Time Capsule (S3E3)
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The laughs, the passions, the little subventions, the pits we fell into. And we'll put them all in a podcast. Then we'll send it up into the sky. Parks and recollection. Come on in a podcast. Spread your wings and fly. Fly.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Parks and Recollection. Alan, how are you? How the heck are you? I'm really good. This is a Monday. Feeling ready to go. Done shooting, doing some editing on the show. Rob, I know you're far from done shooting. I know you're in the middle of this beast of a network television season. So how's that all going for you? It's going good. I mean, I literally shot a scene.

on Friday that airs tonight. So, you know the famous Indiana Jones running in front of the boulder? That's us. Yeah, I realize that's just network television, man. How many are you guys doing? 22 this year? We're doing 18. 18, by the way, is the new 22. 18 is the new, that's the number of episodes total I want to do for a series. It's three six-episode seasons. That sounds great. Sounds great. Over the course of seven years. Yeah.

I know, but we got a good one today. I mean, today, we're doing Time Capsule. That's right. We're doing Time Capsule. I remember this episode. Me too. I distinctly remember writing this episode and being around for this one. Shall we go through the details here? Yeah, let's queue it up for the folks at home who may have forgotten Time Capsule, because it's one of my favorites. All right.

Episode title, Time Capsule, written by Michael Schur, directed by Michael Schur, show creator, doing double duty on this one, original air date, February 3rd, 2011. Ironically, the show itself is a time capsule now. It's 11 years ago. It really is. And the blurb quickly, a crackpot handcuffs himself to a pipe in Leslie's office and demands that Twilight, Twilight the book, be placed in the Pawnee time capsule. Chris. That's me.

played by Rob Lowe, tries to help Andy woo April in spite of Anne's reservations. If you didn't think it was a time capsule episode...

The Twilight reference is all you need to know that this was 11 years ago. And I would say it goes beyond a reference. It almost dominates the entire episode. So if you are not familiar with Twilight, we're going to teach you about it a little bit. And by the way, if you were alive during that time and not aware of Twilight, you needed to have your brain checked. It was massive. It was massive. I remember I was working on a show called Brothers and Sisters, and Calista Flockhart would run to the corner after every show.

was done to read this book, Twilight. And I was like, what the, what is this book you're reading? And that was the first I ever heard of it. And then, of course, it took over the world. Yeah, that's an amazing detail and good to know about Callista. She's a Twilight freak.

Very quickly, the notes. Notes, notes, notes to start the episode here. In the shooting draft, the episode had a different cold open. It was a standalone little story. This is great. About Chris running memory exercise games with the park staff. At one point, Ben comes into a meeting speaking with a British accent, hopping on one leg, wearing a scarf and holding a balloon. He leaves and then Chris quizzes Leslie, Ron and Tom about it.

Do you remember that you were shooting this? I do remember shooting this. I absolutely like, did it ever make it into another episode or was it just cut? I don't know if it did. It says here that Chris's dialogue, this is a test of observation invented by the CIA for their field agents. And then he asked what color Ben's socks were. Well, I really remember it because when we asked Tom, um,

He was like, oh, it's a three-button suit. It's an Alfani charcoal pinstripe of 2004, flared lapels, paisley pocket liners, and I wouldn't be caught dead in it. I remember that.

As a great capper. That was the blow. That was the blow. So we just did kind of a recollect, a recreation of that cold open and you guys never saw it. So that's kind of interesting for this episode. I think we, again, ran short on time. So that's why that got cut. Second notes, notes. When Leslie is listing former town slogans, we get the first mention of Zorp, who we will later learn is Zorp the surveyor.

this was the cult that was in Pawnee, and he was a 28-foot-tall lizard god. A cult called the Reasonblists took over Pawnee in the 70s. That's referred to later. But we never did an episode about that, did we? I think they just keep getting mentioned over and over again. And so this is just the beginning. I would have loved to work with that big lizard. Yeah, we spend millions of dollars on CGI and then cut that also. It was a cold open.

No, this is also the first appearance of the character of Orin. He's introduced, but only by name. We see him for the first time, one of April's friends.

in episode nine of season three. One of my favorite characters. Yeah, an amazing character. And of course, this episode was released in the heat of the Twilight movie craze. It came out six months after the release of the Twilight Saga Eclipse and nine months before Twilight Saga Breaking Down. Breaking Dawn? Breaking Down. Breaking Down would be really nice. Breaking Down was what Robert Pattinson and Kirsten Sturt's relationship did after this Twilight Saga finished. Yeah, it was an international... God, remember we were all just on tenterhooks.

Yeah. Those young kids were going to be able to make it work. It wasn't their thing. We're like, didn't Trump weigh in on that? It wasn't like, you know what? You should dump her, Robert. This is like years before he was president. Yeah. Trump felt it was worthy of him giving dating advice to Robert Pattinson. An endless tweet thread. But I do think that Trump's tweet is,

was very similar to Retta's talking head. Yes, that's true. In this episode. Yeah, we're going to get to that. That's like one of my favorite parts of the episode. So funny. Yeah. And this is a little behind-the-scenes info. This was the third episode of the year, but it was shot sixth out of the first six episodes of this season. So these first six episodes were shot actually at the end of season two because Amy Poehler got pregnant. And this is kind of an interesting note.

the reason this one was shot last was because the story had a huge amount of props to place in front of Amy to cover her pregnancy. Most notably the time capsule itself. Is that why the time capsule is so big? Yeah. It's so we can cover her pregnant belly. Like I, I totally forgot that. The time capsule is huge watching. I watched the show before we came in today and it is hilarious how much crap is placed in front of Amy to hide the belly. Yes. Um,

Hopefully, if you were watching it after this episode, then take note of that. But if you've already seen it, then I guess just watch it again and take note. But it's amazing. All right. So synopsis of the first part of this episode. Leslie's organizing a Pawnee time capsule meant to be open 50 years in the future.

and filled with items that encapsulate the spirit of the town, a citizen named Kelly Larson, played by Will Forte, comes to Leslie's office and makes a passionate plea for the Twilight books to be included. When Leslie refuses, saying the books have no connection to Pawnee, Kelly handcuffs himself to a pipe in her office, hoping she'll reconsider. Having brought food, water, and a pillow, Kelly settles in for the long haul. Okay, here's my question. And I hate watching shows with people like I'm about to become.

So he brings a pillow, brings food, brings sleepy time tea, all of these things for the long haul. Where does he go to the bathroom? Never mentioned, never discussed. I think he holds it until the workday is done and then runs to the bathroom and comes back. Or he brought a pot, you know? Maybe he brought some like Shark Tank invention that disposes of your waste. Now I'm going to be a bad network executive.

But how's the audience going to know that? Don't you think there should be, somebody should have a piece of dialogue explaining it? Oh, man. Because I just think it's going to really bump people. I want to know why. I want to know why. Like, can you explain? That's the best network note, which is like, just give me more information, more information, more information. I forget who's, I think it was Chris McQuarrie who wrote Usual Suspects and directed all these Mission Impossible movies. He sometimes gives writing advice. He's like,

Information is the death of emotion. So do as much as you can to get the information across as quickly, as succinctly, as efficiently as possible. And then do scenes. Do some scenes. Have some drama. Have some conflict. Have some jokes if it's a comedy. But man, just people explaining information is death. So we didn't do that. We didn't talk about where he's going to the bathroom. We just showed up.

it was really fun to work with Will. I don't know if you knew Will before this shoot. I certainly knew him socially before this, so it was really fun to have him on the show. I know Mike was friends with him and of course Amy from SNL. But yeah, what a fun guest star in this episode. You know, the part of having your story is siloed off because Chris's story is

is completely separate to the episode, the true B story, is that I did not get to work with the great Will Forte. And it's great for scheduling because you don't have to work every day because you're doing your own story. But when...

when guys like Will came in, I was like, I want to work with Will Forte. Yeah, you're like, I'm not in the story with Will. Like, you know, that happens. But it is such an arbitrary thing. Like, I think the audience doesn't necessarily know that, but it's all kind of split up into, you know, and if it's Rob, you know, having his own story, we tend to shoot him out in, you know, the two days that he needs to shoot that and then Will's shooting the other day. So they just

never intersect. But I just remember distinctly before this episode, you know, we were talking about MacGruber, which had come out pretty recently. And, you know, people didn't know this at the time because, you know, it ended up being this minor, not minor classic, classic classic, I think. But, you know, we're

we loved the movie and we so, you know, I went down to talk to Will, we're like, man, MacGruber is so funny. Like it just, we can't like, it's an amazing movie. And he was just like, yeah, I wish more people had seen it so we could make more of them. But what he didn't realize is it had legs. And years later he was able to make a show, a MacGruber show for Peacock, which Parks is also on now. So it all tied together in the end. It's a great, I mean, I, you know, as I go back and I look at all these shows,

And we do this together, Alan. The thing that just always blows me away is our bench of supporting actors, of guest stars. I don't know any other comedy that had this level consistently of just...

killers yeah it's it's it's massive it's massive massive massive and and yeah i i've been uh i've been working on this movie very or helping with the movie very briefly with uh with with bill murray and i was like where did i meet him before it's like he was on parks it's like there's so many people it's like they're just on parks like you know it's just it's outstanding you know and i don't know it really is uh i don't know it's a testament to the show and testament to the environment that that that mike and mike and greg created

There's an interesting thing where this episode starts with a title card that says Wednesday, and it's like... Oh, I love it. It's not really necessary. No. And the story behind that is the episode originally started with a flash forward. Like, it started with, like, a bunch of people arguing, like, time capsule stuff. You didn't know what was going on, then you flashed back. Yeah.

but that was scrapped in editing. So the episode was scripted as like, you know how some movies do this, like Hangover or Reservoir Dogs or American Beauty? You start, something crazy's happening. They wake up and there's like a tiger and Mike Tyson and whatever, and then you flashback. So that was kind of the intent in the writing of this episode. And then I guess it was abandoned. I guess at some point they're like, you know, I don't think we need to do this. It made me laugh. It's such a like,

hackneyed dramatic trope to do the smash to black with like Wednesday on it, which it made me laugh out loud because it's, it's so self-serious. So good. I ended up working in like a sort of, yeah, ironic way, which is really very important things we're dealing with. Yes. And then, Oh, let's talk about the Donna talking head really quickly. Cause we love the idea that she loved Twilight and it kind of unlocks something about her character moving forward. Um,

But she just, you know, she just, I mean, I will literally list the talking head now. I love any book about vampires, werewolves, monsters, zombies, sorcerers, beasties, or time-traveling romances. And if I had one hour alone with Robert Pattinson, he would forget all about that Skinny Legs McGee, I'll tell you that much. Skinny Legs McGee. Skinny Legs McGee. And like, shout out to Robert Pattinson too. This was 11 years ago. He's Batman now. He did good. He did good.

He graduated from Twilight. He's doing well. And she's probably going to get nominated for an Oscar. I mean, look, that couple, good for them. He does interesting work. I love Good Time. You ever seen the Safdie brothers' Good Time? Watch that movie. He's great in it. Makes great choices. So yeah, kudos to that couple from Twilight. I like right around this area of the episode.

where I forget who asks Aziz's character, who asks Tom, who knows about heartbreak? And Tom says, Kenneth Babyface Edmonds? Yeah, that's an amazing joke. That's an amazing joke. He knows Babyface's real legal name on his driver's license. Kenneth Babyface Edmonds? Of all of the people. Of all of the people. That's classic. It foreshadows his love of Ginuwine, which comes in later too, just like old school R&B. In the writer's room,

there's the setup of, well, who knows something about

And are there multiple pitches and you settle on Kenneth Babyface Edmonds? I would guess there's probably people saying Montel Jordan, Casey and JoJo, just listing over and over, right? It's like Mario, just like a list of R&B artists. Bone Thunks and Harmony, but then you get to eventually Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, which is funny because you're using his pseudonym in the middle. Do you know why he got the nickname Babyface?

No, tell me. First of all, let me ask, do you know Babyface? I do. That was the answer I was hoping for and expecting. Yes, I do.

He is the face of a newborn baby. Now, did he himself tell you this or was this a friend of Babyface's that told you this? A co-worker? This might have been because I'm nothing if not one of the Olympic gold medalists in name dropping. It might have been David Foster, his longtime music producer. I mean, one successful producer telling you stories about another, you know, that's...

The Rob Lowe story there. There you go. Come for the Parks and Rec trivia. Stay for the Kenneth Babyface Edmonds trivia. Parks and Rec election. Put that in an ad. You know when you discover a new binge-worthy show or a song that you bump on repeat and you have to share it with your friends so they can experience just how awesome it is? That's kind of what it feels like when you discover that Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for $15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan. It's

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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. All right, moving on with the episode. Andy still pines for April, who's now dating the handsome Eduardo. Okay, by the way, can I just stop right there? Please, please, please. So in the cold, Eduardo's in the cold open. And I clearly need to have the pixels adjusted on my monitor.

Because I was watching going, wait a minute, I don't think I was in this cold open. Because in the background, I was like, is that me? Because he's got bone structure going for miles, Eduardo. Eduardo's, he's

He's kind of bringing it. He's really handsome. Eduardo is in the Venezuelan episode, Sister City, from earlier in season two, the last season. And I think, God, what a wild idea to bring him back. I mean, that is... I think we were just searching for someone for April to date to make Andy jealous. And we just remembered that actor from Sister City. So we brought him in. But yeah.

Yeah, that is pretty extraordinary. Moving on with the synopsis, Chris suggests Andy tap into the aspects of his personality April was attracted to in the first place, which Andy decides are that he is nice and that he's in a band. This is one of those songs. I remember shooting the scene. I'm writing on a whiteboard. Yes. I'm writing. I remember this too. And I remember, because this is still early in my tenure on the show, where I was

you know, finding the character and we were all finding, you know, certain things work better than others. And, you know, what well can you go to and how often can you go to it? And frankly, how deep in the well can you go? And, and I can so vividly remember being super enthusiastic about everything Andy said his traits were. I think,

He said, I'm nice. And I'm like, nice. Yes. And I thought that's really broad. That's like super big and it worked and people liked it. And it was one of the first times I realized playing Chris that there's truly not ever going to be any such thing.

as too broad, too enthusiastic, or too happy. Physically impossible to do as Chris Traeger. I felt like Chris was really funny in this episode, and kudos to you, Rob, for finding that gear. You know, because I remember, and by the way, like, you know, we had gotten to film a few episodes before this, right? We did the five before, so you had started finding it, and I remember being on set, because I remember you writing that word, so since Mike wrote this episode, he probably wasn't on set the whole time, so I was probably on set for some of it, and

yeah, I remember you writing that thing down. And I remember also the scenes with you and April are really funny because, you know, it's just a great dynamic, right? Because she's always kind of a depressive character and you're just relentlessly positive. And yeah, it just was working. And, you know, the Chris and Andy dynamic also always great. I mean, speaking of Eduardo, when Andy says, Eduardo's like the handsomest guy I've ever seen and present company excluded. And, you know, you're like, thank you. And Andy's like, oh, I was talking about myself. But it's just like,

It's just so funny. And my reaction to that, by the way, is not, and this is like another key to the character. My reaction was not to be taken aback or to be like, oh, I can't believe you said, my reaction was to be like super enthusiastic about

that he thought he was good looking. Yes. Even, and don't, don't be down about that. It's like, Oh, even better. I, I thought of that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, excuse me for not assuming that, but this is kind of, you know, start of a Chris and Andy friendship in some ways is very cute. And, and there's that talking head, uh,

where you're talking about the toe shoes, the little toe shoes, and then he's in the background pretending to be a monkey. And it became like a popular gif, like became like a meme in some ways. I don't know if you've seen that. Super big meme of him running around like an ape. I remember Pratt, when I saw Pratt run like an ape, it's one of the funniest things.

He's such a great physical comedian, but him running as an ape is up there. He's in so much physical comedy in the show, but for me, him running as an ape deep in focus in that talking head is classic. The other thing, it's funny, it's a lot of Chris Traeger finding the character stuff in this episode, but we've talked earlier about how Tom Cruise was a little bit of a...

inspiration for Chris and then we kind of moved away from it. But in this, I'm doing some super serious Tom Cruise stuff where I go, why do I want to help Andy? Because he is a good person and good people. Like he's, I'm like super focused, super serious. And it's like, I'm saying the most in it's super intense and like weirdly intense.

um, like angsty. And, and, and that was, that was my, that was a Tom Cruise talking head. Yeah. I, and I enjoyed that version of the character, you know, I know it like it sort of drifted away a little bit, but I, I always enjoyed that version maybe because I remember kind of being there for the conception of all that. But yeah, I mean, this is, this is full speech, full steam ahead into the Andy and April love story. And, you know, it might've been again, because the episodes were shot out of order, um,

You may have thought that we knew where that was headed, which is, again, not to spoil the show. Well, maybe we shouldn't spoil this, actually, because people might be watching. I don't know. Anyway. I think we're good either way. We're good either way. So skip a minute ahead if you haven't watched the show for some reason. Spoiler alert. Andy and April get...

get married almost immediately after this. And the question is like, did you guys know that would happen? And the answer was no, because we finished shooting these first six. Then we took a break before, you know, in between seasons. Then we did a writer's retreat and we came up the idea that they would get married almost immediately after that. So we didn't know they get married three episodes from now. And, and it's, we just had no idea. So kind of fun. What is this note that I have here in our notes about, um,

a Mike Schur comedy equation. Emotion plus tough decision equals comedy. Is that a classic Mike Schurism? In the notes it says divided by comedy, which is like, I don't know, equals great episode. I'm not sure on that one. Maybe that's Greg Levine, producer Greg, kind of got that in. Certainly those are like storytelling hallmarks, right? See, I love knowing what great

writers like you guys and showrunners, everybody has their

They're sort of rules. They're sort of theories. And I can never get enough of that. I love knowing what people's philosophies are, whether it's drama or comedy or anything else. Yeah, I mean, there's certainly like really, you know, lampposts that kind of guide you through the forest of the story, right? And there's Greg Dana's classic, you know, he has four. It's like motivation, stakes, turns, and escalation. You know, I might have talked about those at some point. And, you know, for me also, like a biggest...

This is so basic, but like at the beginning of a story, whether it's a show or a movie or whatever, what is that characters want and need? What is that characters want and need? And then does the story put them in literally the most uncomfortable position possible for that character or their worst nightmare? And then they come out the other side and

How have they changed? What is the synthesis of who they were originally plus who they became over the course of the story? And then the end, they become that kind of combined synthesis of those two beings. And like that, like...

And it's easy to just say that, but obviously the difficulty is how do you make that an entertaining story? And how do you know? Obviously, those are things to look for. But yeah, emotion plus tough decision divided by comedy. I mean, sure. I mean, and by the way, decisions are just like the biggest part. Like, let's have this main character be active, active, active, making choices. Let's not have things happen to them with exceptions, of course. But, you know, hopefully they're making decisions, making choices, and those choices have value.

consequences. So that's a little 30 seconds of writing theory. You want to march through this synopsis a little bit more? Right before that, Leslie tries to get Kelly to leave her office, no avail, until she notices the name Liz Waverly in one of Kelly's Twilight books.

Leslie realizes that Kelly wants to put Twilight into the time capsule to impress his 12-year-old daughter and to make up for the fact that he and his ex-wife have divorced. During the backstory, Leslie decides to include the book, but Ben points out the slippery slope this could create. There's some of your emotion for you. Some empathy for old Will. For old Will Forte there. I know. And he's the kind of actor who can bring it. Yeah. Super, super good. Super good. And I noticed also watching this episode, it's like,

As you said, we're still a little bit early in the world of Ben and Chris. And there's still moments where Ben is like kind of mean. You know, later in the show, he's so nice. But in the beginning, he's mean. So like this is a transition. He has a nice moment at the end. And then there's still there's some moments where he's kind of like not an asshole, but he's just kind of strict. He's like, no, we can't do that. We can't do that. And I forget that sometimes because you've seen the change in his character over the course of Parks and Rec. But man, season three, early season three, he's still a little bit of a hard ass. Yeah, super strict with the rules.

Which made me laugh. He came in as the killer. And then he just became the lover. Then he just became a guy making calzones and fucking... Oh my God, a calzone. Yeah, it's so good. I like the... This also... I like any Parks episode that has public forums. Yeah. Any public forum was just... I just feel like it must have been so fun for you guys to write...

the public forums, because you literally could have people you've never seen before, don't need to explain where they are, who they came from, no backstory, not necessary, and they just stand up and say whatever the funniest thing you guys could possibly think of. I love that. And we had some people come back. Yeah. Like, come back. Like, it was... It literally, like... There's a guy, Chance Frim, who we named because all he does is chant. Like, that was one of the guys. I actually got...

Hey, here's a text I got from Mike Schur like a week ago. I don't know why he texted me this. Out of the blue, out of the blue, speaking of people in public forums, he wrote, it's nighttime, it's like 8 p.m. or something.

Mike says, I think it's possible that the greatest Parks and Rec character ever was the woman that said, but isn't all food bad for you? I've eaten lasagna and muffins every day for 40 years and I feel terrible. And then another joke, excuse me, there's a sign in Ramset Park that said don't drink the sprinkler water. So I made sun tea with it and now I have an infection. And then Mike says her batting average is like 950. I wrote back, I love that woman. And then he says she might be America's greatest living comic actress. Yes.

So it's just... I love that Mike is doing a deep dive on Parks and Rec at this point. I'm not joking. Later that night, he texted me again. She's also the one who asked for slugs to be removed from her yard in the episode about London. And when Leslie says she did it, the woman yells, I didn't want all of them gone. I wanted most of them gone. I mean, these are good shows. It is funny. I mean, look, the guy, the man deserves it. He's made 400 episodes of television. But yeah, that character is funny. Yeah.

It's very funny. Very good. Let's set up the town hall. Go for that. Yeah, let me go through this little section here. Andy decides to be nice to Eduardo, and the two bond over their love of the Dave Matthews band. April becomes frustrated because she only dated Eduardo to make Andy jealous and dumps Eduardo. So Dave Matthews making a... Forget Twilight. We got Dave Matthews in here. We got everything. I find Dave Matthews very... I would think...

And I love, listen, I'm good for, I love Dave Matthews. Great. Love Dave. But I feel like Dave Matthews and the world of Parks and Rec would be a very divisive figure. Oh man. That writer's room. I mean, look in between what's his Harrison is fish obsession. Well, that was, you know,

No one wanted that. My office was next to Harris Whittle's office for a long time, and I would hear Phish every day for years. Well, that's like they play that to torture people. Apologies to all Phish fans out there, but yeah. But I think that's a very acquired taste, as is, I think, Dave Matthews for certain people. Yes, I think for me, I was not... I grew up listening to punk rock, and it was kind of the opposite, right? The kids who listened to Dave Matthews

it's a different crowd. Not to say that I, you know, God bless, but in the writer's room, I think it was, Mike was more of a neutral Milk Hotel fan than a Dave Matthews band fan. And that came into play later in the show. But yeah, it was, but Dave Matthews, yeah, there was no one ironically on the show. Speaking of music, this also has one of my favorite references where they're talking about books. Somebody's talking about what books should go in the time capsule. And somebody says, it should be my favorite book

Crazy from the Heat, the David Lee Roth story. That's right. Makes me laugh. I believe that was a, I could be wrong. I believe it might have been a Katie Dippel joke, but it's also funny that this citizen brought that book, like not knowing, like just had it with her. Who knew that would come up? She just had it on hand, which is a lot of, at a certain point, the show becomes a cartoon and it's okay. Well, this goes to my favorite thing is I, look, we've talked about this before.

The more cartoony, the better I like it. Maybe it's because I'm just not as intelligent as other people are, but I love... Like, Amy, to me... There are times when Leslie Knope literally...

to me like Spongebob Squarepants. Yeah. And what I think that's one of the secret sauces of the show is it has appeal to, you know, different types of comedy fans. You know, it's got some subtler stuff. It's got a nice blend of a little bit of real emotion. It's got some great acting. You know, it's got great actors in it who can do dramatic acting. But it also, it's fast and funny, man. It's really fast and funny. And I think that's

That's one of the secret ingredients. So to introduce this public meeting aspect, to make things right, Leslie decides to hold a public forum so citizens can make suggestions for capsule items.

The meeting descends into chaos when the citizens begin to argue over including absurd and random objects that have nothing to do with the town. Leslie tries to compromise by making multiple time capsules, but ultimately decides to stick to one capsule and include nothing in it except a video recording of the meeting itself, saying it represents Pawnee because it shows a lot of people with a lot of opinions arguing passionately for what they believed in.

That's very Mike Schur. Isn't this like a precursor to The Good Place, Brooklyn, everything? It's clever, and it's also...

glorifying in a good way, you know, the process, right? Glorifying people, figuring out a solution that, that, that finds common ground, right? Yeah. And also we mentioned earlier Chance Frome, one of these, he's a gentleman with a mustache and a beard and he asked for his cat, his cat Turnip's ashes to be included in the time capsule. And he tries to get the except for Turnip chant going. Um,

There's also a stealth Marsha Langman appearance who is the head of the Society for Family Stability Foundation, the SFSF. She's in a lot of episodes coming up because she kind of represents kind of the conservatives. Was this her first? I don't know if this is her first appearance. I think she might have done one other one, but then she has sort of big appearances in episodes later on down the road.

She's super funny. I mean, that character is a great character. And we have, okay, so there's a list of items. Donna is at a big board. And the items include a Pony High Trophy, Yearning, a fragrance by Dennis Feinstein, Mayor Gunderson's Dog Leash. Remember, we mentioned Bill Murray early, Mayor Gunderson. Blueprint for the Airport, Sweetums Candy, Crazy Ira's Rubber Chicken. And there's a note from producer Greg. This might be the first mention of Crazy Ira.

He appears in real life in the next episode. But since the episodes were shot out of order, he might have been on the minds of the props department when they made this list. So it's almost like callback. That's a call forward. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The props department was writing? The props department. Sometimes, sometimes. Wow. If there's a book or a thing that's printed out or a bunch of things written on a whiteboard or a bunch of post-it notes on a wall, it's a call forward.

Sometimes that got written by the writer. Sometimes it got written by the writer's assistants. Sometimes it gets written by the script coordinator. Sometimes the props department freelances and we have approval over it. So that's kind of fun. I also like this at the 17 minute 52nd mark. For those of you who are obsessed with time codes, Andy is playing his guitar and points at Eduardo. And that is Andy's opening credit.

That's... I mean, I love... I love those. Those are Easter eggs to me. Like, there's the face that Tom makes, and I think you're pointing, right? Is it... I remember you were wearing a tie. It's like... Yes, pointing. Yeah, it's pointing, and then there's Ben. It's like shrugging his shoulders. Anyway, I could go on and on. I just like it. But that's also a thing. You know, we...

we changed the open credits at a certain point to make them more exciting and happier. And so this, this Andy moment was probably added because I think he used to be shown like with broken legs at some point, but yeah. So yeah, it's a, it's a, it was a new, it was a turning of a new leaf for parks and rec. And that was Andy's moment. There's also just as kind of a, a Saturday Easter egg. One guy says when they uncover this time capsule, they,

who knows what's going on people might be wiped out by disease or the flu it's almost a dark covid foreshadowing yes kind of horrifying watching that i'm so tired of people talking about the simpsons predicting the future what about us yeah we it was in there i was like oh my god this is dark man i don't want to i don't want to think about that yeah

And they also, you know, in that sort of Mike Shore flourish at the end where they put in a recording, a video recording of the town hall itself. I noticed that it was it looked to be a DVD. So I hope they still have DVD players in 40 years. Not a lot of DVDs happening now, even. So I'm not sure what will happen in another 40 years. I was also shocked that we're going to put it in for the future 50 years.

Half the people would still be alive. Yeah, it's not that long. What's the point of that? Why 50? Why didn't you do 100 years or 200 years? I don't know. I think it's kind of this thing. So did you yourself ever do this? I feel like I did a time capsule thing when I was in third grade or something. And what's kind of cool about that, in defense of whatever decision we made at the time,

I think there's an idea that you uncover it when you yourself are 60 years old or something. And that is kind of interesting. Or, you know, if you're 30, you might, you might see, you might get it uncovered when you're 80. I mean, that's kind of interesting. I feel like it's so much more interesting to be doing a time capsule that, you know, is going to be, Oh,

by the aliens that have come to take over the Earth. Yes. Yeah. I'm just saying. I mean, 500 years would also be interesting. It's like, will they be able to read the English on it? It's like, will people look different? But no, I feel you. I always like, this is a total tangent, but I was like, you know when they sent out, they shot out that stuff into space and it's like, have the aliens look at it? Like, what is that stuff? Like, that's so crazy. That's just...

i don't know i i like do some research on that that is actually an interesting thing that they sent out in a space it's like the golden record is what i guess it's called and i think it's like johnny be good on it and like he had sullivan show or something yeah that's a pretty big honor it's like hey this is we think human beings should see this hey i wrote a song so good that it was used as a representation of human culture that's cool that's like

That's pretty good. Oh, cool. Like I got nominated for a Grammy once, I guess. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Oh, my God. I mean, should we go through this? So again, this is good trivia for people. I think it's great. What? I don't understand it, but I think it's great. This is I'm talking about this. There was an unused cold open for the episode. There was also an unaired tag.

Ooh. Do you want... Should we do a little Parks and Recollection role play? Do you want to play Will Forte or Amy Poehler here? Oh, I want to play... I want to play Will Forte. Okay, so this is the tag of the episode, and what...

You know, just to set it up, okay, people have seen the episode, we know, nothing got put into the time capsule except for the video recording of the town hall. Leslie ultimately didn't put Twilight in the time capsule. So now this is a series of talking heads back to back, some by Kelly, played by Will Forte, and some by Leslie, played by Emma Puller, played by me. What Leslie doesn't, I just read the like Chris Traeger, I can't do that. That's not going to work at all. You do your best, Will. I do my best, Will.

What Leslie doesn't know is that I secretly snuck over, and when she wasn't looking, I put a copy of Twilight into the time capsule. I saw him do it, and I took it out. I noticed that she saw me do it and took it out, but then later, I went back and secretly snuck it back in. I saw that, too, and I took it out again. She took it out again, but then...

at the last second. I took that one out too. So that's the, that was the, that used to be the end of the episode. But it's like, I guess it was, I think we liked the idea of a super stacked talking head. We're just like, it just kept cutting back and forth faster and faster between the two of them.

but uh it never aired so i think we shot it though anyway it's pretty good kind of fun kind of fun missing missing cold open missing tag um any final thoughts on this episode rob a really really strong one uh very funny very funny um one of my favorites i it's i actually i remember some of them more than others as i'm sure same with you and um

There's a lot in this that I remember and feel like, oh yeah, it feels like we did that yesterday. And yet we now know it was 11 years ago.

That really blew my mind. I mean, I'm glad you mentioned that scene where you're writing on the whiteboard because I feel like this may be a false sense memory. I feel like I was in that room while you were writing Nice and Band and I just remember being there. Isn't that so weird? It's so weird how memory works because there's some scenes I just don't remember at all and then some scenes I remember being there. The other thing I'll just point out is I get super self-conscious when I have to write

on a chalkboard or a whiteboard. It's your handwriting. They see your handwriting. Yes, I get very self-conscious about my handwriting. And yeah, I think I was just remembering, like, because again, you had only been on the show for a few episodes at that point. So I think, you know, again, we're still trying to get to know each other and gelling with the cast and all that stuff. But I think the proof's in the pudding. You know, this run of episodes, the Harvest Festival arc,

I think is a lot of people's favorite arc of the entire show. And this is kind of smack dab in the middle of it. So from essentially when you guys show up in Master Plan, you know, episode, you know, in the late episode, episode two, all the way up to the Harvest Festival episode, which is coming up. Yeah, it's just great. It's really fun. This is vintage. And all series have that. All series have

you know, that run where they're just firing on all cylinders. And then eventually maybe you run out of story or a cast member leaves and it's never quite the same, but whatever, whatever it is, but every series has their, their, their run where it's just happening.

happening and we're right in the middle of it with these episodes. Absolutely. Who do you think is our episode MVP? Most valuable Pawnian. Most valuable Pawnian. I'm going to give it up to Forte as Kelly. You know, fun to have him in the show. I've just been so happy for Will. Everything he's gotten to do before and since this episode, you know, whether you talk about Nebraska, you know, he did an Alexander Payne movie with Bruce Dern. You know, he did his show Last Man on Earth. He just...

Yeah, I concur. Yeah.

He's in the Hall of Fame unanimously. Yeah. So there's a couple of continuity errors and some mistranslations and stuff in this episode, but honestly, the real oops moment, moment? Moo. Yeah. But the real oops moment we're going to get to is in today's 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?

All right, should we take a trip to the town howl? Ooh, it's a howl today. I like when there are howls. It's a howl. You know I love a town howl. Where should we do it? I think we do it inside the hole they bury the time capsule in. Well, I was going to say we do it in the actual time capsule. Oh, let's do it in the capsule. Can we put an echo effect on this to make it sound like we're in...

A metal cylinder? I love it. Shelty says yes. A wide echo effect. My name is Annie Smith, and I was wondering, in episode three, in season three, they mention that Jerry's full name is Gerald, but later in the series, we hear that Jerry's name is Gary. I'm just wondering if that was just a mistake, or if there's a way that they explain that. Thanks so much. Love the show, guys.

Thank you, Annie Smith. Love Annie Smith. Rhymes to Granny Smith, the apple. Thank you, Annie Smith. Wait, that is literally a Chris Traeger line. Hey, there it goes. I love this. Easy way to remember your name. Granny Smith. Just like the apple. I love Granny Smith. Healthy and delicious. Anyway, Annie. That's right. Really good question, and I have two answers for you. One is...

Oops, you caught us. I think we did not plan this. And I think this was just, we thought it'd be funny that his name was Gerald. But the second more fun answer is, in my headcanon, Jerry's mother also made fun of him and called him Jerry, and then called him Gerald at some point. But yeah, I think this was purely just a mistake, because the Gary joke comes later and later and later. So I think we had just...

either chosen to forget about this or forgotten about it and it was lost to the sands of time but yeah thank you for the question thanks for the howl yeah Andy Smith so yeah hope you're enjoying your rewatch we've been enjoying watching it with you thanks for listening everybody subscribe where you get podcasts five star and viewed Apple please thanks to producer Greg producer Schulte goodbye from Pawnee goodbye from Pawnee we will see you next week another great episode coming up

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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