Writer Katie Dippold: The Set Up (S2E13)
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With your Amex card, entertainment benefits like special ticket access and pre-sales to select can't miss events while supplies last. Make every tap music to your ears. The laughs, the passions, the little Sebastian's, the pits with belly too. And we'll put them on in a podcast. Then we'll send it up into the sky. Parks and recollection. Come on.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Parks and Recollection. It's always a great day when we have a guest. And today is one of those days. We've got the...

incredibly talented and wonderfully fun, Katie Dippold, who is a writer who's written on the show and gone on to write many big movies. I'm excited to be here. And Alan Yang is here. He's always here. I'm always here. That's not exciting at all. I'm always here. This could be fun. What's our episode today, Alan? Episode 13 of season two. The Setup is aired January 14th, 2010, written by Katie Dippold, our guest, directed by Troy Miller.

Welcome, Katie. How are you? I'm very good. Very happy to be here. And you are not just one of our favorite writers, one of the longstanding writers of the show, too. How many seasons were you on Parks and Rec for? I just remember you being there forever. Do you know, it was actually only three seasons. Seasons two, three, and four.

Some would say the best seasons. I mean, I wouldn't say it out loud. I would text it to you. Yes, you're constantly saying how much the show fell off after you left, just complaining to me constantly. Every day, every day. I just want to revisit it and unpack it. And Katie has gone on to a long and illustrious career, movies, shows, whatever, like just a ton of stuff. Katie, what's your favorite stuff you've worked on since Parks? All your credits, The Heat, Ghostbusters, all this stuff. I don't know.

You just said it. I didn't want to make you list your credits. I realized I didn't want to pimp you out like that. Thank you. Well, this episode, it's very good. It's a great one. I mean, listen, just the fact that there's a swim fan reference in this made me laugh out loud. I wrote that down. That's in the notes. That's in the notes. Let's do a synopsis. How about that, Rob? Yeah, hit us. Katie, just wait till you hear this. Everyone's favorite part.

The synopsis. Here we go. Okay. All right. The setup. My synopsisters and brothers, here we go. When Leslie learns Pawnee's being sued by the previous owners of Lot 48, Anne calls upon her lawyer friend, Justin Anderson, played by Justin Theroux. Justin helps Leslie resolve the issue, and the two hit it off immediately. Leslie asks Anne to set her up on a date with Justin, but is surprised when Anne hesitates to set her up. Instead...

She arranges a date with Chris, played by Will Arnett, an MRI technologist Anne works with. The date goes...

goes terribly. Meanwhile, Mark grows suspicious that Anne harbors romantic feelings for Justin. He eventually confronts Anne and accuses her of putting Justin on hold for a possible relationship in the future. Anne admits she has distantly thought of her and Justin ending up together, prompting Mark to walk out on their date. Mark asks Andy if Anne seemed to have feelings for Justin when they were together. Andy confirms that she did and then immediately confronts Anne about it in another endless attempt to get back together.

realizing her behavior was inappropriate, and then sets Leslie up on a date with Justin. While all of this is happening, Ron deals with complaints from local residents due to a new town policy requiring public officials to deal more directly with the public. Tom helps Ron find an assistant and eventually brings in John Ralphio, played by Ben Schwartz, who Ron hates. Ron decides to hire April, whose internship comes to an end by getting this new job.

So that's the episode. A lot going on. A lot going on. Katie, do you remember this? What is your recollection of this? You notoriously...

Again, I don't want to go too into detail of your life history, but you notoriously were an incredibly sharp child and then had something to happen to you. And then now you have a very cloudy memory. Is that true? That is true. I had a concussion in second grade where I was on the swing set and tried being superwoman. And I landed headfirst on the concrete. This was like in the 80s before lawsuits. Like there's concrete everywhere, but not sand everywhere.

I have a terrible memory, so I texted both Alan and Greg like, "Just to warn you, this might be tough." But I do remember some things. We're gonna dig deep. I'm gonna remember a thing or two. - One of my favorite things about Katie is her stories about her family.

And one of the things her mom said to her at some point, and I'm probably mangling this, Katie, but she said, Katie, you used to be so smart, so good at math, like so good at all these things. But what I like to think is that concussion gave you a superpower and made you super creative and funny. That's the way I look at it. I feel like something was, I don't know, something was unlocked, both good and bad. Yeah.

There's, I mean, I'm a very anxious person also. I kind of feel like it's all related.

Yeah, I think this was your second episode on Parks, right? You wrote Beauty Pageant, right? Yes. That was your first one, so this was probably your second one. For what it's worth, the mom thing was, it was actually me. I used to, when this math game called Around the World, where in class you would have two students in second grade, and the teacher would be like, seven times three. And whoever said it first would go on to the next person.

I was always the champion of that. And after the concussion, it just never happened again. I mean, this is so weird because I remember growing up the kind of playgrounds we had. It's a wonder people didn't get...

I mean, diving boards at local pools where you would climb a ladder straight up. Straight up. Not even the ones that are kind of slanted, but straight. So high. So high. And then multiple kids would be on the ladder at the same time. Nobody was supervising. Do you remember this?

Oh, God. And the supervisors would be like some 15-year-old that's not paying attention. Just disaster. Probably high on weed. In some ways, society has gotten better. It's gotten a little... I feel like it's gotten safer. Playgrounds have that soft ground now. That soft rubber ground. You know, take my nephew and niece to the playgrounds. Like, oh, this seems much safer. Like...

But yeah, as kids, I don't think we cared. And look what we got. We got a great comedy writer out of it. So maybe we should go back to Concrete Floors. Knock some sense into you. I'm going to knock some comedy into you. You better watch it. My favorite thing in this, not surprisingly, is because I can never get enough of Will Arnett. He is just, I mean, I don't even know where to begin. He is just a genius in this. His speech about the MRI is,

when he goes on and on about what an MRI does and what it can do and what it can look inside of you. He, for the writing is hilarious, but he is, he's got a dementedness to him that is just beyond belief. I was thinking about, I was rewatching, I was like, I was really blown away at how many super broad jokes we asked him to do. And he completely sold everything.

which also your character, Chris Chigger, was asked to do the most ridiculous things and have to sell it, you know? Yes. I mean, do you remember, Alan, when we had Paul Scheer exit a scene doing the worm? Oh, my God. It's a crazy thing to ask someone. Yeah.

Yeah, so Katie and I were on a text chain and we were talking about how at the time we're like, yeah, this show's like really real and sort of like grounded. And now you look back and it's like, it's the wildest thing you've ever seen. Because I think comedy has changed, right? Rob and I have talked about this before. But at the time we were like, yeah, this is actually a pretty real, you know, sort of human thing.

emotional show and then you have obviously will i think the genius of casting will in this too was twofold i think obviously he's selling really hard jokes and can do comedy and can inhabit a character and really commit but also secondly i think one thing that the show liked to do is cast real life spouses and real life partners but have them play and like basically an insane version of the relationship so you know obviously you know amy and will were married and and

But they didn't want to play like they're in love. They wanted to play something like the opposite of that, which is kind of like what Nick and Megan did. Right. They did. They had a really tumultuous relationship on screen. So that was kind of fun, too. It was the second in that series. There are so many great lines he has when he's like, stop smiling when he's putting her into the into the MRI. You have to stop smiling because sometimes it's read as AIDS. And then when he goes, hmm, yeah, you got a really big oven.

It's like fucking insane. I remember that. And he just goes on and on. And there's a small for fans of the show. There's actually a weird small foreshadowing because he said he's he's talking about her uterus. It's very it's very offensive. But she's like he's like, yeah, you got a good big oven. You could you go triplets right off the bat. And then later she has triplets in the show. So it was kind of weird. Is that where it would did somebody go? Yeah.

Did somebody remember that? Or did you put a pin in it? Or how did that happen? I think what happened was we had it in Katie's episode. And then later on when we decided to have her be pregnant, and then the idea of just getting it all done, multiple kids all in one. I think Mike remembered the fact that we had this line and thought it'd be amazing to pay it off that it actually came true. Oh, that's so crazy. Also, Katie, do you remember why...

why we chose the job MRI technician, it seems like a wild decision. It seems so specific. Like in retrospect, watching the episode, I'm like, this is very random seeming. I don't know. It's so specific. I was like, did this happen to someone? I'm like, I know it did not happen to me. I would have at least remembered that.

My favorite joke in the episode with the MRI, and I'm 99% sure it was Mike Scully's, possibly Dan Gore. It sounds like either of them, but I'm pretty sure it was Mike Scully, was when he asked as she's going in if she's on her period. And she's like, no, why does that matter? And he goes, not for this, and sends her in. That was my favorite. Not for this and immediately sends her in, right? It's great timing by Will. But by the way, Katie, you're stumbling upon something that happens on the pod all the time where I'm –

trying to attribute a joke to a specific writer, but I always, I'll always add a warning or a caveat. It's like, I'm not totally sure because I don't remember. The other part of this that just occurred to me, because we do talk about this all the time, Alan, is as an actor, if you're developing something for yourself or you're hiring people, you inevitably get

you know, writing samples. And it took me years to learn just because I'm reading, oh, episode six of The Sopranos. Oh, yeah. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. I'm going to hire Dominic Degonzi. He wrote the shit out of this episode. And meanwhile,

It's entirely possible Dominic Duganzi didn't do jack shit. It's definitely possible David Chase did a little work on that. By the way, do you like my phony writing name, Dominic Duganzi? I thought that was a real person we were taking down right now. I know. I wanted it to be a personal attack on this writer, this story editor for the Sperano season four. Exactly. He was a story editor. He really knew what was going on. Yeah. I've always felt very lucky. And Alan, I don't know if you felt the same. I don't know if this was a skill set myself.

Mike sure had, well, he had it all around, but I feel like Mike really understood my sense of humor. So every time I felt like I could see a joke somewhere in the room, I'd be like, oh, wait, what if there was something like this? And I'd be trying to come up with it. And I would just get halfway there, and then he would have the perfect, hilarious pitch for it. I was like, oh, yes, yes. It was really lucky to have a boss that understood where you were trying to go with a joke all the time.

You know? Yes. That's true because there is a sense of some people can do, can write fully formed jokes and others can be like, it's in the area. It's like you're in the area. You know the sort of shape of the joke. It's true. Not everybody writes in the same way and that is unbelievably valuable. In this room, it was actually very friendly and you were free to sort of suggest ideas or the faintest wisp of a hint of an idea would be okay to say, right? I've heard of other rooms where

for instance, the Frazier room. It was like everyone sits there quietly and then you pitch something when you have the perfect pitch

Bon Mo, just the perfect joke, one-liner. It's got to be absolutely immaculate, and you wouldn't pitch until that point, but that was not what this room was like. This room was a lot more welcoming than that room. I don't speak from experience, but yeah. On the flip side, one of my favorite early memories, I remember when I first started, me and Aisha and Harris started at the same time, and I think we were all a little quiet at first, and Greg always would say, like,

listen, I want you guys to talk more. Like it helps me, even if you pitch something bad, it just helps me figure out what I do want. Like I need you guys talking and pitching. And so I was like, okay, okay. And we're talking about a story idea. And I thought, and I just, I had an idea and I'm like, I don't know about this. I'm just going to say it. And I said it and everyone in the room was like, no, it was apparently a terrible, terrible way to take the story. And then Greg was like, but keep pitching. No, keep good, good work. Good work like that.

So they interview assistants for Ron in this episode.

Am I crazy? Or is the first assistant that they interview actually Edward Cullen from the whatever, the vampire movie? It's literally Edward Cullen. That guy is Edward Cullen. There's some lookalikes. There's some lookalikes in this episode and the next one that we were watching. Like, there's a lot of lookalikes. But there's, yeah. You're talking about Robert Pattinson? Yes! Is that Edward Cullen? He's Edward Cullen, right? It looks like early vintage. Maybe this is Robert Pattinson before he got his big break. I don't know.

don't believe it is but i agree that it does he does have a little look there's definite resemblance for sure yeah one thing rob loves to do is to spring spring lookalikes on that on you and just see if you think it's that i'm like i don't know man i got one for the next episode by the way but yeah the uh the series of guys and and it leads to we're jumping around here but it leads to the first appearance of jean ralphia which is very exciting oh so that is that is a big one ben schwartz who uh

Yeah, who's gone on to do a lot of stuff. He's the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog. My sons, who are comedy snobs and loved Parks and Rec like no other, without a question, John Ralph Yo was their favorite person in the Pawnee universe. Absolutely. And for good reason. He's hilarious. But what I was interested to see is his hair is big from the jump. Because there were times, if you watched the life of the show, where...

Where sometimes it's so his hair is so huge, it's like almost a caricature. And then there are other times where it looks like maybe he'd come from a different project and they made him cut his hair and it's like a little more handsome. But his first appearance, he's got it going on. Yeah, it's certainly like in later episodes, there's some where it's like a foot tall and he's wearing a neon pink dress.

tuxedo and then has ankle bracelets on both of his ankles from when he got arrested. It's like, there's, it's always like a hat on a hat on a hat with John Ralphie. There's literally a hat on a hat. Like it's, there's no level of crazy that he can't reach. That's also a perfect example of your name is on an episode, but I had so little to do with that. I think Mike wanted to do had, I feel like Mike wanted to bring Ben Schwartz in or there's, there was something like,

there was something brewing in the room. And then he sent me and Harris off to write up that scene where he meets him.

But Harris tapped into this character like it was like his beautiful mind moment. Do you know what I mean? He just started writing it. I just slowly backed away and was like, just fly. You've tapped into something. Just let it come out of your fingers and in the key. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And on the Ben Schwartz sort of Jean-Ralphio tip too, there's two things I remember. One of them was...

second Frasier reference of the show. But there was this idea that we had Tom who was already this kind of pushed character and who was bordering on unlikable potentially if, you know, cause he's, he's hitting on women and he's kind of like, you know, he, he, he's borderline unlikable. So the idea, one of the ideas was,

It's kind of like what they did on Frazier with Frazier and Niles. So you have Frazier who's kind of this, you know, urbane feet, you know, kind of, you know, uptight or, you know, basically urbanite guy. And,

that was potentially unlikable to a wide swath of the American public. So they're like, what if you gave him a brother who was even more obeying, even more effete, even more sort of uppity and all that stuff? And it's like, by comparison, Fraser will look like a manly man, right? So that's kind of what they did. And then so the Jean-Ralphio-Tom thing was like, well, okay, Tom is kind of superficial. He's into clothes. He's into material things. What if you gave him a friend who...

was way worse than he was in every dimension and way more pushed. And Tom will look normal by comparison. And it kind of worked. I mean, that's ultimately what we do with Jean-Ralphio. And then Tom had to reel him in. And Tom looked like the reasonable one by comparison. I always loved the way in that those characters delighted in each other. Like when one of them said something, the other one thought it was the greatest thing in the world. Yeah, they did. And they would egg each other on. It's interesting to see Jean-Ralphio did not do his signature thing

sing-song stuff so much he did a little mini thing you kind of did it but he didn't do his what he said hello wait he would always do those songs like he would and and it's i i figured that is something it's always interesting to see an actor discovering and he hadn't discovered that part of the character yet

Right, right. I got to jump in just to say you stumbled on something. We spoke a few episodes ago about the theme songs we used to have in the writer's room. And you named your own theme song just now by mentioning A Beautiful Mind. Do you remember this? Oh, my God. Katie used to do a bit where she was obsessed with putting cards on the bulletin boards.

As if she was rearranging and discovering something incredible hidden in the message of these note cards, like in the beautiful mind. And I used to play that theme song while she would do it. I completely forgot about this, but I remember it now. That's amazing. Yeah.

Oh my God. There's something about you saying that just broke my brain wide open. And I suddenly remember every moment in the writer's room. I know. It's like a sense memory because for those of you who didn't hear the previous episode, Greg's referring to in the writer's room, Greg would play theme songs. He was at a computer and each of the writers, when they would say something particularly in their character or pitch a joke that was

very them. He would start playing a theme song. So by the end of the show, I mean, everyone had a theme song and there was a ton of items on the soundboard. But yeah, Katie's was a beautiful mind. But yeah, it felt like when we looked over at you, a lot of times you were lost in thought. Yes. Trying to marshal something. One of my favorite moments is between the two of you guys when, I don't know if you remember this, but there was a card that said they all have an idea of what they want the club to be.

And it was this like nothing idea. I think Mike made a joke about it and he tore it up. And then the two of you spent like 10 minutes putting it back together on the bulletin board. Trying to waste time, just doing anything to waste time. We spent so much time trying to not work on the show. Like the amount of energy. We've made small movies. Like, you know what I mean? Like

Yeah, remember those movies? We used to film little movies in the writer's room and just like cut them together and we wrote different... Man, what a phenomenal waste of time that was. We had a series of movies. One of the most embarrassing moments was when Mike was in editing and we were all sitting on the couches looking at photos on the screen of us sitting on the couches and Mike just walked by. There couldn't have been a more useless... The time so poorly spent...

than just looking at photos of us sitting on the couch on other days. Well, that's right. So we would look through a slideshow of our own photos, and one of them was a photo of ourselves looking at the photos. It was literally like a photo of us. A lot of wasted time. When Greg brought that up, I just remembered one very embarrassing prank gone wrong, if I may say. It's very quick.

I somehow discovered there was some new app and the whole purpose was that you could make your phone do a fart sound effect, but with a time delay. So you could hide your phone somewhere and set like a timer for a minute for this thing. And I was so excited and I can't remember whose chair I put it under, but then I was asked to go to the boards to do something with the cards and I

I think I accidentally said it for too long. It was like three minutes away. So for three minutes, I knew this thing was coming and I was trying to do work.

But knowing everyone's watching me dead serious about this story like we're talking about, but I couldn't stop laughing and crying. So everyone knew something was coming, but they're like, what is so funny that she cannot work and she's crying? And so then when finally the tiniest fart sound came out, everyone just stared at me. No, no laughs. No laughs. And I just sat back down and that was it.

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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. I know Rob mentioned SwimFan. I wanted to definitely shout out SwimFan because Katie, do you remember how much we just, I feel like we talked about SwimFan a lot in the writer's room. I don't know why. When it came up in the SwimFan reference, I laughed out loud because I could just imagine the shellacking of

and fascination in the writer's room over that movie. For it to make it in the script, Swimfan, by the way, is a 1990s movie starring Erica Christensen as...

I guess she's a swimmer and someone is stalking her and it's called a swim fan, I think. No, she's the stalker. She's the stalker. Oh, she's the stalker. Oh, shit. Okay. Man, I got to rewatch Swim Fan. The actor is a swimmer and he has a girlfriend. And then Erica Christensen comes along and starts stalking him. And it's like, it's great. But I know the actor reached out to the show that he was delighted by the reference, which made us all happy. Jesse Bradford? Yes. Oh, no. Jesse.

By the way, Swimfan is 2002. Do you know Jesse Bradford? No, but I just love that he was cool enough to be like, yeah! Yeah, he was. He's like, yeah, I love this Swimfan rap. 2002 movie. And there's a little more pop culture in this one, right? There's Marley and Me. Marley and Me, I don't know. I remember this. Originally the joke that Mark Brandanowicz storms out

and he's being petty for a moment. And the original joke was he was going to just spoil the ending of the movie they were watching. And so for the table read, District 9 had just come out in theaters the weekend before. So he spoiled it. And people were, I remember Pratt being like, no! No!

This really upset. And then we realized, well, that might extend to the audience, that same unhappiness that the spoil. So we changed it. I totally forgot about that. This is why I'm glad when we have guests, because it's like, I just, you know, you don't remember everything like that. That was, I remember it now. It's so funny because he spoils it. The character spoils it in the story of the show. And then when the actors was legitimately mad.

I also, you know, there's also a Joe Biden reference. Yes. President. I pointed at the screen when it happened because it's I did the Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sort of pointing at the screen meme because like he's going to he's a recurring character in the show. He later appears on the show and then later became president. You know, it's so funny to think about. I don't know. That's when the time machine aspect of it becomes clear. The body of Joe Biden.

It's what she wants in a perfect man. Yep. The brains of George Clooney and the body of Joe Biden. It made sense. Biden...

very charming, George Clooney, very smart. And this became this, this was kind of the origin of her obsession with Joe Biden, which again, obviously predated him running for president. But yeah, it was, it was kind of a, yeah, it was a running bit and it kind of started from this talking head. We just thought it'd be funny if she was really into him and it just kept happening. This was the, um, the first time we meet Justin Theroux's character, Justin, isn't that right? That's right. Um, and I, I want to very, very quickly point out, uh,

How occasionally unimaginative the names were on the show. Usually very imaginative, right? Funny names. But in this episode, Will Arnett's character is named Chris. Your character, Rob Lowe's character is named Chris. Justin Theroux is named Justin Anderson.

And then her previous boyfriend, the police officer, Officer Dave, was named Dave Sanderson. This is all, you can look it up. You can look it up in the show. We go from Dave Sanderson to Justin Anderson. I don't know why we did that. I think it was just a mistake. I actually remember Mike realizing that and being devastated because he's excellent at names. You know what I mean? That's like one of his most prized skill sets is coming up with new names. So Justin Theroux, I did a show called The Grinder. Yes.

And yeah, which was and I modeled all of my wardrobe after Justin Theroux. And remember that? And what's what's kind of.

Interesting to see him in the show in this iteration. Granted, I know he's playing a character, but he's got that shaved head, right? His hair's really closely cropped and he's got really traditional clothes on. And then whatever, five years later, he's dating Jennifer Aniston and forever walking through Soho being paparazzi in like motorcycle boots that come up to his knees, right?

With with skin tight jeans tucked into it with like a white T-shirt slit down to his chest with 75 pendants. I remember one he had was it was in the shape of a gun and and like three a bomber jacket on top of a bomber jacket and then Elvis's hair and aviators. And I was like.

Man, that is a ballsy MF, but he looks kind of good. Pulls it off. Yeah, he pulls it off. And he I feel like he was that guy even when he was on Parks, but he wore he just wore the Parks wardrobe because that's who the character was. But he came in on a motorcycle and like was like a cool guy.

He was already a cool guy. Whether that's true or not, it's absolutely how I remember it as well. Yes. I feel like I remember him coming in on a motorcycle and then one time Usher came in to film a promo on our set and he also came in on a motorcycle. Those are the two guys who came in. No one else in the entire show's history, but yeah, those two guys came in on motorcycles.

But yeah, Justin is a fun character. It's like, you know, I think we wanted someone totally different from Dave's character. And the idea was like he was very worldly and he's traveled all over. And we see that a little more in the next episode. He's also really particularly great because he's just so effortless. I mean, his performance is totally 100 billion percent real, effortless, funny. It really kind of stands out. He really stood out for me in this in that he was...

He seemed like he was coming from another world, which I think was sort of the point.

and the world of normal people in the Pawnee world, and yet didn't bump. I think it's one of those things that's a lot harder to do than it looks. Yep. I agree. I think it's often an actor's tendency to come into this world and want to be kooky and wild and weird and stuff. And he just comes in. He plays it really real. It's like, yeah, he played it pretty real. We gave him jokes, but yeah, he just kind of plays it real. Especially in this episode where Will's character is so...

Like it's nice to have Justin's character who's just kind of

the opposite. And, you know, this is kind of a showcase for Anne as well, because it's kind of weirdly emotional for her. And there's like actually a kind of interesting idea about saving someone who's like your friend to date later. I was like, I was like, man, Park's tackling like an actual serious kind of relationship issue, like kind of going for some insight. I don't even remember like talking about that in the room, really. But that that's like kind of an interesting observation. And Rashida gets to do a little more than she often does in these episodes. So I was happy for her in this one.

Yeah, she was great. Yeah, date saving. Is that a thing? You know, I was thinking about it watching it because I remember at the time, I think I was like 29 at the time of this episode. And I personally believe the ages 25 to 29 are the most unbearable of the person to everyone else. They're most insufferable at that window, my personal theory. So I remember kind of...

doing something like that when I was younger. But when I watch it, I didn't do that anymore after that age. And so when I watch it, I was like, oh God, I wonder, look in hindsight, if Anne was more emotionally mature than that, you know, that character, maybe that wasn't quite, but she's

still performed it excellently because she's great. I think Anne has some issues. She dated Andy for a long time. I think there's something wrong. And then she dates Mark. I mean, look, there are some issues. She didn't get fixed, so she dated him. That's true. That's true. That's true. Yes. Yeah, she had some emotional issues. That's okay. I think it worked. You're talking about Chris Traeger's wife. Yeah, that's what I said. She grew up when she met you. Yeah, there we go.

Is this one of the last episodes you discussed before the arrival of Chris and Ben? Yeah, we're getting there. So I think it's Master Plan is in eight episodes. Oh my God. I forgot that these were like 20 something episodes a season. Right?

Jesus. Can you believe it? It ain't streaming, man. It ain't streaming. We did 24 this season, I believe. Oh, my God. Yeah, think about that. It's giving you a headache thinking about it. We talk about that all the time, about how many episodes there are. It's really staggering. And then we also talk about the fact that because Amy had two kids during just my time on the show. And then you add that to...

moving it from fall to mid season and back and forth. Like I never knew what season we were in ever. It just like, we just shot and then we would just not shoot. And then we would shoot, not shoot. It made no sense to me. The production of Parks and Rec made zero sense to me. Well, it also all got blurred because we were forced to shoot the beginning of season three, almost immediately after the end of season two.

So that was when it was really like, oh, this is a year round job. And of course, we were on the brink of cancellation every year. So I don't know if you remember this, Katie. I feel like at the end of almost every season, we went out for drinks. Like the writing staff was like, that might be it. Like we honestly felt that way. Like it happened almost every year. Every season. And it was when Mike would announce that we're coming back.

It was like the most exciting, unexpected news in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And that also led to us writing a lot of season finales that felt like series finales. You know, I felt like we joked when we were writing the series finale, the actual series finale, that we had done this five times previous or something. And, you know, we're trying to give some closure at some point. Yeah. You know, the other thing about this episode is there's a lot of snow.

Yes. Oh, I had that in my notes. It's hard. Shows that do it, I'm always tip my hat to it because it's so important. But, you know, most of us are in L.A. making stuff that obviously never snows here. And they throw a scarf around somebody and they say, well, it's winter. See, the guy's wearing a scarf. It's always outside their clothes, if you notice. It's never around their necks. It's just thrown over them because that's the way people wear it in TV winter. And so when there's actually snow,

I'm like, good. They tried. They used to do that great on ER. ER always, I think we did it fairly well on West Wing, but Parks and Rec did it really well. And this is one of the cases where they did it. The snow looked real and we did a lot of it. Yeah. And a little tidbit for those of you who don't know. So when you look out Leslie's window or out of the Parks Department's window into the courtyard,

And in this episode, there's snow in that courtyard. That courtyard is all indoors. That's all on stage. And so what we did is we just, there's a bunch of fake snow. It's all inside. And so there's a guy shoveling snow that's theoretically outside. And there's also, they also put pigeons in there. So they had these kind of,

I don't know if they were trained. I don't know. I'm sure there was a pigeon wrangler, but they had pigeons like, you know, just flying around in there. They're attached. Their legs are attached. If you look close enough, you can see it. They have threads, right? They have threads on their legs. That's it, right? So they don't get lost in the rafters. Yes. And for sure, there are pigeon wranglers. Oh, yeah. You got to get them on the pod. Yeah. And they were a million dollars per episode, those pigeons. So I hope you guys enjoyed them. They're very interesting.

No, but no, it makes it look real. I was like, I don't think people who didn't know were like, yeah, that's actually indoors on a stage in Studio City. So, yeah, pretty cool. Shout out to the snow people and the pigeon wranglers. Also, weird thing to say about the set design. I always loved how the show, when it aired, it always felt like fall. You know what I mean? Like, they really tapped into this Indiana autumn feel that...

I just was always excited by. I think it kind of has to do with the production design of the building. Like, I like all the wood and I like that stuff. Because I do think when you step outside and sometimes we either were shooting at the lot or at a park or something, you see that dead sun. It's like that LA, Southern California sun. And like, the actors are squinting because they can't even look at each other because it's so sunny. That's when you're like, oh man, you can't fake the sun, right? You can't change the sun into something else. But that's always funny. Very late into my

time on Parks and Rec, Amy and I were like in some lot in the middle of the valley at noon. The sun was directly overhead, which is a horrible angle to be photographed in and hot. And I was like, had anyone ever asked to put a scrim up over us? Yeah.

Ever? It's never been asked. And she's like, no, we really don't. So I got us a scrim and we finally got. I don't know how long it lasted, but boom.

but, but we got a scrim over us and it was a little bit more comfortable and we didn't look like we were both 100 years old. Oh, what a gift. That's wonderful. It's true. They got guys been in movies before. So yeah, put a scrim up, block this. So basically when there's direct sun outside, you'll notice it. I don't know for, you know, for, for, for people who aren't, who aren't on sets all the time, you know, oftentimes if you're outdoors, you, you,

you need to block the sun. A huge part of shooting is just directing the light, you know, whether it's putting up flags or putting up scrims or putting a bounce up to put the light in the right way. I mean, that's, that's, there's a whole team of people whose job it is to, to make sure that that happens. And I think early on in the show, it was like, this is a documentary. We just kind of point the cameras wherever and we don't light. But then as the show developed, it became less and less of a documentary. Rob, something I've been dying to bring up with you. I've been waiting for this episode.

is that, I don't know if you know this, but the storyline with Ron being available to everyday citizens

I'm pretty sure was inspired by the West Wing Big Block of Cheese episodes. Ooh, yes. That makes perfect sense. Mike, sorry, I think there's a smoke alarm going off in my house. I'll let you take over. I love that. This shit's real, man. Don't cut this out. Call 911. I'll come rescue you in my fireman outfit. Yeah, Big Block of Cheese Day, it's a famous West Wing episode, and it's based on a very famous thing that I think Andrew Jackson's White House...

would bring a gigantic block of cheese into the West Wing and invite the citizens to come and have some cheese and to bring their problems and thoughts. And it was meant to liaison the public with the government.

And that actually happened. We did an episode about it. And that is, I think, the inspiration for this storyline, is Ron being available to the public. Yeah, and it was kind of cool. I think there's kind of what ended up developing into a mutual admiration society between Aaron Sorkin and Mike Schur. And so Parks and Rec was kind of like the

you know, adorable comedy version of a show about public service, right? It was like the comedy version where it was optimistic and forward thinking and sort of progressive, but also, you know, a,

about good people trying to do good things. And obviously the West Wing was, was the drama version of that with much higher stakes and like nuclear football codes and all that stuff. But, and then later on in the series, Aaron Sorkin became a fan of Parks. And so he and Mike had a correspondence and ended up casting a few Parks actors in, in his, his later show, The Newsroom. Hale, I should probably report to you that the fire alarm was a false alarm, which is great.

Great news. Although, as I also just learned, a false alarm in a house with a one-year-old and a tiny dog is quite terrible. But anyway, we're talking actors and West Wing actors. I wanted to share, you know, every so often I'd suggest an actor for a role. And I think perhaps my most proud role

one that worked out. She got cast. It's next season. But Ethel Beavers, the actress Helen Slayton Hughes, did this amazing one-scene home run of

in the West Wing. It's a season four episode, Privateers, and she's Marion Coatsworth Hay. You should check it out if you haven't seen it. It's a master class. And I remember being in the writer's room and we needed someone for Ethel Beavers. This is actually going to be for one of my episodes for The Bubble. And I remember I leaned over and said to Mike, what about Marion Coatsworth Hay? And

And his eyes just lit up because he knew she would be perfect. And she was. And look, I think she's in like 10 or something episodes. So go, Helen. Yes. I love Aaron Sorkin. He would text me the minute the show finished airing. Invariably. I didn't know that. With direct quotes.

This is my favorite. This is my favorite. Yeah. And Rashida as well. He would always reach out. It was very, very sweet. He loves the show and would always reach out with really deep dive specific quotes that he loved. You're like, no, but he really watched it. He's not just saying it. Yeah.

Well, that's kind of cool, man. And then we had some other West Wing actors on the show, right? I think Brad Whitford was on the show. Whitford was on. Kind of interesting, yeah. I mean, the list of people who have made their way through the parks, that would be fun to do. We should make a list just to have a master list. Oh, a master list? Yeah. I mean, they've gone on to be superheroes. They've gone on to be leads of shows. Yeah, a lot of rants. Jenny Slate. I remember she was— Jenny Slate was just kind of starting out, and now she's, you know, killing it.

Ben Schwartz is in this episode. We wanted him to play Jean-Ralphio. He was our idea because he was at UCB. We knew him, whatever. And we called his reps. I don't know who it was, agent or manager or whatever. And they called back and like, yeah, he passed. We're like, no, no, no. We know Ben Schwartz. We know he wants to do this. There's no way he doesn't want to do the show. And so I don't know whether Harris texted him or you texted him or whatever. And then he was like, no, I'd love to be in. I want to do it. And then, of course, he got the job and he was on the show for

50 episodes or whatever. And like, by the way, that's an example of like the reps don't always pass on all the job offers. They're passing on stuff sometimes. Like you really got to get on them. And like, if we hadn't known Ben Schwartz, just known him as a guy and it was our friend, he wouldn't have been John Ralphio, which is just wild. Oh, I can tell you for me, um,

I did a character on Californication with David Duchovny that I loved. It's one of my favorite characters I ever got to do. Eddie Nero, again, another crazy, demented actor. And I just had a blast. But the only reason I got... My agents passed on it without ever telling me. And the hairdresser knew me, was working on David's hair. It was like, why don't we just call Rob and ask him? So that happened. But the worst of all of them was when the show Nip Tuck...

And I was a huge Nip Tuck fan. Huge, huge, huge, huge. Particularly in the first few seasons before I got totally off the rails. And I would watch the... I think there were two leads. One was, I think, named Christian Troy. And he was this just dashing plastic surgeon lunatic. It was great. I was like, I want to do a part like that. Why can't I find a part like that? I want to meet with this Ryan Murphy guy. And so I got a meeting with Ryan Murphy. And in the first few minutes of the meeting, it's me just...

just, you know, gushing about Nip Tuck in that part. And Ryan's getting paler and paler and paler and paler. And he goes, don't you know that I wrote that for you? Oh, my God.

I was like, what? He goes, of course, he responded to it. And we put together that my agents never gave it to me. By the way, I feel like you would fit into that Ryan Murphy verse. Anyway, like, yeah, it's like that is very why. Why are they doing that? Why are they passing on stuff? Oh, man, it doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen. And I will openly say in one of my interviews.

the example of me being very wrong. I remember heatedly arguing against April and Andy getting together. I love this. I love that you argued against it. I think you have to know when you were wrong, you know, and I remember like just really passionately. I didn't in my mind. I thought the whole thing was going to be Andy's rise to like eventually becoming like mayor of Pawnee or something super important in getting and back and

And so that I was shocked because then that wouldn't happen. And I also didn't love the age difference. Yes. But then there were talked about that. We talked about that a lot, but they were so charming together. And, you know, and it's that's like that couple. They were so great together. I would have been such a waste for that not to happen.

Thank God no one listened to me. Yeah, thank God you were very low-ranked on the show, as was I at the time. So no one was listening. It was like, you know what? We're going to do it because they're cute together. That was the TV version of it. It was like, that's so funny. And by the way, we do a little Gifts, Parties, Jobs watch because there's a lot of Gifts, Parties, and Jobs on the show. GPJ watch. April gets a new job in this one. So fun.

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Should we do a town hall? Yeah, let's do a town hall, Katie. We take questions from listeners and it's called the Pawnee Town Hall. So you want to answer a question with us? Yeah. All right. Where should we do the town hall today? Let's ask Katie. Where is your favorite place in Pawnee? Yeah. Is there a nice location or something like that? But also a place where people would feel comfortable coming to ask us questions.

The diner. JJ's? I love having it at JJ's. So we're going to take this town hall question. We're going to have our town hall here. Our town hall question is coming to us from Josh in LA. Josh asks, who is your favorite character to write for? Or for Rob, who is your favorite guest star to be in a scene with?

This is great that we have multiple writers here. Katie. Multiple writers. Yeah, we can vehemently disagree. I mean, just to make sure it's clear, this is just who I had the easiest time pitching on. Not my favorite actor. That's right. It's your favorite character to pitch. Not your favorite actor. Yeah. Favorite character you like to pitch for. I had the easiest time pitching for Ron Swanson. Wow, I love that. And you take credit for all of his best lines. That's like...

I created all the characters on the show. Yeah. You created and named them and you cast all the... Yeah, exactly. You often would ADR in post all their lines as well. Exactly. Sometimes you would do the voiceover. Exactly, yeah. Ron Swanson, that's a good answer. That's a good answer. A very fun character to write for. And to be clear, no one at the show would think, oh, we need a Ron Swanson joke? Get Katie in here. I'm just saying I had the most fun...

pitching on that character. Do you have a proudest line that you wrote? Doesn't have to be for Ron, but it could be. Did you remember? First of all, do you remember?

I have memories of lines I think I came up with. Yes. I can't do it. I know that there'll be three people somewhere that's like, I fucking came up with that line. I'm not doing it. I'm not. This is a real thing. It's too scary. Listen, in the West Wing, I played a speechwriter. And it's like, you know, anything a president ever says in public is written by somebody else and you never take credit for it.

I think a lot of people who don't work in entertainment or whatever think that, oh, maybe on a staff, like everyone, every writer has a different character they write for. Like, that's it. And then you all kind of like, okay, you write for Katie writes for Ron, right? As we all know, and Yang writes for whoever. And like, but it's actually really not split up like that. Like everyone writes,

I feel like everyone on staff wrote lines for every character. It all gets sort of mixed up and you never know who's going to pitch for whom, you know, that's that. And that's kind of the fun of it. And we get to write off, you know, go off and write a draft. You obviously write jokes for every character. And that's, that's really fun for, for me personally. Um,

God, it's hard because so many of them are so fun. I mean, I think one of the favorites for a lot of the writers was just Andy because you could write kind of silly dumb guy jokes where it's like, okay, it was hard to top him in a scene sometimes when he would get the blow. I definitely wrote a lot of stuff for Aziz's character. We became pretty good friends over the course of the show and then we ended up doing a show together, so that kind of made sense. And then I think, honestly, at the table reads, I...

I would do Aziz when he wasn't there and I would do Rob when he wasn't there. So I was like, okay, well, it was fun to write for those guys because like sometimes I would do them at the table read. I would fill in for them. So, you know, those were some fun ones. I always find that so stressful doing a role at the table read. Yeah. Did you ever, I feel like you played Anne sometimes. Who do you remember playing? No, I just remember a time, Greg, you may remember this, but I had like one line, but there was a word in it.

I was like, wait, do I know how to pronounce this correctly? And I even asked Gore right beforehand, like, how do you pronounce this? And he told me. And when I got to it, I got so in my head and I kept saying the word over and over again, wrong. And to the point that it was like, oh dear God, stop.

It was like one of the most traumatizing. It was like a full minute of time passed until I finally got through it. And then afterwards, I find this so funny. I know I'm bringing up traumatizing memories, but they're the funniest to me. You need all perspectives, Katie. It can't all be fun and games. It can't all be fun and games. These are the best things. Like, I loved all these people, but these are very funny to me. But I remember afterwards in the room, I was like, you know what?

Maybe that wasn't so bad. Like, maybe I'm building up in my head how weird that was. And then I remember Greg and Mike came in from the notes meeting and Greg sat down. He was like, what happened to you in there? Wait, wait, we got to bring up one more story just with you and Greg, which do you remember this? Oh, God.

Wait, do you remember this at some point? Maybe you should tell the story because I, do you remember the story? I do, I do. Okay, you tell the story because it happened to you. So you've got to get to the story. This whole episode has been like, it's been a sci-fi movie to me where I feel like everything's been opened up and I remember everything clearly now. But tell me if this is it. I had a headache at

I had a really bad headache. And Greg was gone for the day, and Mike was doing something elsewhere with the show. And everyone was like, why don't you take a nap in Greg's office? And I was like, really? You think that's okay? And everyone was like, yeah, go take a nap. He's off doing some other show. Yeah. He's doing some other stuff, yeah. And then I went into his office, and I'm like, okay, this...

I guess this is where we know it's fine. I'm going to take a nap. And I took a nap, like lights off. And then the next thing I know, I heard the door open, like time had passed and the door opens and the light comes on. And then it's like Mike with like a casting team. And he's like, what are you doing? Like they were just about to start these like professional auditions. It was like the middle of the day. And I'm just sprawled out across this sofa. Like, like clearly not someone that had just laid down, but someone that was in a deep sleep. Yeah.

He came in. Yeah, he was going to do like reads in there or something, right? Yeah. And I didn't know how to explain it. I was like, yeah, I'm sorry. And I just like got up and left. I was like, there's nothing to say. Those people are like, what's going on in this office? Like Mike is the showrunner. He's about to do some meeting or something. And then there's just a woman sleeping in the office. It's so wild. Oh, God.

Rob, do you have a favorite guest star that you like to be in a scene with? It could be anybody. Oh, my God. Someone from the regular cast? Well, I told you I think that the most exciting day I had was when I realized I was in a scene with DJ Roomba. Okay. Well, that's a good one. I mean, I took a picture with it and texted everybody I knew. That was pretty great. Yeah, I mean, I...

I'd be hard-pressed to think of the cast because everybody brought a different flavor. You know what I mean? I knew when I was working with Amy, it was going to be something really particular to that chemistry I have with Amy and same with Pratt and same with Ron, all of them, with everybody. It would be hard to choose. I wish I gave that answer. Yeah.

It's a great answer. You know, listen, you know, it's all it's all good. But DJ Roomba, let's face it. Hard, hard to top that. There you go. All right. That's the town hall. We're going to wrap it up at JJ's Diner. Thank you so much, Katie Dippold, for joining us. Thank you, guys. We have to have you come back for more. That was really, really fun. And thanks for listening, everybody. Rate and review on iTunes. Thank you to producer Sheltie. And thank you, Katie Dippold. Thank you, producer Greg. Bye from Honey. Bye.

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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