Tom's Divorce (S2E11)
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The laughs, the passions, the little Sebastian's, the pits with Bell and two. And we'll put them on in a podcast. Then we'll send it up into the sky. Hearts in recollection. Come on in a podcast. Spread your wings and fly. Fly.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Parks and Recollection. I am one of your hosts, Rob Lowe. I'm joined by Alan Yang. How are you today, Alan? What's up, Rolo? What's up, everybody? Good to be here. I'm very good. I'm Roland. Rolo is Rolo. I loved this episode we got on deck today, Tom's Divorce. Super, super, super funny. It's episode 11 of season 2 and written by...

the great you know who, Harris Whittles. And directed by Troy Miller. Kind of a murderer's row right there, don't you think? Yeah, you hit this sort of key area of season two and it's a lot of favorite directors and a lot of favorite writers. So yeah, it's a really good one. And this episode is a little emotional. It's really funny and it has a lot of world building. There's a lot of like new parts of Pawnee and we'll get into some of those later. I think that's

One of the things I realized about this episode, we're seeing a lot of locations that will come back in later episodes. And that's kind of the fun of building a show. And it's super funny. A lot of puns. People like puns out there. You're going to like this episode. Well, here's the thing. I hate puns. And I like when people are basically shitting on puns, which is basically what this was. That's what was great about it. It was like...

You know, the lame restaurant has lame puns because puns are, wait for it, lame. I don't disagree, but I do love making fun of puns, which is, as you said, very specific. And by the way, bleeds into actually liking puns at a certain point. Once you are pitching a lot of puns and you kind of revel in it. So in later seasons, we had a writer named Megan Amram join us.

And Megan Amram's brain is absolutely broken in a way that I will never be able to describe because she cannot stop coming up with puns. She also wrote on The Good Place, and there's so many puns in that show. And you can just say, hey, come up with 100 puns for this restaurant menu, and she'll come back and have 100, and you could never have thought of them. She would have been a killer on this one, but she wasn't on the staff yet, so she wasn't writing this episode. Yeah.

Shall we get into a synopsis? Oh, you know I love this part of the show. Got my popcorn and I'm ready for the dulcet tones of Alan Yang. All right, synopsis heads, here we go. This episode, Tom's Divorce, opens with Ron sending Leslie to run an errand at the DMV on the dreaded fourth floor of City Hall, where she discovers Tom and Wendy are getting a divorce.

Stunning news. Leslie tries to lift Tom's spirits by taking him and the rest of the Parks Department out to a dinosaur-themed restaurant called Jurassic Fork. Not even really a pun. Does not rhyme, but we went with it anyway. And after that doesn't work, to Tom's favorite strip club, The Glitter Factory, where she encourages the strippers to better their lives. Yeah, we'll get into that later. But yeah, Leslie Knope takes someone to a strip club and it's...

It's kind of glossed over, but we'll talk about that. Meanwhile, Andy challenges Mark to a game of pool in hopes of hustling him, but soon realizes Mark is an excellent pool player. After multiple rounds of double or nothing, the two settle on a final wager. If Andy wins, he gets Ann, but if Mark wins, Andy has to leave Mark and Ann alone to pursue their relationship. Mark dominates the game, but in the end loses by scratching the eight ball. Andy's thrilled that he won Ann and also confused when she leaves with Mark and everything is the same as it was before.

So, yeah, an emotional episode, you know, giving Aziz some acting to do, too. Little subtle nuance thing that made me laugh so hard is when he's a Jurassic fork. It's a horrible rainforest dinosaur theme. Every once in a while in the back of your ear, I mean, it's like the worst of the worst touristy nightmares. And he calls for the way to Garcon.

Like it made me laugh out of nowhere. Yeah. I don't know where he thinks maybe calling the waiter by what the French version of a waiter, a Jurassic fork would be cool. It made me laugh. It's the first thing. And yeah, just, just commenting off that right off the bat, you know,

And obviously, you know, I'm good friends with Aziz and we work together on subsequent shows. And he jokes about it sometimes because at a certain point he started like winning awards and getting nominated for acting. And he won like a Golden Globe or something. And he was like, man, I look back on Parks, like the early, early stuff. He's like,

It's so bad. He's like, I had no idea what I was doing. I was a stand-up comedian. He started being a stand-up at like 19, right? Or whatever it was, in college. And suddenly you're on TV. You're an actor now. You're in a show. And...

You know, episodes like this started helping him do things other than just say one liners and being, you know, there's a huge difference. You know, this between being a stand up and an actor that you have to react, right? You have to react. So so I think this is the beginning of him sort of, you know, increasing his range, as you said. And yeah, he's starting to to get better and show some actual emotion on screen, which, you know, he did a good job with. I was wondering if you showed up on set on the day they were at Jurassic Fork.

And said, you know, to like Chris Pratt. So this Jurassic stuff. Take notes. Do you like any of it? Or are you... Whatever. Rob, I'm curious. Have you seen this clip of Pratt doing a behind the scenes video for Parks and Rec where he talks about... He's making a joke. He's like literally filming himself on his phone. And he fakes a call saying,

I just got a text message from Steven Spielberg. God, it's so annoying. "Sorry Steven, I was asked by Parks and Recreation/NBC to do behind the scenes. Which is to say, everyone else was asked and said no. But I have no shame.

As you know by the endless gift baskets, I'll have to get back to you later about Jurassic Park 4. He manifested it. He manifested. He manifests. It's the first example of the secret working, but yeah.

That's so crazy. By the way, I want to know, I'm a fanboy, where did you shoot Jurassic Fork? That set is amazing. I was just going to ask Greg this. Do you remember, Greg? I feel like I was, because I, it's got to be like... Was it in San Gabriel Valley somewhere? I want to say that. Shockingly, I could tell you that Jurassic Fork was filmed at Clifton's Cafeteria.

In downtown Los Angeles. Wow. No way. Yeah. Okay. I can see the multi-levels. Yeah. Now it makes sense. But they must have done... They. We must have done a lot of adding of foliage and stuff because it doesn't look like that at all. Man, I almost got to re-watch the episode now. That is wild. Clifton's Cafeteria. Yeah, that reopened again, I think. So I don't know if it's still open. But yeah, it closed down and reopened and might have closed down again. But yeah, that is...

That is weird. You know, it's gotta be this big open space. And we brought in, I think we brought in a lot of the dinosaur props we brought in, but, and, and by the way, like that's a dream for me. I, I Jurassic park's one of my favorite movies and I love dinosaurs as a kid. So I was like obsessed with dinosaurs, all this stuff. So it was fun to do all the, the dinosaur puns and stuff. One of the things about this set and, and,

This will always never fails to make me laugh. So you look at the, you know, some of the, the, the wide shots of this, you'll see like, you know, dinosaurs and props and stuff. And one of the props for this episode was a giant hydraulic dinosaur egg. And it was an egg that opened and shut that you could theoretically fit inside. And so originally there was a sea story for this episode that,

wherein the character of Jerry, played by Jim O'Hare, got inside this hydraulic egg, and it opens and closes, let me remind you, and the egg closes around him, and he gets trapped inside the egg, right? So that was the storyline pitched by the writers, right?

We go on to build this egg. So there's a huge hullabaloo we got. I mean, that's an enormous build. It's a robotic egg. We got the VFX guys in there. This is a huge undertaking. This is one of the biggest props the show has ever built. We build this giant egg. I don't know how much it costs exactly. What I heard, this may be wrong, it was something in the vicinity of $15,000 to build this giant dinosaur egg.

And of course we shot it all and the story was cut for time. So the egg is not in the episode at all. It's not in any sort of producer's cut. There's no inkling that the egg ever existed. But I will say this.

For years afterwards, that egg just sat on the stage in the corner as a reminder of the writer's folly and just saying, you do not make us build props like that. You do not make us build props like that in the future. So it would just... And every time I saw it, I would laugh. Season six, seven of the show was still there. That's that egg from the Jurassic Fork episode. And we trapped Jerry inside. And it just... I don't know if we just cut for time or whatever, but yeah. Yeah.

But just one of my favorite props from the show. I will say Jurassic Fork was a better pitch for a restaurant than one of the other pitches, Schindler's Lunch. Does that come in? I think that comes in later in the show. I don't know. Yeah, so very inappropriate joke. So only Steven Spielberg themed? Yeah, that's right, right? He's the only guy that gets restaurants? Yeah, instead of E-T-E-A-T, right? I don't know. These are off the top of my head, so I don't know. But yeah.

But that was an option. I don't know. Schindler's lunch. I love, like, the weird things in the episodes sometimes. And the waiter...

Gets really upset about how Leslie is ordering her steak. I love that moment. That little bit. What does Leslie say she wants at medium roar? She wants at medium roar. And he says medium rare. She goes, no, no, medium roar. She's like, for legal reasons, we're not allowed to make puns about the temperature of the meat. That is an example of deconstructing the puns as opposed to just living in them. So shout out to the writers on that one. Makes you wonder like what happened.

Yeah. It's great because that's one of those jokes is not only is it funny, but it makes you think like, oh, I'd like to see the story of what happened at the restaurant when somebody ordered medium roar and

and had third degree burns on their tongue. It's rich, man. It's a rich world. I also love in that. So in Jurassic Fork, there's also a little bit of a hint of the upcoming Donna and Tom friendship. So there's a thing. Everyone says something nice about Tom and Tom and Donna says, Tom's my little prince. I just want to put him a little cape and flat and fly him around. And it's like, it's so cute. I think I think Harris Whittles wrote that line. I could be wrong, but

Later on, again, it's kind of like we talked about in previous episodes where you put this little tiny fact in or something and it works and then you kind of expand on it. And so later, you know, they were just good friends and they did the Treat Yourself episodes together. And it just seemed right that they like the finer things in life and those characters are on the same page. But we would never have known that episode one, season one, you know, it's just the chemistry they had.

This is also the first episode that makes reference to the dreaded fourth floor.

Yes, that it is wildly shot, by the way. I mean, like that cold open is so strange. You go up there like we put up like green lights and obviously that's shot on a set, you know, a part of our set. That's the first floor. They redecorated it, but it's very broad. But but it comes back in later episodes. And and it's kind of like, you know, the way people talk about Pawnee is sort of a live action Springfield. It's like, yeah, we've got the fourth floor and then we've got Jurassic Fork. And then later we've got the Glitter Factory and all of these ideas kind of

you know, sit in the world of the show. They sit in the world, the milieu and, and, and world building is, is, is kind of like, it's, it's one of the joys of, of putting a show or movie together, right? You get to imagine what this city is like. And, and, and, and in some cases, like this is a little pushed, like it's a little bit broad, but it's like, yeah, the fourth floor is like the worst part of, of, of the, of the city hall, right? Of city hall. It's, it's just, um,

All of the worst shit is collected there. And yeah, we keep going back there. You know, I think it's there for an episode called The Bubble, I think it's in. But yeah, it's a funny idea. It makes me, it's really disturbing. I mean, it's very Fincher-esque. It's almost like you're in Parks and Recreation getting the elevator and you come out and all of a sudden you're in, you know, 7th.

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Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash parks. That's linkedin.com slash parks to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. We have to talk about Leslie Knope bringing everybody to a strip club. I mean, that is definitely not a log line you're expecting to hear or read or see.

I would love to show this episode to Mike. Mike Schur now is like, you know, he's a very progressive man and very forward thinking, but it's like, man, how did this get in the show? I just like, you wouldn't have thought it, you know? It's like, maybe it's in character that Tom would like going to strip clubs, but the fact that Leslie took him there is, it's so jarring to see the,

like naked women on stage like blurred out like that that aired like we aired that this is like a this is like a very family-friendly show what happened man i felt like i was at the sopranos you know they're always going to that strip club in the sopranos it was a different time she's watching as he gets a lap dance it's like what is this this is out of character and leslie nope is like makes no attempt to hide her dismissiveness

of the strippers. Like she literally calls a stripper Seabiscuit when her name is actually Sierra. That's right. It's not very sex worker positive. So you know what, Leslie, Leslie had a lot to learn too. So even Leslie Knope has some growing up to do as it turns out. Yeah. It's so, yeah, it was, but man, I don't remember. Like I, I, I honestly think I blocked that section of this episode out of my mind. Cause I, I just didn't remember them going there. And I,

I guess we shot that at a strip club. I mean, to see that on a Parks and Rec call sheet in 2009 or whatever, again, I guess at the time it was just like... I do you one better. People go. Showing up on the set as an actor at five in the morning. Yes. The sun isn't up. You just want some breakfast, and it smells like a strip club, looks like a strip club, is a strip club, and you're there at five in the morning. You're like...

Yeah. And then you start filling it up with extras and it's like now it's 7 a.m. and you just had like a breakfast burrito or something. You walk in there like, oh, my God, this is. But it's also you shoot at a nightclub. It's the same thing. You go in there. It's like, yeah, no one's meant to be in a nightclub at 8 a.m. It's so weird shooting at nightclubs or places that you usually see when it's dark. Right. You usually see when it's dark and you had a drink or two. Right. The worst thing are casinos. Right.

And if any actors out there, if you ever shot in casinos, you know what that's like because the only time they will give you to shoot, get this, you show up, your morning, your morning begins at 2.30 in the morning. Oh my God. And you shoot till 2.30 in the afternoon. It's the worst possible hours you could ever imagine.

I've never had the extreme displeasure of shooting in a casino. Have you done Vegas casinos, Rob? Yep. And that's the only time you get. So whenever you're watching those Oceans 11, Jake, oh, they think they're fancy, don't they? In their Oceans 11. Meanwhile, they're there.

rolling in at 2.30 in the morning having their coffee. That is kind of the dirty secret about filming in general. Look, sometimes you have a great time, right? You go to a great location. I was talking to a director earlier today and she had been shooting a show in Paris, right? And...

she's like, I was like, how was it? Sounds so fun. She's like, well, we were really behind and we needed to get the, you know, we were meeting some actors dates. So we shot six days a week, like 16 hours a day or something. And it's like, in that case, you're not seeing Paris. You're seeing your location. You're going home and sleeping for four hours, coming back and shooting. And your French crew is cranky because they usually have eight hour days and they're shooting 15 hour days. And, and then you're, you know, that that's, that, that,

Again, I'm not complaining, but that is the reality of shooting a lot of times. It's not always just having a good time in Italy, which is what we did for Master of None, but whatever that aside. I always forget that people, you know, and there's no reason they shouldn't know, people don't realize the working hours, like most people work 9 to 5. Those are the hours that we have the phrase. There's a movie, 9 to 5. That's when people work. They work from 9 to 5. Movies and TV, that means nothing. You work a minimum of

Of 12 hours a day. And then in the, in the, in there's, I always love that when you, when you're doing a big series, when you finish an episode, people don't get to gather around and go, yeah, we did it. That's great. Here's a champion. Let's take a light. No, you just literally you'll finish a scene and start another scene from another episode. And really all you do when you make a series is you make a never ending conveyor belt of scenes that,

that somebody cuts up into episodes and that's it. There's never a delineation ever other than maybe a new director shows up, but it doesn't feel any different at all. And you might even mix them up. You might be shooting scenes from three episodes in one day. Like that happens sometimes. And again, I also don't want to sound like we're complaining because Rob and I are lucky enough to be in

positions where, you know, we generally get taken care of. You know, not always, but, you know, and think about the production assistants and the crew members, the transport people who are there three hours before. Before we are. Yeah, so they're there at three in the morning. Yeah. And then they're wrapping out and cleaning up and striking the set at, you know, so their day is even longer. So,

All this is saying we're about to unionize. No, no. But truly, I do feel like, honestly, I do feel like

You know, the only reason we're working those hours is to save money for the people financing it. And I think the day should be 10 hours. Like, the day should be 10 hours and, you know, it'll just take a few more days to shoot. But I don't think people should be working 17 hours and Transpo guys driving like falling asleep at night. I think that's something to look at. Anyway. You for sure get diminishing returns. Yeah, absolutely. The last...

two hours of work are always almost barely usable. Yeah. And, and by the way, what if you're doing a comedy? What if you're doing a party scene at the end of the day? You know, what if, and it's like, you know, you just, you're having your birthday party. It's like, really? It's three in the morning. We've been shooting for 17 hours, but that, but by the way, like I, I was shooting a movie in Taiwan and, and,

I was apologizing to my crew there. It was largely made up of Taiwanese locals. And I said, hey, I'm sorry. We were going to hour 13 or 14 and shooting at the sugar factory, which, you know, difficult shoot. And some of them said, oh, no, no, no. Don't worry about it. The longest day I've had is 43 hours. So it's like, yeah, but you're lucky to be in a country with unions, by the way. You know, it's like they're like, oh, yeah, people are just falling asleep all over and the director's just yelling. And yeah, you just keep going. It's like, oh, my God, this is...

So, yeah, be thankful that there are unions and where we are, we do have some protections. But, yeah, I think we could be a little bit more civilized with our hours. And we definitely try. I definitely try. It's not always feasible, but certainly we try not to work people like that. I mean, that seems inhumane. A little glimpse into the glamorous life of showbiz professionals. Yes. Also, on this episode, I am a sucker for mascots.

Divorce horse. I'm sorry. I love it. I love it. I love mascots. I love... I just do. They make me laugh. They're just great. I can't get enough of them. Fireworks. Dolphins.

mascots. For me, that's the Holy Trinity. They make me laugh, they make me happy, and you can't talk me out of them. Mr. Ed's singing horse was genius. Yeah, it's, I mean, I gotta say, one of the most cartoony ideas that's ever been in the show, that such a man would exist, the guy called the divorce horse, and then he comes in again at the end and sings the whole song. But, you know, look, that's the idea of the show being silly, right? It's like, that's the show having fun, and

us writing the lyrics for the divorce horse song or pitching on like, by the way, that might've been a 3am writing sessions. Like then a horse comes in, he's called the divorce horse. I was like, yeah, we made that happen. Someone had to buy that costume. Someone did somewhere. There exists wardrobe photos of this man in his divorce horse costume. And then those photos get emailed to you and you have to approve them. It's like, is this the right color horse for the divorce horse? Like that gets me, that call gets made. So, uh,

No, it's really funny. And it all becomes, you know, Rob, you say you don't like puns, but you love the divorce horse. And I got to tell you, his name is based on a pun. I know. Maybe I am not willing to face that part of myself. There you go, man. Add it to the list. Mascots, fireworks, and puns. Puns. But I like at the very end, it's in the tag of the show.

you hear the clopping down the hall before he even shows up. And that was the best. You're like, yes, here comes the divorce rates. I bet it's going to be him. Yay. So fulfilling. So the, the, the pool table challenge, right? What I like about this area of the run of the show is I have, I have no dog in the fight. I'm not in the show yet. I'm just a guy watching a show, making a podcast about a show. So I can, I just, I,

So I'm going, well, so when Brandanowicz loses with the scratch, did he mean to lose? Was there going to be another beat where it was like there was a reverse on the plot that I didn't know about? I don't know what was going on with him. My recollection of it, using the title of the show, my recollection of it is that he didn't do it on purpose, that he just messed up.

But really, the whole story was kind of an excuse to...

play with and subvert the trope that you could like win a woman through a game of pool or like on a bet right i think that's like famous trope sure well it's like an old it's like an old thing where like you know i'm fighting for my woman's honor like we'll see who you know it's like that kind of thing we'll have a duel i i think that was the idea and then the comedy i think theoretically it's always good when you're explaining the comedy why something's funny but the comedy was that

would be happy that he won, right? And then Andy would think that everything was okay. But like, yeah, obviously it's all made up. This is bullshit and no one actually wins anybody in a game of pool. And you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't bet your girlfriend on a game of pool, et cetera. But yeah, I can't tell you that

I don't think Brandonowitz was losing that game on purpose, but I don't remember his reaction in the moment. So that's certainly something you picked up on. Something I love is that when Andy and Mark play pool for the first time, they start out with a $25 bet. Andy loses and they rematch for double or nothing. And the next time we're with them, we reveal that Andy owes Mark $6,400, meaning in that time, Mark won nine consecutive games in a row. Yeah.

Brilliant. And the other thing, of course, was Ron loving the free breakfast at the strip club. It was on my list, too. It's in my notes, too. It's an all-timer. Ron eating a buffet at a strip club, it's not only really funny. By the way, that's like a classic GIF, like the one of him smiling, like getting eggs from the

strip club buffet. Like, I don't think people know necessarily that it's in a strip club, but it's not only really funny, it's so on character because he doesn't, he doesn't care about strip clubs. He doesn't want to be in a strip club. He's not about that. He just wants to eat the breakfast food there. And like, yeah, just housing bacon and eggs there. It's like that housing. There's something really funny about that, man. It's also vaguely gross, but he's doing, I don't know. It's so funny. He, there's not Nick Offerman's,

His gleefulness. Whenever Nick is gleeful, it's so beautiful. It's so great. And you use it sparingly, right? It's like this little tool you have. It's like a power-up in a video game or something. You gotta use it. You can't use your magic all the time. You don't use up all the magic. You have a very serious, stern character. And you use these missiles carefully. But he's so funny. By the way, backing up a second about Ron in this episode...

What's going on? Why is he so horny? Why is he like, I got to ask out his wife immediately. That's insane. Like, don't do that. Like, give him a day. Give him a day. Like, what are you doing, man? Like, immediately asking your employee's wife out, even if it's a green card marriage, is kind of psycho, man. You don't want to do that. But he like sits him down. He's like, I'm going to ask your wife out. It's like, what?

Anyway, I guess it was designed for the story, but that did make me laugh. Like going back and seeing things that are like vaguely out of character is funny. Damn, Ryan, what are you doing, man? Yeah, I mean, you know, in the life of a long running show, there's always going to be those moments when you look back and go, wait, what was going on? What?

But you know what, Rob? In some ways, the joy of life is when your friends act out of character, right? People do act out of character. So maybe it's fine. Maybe it's all fine. Now I just was like, writing is meaningless. Anyone can do anything in any show. Forget if it's in character. Well, but it is true. That is a very interesting thing. And I actually, in all seriousness, think about it as an actor. When I'm designing a character or where I'm playing something is what, well, my character would never do that. But like you say, the most amazing things in life are when people...

do something that is out of their character. And he's giggling. Like, you love that because it's like that's that's it. There's some joy in that, right? My and we'll talk about it when we get to the episode, but only because you brought it up. You know, I came in onto the show for six episodes to see if I liked it, see if they liked me. It was kind of a like a trial marriage. And I remember doing a scene with Nick where we went to his favorite steakhouse and it was closed and he started crying.

And he turned to me and he goes, what do you think happened to the steaks? Ha ha ha ha ha.

And I thought, this might be the most brilliant thing I've ever been a part of. It's so cute. There's something about this show that's very cute. And I don't mean that in a demeaning way, because I like cute things. I like cute shit. So I'm happy I wrote for the show. I bet I pitched a lot of cute shit. But that is cute. He's a really manly guy. But that kind of thing is adorable. It's a cute joke. It's very funny. He said it like...

It was like, it was just, it was unbelievable. Like they were like puppies that somebody left in there. Yes. What do you think happened to the steaks? Yeah, what do you think happened to the steaks? And the way everyone in the show like loves each other, the fact that he would ask you that, it's like, yeah, this is all, yeah, this works, man. This works. It's a fun tone.

You got a note from producer Greg, which is like, Ron is eager to date Wendy, but he also carries Tom home and takes care of his friend. Right. So it's like there is a balance. I think maybe in the back of his head, he knows he's screwed up. So maybe he maybe he knows he shouldn't have immediately asked his divorced friend's wife out, which is which is very funny. But there's also a very funny construction of just a very straight line that the date has.

He goes, which one is the husband? Yes, that's right. It's something like that that's really Byzantine-ly structured. It's funny. Which one's your husband? He's the one being carried by his boss. I think something like that. Before we move on from talking about Ron, something cool that I think is worth pointing out is

In several shots, we see the back of Ron's head and he's missing patches of his hair and referring back to the previous ep from Hunting Trip where he shot in the back of the head while hunting.

Now, this won't be the last time we use hair and makeup to track things that happened to Ron's hair. And I guess that's just a tease of an episode to come next season. But it was just a really smart choice. And something I really love. Yeah. No one will care about this. But something about the casting of the guy Wendy was on a date with just made me laugh. Because he was like the most normal looking. He just has a little bit of stubble or something. He's just like a white guy from a Taco Bell commercial or something like that.

He's a guy who just looks like a normal guy. And you've been watching your characters for so long. And you see this random guy who's on a date with a tertiary character. And he's like, what world is this? He's stumbled onto a crazy treasure chest of a world. And he's just like, who's who? And that's us, right? That's us watching, right? It definitely felt, you're so right. It felt like he was from another world. Yes.

And he's the most normal looking guy possible. Yes. So not him, right? He's the normal one. That's what's great about it. And like you've just seen these wild hijinks and it's like, yeah, that's a normal guy. He's like, what's going on here? And he's, by the way, like he's dating Tom's wife who's like a beautiful woman. So like he doesn't, she's on the periphery of this world as well. But something about that actor made me laugh last night while I was watching it. Yeah, same. Same.

Same. So strange. And now I realize he looks like a white guy from a Taco Bell commercial. You could not... I'm going to steal that phrase. It's so perfectly descriptive. We all know what that is. It's an even more specific guy now because there's fewer and fewer white guys in those commercials. So they're getting out of work. You know what?

my girlfriend just did a talk. My girlfriend just did a Taco Bell commercial and she's like, she's, you know, she's Asian. And like, it was her and a black guy. That was like the main guys. It's like, yeah, I mean the white guys are on the roof. They're not eating anymore, but yeah, no, it's like, Hey, y'all doing okay. Y'all doing okay. It's going to be okay. Uh, what we had with the other Ron thing, the final round thing I noted was, uh, Steffi Graf callback. Our, our paid the patron say to this, this podcast, one of our, one of our loyal listeners, Steffi Graf, uh,

Yeah, he gives a talking head and it says he wants, he's like, he doesn't care about strip clubs because he likes to date, you know, confident, self-possessed women like Steffi Graf or Cheryl Swoops, who was a WNBA star. Which made me laugh so hard. First of all, I learned something because I never knew if it was Cheryl Swoops or Cheryl Swoops. I feel like it couldn't be, I was like, it couldn't possibly actually be Swoops. Swoops, great at hoops.

Oops. I just I just can't imagine a world in which that's her actual name. It turns out it is. Yeah, it's like Lonzo Ball, right? It's like, yeah, the Ball brothers, they're going to basketball. They're going to ball. That can't be right. That can't be right. But yeah, it's it's. But yeah, again, talking about Steffi Graf is always funny. So so I enjoyed that talking. How did we not ever get her in the show?

I bet she would have done it. There's a long history. I think we quickly moved on to like Indiana athletes and NBA players. So we got Detlef Schrempf, who's in Indiana. We got Roy Hibbert, who was on Indiana. And man, there's, and then obviously all the Colts. So we had a lot of athletes on the show, actually, which was fun for me. We had Chris Bosh.

like it was like I'm a huge NBA fan so so it was really funny to see all those those those uh those NBA players and I actually became kind of friendly with Roy Hibbert who was the center for the Pacers he came and guested on the show he's a he's a huge comedy comedy fan so yeah we hung out a few times a nice guy yeah I did scenes with Roy he was great yeah very nice guy um and yeah they're like I just love like you roll on set you're like hey Rob today you're doing a scene with Roy Hibbert it's

It's like, okay. Detlef Schrempf. I'm like, great. Amazing. Get ready for my eyeline to be higher than normal. Exactly. But, yeah, those guys are good sportsmen. And I think it's also like, it makes it feel local, right? It's like Indiana stars, Indiana, you know, athletes. And we kind of leaned into that. By the way, just circling back, for what it's worth, the actor, the date actor, who looks like the white guy in a Taco Bell commercial, is James Ball.

No relation to the Ball Brothers. I mean, weirdly tying, is this a moment where we discover like the whole universe is connected? The Matrixes. This is a Slumdog Millionaire situation. This is like, it's all connected. Yeah, Greg also notes that we faked an autograph with Larry Bird in Leslie's office. I remember that. It was like, you know, keep shooting or something or keep shooting for the stars. Okay, so the details of this. And you're right, Alan. From what I remember in the deleted scene that was in the pilot,

Tom tells us that the autograph of Larry Bird on Leslie's desk was faked by him. And it's part of a long running prank Tom played on Leslie telling her that he has lunch with Larry Bird once a month. And I looked it up. The inscription on the photo reads to Leslie spelled L E S L Y. Sink that shot, Larry B.

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Well, it's time for the town hall. You know what? We haven't done one. We haven't done one in Ramset Park. And I think it's a beautiful sort of afternoon. The weather's good. I think we get a blanket, you and I, some brioche cheese and red wine, and we just snuggle up in Ramset Park and just open the town hall. I love it, man. Let's get the best Pinot Noir we have in Pawnee. I wonder what we can find. It's just the light red kind of stuff.

We'll get some nice Michigan wine. I think there's a joke later in the show about the wine they get there. But, you know, maybe there's a wine scene there. So, all right, here's the town hall question. We're all cuddled up in Ramset Park. It comes from Sheila M. Who in the cast would be the most realistic choice for an actual park ranger? And by the way, the note here is Sheila M. works at a famous...

Bold and italicized. Famous park in NYC. Now, that leads me to believe that she's talking about Central Park. Yeah, like I feel like that you might as well have just said works at Central Park because you're not you're not really. What's the famous park? Like what's what's a famous statue that celebrates liberty? Like, oh, OK, well, you know.

Who in the cast would be the most realistic choice for an actual park ranger? There's not even a doubt in my mind. What do you think, Rolo? Chris Pratt, 100%. Oh, I love that. I love that. So Pratt is an outdoorsman. He has a farm, right? So you tell me about Pratt's farm. Pratt has a farm, his own farm. He sells his own meat to restaurants.

Um, and it's doing really super well to, it's, it's, you know, he can go talk to you chapter and verse. I can tell you the sausage he brought me, uh, the last time he was up was insanely amazing. Um,

Um, you know, he's great with a bow, a gun, knows the animals. He knows, you know, how to, you know, make, make sure the pond has the right salinity and oxygen in it for the fish. And, you know, that could be a second career. He would love that. Yeah. And he's six, five and jacked. What, what animals does he have there? I know he has sheep. What else does he have there? Do you know? He's got pigs. He's got sheep. Yeah.

I think that's the farming element of it. The bulk of it, yeah. I remember being at a party with him not that long ago and we were talking to my friend David Chang, who's a chef, and they just started talking about how to make the pigs into tasty stuff, basically. It was like, well, maybe that was his race for some of the sausage, but he's like,

Oh man, like you got pigs, like you got to do that. This is how, cause like, you know, Chang like loves cooking pork. So I think they, they went off into a quarter and just started talking about pig recipes. But I think Pratt is a good answer. The funny thing is in the, in the finale of the show, you know, Ron Swanson's character becomes a park ranger. I think, I think one of the elements about Nick that people don't know is like, he is a lot like Ron in a lot of ways, but,

But he's also an actor. He's an actor. He's like a theater guy. He's like a Steppenwolf trained guy. He does work with wood, and he's very handy. But I don't think he wants to live in the woods. And Pratt does. Before Pratt did all the big movies. He was like, my goal is to make enough money to buy a house by the lake, and I'm out of here. And Nick...

Offerman, it's like to what you were saying is he's a theater geek. A true theater geek. I didn't want to say it, but he is. He is. He wants to quote Lord Byron and stuff. Like he's like a very, he's not, he's not Ron Swanson. He is in some ways, but he's not in others. You know, the other, another good question would be who would be the worst park ranger?

And there's a lot of candidates. There's a lot of candidates because, uh, I don't think you want to like go camping with like a Z. It's like, I don't think he's going to be looking for those high thread count sheets. Like he doesn't want to be living outside. Uh, like, I don't, like, I don't think Adam Scott wants to do that. I think there's city boys, right? There's city mice like me. So. Yeah, for sure. Those, those two. What's like that great, that great, uh, thing when we were shooting in, uh,

In the stadium, the football stadium, the Colts football stadium. And I wanted to go and get a hamburger with Pratt. We were going to go get it. And Adam Morgan Sack at the UPM goes, you guys can't leave right now. I go, why are you shooting all this stuff? He goes, no, you're the only two guys here who can throw a football.

Probably not untrue, right? It's like, yeah, it was throwing. We did. We threw the football around. I was like, yeah, not everybody here throws the ball. It was really fun kicking those field goals, too. I remember kicking those, and Pratt was kicking some, too. That was really fun. 40-yarders. Yeah, 40-yarder. He kicked a 40-yarder.

All right. That was the town hall. Thank you, Sheila M., who works at a famous park in NYC. I wonder what it is. I really wonder what it is. That was the town hall. So let's fold up our picnic blanket and let's call it quits on another episode. Another fun one. Another fun one. Thanks for listening, everybody. Don't forget to tell your peeps.

about us. Oh, and don't forget to give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It's a big deal, helps the show, and more importantly, we read all the comments. Go do your part. We've done ours. You just heard us do our thing. It's time for you to do your thing. Thank you. See you next week. Thanks to producers Rob and Greg. Bye from Pawnee.

This episode of 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 Salataroff 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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