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The pits we fell into And we're putting on a podcast Then we'll send it up into the sky Parks and recollection Come on a podcast Spread your wings and fly
Well, hello, everybody. It is your favorite podcast, Parks and Recollection. I am Rob Lowe, and I'm joined with my partner, Alan Yang. How you doing, Rolo? What's going on? This is a Wednesday. We're recording this on a Wednesday. It's amazing. I know. It's exciting for us to actually not be doing one of these on a weekend. I mean, it makes it feel like it's an actual weekend.
It seems more professional, I think. It's more of a workday. It's going to have a workday feel, just like put on your hard hat, get your lunch pail, and record a podcast during your lunch break. Right, Rob? And we got a good one today. This is a – well, I'll save my comments for the appropriate time in this discussion, but I particularly like a very specific area.
of this episode. I think I know what you're talking about and it's a honestly I would say a legendary episode. I would say it is up there in the annals. It's retired to the rafters. The episode is Media Blitz written by Harris Whittles directed by David Rogers. Original air date February 17th 2011 and it is episode 5 of season 3. One of the finest seasons of the show. Quick blurb Leslie hits the Pawnee media circuit to promote the Harvest Festival but Ben freaks out on air when his past is exposed.
Yeah, really, really wonderful episode. Our notes to start the episode number one. This is a big one. Rob Lowe. Rob Lowe in the building. Rob Lowe's opening credits moment is at 245. Do you remember this? Do you remember this scene? It's point, it's double finger guns, I believe. Double finger guns, that's right. And you're wearing like workout clothes. I don't know, that's like, I mean, you're wearing workout clothes a lot in the show, but in this specific shot, I believe. I think it's in the, is it the scene in the,
Did I go visit Ann Perkins in the hospital? Am I stretching, I think, in this? Yes, I think, yeah. You're probably wearing some precursor to Bumbleflex, but yeah, you're pointing at the camera. And yeah, it's a trademark movement. It goes in the opening credits. I love identifying those moments. So thank you for that research. I wanted to pop in to tell you guys, I think the exact moment it's Aubrey. April's come to talk to you in your office about potentially moving to Indianapolis. And we have...
and behind you stretching, and you're walking April through the possibilities of what life in Indianapolis can be like. I knew the stretching was a very big thing there for a while. And I'm not the most limber person. Chris Traeger is. Rob Lowe is not.
That's why you're one of the finest actors in America. It's the stretch. People didn't know. People thought you were flexible. And that's what they say in acting. You know, I thought the part was really a stretch. Get it? There you go. There you go. Our second notes note. Ben's backstory was originally intended for Amy. So I guess Amy, I mean Leslie. But the Ben backstory, yeah, very, very specific and it gets hashed out. We'll talk more about it later. But...
That was something that was thrown around in the writer's room as potentially an interesting backstory for Leslie Knope. And it later got repurposed for this new character. I think it all worked out for the best. But yeah, we will discuss that in a bit. Third Knope's note and final one. Matt Besser, who plays Crazy Ira, founded the UCB, Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, alongside Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts. So it was cool to have him in the show. He and Amy obviously go way, way, way, way back in the show.
And yeah, he plays a prominent role in this episode. And the Upright Citizens Brigade is – I mean, I'm always blown away by that. We take it for granted because we are friends with all these people, Alan. But the fact that somebody was like, I know, let's start our own comedy troupe is such a cool thing. It's so super cool. I mean, in the annals of the Groundlings and –
Second City. Yeah. You know, to have and to have it be in that mentioned in that breath, which, of course, it is. And for good reason. I will say during the making of this show, I personally spent a lot of time at the UCB theater. I wasn't a performer there, but I just, you know, so many people in comedy were in and around the theater and they were performed there, you know, backstage, the green room, like all these guys, Nick Crowe, who's in this episode, Besser, Walsh, all those guys. And then the younger generation who is now
killing it out there. Aubrey Aziz, they would all perform. A lot of our writers perform here. Harris Whittles, Katie Dippold, et cetera. So many people there. So yeah, we spent a good amount of time there and it was a bit of a breeding ground for Parks and Rec. You could go to the performer page and identify a bunch of people who did guest spots and recurred and were in the regular cast as well. So really important theater. And yeah, it's a very, very big spawning ground for comedy.
Shall we jump into the synopsis? Oh, yes. This is the best part. Leslie, Tom, and Ben promote the upcoming Harvest Festival on several Pawnee media outlets, starting with the local morning radio show, Crazy Ira and the Douche. Matt Besser and Nick Kroll.
The duo begin asking Ben questions about his time as a teen mayor in Partridge, Minnesota. Having discovered he bankrupted the town, Ben responds awkwardly and is unable to defend himself to crazy Ira and the douches tots. Tom proposes dumping Ben from future media interviews, but Leslie insists they cannot because he's the only one who can handle complicated questions about the budget.
Um, so yeah, we talked about Ben's backstory. It comes up very loosely, the whoop, there it is stuff, uh, in the master plan. And then, um, here it comes, the chickens come home to roost because he actually bankrupted the town, which I thought was a very funny twist and very specific. I think, I believe Mike Shore came up with it a long time ago and it really fit in well with his character. And, you know, he delivers such amazing comedy, uh, in this episode based on that emotional, very emotional grounded basis. This is a great, um, this is, I think the first episode, uh,
Of the sort of Chris Ben episodes where Adam just gets to throw down. And I think where you guys as writers just, you know, gave him the touches as the basketball players say, you know, you got to get you got to feed the big man, give him his touches. And he got him in this episode and he just crushes. He's so funny. Yeah.
trying to explain himself in these interview situations. Yeah, and that's one of the great things about Adam is his incredible amount of range. I mean, if you've seen him in Step Brothers, if you've seen him in Parks and Rec, if you've seen him in the current show Severance on Apple TV, which just got renewed for a second season, congrats to Adam. But no, he does drama, he does comedy, and he does comedy in several different ways. Like in this episode, he's very sort of
you know, he's fumbling and he's awkward and he's nervous. And then if you watch him in Step Brothers or some other shows, including the one I'm working on right now, he's kind of a douche and he's, he's, he's kind of an asshole. And in this one, he plays opposite the douche and is instead playing like kind of nerdy and sweet. And that's kind of two different comedy wheelhouses. And you're right. I think, you know, we were adapting to Adam and learning what his strengths were. And it kind of was like Chris Traeger. We had a, you know, a clear game for him right off the bat. And now we're kind of finding Adam's groove and,
This is one of his biggest comedy episodes, to be honest. I also love the... I think they've made appearances, but this is the first big...
Crazy Ira and the Douche episode, where they get a lot of screen time. I think they've been on before, if I'm not mistaken. I think they might have been mentioned. I'm not sure if they appeared, Greg. We can maybe check on that. But, you know, one of the things I would definitely want to talk about was Nick Kroll, who, you know, at the time was somewhat established, but was still a bit up and coming. You know, this was a decade ago, a
if not a little more. And, you know, now he's carved out such an amazing place for himself. You know, he created the show Big Mouth and he did Oh Hello with John Mulaney and he's just done so much. I'm so happy for Kroll. He and I go way back and I remember when he was, you know, an up-and-coming stand-up and improv guy and just kind of getting out there and Kroll just...
you know, treats everyone with a lot of respect and he's super funny and really talented. And it's good to see a good guy really, really come into his own. And man, he's got his own comedy empire now. So shout out to Kroll. He's amazing in this. And what better guy to do multiple voices than Nick Kroll? You know, he's able to do it all. But these morning shows are insane. And like, so you have to...
Like if you're in LA, here's a little behind the show business thing. You're in LA, you're in the LA time zone, right? But these morning shows are obviously during the morning, during drive time. So you have to get up like five in the morning, LA time to do drive time East coast. So you're like-
No coffee, barely awake. And they're like, you're going to be on in about 30 seconds. You'll be talking to Billy and Silly from Philly. And it's the morning zoo river. They come on and they're just like, ah, blah, blah. And you're like, what the? And they all sound exactly alike. No matter what city you're in, it's the river, it's the zoo, blah, blah.
It's the gang, whatever it is. Yeah, that was kind of the origin of this story, I think, is like every city has it. Right in L.A. when I was growing up, it was Kevin and Bean. So it was Kevin and Bean. And they had, by the way, Jimmy, the sports guy, was Jimmy Kimmel. He ended up becoming very, very successful, but he was the radio guy. And yeah, it's this morning zoo type thing. We also loved thinking about and pitching on the sound effects that the
kind of unfortunately named China Joe would play because Greg Levine, there's actually a little tidbit, Greg Levine would play sound effects in the writer's room, as we've mentioned in the past. And in later episodes, he would replace China Joe as the character Jewish Greg. So he would actually be a play essentially himself in the show and he would play the sound effects. And by the way, same kind of deadpan expression, which really cracked me up in this. And
You know, there's some gems in this. Certainly, there's this joke that seems to me like a Harris Whittles joke, which is Leslie saying, there will be hay rides at the Harvest Festival. And Carole says, hay ride me is what Crazy Ira's mom said to me. So there we go. That's very vaudeville. Very vaudeville. I'll never forget when I got named Jewish Greg because I think it's realized that's the part I was born to play when we were in the...
the writer's room and the actor played China Joe, who's amazing, wasn't available, right? And everyone said I should do it based on playing sound effects in the writer's room. And I think Mike said, well, what should he be called? And it might have been Dan Gore. It probably was Dan Gore from across the room shouts, Jewish Greg. No thought instantly put in the script. No other second pitch. It was Dan Gore.
Perfect.
Not from South, but yeah. You know, you've got to stretch, like I'm saying. You've got to, you know, perform a little bit. This character's from Eagleton in the show, so, you know, he has a slight Southern accent. It doesn't really make sense, but it got in the cut, so there it is. Well, you know that they say that Indiana, where our show takes place, and Ohio are more newscasters and famous broadcasters have come out of that area of the country because of...
the lack of geographically identifiable language traits. Yes, that's right. It's very flat. It's very sort of, I love looking up these sort of, you know, linguistic maps of America and what terms are used where and what accents are used where. It's fascinating. If you Google this stuff, you can find it and you can take a quiz. And if you answer the quiz truthfully, it can usually pinpoint exactly where you're from. It's really kind of cool. But I
But I recommend that. I don't know what it's called, but if you Google that, you can find it. It's pretty fun. And yeah, this episode really broke open, you know, just to give you some insight into the writer's room. We realized it was ultimately a little bit more about Ben than about Leslie. You know, we had had
umpteen 20-some episodes about Leslie. And in this one, it's like, yeah, let's learn more about Ben because he's a huge part of the show. And it's episode five, season three, and he's going to be a love interest for Leslie. And it really started to incorporate Ben into the storyline. And again, building on what Adam did in the Ron and Tammy episode, being nervous around cops. In this one, we also decided he's nervous on TV and nervous around Pert Happily. So we'll get to that portion. But let's move into the next part of the synopsis.
The other story, April accepts an offer from Chris, played by Rob Lowe, to move to Indianapolis to be his secretary. Andy begs April to reconsider, offering to perform all the tasks she hates doing for a month. Ron volunteers to help, claiming that he does not want to lose April as an assistant, while denying he cares about April and Andy's relationship. Anne is increasingly frustrated that Chris had not asked her about coming to Indianapolis with him, and is concerned about where the relationship is headed.
So, yeah, I mean, this was and this is a little bit of the research. How strategic was the Indianapolis storyline? Was it schmuck bait? And that's kind of a term that the writers use when there's a plot turn or a possibility or a threat or something that increases the stakes that the audience knows is not going to happen. I would argue, you know, schmuck bait that like Leslie's going to die in the episode. Like she's not going to die. Like the show's about her. But I would say this is a little less schmuck bait for me because, number one,
you know, Adam and Rob had just started on the show and it was for all people knew it was possible that they'd be written out or that Rob is going on to star in his own show or whatever. So it's a little bit less in that respect. And I also think, you know, there's precedent for shows having someone move away into another city and just staying there for a little while and coming back. So I think it's borderline schmuck bait. But yeah, that's a term you can throw around with your friends who are some for some reason impressed by you knowing comedy TV writer lingo is schmuck bait.
It's a good one. It's one of my favorite writer's room terms. And it happens all the time. You know, also worth adding, but might be helpful, is that we also were trying to build in, and not a spoiler for the next episode, but a major storyline that was going to be happening with Chris and Anne in the next episode, if I remember correctly, about their relationship. And so the idea being that Indianapolis was a real thrill,
out there. It just might not have been for that character. And it also, I think, also helped to establish that as Chris perhaps is leaving for Indianapolis, Ben is slowly starting to fall in love with Pawnee at the same time. Absolutely. And,
You know, we also see in this sort of story that Andy and April are growing closer together and we see Ron emerge as their father figure because it's just like such a natural role for him. Even, by the way, let's shout out to the cold open where he's typing on the typewriter, one of my favorite cold opens, and he's just listing all the words he knows and just typing them all. I think that was born out of just the idea that Ron is a sort of man out of time and he's just like, he's just placed on the earth, he's eternal, and he loves this typewriter, he hates technology, and it's so fun. He's the Tom Hanks of
Pawnee. Tom Hanks famously only uses typewriters and collects them. Yes, he's a huge... That's the way to get to Tom Hanks. If you ever want to talk to Tom Hanks, get really into typewriters and you can finagle a meeting with him, I bet, because that's his passion. When you come out to LA and you guys are on Hollywood Boulevard, because all the stars are there always, walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard, and you see Tom Hanks, you don't want to hit him with Saving Private Ryan stuff. No.
or any of that. Talk Underwood. Underwood typewriters. Is that a type of typewriter? I think it is. Yes, Underwood. Okay, let's see. There's a Royal. It's not Royale. There's a Royal. There's an Underwood. Those are the only two I knew. I was terrible at typing, incidentally. Yeah.
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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 have to point this out. If there's anyone who wrote for the show at the time, they will know what I'm talking about. So if any of them are listening, there is a man, a citizen who comes in to the desk and asks Andy a question. He asked him to find his bird.
And Andy says, okay, or whatever. And then the man says, there's no time he can fly. And we just want to say that there's just for some reason, the way this guy did that read, it was our favorite thing maybe ever in the show. It's just a day player. It's just, we would say there's no time he can fly every day in the writer's room, just imitating this guy's cadence, something about how he delivered it.
I don't know. It was because it was not how we expected. I think it was not. I think he hit the word fly. I don't know. It was just something about it. So if you watch this episode at something around five minutes in, he says there's no time he can fly. It's up there. So we'll point these out periodically over the course of the show. The things that we just stuck in the writer's room for some reason. I also, it's that thing of I'm never endingly fascinated with how an actor can be
Horrible. Yes. With just one line.
or crush it. Transcendent. With just one line. Transcendent. One line is all it takes. It's all it takes. Sometimes, Rolo, sometimes the borderline between the two is really faint because sometimes it's the borderline between horrendous and genius. We've been there. We've seen it. We're like, oh, this is not usable. Then it's like, oh, they did it and it's crazy but it's interesting. But that is, I totally get it also when actors come in and they want to put a spin on the line. Usually I'm trying to like, hey man,
say it like a normal human being and we'll get in the cut and it'll be all good like that. I don't want to be patronizing, but don't put a crazy accent or spin on it and we'll be good. But yeah, sometimes it's genius. The famous story that I always love is Gary Oldman. You know the story. I think I heard about the story like two days ago, but go ahead. It's in the movie with Natalie Portman and John Reno. The professional. The professional. Leon. Leon the professional. Yes. The professional. And he
He says, I want all of the police here. I want you to get them here. And the guy goes, who, how many do you want? And he turns and he literally screams every and it's very famous, like on the internet. Yeah. And it was, and it's, it's, it's famous way over the top, like beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond the top. And, uh, I read an interview with Gary and he was like,
The director just said, okay, now just really yell one, just scream one. And they both were like, this is ridiculous. This is, they did, he did it more for fun than anything. And it's one of the most famous moments of, of his career. Well, that also, by the way, is the actor's lesson. And he knows this better than anyone, but you know, I talked to my girlfriend about it. She's like, look,
Look, if they ask you to do something crazy and you do it once, you know they're going to put it in the cut. Like you just as soon as you you have it put on film, you know they have the option because it exists on celluloid. They can put it into the movie or show. So that is the actor's risk, you know.
But I also love thinking about, I thought where you're going with it was I heard a story. This is not about Gary Oldman. It was about, I believe it was about Pierce Brosnan, but some director was talking about him and he was like, yeah, he showed up to set and we had not discussed this and he was just doing like a crazy accent. I don't know if there was like Southern accent or just like, and he was like, oh, we don't want this. And it's just spitting the rest of the movie, like trying to convince him not to do that. And then you think about like Pirates of the Caribbean or whatever,
Johnny Depp showed up and did that accent and it worked. It like, no one wanted, I don't think anyone wanted him to do that. I think he just did it and it made the movie somehow. So these things you never know. It's the single greatest acting choice in the history of the business, in my opinion. And it's batshit crazy and it's like a $250 million bet. You know, I'm sure when the studio got those dailies, they were like, what is he doing? This is not going to work. No,
For sure, they were like, can't you be more like Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia? Yeah, exactly. They were probably frantically on the phone. It's like, can we get Robert Downey Jr. in here to play the pirate? Someone else. But it worked. So I don't know. That seemed to have worked. All right. Moving on with the episode. Ben's past comes up during Leslie's interview with newspaper reporter Shauna Mulway-Tweep. Shout out to Alison Becker.
who asks why Pawnee should accept financial guidance from someone with a poor budget-managing record like Ben. Tom and Ben go on the television show You Heard with Perd in hopes of redeeming Ben's image, but this interview is even worse. Ben launches into a furious, incoherent rant when his past is brought up. As a result, several businesses consider pulling their sponsorships from the Harvest Festival. This is one of the greatest sections in Parks history, this scene here. Yes.
Who hasn't had gay thoughts? Sometimes I think I need glasses. Is there a bird? Another bird joke. I swear I keep seeing a bird in the studio. I don't know what was going on in the writer's room. We just kept thinking about birds. I also want to add the quality of the video. First of all, Aziz holds up a DVD. He's like, here's the tape. And then he puts it in and it's like very low quality. He's like, what is it? This is just a different era. It's like, it's very quaint. It's very cute. And, you know, any time Pert Happily is around, money. It's one of my favorite. I mean,
I don't know. In the citizenry of Pawnee, it's so hard because there's so many killers that Perd made me laugh. He might be my favorite. He might be. It's just, it never got old. He has one lane and one joke and it never, ever failed to crush. He's really up there for me. And also, it's so fat. Everyone loved him. So that's why you see him revolve from he's a reporter with one line to he's doing the worm on
the telethon and then he has his own talk show now it's like the writers are just on like he is there he was our crack like he was our crack okay he's like we just cannot like we would write him into every episode at a certain point at a certain point like he was so the character got so crazy he would pretend to hold a microphone he wouldn't even have a mic in his hand he's like i'm pretty happily and i'm really realizing now i don't have a microphone like it's just like what but he would do everything in that one cadence and it was so funny and it's just
I don't know. He just was perfect for the role. And obviously, he was a real newscaster. That's why. And every time, it makes me laugh also because sometimes you'd be on set with Jay, who played Pert Happily, and he would kind of read it more normally. And then I would go up to him and he'd be like, more like a newscaster? I was like, yeah, just do it more like a newscaster and just do it like a newscaster. That's every cadence. That's the bit. And he killed it. And by the way, if you're casting shows now and you read for newscasters, you'll see Jay Jackson. He'll come up and read. He's been a newscaster in tons of things.
And I like to think that they're all part of the Parks and Rec cinematic universe. Like, I believe he's in the Fast and Furious movies. Whenever I watch Wolf Blitzer, he's like a purred hapley because he cannot come back from a news report
Without giving you a per tap like, yes, the Ukraine is a violent place where war is happening and bad images continue. In a story that won't stop unfolding, the Ukraine war continues. It just like just like just to say, yeah, it continues to unfold. Yeah, it just...
Endless fun to write. And I think that was some of the most fun we had in the writer's room was just pitching on per capita lines. We would write tons of alts. There's also a great scene where Tom drives Ben to the interview. And it's fun to see Aziz and Adam together. You know, I think they have a very fun dynamic. I think it led up to seeing these scenes probably helped inspire us.
with the Entertainment 720 storyline. And, you know, behind the scenes, Adam and Aziz became pretty good friends. They're both men with narrowish shoulders who have a good sense of fashion and a sense of style. And, you know, you just keep going and you maintain these friendships in the business. So, yeah, great dynamic between the two of them that keeps persisting throughout the rest of the show. They can almost share clothes. They can almost share clothes. I think Adam's a bit bigger. So, but yeah, yeah.
All right. Trying one last effort. Leslie decides to use her upcoming interview on Pawnee Today with Joan Calamezzo to perform damage control. During the interview, Joan asks biased questions about the festival and Ben's past. Annoyed, Leslie brings Ben on stage to give him a final opportunity to explain himself. Ben again begins to freeze up at the questions from people calling in, but finally pulls it together and vigorously defends himself.
By the end, the questions switch back from Ben to the festival itself, making the media blitz a successful one after all.
What a story. What a story. Joan Calamezzo. I mean, they're all here. Another one. Yeah, this is kind of like, this is, again, kind of the peak of, look, of showing the media personalities in Pawnee. Joan Calamezzo, played by Mo Collins, was really fun to write for as well. She was in a lot of episodes. And, you know, I think the contrast between Joan and Pert is really funny, too. She's, I like when Joan Calamezzo is, gets increasingly more drunk as she,
as as we get to see her and Pawnee yes I think the in in my mind the head canon is that her personal life keeps getting worse and worse unfortunately for her and so her descent into uh maybe uh alcoholism is increasing but yeah there's there's that legendary later scene god I'm trying to remember the episode where uh uh Tom and Ben are talking to Joan Kalamatsu and kind of being flirty with her and she's like I gotta go to the uh
to the bat. What is the joke here, Greg? I'm trying to, I'm going to, I'm going to mess it up, but it's basically like, are you going to go powder your vagina? It was, I think the, the punchline. And I, that, that scene, they could not say that line without laughing. Like it just, we'll get to that episode, but,
It was one of the longest I've ever seen people not be able to not break. Like, they just could not stop doing it. They're just laughing every time. And it was Aziz and Adam again. I'm pretty sure that the episode, so you know, I think it's born and raised in the third episode of season four when they're on the book tour. We'll get there. We'll see you in 20-some odd weeks. Yeah, but yeah, it's... But again, this is kind of like...
you know the the genesis and and uh the height of a lot of these media personalities and and uh yeah you're right we kind of figured out again how to write joan and make her funnier and funnier and funnier i think as this as the season progressed i just wanted to pop in with one thing since we've been talking so much today about actors delivering excuse me the actors delivering lines like but delivering something uh well is i remember allison jones would sometimes say about uh
a potential actor, you know, they're great. No one's going to do a better job at this, right? Just trust me or this person has it in them. And sometimes when you're developing a character that's going to, you know, probably stick around for a while, you want someone who has the ability to keep coming back and back and delivering. And so it
you know, Mo is another great example of nailing it on the head from the get-go and knowing that's just the beginning of something great. Yeah. Yeah. And that's always a catnip for a showrunner too. It's like, if they come in and kill, they're recurring. I guess a little tip for actors out there from the writer's point of view, you know, you do a good job in one episode, you never know, you might come back for 15 more. And, and that's, that's kind of, you know, the case in shows that used to be on for so many seasons. It's like, man, you can really sort of carve out your little niche in this ecosystem. Yeah.
As we mentioned earlier, the callers on Pawnee today are Katie Dippold, Ayesha Muhar, and Emily Spivey, who were all writers on the show and also played small parts in the rest of the series. So they
They played, here are the characters. Obviously, I was the bassist of Mouseret. Dr. Van Dyne was who Emily Spivey played. Curp Sluice was who Aisha played. And Mindy Marfan was who Katie Dippold played in the show. I believe Dippold might have been in the show twice or something. Yeah, I did a scene with Dippold. I did a scene with Dippold. Coming up in a future episode.
All normal Mike Shore names. We buried the lead with Curb Sluice. Again, just a very friendly, normal person in Aisha playing a very... I guess I kind of remember she worked as a clerk in a store and her name just happened to be Curb Sluice.
Is that an actual, is it some kind of a name or is it just letters put together? It's complete gibberish. It's spelled K-E-R-P, last name S-L-U-S-S-E. It's total nonsense. There's no parody there or semblance of anything. That was, I think, a later season by which point we were just making up sounds. And there was never a point where the network was like, you know, we looked at the episode in our notes and we're kind
of bumped with this name kerps loose they just let you guys do whatever you wanted clearly at a certain point it felt like maybe there was uh no one at the helm of the ship there it was all right they were just like you know this thing's running itself it seems to be fine no one's uh going into the credits and uh looking at those names
Yeah, certainly like you can go for my name Chang or sometimes Yang and then Dr. Van Dyne and then immediately into Mindy Marfan and Curb Sluice. That's the that's the basic the genesis and the evolution of the show. It gets crazier and crazier.
All right. Meanwhile, Chris tells Anne that after Indianapolis, he will be sent to a different city. The two agree they need to talk about the future of their relationship. Andy's difficult day of running errands for April culminates with him getting arrested after April's sister Natalie claimed he's kidnapping her when he's merely picking her up from school. Ron approaches April and tells her that she should either forgive Andy or cut him loose, believing that she's only stringing Andy along and going to Indianapolis to spite him. When Andy returns, April finally forgives him and the two kiss.
Wow. Okay, a lot going on. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen the show, but something's brewing between the two of them. I also love this
This little bit that when Andy picks up April's sister, Natalie, it's filmed in front of the Walter Reed Middle School, where that's where you went, Greg, right? That's your school. Greg's junior high school. Pretty cool. Absolutely. I loved it. It was a great school. It also made an appearance. Rob, you probably could talk about this too. You made an appearance at the 2008 Republican National Convention. Do you remember this moment? This is my favorite thing ever. This nugget is amazing research. This is amazing. It almost feels like it can't be true.
But John McCain accepted his party's nomination to be their candidate, and they projected Walter Reed Middle School behind him, but they were supposed to and thought that it was going to be Walter Reed Medical Center.
Like that is a screw up. So this feels like a precursor to the Four Seasons fucking landscaping thing, right? That's amazing. Give me that. Tell that story, Alan, because that Four Seasons thing is beyond belief. I mean, this was the Trump administration. They were supposed to book the Four Seasons Hotel and instead they booked the Four Seasons landscaping. So Rudy Giuliani ended up doing a press conference in front of a landscaping building.
That was real. That was real. I mean, for anyone who didn't hear about this, I guess get on the internet more. But I'm, by the way, looking at photos right now of John McCain in front of Walter Reed Middle School. And, you know, it's pretty fantastic. It looks like just like a regular ass middle school. And the caption is, was it meant to be Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which takes care of injured veterans? So, yeah.
It's great. Yeah, I think it was a giant fuck-up. I think it was a mistake. The tide that turned the election.
Well, that's... But for that... That just goes to show, like, the internet was in such a different state 14 years ago. It's like, we only barely remember this, and this would have been huge. Like, it would have been a news cycle, right? It would have been maybe not quite as big as Four Seasons Landscaping because they physically went there and pretended they didn't mess up. Like, he went there and was, like, just doing the press conference from there, and...
So this is less bad than this, but he's standing in front of a green screen with a middle school behind him, which makes zero sense. So look it up. It's real. It's a real thing. Great, great research on that one. That is hilarious. And look, it's a Parks and Rec tie-in. It's where Andy gets arrested. And he'll show up on the show. That's right. And John McCain does later show up on the show. That's
That's insane. Everything is connected, right? Everything is everything. That's really funny. So, you know, and also a reoccurring appearance of April's sister, Natalie, again, named after Aubrey's real life sister. And
Again, if you haven't watched the show, turn off your earphones or AirPods or whatever right now. They kiss in this one. Four episodes later, they'll be married. So it's a pretty radical love story. And yeah, I was very happy with how that accelerated. I'd say. God, that went fast. Hey, man, they're kids in love. And I like to think that they're still together. So sometimes that works out. All right. Final thoughts on the episode, Rob?
Again, this is an Adam Scott tour de force.
It just warms my heart to go back and look at it and just see him crushing like this. And again, it's the – just the notion of a press tour in Pawnee is so delicious for me. Local media – like when I'm traveling the country, I love watching local news and local car commercials. All that stuff is always –
just so fun. And I loved this episode because it is the Pawnee version of all that.
Yeah. And I got a shout out Adam in the tag, also very funny. More like Turd Crappley, legendary line. I think that's a gif as well. A little bit of wordplay. But yeah, this was a great kind of Springfield meets emotional backstory for Adam's character episode. And it's just, again, building out the world. It's something that we were consciously doing. We did talk about how
It behooved us as a staff to build out these tertiary characters and make them into interesting personalities you come back to again and again. And it really bears fruit and it bears fruit down the road. And again, this feels like kind of still the beginning of that aspect of the show. So, yeah, really fun one. And by the way, part of, you know, arguably the strongest arc in this entire show, which is which is the Harvest Festival arc, which culminates, I believe, in two more episodes.
So and it's all I like also how it's all tied in. Right. This is still, you know, raising awareness for the Harvest Festival. It's it's serialized, but only lightly. So it also kind of fits into its own little its own little episodic form.
Oops moment of the episode. We see none here, so perfect episode, arguably. Yeah, you know, I got to tell you, I was doing a lot of research trying to find something. I couldn't find it. Maybe if anyone watching at home has found something, they could let us know in the comments. We could correct our mistake on air.
but I couldn't see anything. That's right. And to be clear, fact check the episode, not this episode of the podcast, because we probably said 50 things wrong. So the episode itself, it's like John McCain never ran for president. He didn't. It's like things that you thought, you thought didn't happen. Episode MVP, most valuable Pawnee in which character moment in this episode sticks out the most to you and why? What do you say, Rolo? Oh, Adam Scott, Ben Wyatt. Come on. Yes. Gotta be. Gotta be. Who hasn't had gay thoughts? Legendary moments. Yeah.
And my backup MVP I have a couple Crazy Aaron the Douche Of course The fart sound effects China Joe And shout out to the guy Who said There's no time He can fly About his missing pet bird You'll always have A place in your heart I hope you hear this episode And you're right into us Very good job Listeners let us know Who your MVP Most valuable Pawnean is By tweeting At Team Coco Podcast Or just use the hashtag Hashtag Parks and Recollection Shall we go to the town Howl?
This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.
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Do you want to go to the town hall? I think you do. Plenty of good locations. Plenty of good locations. Where do you want to do this, Rollo? I think we need to do it at the studio of Crazy Ira and the Douche. We need to do it in studio. In studio appearance. It's one of those early morning press junket things that Rob loves so much. Rob's promoting his latest project. It's a film. And we're in there doing the town hall at the same time. It's a...
Crazy Iron and the Douches studio. The town howl, because it's a town howl this time, comes to us from Jonna, it says.
Hi, my name is Jonna, and my question for both or either of you is, could you tell us maybe your top three favorite episodes? I don't know if this question has been answered before, but my favorite episode, personally, is the telephone one. I think I called just to tell you that that's my favorite episode. But if you have any you want to share, I would love to hear what they are. Have a great day.
Wow. That's a hard one. That is a big question. I mean, we can brainstorm. We don't have to have three immediate off the top of my head because I know a few popped into my mind. A few popped into my mind, and I don't want to put words in your mouth. Definitely one of them is one we just did recently, flu season, is up there. So I don't know if that's on your list, Rob, but that's up there for me. If I had to pick one, it would be flu season. It is the one that we...
The TV Academy, the Emmys people have a thing that they invite certain shows that they like.
And you get to show one show. And when they invited Parks and Rec, that was the show that we showed. So for me, I think that's probably the one. But there's so many other ones, too. There's so many. So I will list a couple that stick out for me. And some of them are coming up, actually. There's one that kind of I have an emotional connection to, which is
April and Andy's Fancy Party, which is the one where they get married. Sorry, spoiler alert. One of the reasons I have really fond memories of this one is because I got to be on set a lot. It's a Mouse Ride episode because Mouse Ride is playing the wedding. And I have a lot of photos of that episode with me and Harris Whittles, who's also in the episode at the wedding.
And it just makes me have good memories of Harris. He was an animal control officer who also happened to be wedding, I believe hits on April, despite the fact that she's getting married. But yeah, we all these photos together of me and Pratt and Aubrey and Aziz and Harris and Colton Dunn and everyone in that episode. So that's another one that for me has a lot of emotional resonance. Also is an amazing episode. It's a very surprising episode. We got Pratt in his Reggie Wayne jersey and
you know, I remember like the whole crew was there, right? Cause it's a wedding episode. So, you know, I'm looking at a photo right now of you're in it and Nick's in it and Burley and everyone, you know, it's just, it's just a, it's just an emotional one for me. So that's up there for me.
But yeah, the list goes on and on. I think another one that really I remember is Pawnee Rangers, which is the Treat Yourself episode. So we're getting there on that one. And I was lucky enough to have a writing credit on that one. So I was on set and I remember it's kind of like a Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts type thing. And that was really fun. Were there any that you remember loving shooting too? Because that's another aspect of this.
Yeah, what's funny, you're talking about the April and Andy's wedding. That's the first time we see Chris Traeger dance. And that was one of my... Oh, and it's funny that we talk about it in this episode of actors delivering lines and doing something crazy and doing something big. Me doing that jump around House of Pain dance is the equivalent of me going...
You just went for it. You just went for it, you know? You went for it, and sometimes you do that, and it'll get in the cut. So that's up there. You know, I just want to call out one or two other ones, I think, just to tease some future episodes. I mean, we're about to talk about Harvest Festival. It's an amazing episode. Yes. Certain ones that can stand alone without seeing them. But there's this great run that we'll get to in season four that the debate...
It was amazing. It goes into win, lose, or draw the finale of season four. I mean, some of Amy's best stuff, I think, happened with that storyline, which we don't want to talk too much about. But great episodes coming up still. Yes. It's so hard for me to divorce the experience of making the show with watching it and, you know, which...
I don't know which episodes I like the most because it's like, no, I remember being on set with Dean Holland on that one. I remember, you know, I love the Unity concert episode because I got to, you know, be on stage and play music with like Ginuwine and Wilco and just play with letters to Cleo. Like that's really crazy. And I remember all our friends being there and Ben Schwartz was there and like all these guest people were there. So,
But, yeah, there's so many, and we're glad, Jonna, you wrote in and were able to tell us your favorite episode. And, again, feel free to write in and tell us your favorites, and maybe we'll do a segment on it in the future. You know, hashtag Parks and Recollection at Team Cocoa Podcast.
Well, thank you all for listening. Another fun get together for all of us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you are getting your podcasts. That would be very important to us and to you, we hope. Five star reviews on Apple keeps the train running down the track. And that's really it. Greg Schulte, as always, we are deeply indebted to you as I am to you, Mr. Yang.
And I think that's it. Goodbye for now from Pawnee, but we'll see you next week. Goodbye from Pawnee.
Parks and Recollection is produced by Greg Levine and me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Alan Yang for Alan Yang Productions, Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn are our talent bookers. The theme song is by Mouse Rat, a.k.a. Mark Rivers.
with additional tracks composed by John Danik. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on Parks and Recollection. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.
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