fight scene. And in the script, it said, Eddie is excited by the fight. And I thought, what if that was also sexually exciting?
So I went into the bathroom and rolled up a paper towel and taped it and put it in my pants and stood up with it in my pants. And the prop person came to me and said, would you just prefer a dildo? And then brought out...
a case of beautifully presented and just had them right there. So you have to be prepared for anything in your job. The prop truck has a lot of stuff on it, right? Yeah, I like to play a game. Whoever comes on my trailer and say, I'll say, say anything and we'll see if it's on the truck. Yeah.
I was always amazed. I was always amazed. It's like the old Monty Hall, let's make a deal. Yeah. Do you have an egg beater in your purse? I do. I know no one else cares about that game except for me. But especially when my family comes, I'll say, come on, say something. And they say the most obvious things. I'm like, no, give me something hard. And then it's ridiculous. And then I don't have it. Yeah.
How much stuff do you carry on a prop truck? And when do you go, you know what, this is crazy. This is like, there's a difference between being a hoarder and having a prop truck. Yeah. I'm at 30 years in the business now. I have a 50 foot trailer. I have my entire garage, the side of my house and a storage facility, 20 by 20. Oh my God. Yeah.
And you hold on to stuff, right? Because it just makes sense. If you have the space, because it might come up again. There's certain things that do keep coming up, right? Is that true? Yeah, I don't want to kill yourself. But we never can find it. It's not like, you know, certainly I have it and I just can't find it and I give up and I go get it again. But also, I think you become attached to some of this stuff. But inside my house, I actually don't have any props. I have to have a little separation. I know.
I know prop people who have, you know, this and that. I really don't. I try to keep that normal. But you open my garage and it's like, you never know what you're going to see. So do you have, would you have, you would have made DJ Roomba?
Yes, made DJ Roomba. Yeah, that was fun. She's DJ Roomba's mom in some ways. DJ Roomba's mom. So does that mean, do you then get to keep DJ Roomba in your storage facility? Well, he disassembled. He's just like an iPod player and a Roomba. Don't talk about him like that. That totally...
And yes, and a human being is just a collection of cells and water. Some things we put together are things that we need for other scenes. So wait a minute. So DJ Roomba exists. This is so sad. Disassembled.
in your storage facility right now? Parts of him definitely are. Yes. Oh, man. That's brutal. Yeah. I'll put him back together for you. Don't worry. Yeah. It's like a third generation iPod. A piece of electronics that hasn't been made for 20 years or something. I remember when we had the people who did the Roomba and they had a prototype because it wasn't on remote before.
You can hit a program, but this is like Morgan's like, no, we want it to really go around. And it barely hit its mark, but it did the first time the Roomba ever did was on our show inside Tommy's closet.
Wow, that's amazing. That's actually good background. Breaking boundaries, technologically speaking. It had to do it. I know. Like talking about him like he's an actor. Yeah, DJ Roomba, who's Mark on the first take, didn't quite get there the second take. So we have contributed to the advancement of technology on Parks and Recreation.
I love that. I love that. How did you, so Galentine's Day, the reason we wouldn't have you on this, we should have you on all these shows. So good. Is obviously Galentine's Day opens with the gifts, gift giving that all the gals give each other. How did, what was your favorite gift? Walk us through that because it's a lot of gift giving. I thought I was watching an episode of Sex and the City. It was, there was so much gift giving. Yeah.
And I felt like I was mainlining estrogen directly into my heart. That's nice to say because I'm a big fan of Sex and City. The list of presents, I don't know if anybody remembers this, but it was like three pages long in the script or in our meeting. And knowing that we wouldn't get to all of them, I wanted to have all of them there just in case while she's pulling them out. The...
My favorite ended up being the mosaic that were of Marlene I thought was really funny. I think it really nailed Aubrey's mosaic was really funny. I don't think I had to redeem myself on Rashida's when we did Galentine's later when we made a pillow because her mosaic did not look like her at all. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know how much you remember about this, Greg. So these mosaics that Leslie made for all the other characters in the show, I'm looking at a photo of it right now on the internet. Cause the internet has everything. I'm looking at one of, of, of Aubrey right now. And it's very good. You know, in, in the script, it says Leslie made them out of crushed bottles from your favorite diet soda, which obviously is a joke, but man, I mean, look at them. Like I,
I implore you as a listener to, to Google Galentine's day mosaic parks because they're very good or watch the episode again. The, the,
Weird story about this was I couldn't find a real mosaic artist who could do it in the time for people. She did pets. Oh, boy. Yeah. She was great at pets. But she could do it in the time frame and it was a challenge to her. And when I first saw when she completed Aubrey's, I'm like, yes.
That's amazing. She kind of got that whole look. And then as they were going, I'm like, okay, maybe not so much the others. But Marlene's was pretty funny. Well, you know, that's like the great story in the great movie Team America, the puppet movie, where they had to make all the puppets and then they got the Matt Damon puppet. And the Matt Damon puppet looked...
Demented. And that's why Matt Damon goes, Matt Damon! That's just because the puppet... I didn't know that. Based on the puppet. That's why Matt Damon seems like he's completely out of his mind in Team America. Because the prop people could not figure out how to make a good Matt Damon puppet. Sometimes it's very hard. I couldn't get Jerry on the pumpkin. We had to redo that. Yeah.
I mean, we could do 10 episodes with gay because I want to ask her about all of these props that that the writers came up with and how it's like you come up, you can say words that imply an object, but then to actually make the object is so difficult that it's like, what a headache. It's a difficult job. Yeah. What was it? What was the worst one you ever had to do? I'd love to know. The breakfast doll.
Okay. On paper, it sounds like it would work. Like scrambled eggs for hair and bacon arms. Greg, can you consult the notes on this breakfast doll, please? Because we got to dig this up. Dig up that archive. The breakfast doll is, of course, a gift that Anne attempts to make for Leslie for breakfast day, which is a different holiday altogether. Yeah.
Oh my God. I was throwing stuff left and right on that one. So are you physically making that one? Who else am I going to get to make a breakfast doll? As I'm saying, you can get a dog mosaic artist to make the human mosaics, but there's no like, well, this person makes lunch dolls. Maybe you can make a breakfast doll. You're making the breakfast doll. That is... Dinner doll. Yeah. Yeah.
I feel like we owe you an apology for all these props. But yeah, that was... No, this guy... I mean, and Galentine's Day became almost like a phenomenon of some sort. You know, it's... Well, I want to ask you, did Galentine's Day exist or was that something that Mike made up? I think...
think it was made up in the room. Ayesha Muharra had a lot to do with it. Ayesha was a huge driving force in the show period and she wrote a lot of great Leslie stuff and lines and talking heads and so I think it was her pitch originally and I
We love the idea as soon as it came up because it's like, yeah, you put so much stress on this holiday. We were supposed to find love. And it's all about couples. And like, well, what about, you know, being happy with yourself and being happy with your friends? So I think that was the original genesis of the idea. And I see here in the research, this non-official holiday is celebrated as a day for ladies celebrating ladies. Businesses such as Sprinkles, Cupcakes, Lyfts, Sherry's Berries, Target, etc.,
selling, you know, promoted the holiday with Target even selling Galentine's Day themed products. I hope they gave Aisha some free Galentine's Day swag because thanks to her, you know? No, it's a great concept and I love that it has become a real thing. Very real, for sure. There's so much great stuff in this. I also just like any story that builds to
a sort of showdown where all the characters show up and all, and we intercut their stories, but they all sort of support one another. And the old folks dance is so satisfying. It's, it's nothing for a lot of reasons. Also, it's, you have a natural excuse to have music throughout it because mouse rats playing. And by the way, a lot of, you see a lot of Yang in the background because I remember shooting this one. I think they tried to later, uh,
you know, have just so I wouldn't have to be on set as much. So I was in Rock Show, which is in season one. And then in this one, I just remember having to be on set almost all week because a lot of it takes place in the senior center. And if they ever wanted to shoot in that direction, we had to be on stage.
So I think after this week, Mike was like, well, we just lost Yang for like a week for no clear reason. He's just in the background of all these shots. So let's try to make sure that we don't have to write him into that much stuff. But it was really fun to play. We did actually learn the songs and we were playing along to all of them. It's really fun. You know, you're in these scenes with Pratt. Yeah. It's funny how Pratt, how Andy just hates the old classic songs. He just doesn't understand them. He's like, I don't get it.
It really made me laugh. Yeah, he played them. I didn't remember. I just rewatched the episode. I didn't remember. You guys played it pretty good. I mean, we learned all those songs. And again, like we would we would actually go to a practice studio in North Hollywood like me, Pratt, Burley and Rivers and just practice the songs and then play them. And then we played we generally played them live on set. And then there was also a track that we could
play along to and then you know we'd play them at the rap party and at the end of each season whatever we learned that year so that was really fun and we were actually look we're not great I mean Rivers is actual musician I think Burley is pretty good too me and Pratt are really just making shit up it's really we're rudimentary knowledge of the instruments but yeah you I was gonna say you jumped your bass jumping is it's it's pretty pretty dope
Well, as you guys know, I have a lot of energy. And the reason I was even cast in Mouse Rat to begin with was I used to be in a band, right? So I used to play in a punk rock band and I play bass and I played a little bit guitar too. But yeah, what we play, it was like a much more high tempo band than Mouse Rat. So I used to jump up and down all the time.
And then I used to roll around on the ground. I used to go into the crowd. I used to just run around. And, you know, I sang sometimes in the band too. But yeah, it was a lot of like... That band was a lot of me running around and jumping and wearing white vans. So that's a lot of me in Parks and Rec too. We just transferred it over. There was no imagination. I just wore my own clothes and I just went to set and then played. So yeah, that was that character. It was not a transformation on my behalf. Really good. The other thing I noticed, I think...
for sure, the world's biggest close-ups, at least in the Parks and Rec, are in this episode. When Tom is talking to his wife and she turns him down, those close-ups... Go back and look at those close-ups. That was emotional. Those close-ups...
Yeah, I mean... What? Really emotional. I mean, we always be... This is some inside... This is some DP talk. What is that? Like a 120 millimeter lens? I mean, we are tight on them. That is like... We are really tight on them. It is wild. I was like, wow. I mean... Yeah. Usually there's a language of like... On a show where like... We don't use...
anything higher than a 120 lens and we don't do anything wider than a 35 or whatever. Yeah. I felt like they broke the bank. Yeah. I was like, we go, we double it up, man. So we put a one 20 on a one 20, but no, this was, this was like a, and I found this scene very difficult to watch. Cause I felt bad for him. He was like, he like, I was like, no, Tom, no, she doesn't like you, man. It's like, she doesn't like you. And she's like, I don't like you. And then, then of course, later in the episode, I'm like,
I turned against Tom because it's like, no, he's being an idiot. Like, you can't do that shit. He's like blackmailing her with alimony. You can't do that. Anyway, they make up eventually. The other thing that made me really, really, really laugh out loud is when Tom thinks Leslie's JFK imitation is the Terminator.
He transitions right into it. Transitions right into it. Then she does the Terminator too. And then Ron gives her a high five for seamlessly turning that around. It's, that is so funny. I don't know why that made me laugh. That was particularly good.
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This is a good question for Gay, too. Did you notice, Gay, when re-watching it, that the car that Leslie and Justin in, the windshield is really dirty? Because I think it's like... I think that... What happened? Did you plan that? I kept going, somebody must have told us to do that. I mean, it was really dirty. It was distracting to me because... I know, someone must have told you to do that, but...
I think the idea was they're driving, it's winter in the Midwest and they're driving from Indiana to Illinois. It should be dirty. But I was like, man, this is troubling. And also, by the way, later in those scenes with Larraket in the back of the car, it's a very obvious green screen. I was like, oh man, this is a really obvious green screen. That's why I thought, I think that's why the dirt was on there. I really do. To kind of mask some of it. They were not, they were like,
I don't know if we're going to get away with this green screen. I know, let's throw it to dirt on the windows. Well, it worked. We're talking about it. It looks like mud. I mean, I think...
when we first started, there was notes that all the cars should be dirty because of the rain and whatnot. And then, you know, we do that for a few episodes and then you don't do it anymore. You're like, yeah, let's not do it anymore. We pulled it out in that one. We really pulled it. And so for those who don't know, Gay, you also are often in charge of cars, right? You have to get the cars for... That counts as a prop. I think people don't generally know that, but the cars generally count as a prop because the actors are touching them, right? Well, we have picture cars.
which is under the purview of transportation. There's picture car people who actually get specific cars. But once they get to us,
We have to do, like if it's an ambulance, I've got to put the lights on them. If it's the cop car, I've got to put the skins on them. All the parks and rec vehicles get skins and license plates and all that. But I don't actually have to get the actual vehicle. So you must have license plates from all 50 states like in your garage right now. And Europe, baby. And Europe. Oh my God. Yeah, that would be like prop 101 for sure. Trip to Gay's garage would be very entertaining. It was like...
Another thing I noticed in the Leslie and Justin a story was at one point, Leslie does a talking head about how much she wants Jennifer Aniston to be happy. And it is bookended by scenes where she's acting with Justin Theroux, who would later become Jennifer Aniston's boyfriend. I was like, Oh my God, the episode is just, this is, this is life. This is real life. Um,
Oh my God. I forgot. You're so right. It is wild watching it now because it's 10 years away from happening or whatever. It's many years away from happening. But, but it's like, yeah, she's, you're with the guy right now. Who's about to date her. That's,
Freaky. John Mayer is still not kidding. John Mayer is not in the picture anymore. Stay away from John Mayer. It's not in. Yeah. Stay away from John Mayer. Gay, can you tell us a little bit just because I'm curious and I think the listener might be as well, how you get into your profession because it is a very specific one and takes unique skills and experience. How did you, you know, how did you start in this journey?
So no skills other than... No, come on. Don't say yourself. Starting with no skills. You know, rotate tires when I was 14. But I had a corporate job right out of college and my sister, Hope Porello, directed the Howling Six. And she said, do you want to come out for the summer and be my assistant? And
And that was in 1989. And I said, yeah. And I got on set and, you know, you get the bug. And I literally fell in love with the prop guy. Like I wanted to stalk him. So I just followed him around for about a year. And then I took his job over.
That is, that's fascinating. Also, were you romantic? I was going to say, wait, like were you romantically in love with this prop guy? Like you had a crush on him or something? Oh, that's kind of cool. And I thought everything he did was cool and the props were cool and there was never another choice for me. I liked it. Wow.
That's so interesting. But I hear it nowadays. Look, nepotism doesn't hurt. If your friendships or connections reach out to people that you may know and then be a PA. I'm a big supporter of PAs figuring out what they want to do on sets and...
learning what to do and figure it out. It's a very tough job. You don't just go home and not think about it. Props is one of those things where you're always worried about it. Because we deal with food and firearms and shit like that. So you have to always be aware of what's going on in your world. Look, there's a lot of stressful jobs on set in terms of what... Look, it's always on your mind, right? Like you were saying, you go home with it. But props is up there because...
You're always on call and you need things like you said last minute, right? I got to get a mosaic made by Tuesday. Or like, you know, like I need a doll made out of breakfast foods by Wednesday morning. It's like, how can that happen? I always wonder how that stuff happens.
It's luck, some good, some bad. And then you can't be afraid to cold call. We really rely upon the community to help us out and experts because we reach out to, like you said, all the different experts in other fields. And I'm happy to call them and say, hey, I need help. What do you like when you have to do like a...
It's going to sound like the most dated reference. Like a ray gun. Like you're like outer space crap. You've got to like make up out of... Do you just build it yourself? No. No, I have... There's about three or four people I trust with doing a drawing. Just...
If there's something in my head, like on The Good Place, I had to do that a lot. If there's something in my head and I can't get it on paper, I will hire somebody. Like I said, I have three or four really good graphic artists who can kind of pick my brain. And then once it's on paper, then I can kind of show the director or the writer, whoever is interested in this. And then it goes to one of the three main prop houses that...
build these things for us. Do you remember the day we had to, this would have been your purview, we had to have the damn spinning chair from The Voice on the set? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember that. I think Ian may have taken that over. And I want to say our construction Andy and those guys built that with the help of special effects. So... It was a big, like, you'd have thought we were building a rocket to Mars. It was like a big deal. And like, that was in that moment in time when NBC was
just using us shamelessly to cross promote everything and you know like we had to do a thing with the spinning around chair it was in ron swanson's office i remember and then then there was the then we had to do a like a musical because they were doing some show about a broadway musical and all of us had to sing it was just insane do you do you also remember that we had uh
a series of basically Tom Clancy style books that were written by you. So we would have prop books that just needed to be around. And we put your name on them. It just said like, written by Gabriel. It was like Air Force None or whatever. They had different like, I don't know. I forget what the names are. Do you remember? Enter the Den of the Lions. Yeah. What was the other? Enter the Lion's Den or what were the other ones? I don't know what they were called. Yeah. I don't even know what it was. There was a
Mike would just look down at me. Oh, let's have a book fight. I'm like, no. And then he would come up with the title in two seconds. And yeah, it would always be somewhat. Yeah. Those are actually kind of fun to have now. Yes. Yes. I remember one of my first days on the set with my Chris had to take a pill that was so big. It was a choking. And, and, and,
And there was a whole discussion we had about how big is big. And I just remember, and this is what, this is what is so fun is, you know, the prop master and the actors sit there and they have a bunch of pills laid out and you go, that's too big. I think it looks like a cartoon. That's funny. That's not funny. That's what we, and that's what we do is we figure out what, what, which, which pill worked the best. All of the pills for you. Oh my God. Remember we kept that going for a while.
Yeah. Those pills were on the desk for a long time. Do you remember, I remember I told you I wanted to have, because I was inspired by Leslie's, the photos behind her desk. And I said, okay, if Leslie has Larry Bird and, you know, Janet Napolitano, whoever it is, in the behind her desk, who would Chris Traeger have? And I was like, Jack LaLanne. Yes.
And I remember we found a Jack LaLanne. I forget who else there were, but I love building my characters. Your character, when you were anything with working out, what did we do in the doorframe for you to be doing pull-ups? The pull-ups. Oh, we had a device. And then all of the nighttime running in your bumble vest. Was it a bumble? Oh, the bumble flex. Yeah.
People ask me to this day, is Bumbleflex a real thing? And where can I buy it? And we made a little Bumbleflex thing for Champ, the dog. Oh my God. So what did that end up being? So that was like high-tech gear, like running gear, basically, right? It was some special gear that only Chris Traeger knew about because he was so obsessed with health. And it was, I believe...
A super fan will know, but I believe it was made, it was, it was material for a shirt. It was made out of the wings of butterflies. Oh, here it is. It's an experimental fabric called Bumbleflex. It's made out of, yes, synthetic B-wings. I was right. I remember. Which makes no sense because it's, if it's synthetic, it's no longer a B-wing, but sure. Yeah. It's a nonsense phrase, but sure. Yeah.
We talked so much about gifts, jobs, and parties. And this episode is all gifts, gifts, gifts. So many gifts from Leslie. And Alan, we talked about this a little bit, but giving gifts is such a great device in our show. And maybe we can expand a bit on how it relates to Leslie and how it just ripples into the rest of the cast. Yeah, it's a recurring theme in the show. And we don't say that lightly in terms of gifts, parties, and jobs. Like,
And I think I still remember thinking back all those years ago as a very young writer talking to who I thought of as like, you know, people who knew how to run the show like Greg and Mike. Right. And and, you know, they weren't identical in their philosophies. And sometimes Greg would be like, man, Mike is such a sweet guy and he's such a like caring guy. And and he infuses that into his his storytelling sort of story.
you know, his means of storytelling. He says, a lot of times these stories, and this is totally organic, are ending up with someone thanking somebody or someone showing appreciation or someone, you know, doing something kind for someone else and showing empathy. And,
Look, it's a visual medium, right? And so, of course, you can have a character say, hey, thank you. That's pretty boring, right? And even though a lot of comedies are very dialogue-based, it's nice to see an embodiment of what that means, whether it's Leslie giving a gift to Ron or to Tom or to April. It turned into such a, I think, very on-theme...
you know, trend in the show because of Mike's sort of natural inclination to have characters care about each other and feel empathy towards each other. So it's not just, you know, a fun thing to end the episode. It's like, it's very on brand for the show. And boy, some of the best episodes of the show end with giving gifts or with, I mean, look at Galentine's Day, right? It's a whole, it's a whole sort of
cottage industry holiday now. And Gay, so what shows have you worked on since Parks? You did Good Place and what did you do before Parks? Before Parks, I did Mad Men and Crossing Jordan. Oh, I've heard of them. Mad Men. That must have been so fun. Mad Men? All that period stuff. Yes. The
The stuff was fun. The show, because like any other show that suffers from financial problems, you want it to be, you know, you want to have it all and then you, you know,
It's hard to pull that off with not a lot of money. But yes, I would never trade that experience for the world. Yeah, they did a lot. I mean, I know for a fact, they did a lot with a little on that show in terms of the production budget. I mean, it looks amazing. But you realize if you really think about it, you're on stage a lot. You're saving money by just being on the set and not doing so much location work and everything.
it's all kind of in that office, right? It's just like, it's all kind of like... And a little bit downtown, little pockets here and there downtown, you know, on the street. Um...
And then after that, I did Veep and The Good Place in your show, Forever. Forever, that's right. And then I did Hacks, this last season of Hacks. And then I'm on a film called Babylon here in town, Damien Chazelle's new film.
Okay, your record is, if that were a director or writer's filmography, it would be the greatest writer who ever lived. That's an extremely good resume of stuff. That's a lot of good shows and movies. So you're on Babylon right now. That's cool, man. Yeah, I've heard about that movie.
Tell me a little bit about Babylon. I know I've heard the logline, but I'm a huge fan of his. Can you tell me what the logline of Babylon is? Yeah, so it's 1920s Hollywood, the transition from silent film to talkies, and how it affects the actors and the studios and that transition. So it's period, which is... Oh, I mean, that's kind of where my heart is. I love it. There's a lot of... I just...
finished reading the Frank Capra book. I think it was published in 1970. But one of the most interesting things in the book is he lived through that era and was working in that era. And just the practicality of what sound, the advent of sound meant, did. It's such fertile ground. People have, I don't think, have a concept how it ended entire careers, maybe overnight. Absolutely. Yeah.
Not a good time if you were a handsome guy with a horrible voice. That was kind of the not a good time for those guys. But yeah. And also not being able to kind of let that romantic silent era go. And it was a lot of that...
you, you had to transition or you were out. Yeah. Yeah. No. And, and if I don't, if I recall correctly, I mean, I think I've read a couple of things about this era. Some guys were like, no, people are going to, people don't want to hear sound. They want to hear, they want to watch silent. No, people want to read the cards. Yeah, exactly. Um, which is so funny in retrospect, but, um,
Man, what an illustrious career. What an illustrious career. I've been fortunate. I mean, well, look, you guys have hired me plenty. No, that's true. I try to hire you for every show I ever do. So I get it. It's like you're either busy on one of my shows or I try to poach you for my shows. That's basically it. I guess I have to fight with Damien Chazelle now. Have you ever had actors...
we talked about this in another, one of the other episodes, famous actors who think because they touch a prop that it now belongs to them and they want to take it home. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, baby. What was it? Uh,
Like a gun or something? What's my watch company? Like a Patek Philippe or something? Yeah, he just took a lot of stuff. Oh, no. At the end of the movie, and he said, no, they gave it to me. I'm like, no, we didn't.
Because those are rentals, right? Well, promo. So find out in my name. Oh, Cartier. Cartier watch. Yeah. Now, Robert De Niro will donate it. That's part of the package. Like when you get stuff, he does a big charity thing. He's the only one that is set up, built into the cake that goes, right? It's all for charity. I heard...
has a foundation that's set up that inherits the stuff from Robert De Niro. So he just collects the De Niro stuff. So it's very complicated, but it's a shell corporation that takes the De Niro donations. It's like, oh, more watches from De Niro? Thanks, Bobby D. Yeah, you literally will see like an Academy Award winner just with like a cardboard box of coffee. There's the coffee maker from the set. Yeah.
It's just unbelievable sometimes. It's like, this is a movie set, not a gifting suite, man. You can't just walk off with that stuff. Wardrobes like that too. I mean, wardrobes all the time. People are always trying to take over the wardrobe stuff. It's like, that's not all. But yeah, I can't imagine. It's hard to say no, right? If it's like, you know, movie star or whatever.
Yeah. He took it home. It's like, I'm gay. What am I going to hunt him down and steal his shit back? Yeah, exactly. Okay, bye, Bruce. Anyway, hi, producer. Yeah, that's what you do. That's what you do. That's real stuff, too. That's nice. Those are nice items. Yeah. That's not food. I've probably gotten in trouble once or twice before by giving stuff away, but it fits for them. Yeah.
You know, especially like that mosaic or things that we've made, especially the cards. You know, it's their character. They should have it.
In an episode, we talked about on an episode, like Rob and I both had things from the set that were kind of given to us, right? He had a nameplate and I had a mouse wrap poster that was framed and given to me. And I was like, yeah, that's sweet. That ain't like a nice watch though. That's so funny, man. Or a car. How about a car? I've seen that too. Oh my God.
Like, I'm driving this car, you know, I'm like, you know, whatever. I mean, it happens. Peel it out of my hands. Peel it out of my hands. I dare you. I dare you to do it.
Do you know what's cute? You want to know something really cute? So when we ended Parks and Rec, I asked Mike Schur what he wanted. And he goes, well, what do you want? And I said, well, I am a little partial to the Unity quilt. And he goes, I like the Unity quilt too. So we made a deal every two years, we switch out the, he takes it or I take it every two years.
Wow. Yeah. So I'm a month behind. He's got it sitting on his couch waiting for me to go get it. That's so sweet. It's also in the spirit of unity. Yeah. It's so cute that we actually, I can't believe I'm like, at first I was like, oh, this will never happen. But it happens every two years. That's so sweet. I love that. I know. My wall in my office is there. Okay.
for two years and then I put it back up again. So, yeah. Beautiful story. That was a great episode. Beautiful story. Yeah, people don't, who watch, don't think of the kind of detail of, you know, some, an actor's in a scene and he's looking at paperwork on their desk. Somebody's made that. They've made it. They've, somebody had to write it. Yeah. Somebody had, so there's literally, and the mark of working with people who are great at props is, and we used to see this on the West Wing all the time,
and on Parks and Rec, is you could open a document and the document would either be super hilarious that somebody has spent the time to actually... It's not all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy over and over and over again. It's actual writing that a human being spent the time to do that no one's ever going to see but the actor who's pretending to read the file. Okay, so...
I feel like... Because you know after doing this for so long, you're never going to see what's on that page unless you do an insert. But I always... My whole point was... In fact, I got into an argument with a graphics person once before and he did it in Greek. And I was like, no, you can't do that. We have to...
And he's like, well, no, I'll never see it. I'm like, but you guys see it. And if I think of it helps get you in the scene or whatever, that's what I feel like our job is. Or either make you laugh or at least have something there that you can...
Set the tone for however you're going to do the scene. You know, whether it be realistic and it doesn't affect you at all or maybe make you laugh. Well, I remember vividly coming on to Parks because I came in late. You know, I came in whenever season... into season two. And the first time I picked up a file and looked at it and it was like, Mayor Gutterson is a noted asshole. Or whatever it was. Somebody wrote it. I was like, somebody wrote this. Somebody wrote it. And it's really funny. And somebody's props like, yeah, you...
you know, we tried to give you guys copies. We're definitely going to see it, but you guys definitely wrote stuff that was like funny and was in the, you know, like in the show in some ways, but you're right. Like doing in Greek, like the actor is going to look at it, right? The actor sees it, you know, it's like, you want to kind of create this world and it shows that extra, extra love, man, that extra love in there, you know, helps the show. It kind of, yeah. And the occasional lines, you know, especially if it's a long monologue, you know, you want to have,
Yes. That was always the thing. Okay, they got to fill the time with something. It's like, oh, you're not stranding the actor on an island where they just have to make up the lines, you know? Is there a prop cliche that drives you insane?
A baguette, a bouquet of flowers. We will always do that. And then there's this one newspaper that we use like all the time. Yeah. And, but it'll make me like, you have to do it now for fun. You can't really do it. Like who's walking around with the flower baguette. Yeah. How about I, here's mine. You know, it's somebody's office.
when they have that little tick-tock-tick thing with the balls. Oh my God, yes. Which no one in real life ever has. No, but you have to have it on TV if you have an office. You do. Yeah. Everybody has one of those in their desks. Yeah. I love that kind of stuff. I love looking for like... I actually think I've worked with that desk device. What is it called? Yeah. The pendulum balls that hit each other? Yeah.
I feel like I've worked with... I've had that on multiple desks of my own on TV. Only on TV. It's a great question, Rob, for any department who are interviewing what the cliches of their job are. Because I never would have thought of baguette and bouquet of flowers. That's so funny. That's so funny.
that was like your lead is, you know, she's a struggling photojournalist and she's walking in the street with the baguette of whatever her job is, right? She works in advertising, you know, whatever it is, but she's like, oh, she's, yeah, she's put together a work, but her personal life's a mess. Anyway. Well, how do you, listen, how do you know that the character's actually been to the grocery if you don't see the baguette?
There could be anything in that bag. You got to see it sticking out. Yeah. Yeah, of course. The other thing is in food, we talked about, you talked about food and weapons. Have you ever worked with actors who ate all of the prop? I worked with Danny Glover. Danny Glover ate every piece of prop food ever. And I was finally like, I was like, Danny's been in a lot of, he's been in a lot of movies. I mean, Danny Glover,
Like it wasn't his first job. I mean, the food sits out. I mean, you guys do your best to keep it fresh, but I mean, you're shooting for 13 hours sometimes. You don't want to eat that egg salad. Okay. Uh, Chris Pratt ate 14 ice creams. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. I remember I was there.
I was there. Oh, my God. Chris would eat whatever we laid out. Chris would eat all the pizza. Oh, I don't know. I had one here. It was like, okay. Yeah, that was... Ice cream was so good. That was the bachelor party episode when we all went to eat ice cream. And by the way, that ice cream was insane. It was insane. I wanted a full fat. Full fat ice cream? Full fat. Yeah.
Yeah. Cause usually there's a spit bucket, right? So for those of you who don't know, you, you take a bite on camera, you chew it and you spit it out. And, and, and, uh,
Yeah, I mean, because you're not supposed... It's not good for you to eat that. So there's many takes from different coverage and all this stuff. But yeah, eating that much seems ill-advised. But, you know, maybe you need the energy to get through the scene. I love Danny... Man, Danny Glover and Pratt in a movie together are going to have to increase the food budget. I love that about Danny Glover. Never would have expected that. And he's skinny as the day is long, but the man eats like he's got a hollow leg. And he... And then... And then...
Like his assistant would come up to him and go, um, Danny, I just want you to know there are churros at Crafty. Ha ha ha.
I'm on the trip. I have two shows. I get to do the shows. Yeah, I mean, you guys get it? Well, because Pratt would do that too. Because I heard sometimes we would eat with Pratt at catering after he did a scene where he eats in the scene. And it was like, I remember one time we had barbecue and, you know, he was like, yeah, could I get a, he came up to the truck. He's like, can I get two or three? There was ribs. He's like, can I get two or three? And the chef was like, two or three ribs? He's like, two or three racks. Two or three racks of ribs.
That's a lot of ribs, bro. That's a lot of ribs. Remember the meat tornado burrito? Yes. I thought, you know, eight will be enough. No, we had to cut back. No way. Yes. No way. Not kidding. Yeah. Eight burritos. He's a big boy. He's a large man. He consumes a lot of energy. But yeah, that's hilarious. Yeah, I love that area. Actors who will eat all the food. God, I don't know.
And then, you know, eating food, a lot of actors don't ever eat. That's my other favorite thing to watch is in eating scenes where do you ever actually see food enter an actor's mouth? And the answer is almost never. Almost never. That's the other extreme, right? You've got the eaters or the non-eaters, you know? And we never know.
what that's going to be until you get to know them really well. And that's hard for us to plan out dinner scenes because if there's, you know, they're supposed to be eating and I always do some soft food so they can chew and not, right, you know, mess the take up.
But then, like in the last 10 years, there's a huge amount of diet restrictions for everyone. So it becomes a little more complicated. Like, okay, bread is soft. They can't do bread. Or greens are crunchy, but they can't really eat that. So it's a little more difficult to do right now. But we're all on board trying to figure it out. In fact, in the last two years, it's been much easier because of all the beyond restrictions.
meat and whatnot. This is the stuff that people don't, that most people don't think about when making a show and it's fascinating stuff. I mean, you think Tony Soprano is just wolfing down on that sub without a lot of thought going behind it? No, there's thought on the hotbed. Gay look, gay looking for vegan, non-GMO, gluten-free mush that isn't loud on camera. The hardest, the hardest journey. Dude,
Aubrey Pross is one of my favorite people on the planet. But when we were doing the grilled cheese episode and she finally says, Mommy, I don't want cheese. I'm like, no, you don't understand. You have to because it's really hard to make cheese doesn't melt, especially when, you know,
nine years ago, baked cheese did not melt at all. And we had to do that whole grilled cheese. And I wanted to, Lola was like, no, do this for me. Come on, come on, do it for me. Just take a bite and spit it out, BriBri. Come on. Yeah, can I get a grilled cheese sandwich? No cheese, no bread. Thank you. Just like, no, you can't, man. And of course, Pat was eating all the
Pratt, meanwhile, ate the first 50 sandwiches. Off camera. Yeah. Off camera. Off camera. Oh, my God. Remember when we did the hamburger episode? The hamburger cook-off? Oh, yeah. The burger off. Yeah. The burger off with me and with Chris Traeger and Offerman. Those burgers were delish. Those burgers were really good.
We have a food stylist come in for that. Those were really cool. You had special people for that one, I remember. Jay, have you ever seen, there's a YouTube channel called Binging with Babish. And so it's a channel where this guy makes food from different television shows. What? And he did Parks and Rec. He did the burger cook-off.
with Chris and Ron. And he made Chris's burger. I think he made both burgers, actually. And he has millions of subscribers. He's a very famous YouTube personality. So look up Babish Parks and Rec. Shout out to Babish. But yeah, he made the burgers on his channel. Was yours turkey? Was it supposed to be turkey? It was turkey. Yes, it was turkey. Yes, it was a turkey burger.
And that was the bit. It was the bit kind of that he had put so much effort into it, but then people preferred the beef burger. Spoiler when we get to that one. Much later down the line.
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I think we need to do a town hall with Gay before she leaves us. Yes, let's do a town hall. And I believe this might be a town howl because it's a voicemail. Oh, you know where should we... Where did they do Galentine's Day in the beginning of this episode? JJ's, isn't it? It wasn't at JJ's? Well, we really shot it at Hamburger Hamlet. And I forgot. What? Amazing. I like that you remember that. Oh, yeah. We did it.
Twice there, I think. Well, let's do it with a hamburger hamlet in Pawnee then. Yeah, hell yeah. Yeah. I have a question for Gay. Yes. Was there a prop that you slaved over
That didn't get in the show that you were there. Yes. How much time do we have? I want you to... Please get... Please... Okay. I'll bring it to this particular Galentine's Day. It was... We were supposed to do these heart-shaped... You know, the sweetheart candy that you get at Valentine's that have I love you and all of that stuff. Well, we made oversized ones.
And they had to have, you know, the letters on it. And you guys had wrote husband and I love, you know, other ones. Oh, my God, I couldn't get those freaking things to stay on. End up spray painting them. Spray painting the hearts. And you never see them in the whole thing. They never pull them out. They never do them. So anyway, I remember stressing over this.
Sweetheart candies. Now, we... I think I mentioned this in a previous episode. Do you remember the hydraulic egg that we made to put Jerry inside of? Does that ring a bell to you? Oh, my God. Yeah. Early, early on. Was that the...
It was a Jurassic Fork episode, I believe. Yeah. And we built this egg and we just never... It worked. It opened and closed. It was a dinosaur egg that opened and closed. And it just sat on stage. It was one of my favorite things about the show. I would walk by that dinosaur egg seasons later, just the vain hope that it would get used again as if we would somehow go back to Jurassic Fork and use it. Why didn't we go back to Jurassic Fork?
work that was we actually did and then we didn't use it again it was it was something similar but man thank you so much to our guest Gabe Pirello great to have you on oh my god this was such a pleasure I was so nervous you
You never would know it. You're a pro, darling. You're a pro. You have a future in the business. Thank you. I'm probably going to get fired now, but you know, you're all good. You'll always have a job on my show's game. You always have a job. Same, same, same.
Well, listen, thank you for listening. This has been Parks and Recollection, as you know, and more fun next week. Don't forget to subscribe to the show. Give us a five-star review on the boards. It's very helpful. And we will see you next time. Goodbye from Pawnee. Thank you, Producer Schulte. Thank you, Producer Greg. Bye, everyone.
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 Danik. 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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