Parks and Recollection - Beauty Pageant (S2E3)

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

Pawnee, the most beautiful town in America. Today Rob Lowe and Alan Yang put down the score cards as they discuss season 2 episode 3 of Parks and Recreation. In 'Beauty Pageant' Leslie is excited to be a local pageant judge, but frustrated when her viewpoints on the ideal woman don't align with the other judges. On today's pod you’ll find out the difference between some significant joke writers, if Leslie is a time traveller, and why it’s important to have a diverse writer’s room. All of this and more on today’s incredible episode!Got a question for the Pawnee Town Hall? Send us an email: [e-mail] Or leave a 30-Second voicemail at: [phone]

We're getting together to talk about all the things we used to do The laughs, the passions, the little Sebastians, the pets we fell into And we're putting it on in a podcast Then we'll send it up into the sky We're calling it Parks and Recollection Come on little podcast, spread your wings and fly Hello everybody! Welcome to Parks and Recollection. I'm Rob Lowe, along with Alan Yang.

What's up everybody? We've got a good episode for you today. This is the famous Beauty Pageant, episode three of season two. It aired on October 1st, 2009, written by the great Katie Dippold. Katie Dippold. Old dips. Dips in the mix. Great writer.

Just a funny, wonderful writer. And Jason Wolliner directed it. How would you describe this episode, Mr. Yang? Man, I don't know about you. I felt like watching this, it was fast, it was funny, it was firing all cylinders. Immediately, the very first shot of the episode, for the first time that I think,

everyone is in their traditional places just on the set. Like, people aren't scattered in different offices or whatever. Like, everybody's sort of in that bullpen weird area. And Donna's at the desk that she knows. And Jerry is sitting right there at that table doing God knows what Jerry always does. And it just felt like that's what you want. When Leslie came in and announced what was going on, she was announcing it to the gang.

So this is sort of the beginning, I think, of the gang quote unquote the gang so this is sort of the beginning i think of of the gang we figured out that the workplace comedy should have a workplace where the characters are so that's that that helped right they're all in the same place uh yeah i mean it just felt like we're in a groove and and yeah in this episode we're going to talk about the inspiration for this episode what it was like to write it the evolution of and and Ann. Why don't I go through a synopsis of the episode? How about that, Rob? Take us away! Alright, so Leslie's excited to have been chosen to judge the Miss Pawnee beauty pageant, a job she takes very seriously. Tom, excited at the idea of judging women on looks, pulls some strings to get a spot on the judging panel along

with Leslie. April enters the contest solely for the shot at a $600 prize. Later on, Pawnee police officer Dave Sanderson visits Leslie at work to ask her out on a date. While she says yes, she realizes they don't have a lot in common, so she hesitates on firm plans. Meanwhile, in the B story, Ann and Mark continue to casually date and have dinner at her house. That night, the date goes well until Ann finds out Andy has been living in the pit outside her house this whole time. Classic moment.

Although she's angry, eventually Ann and Mark let Andy join them for an awkward dinner to keep him out of the rain. Leslie and Tom butt heads during the competition. Leslie favors the smart and accomplished Susan, while Tom bases his vote on hotness. April quits when she finds out the prize was actually just gift certificates for a fence company. After the contest, the judges deliberate. Tom and the other judges all immediately agree Trish, the quote-unquote hot one, should win. The guy says it's the hot one, literally says it's the hot one,

bypassing all of Leslie's efforts for Susan to win. At the end of the episode, Dave the cop finds Leslie at the pageant and asks her again on a date. Although she hesitates, Leslie appreciates when he bumps into Trish without much notice, ignoring the hot one, basically. Later in her office, Leslie makes plans with Dave for a date. Although she hesitates, Leslie appreciates when he bumps into Trish without much notice, ignoring the hot one, basically. Later in her office, Leslie makes plans with Dave for a date, and he tries to impress Leslie by showing he's memorized the names of all the female politicians who have pictures up in her office. And that's the episode. Well, listen, notwithstanding that this episode is virulently anti-hot people,

there's a lot of funny stuff in this. I liked when they said they were going to judge the this episode is virulently anti-hot people. There's a lot of funny stuff in this. I liked when they said they were going to judge the contestants based on talent and poise. And Tom Alvarez goes, talent and poise? That's the strip club by the VA hospital. And then he mentions the Glitter Factory, which I believe just keeps coming up again in conversation later and later in the series.

Doesn't the Glitter Factory eventually explode? Or am i making that up in my own head don't remember greg do you remember the glitter factory exploded there's something like that i forget hey guys what i believe you're thinking of is the glitter bomb that's going to go off at the glitter factory it's not an actual bomb i don't want to give too much away because it's in an upcoming episode. But when it comes to a Pawnee explosion, we do know about the Bread Factory explosion that sent the smell of toast throughout the air. And people said it was quite delicious. So that's what I have for you on that. The other thing about this episode it's super funny but it also is to me one of the episodes that encapsulates best kind of where we've grown and changed as a society did you notice that because it's so much about you know like you said hotness and beauty pageants and

all that stuff and all that stuff is changing my thing during this episode is man it's leslie's attitudes in all of these episodes it's like almost like she's a time traveler because she has the attitudes kind of we have now she's like is she from the future because everyone else is acting scummy it's like i mean you can't believe the shit they're doing it's like even the cameraman like pans down to like ogle a woman it's like you can't do that and leslie's basically saying you can't do that but again it's 2009 and so she's almost having the attitudes that people have now so it is she's very much the the avatar of of things to come yeah in this show i think the idea of a

beauty pageant in general was such such ripe territory because it gets to show all of these characters attitudes very clearly right in the a story you have leslie tom and april and you just see you know all of them express who they are with this as the setting and that's a great that's that's why you know settings are chosen for a reason right so you get to see leslie be a feminist you get to see her sort of get across what she thinks you know women should be judged by you see april kind of be chaotic and enter just for money and then be really funny as a contestant and you you get to show Tom have his very retrograde attitudes. And so they're all very on character.

And when you're early on in a show, a story like this allows you to see who the characters are and be funny. Was there also a notion that, I'm trying to think back to 2009, there was that hilarious moment where some teen Miss Beauty Pageant girl and she literally could not string sentences together. So it was partially based on this very specific pageant. It was Miss Teen USA 2007, Miss South Carolina. People out there in our nation don't have maps. And I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and Iraq, everywhere such as. Thank you very much, South Carolina.

By the way, the host, our very own Mario Lopez. I don't know why I said our very own. He doesn't belong to me, but it just seems like he belongs to everybody. He belongs to America. He belongs to the world. He belongs to the world, truly. I apologize to you, Miss South Carolina. I know there's a lot of pressure up there, but man, she basically said people don't have maps. And the question was about American education.

And literally, I'm reading what we wrote into the script, and it's actually arguably more intelligent than what she said. It's been a long time since I've seen you act. Give me a little, come on. So the question is, Leslie asks, how can we improve on the great American experiment? And this is what Trish Yoneta says. Well, I think that America is the land of the free, which is a wonderful thing, and also the brave, where people can live.

And no one can ever take that away from you, and it never gives up. But the high birthing rate of immigrants frightens me no offense to anyone out there but if it were up to me and my family i would actually call it our america and not their america thank you it's pretty great so it's it's actually more intelligible and more uh more uh sort of racist maybe in a vague sense but yeah this is like a little more overt i like when she comes out for her talent with a with a baton and and it amy's she's not even twirling it she's

really just stretching with it i remember how funny that was yeah i think i got pitched in the writer's room and it was like oh this is gonna be really funny and then we just on the day we just i guess they just had her just you know hold the baton and move her body around and did not even throw it in the air. It's actually amazing. And I felt bad for the character that Leslie was advocating for in the sort of 12 angry men jury scene, which also made me laugh. You know, that she's the holdout in the jury. And I wondered if that's how it went, how it goes in this holdout in the juries, where the one person just keeps asking for a vote. The vote goes against them. What do you do? Then you ask for another vote and the vote goes against you. Like, what does it add? It's hilarious, man. I was,

like the closest analogy I can make from my personal experience, I was once on a jury for the Tribeca Film Festival. And it was very much like that. You watch all these films and you go into a room and you're sequestered. And one of the other jurors was an actress that I actually knew. And she came in real hot. She came in. We all sat down. She's like, it's got to be this one. It's this one.

It's definitely this one. It's the best movie. And then we went around. We each picked one, right? And then by the end, it was clear that the majority was picking this other one. And we expected this long protracted fight like the one in the episode but it came back around to this actress and she was like okay yeah that's great we can do that one let's let's go it was one of my it was one of the funniest things

i've ever seen super unintentional comedy from her because she was so passionate and she had such a personal connection to this other film but then it was over immediately it's like she just wanted to go home get dinner or something so it was the opposite of this. But no, in this one, Leslie is just kind of really digging her heels in. And yeah, it's a nice, the episode's packed because it is like

kind of a 12 Angry Men parody in some ways. I love that the, it's sort of a forerunner to the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, which is one of my favorite things of all time.

Classic episode. That's in an episode that has my name on it. So yeah, that was a fun one. Oh, Mr. Yang, you've created something super special. I take no credit. And we'll get to that. I take no credit.

But yeah, it's coming up. So yeah. But the forerunner to that is the checklist that Amy has for who she thinks should win in the categories. And my favorite obscure, it's this actual category that leslie nope has the naomi wolf factor made me laugh out loud it's such an obscure joke it's really really funny we did a whole talking head basically for this naomi for those of you don't know naomi wolf a leading spokeswoman of the third wave of the feminist movement so she's a she's a journalist you know she's she's the author of the beauty myth but but yeah i mean putting that in a network comedy is pretty ballsy, right?

It's like you're expecting your audience to have sort of this elevated education. So that was kind of funny that that's in there. And this is the difference. If you ever wondered what the difference between a person who went to Harvard, like Alan Yang, and a person who didn't go to college at all, like is that his when we talk about naomi wolf he gives you that answer if you ask me about naomi wolf i go she's the one that told al gore to wear more earth colors in his presidential campaign man that's a good pull i didn't remember that that was that was her contribution maybe if he had listened he would have won

guys i thought it'd be fun to call out all of the scorecard categories that leslie had um i was checking the list we have teeth interior life knowledge of herstory presentation intelligence fruitful gestures lack of ostentation je ne sais quoi the aforementioned the naomi wolf factor voice modulation and just a section for miscellaneous notes um it's a weird thing on the prop je ne sais quoi is actually spelled je ne sais qui oh which i think is just silly um but beyond that i was thinking about our time in the writer's room coming up with these categories. And I definitely agree that this is a precursor, in a way, to the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, which, Alan, I think you remember we spent maybe several days on. Yeah.

Much to my happiness, there was a mural moment. Apparently, the mural was—I can't believe I'm going to say this. The mural was called A Lively F I can't believe I'm going to say this. The mural was called A Lively Fisting, if I'm not mistaken. It got renamed, but it used to be called A Lively Fisting.

Yes, that is included in the episode somehow. I like the Dave Kopp character, the reveal that he's not Amy's intellectual equal. Dave says, oh, is that your grandma? It's Madeline Albright. Dave says, oh, is that your grandma? It's Madeline Albright.

He goes, oh, her name is Madeline Albright? Yeah. It's so good. I just call mine Nana. But yeah, it's... Yeah, I mean, and I think the other thing, like watching this episode, just takes me back to

kind of the different atmosphere in season two in the writers room because we had new people in the room obviously katie dippled who wrote this episode who's gone on to write ghostbusters and the heat and you know all these movies she's a big movie writer now she's writing some i think she's writing the haunted mansion for disney now but we also added harris whittles we added aisha muhar we added mike scully i mean think about all those writers they stayed on for almost the entire run of the show, all of those people. And there's a range, you know, there's young, there's more experienced. They're all super funny and super good energy in the room. And I actually highlighted some of the lines that I could be

wrong, but I remember them writing. Like there's a Whittles line that I think it's like, it's Pratt. He wrote a lot of Pratt stuff because he loved writing like, you know, dumb guy jokes. And he's screaming like, are we going to talk about anything other than the lies that I told you? Like, that's very Whittles. Like that's very Harris. Like that's like, and then there's a joke that we used to call like a Scully joke. Like we literally had a term for it. It's an April talking head. She says, you know, she quits. And then she has a talking head that says, I may not have won, but at least I didn't make any new friendships. And it's an april talking head she says you know she quits and then she has a talking head that says i may not have won but at least i didn't make any new friendships and it's like that is the the economy so scully you know wrote for the simpsons he used to run the show and you know just super experienced and had the most laser beam focused eye on jokes and economy of words so he would he would have a setup and and

and a turn and it would all happen in 12 words or something so we used to call some of those like scully jokes and and sometimes we would try to pitch them but no one could do it as well as he could and and yeah he became one of amy's favorites too and we ended up putting him in the show he plays a character named pearl who sometimes goes to town halls and is just says one crazy joke and sits down. So, so he was a great addition to the show. And, and I want to credit, you know, Katie and Aisha too, because again, I think I mentioned this in a previous episode, but in a show with a female lead, a female friendship as its center, and this one, especially, which is a kind of about the male gaze and about a feminist response to that, you know, it helps to have women in the room. And, and the staff was,

I think at this point by 50% women, which really helped. And Katie has her name on the script, obviously. So, but, but Katie and Isha both really great with story, really great with jokes. And, and, and it was evidenced by, you know, their continuation of their careers. So I could feel those writers. I could feel the fun we were all having in the room. And I actually was talking about this one more quick anecdote. I was in my writer's room yesterday for my new show.

And remember, Greg, I wanted to talk to you about this. At a certain point, Greg was in the room. He's a script coordinator, and he became a writer in later seasons. But at the time, what season was it that you started to have sound effects? So in the writer's room, you're talking all the time. And then at a certain point, you play sound effects. At a certain point at Parks and Rec, it was like a morning zoo radio show where everyone had their own theme song and they're running bits. And so I was talking to my co-creator on the show, Matt Hubbard, who came and wrote for Parks season seven. And he said,

I came in there and I did not understand anything that was happening. It was a circus because you would walk in and I would pitch a joke and then greg would play my theme song and harris would pick a joke he would play and he would play his theme song and they were running bits mike sure would go off on a rant you know i don't you know rob you've probably heard mike go off on something political or something about sports or something and and and and greg would start playing what would you like to battle him in the republic or something it was like ramping up dramatic music and it would and he wouldn't even notice and then it would start playing and everyone would laugh because it would always diffuse the situation, right? It was so funny. What were some of the sound effects that people had?

And do you remember who had what theme song? What were all the theme songs? I forget some of them. Oh, Harris's was the Seinfeld theme song. So he would pitch a joke and go, it's like, what is happening? Yeah. You know, it's when I became a writer after a while, but when I was a script coordinator, writer assistant, you spend a lot of time listening and taking notes. And I wanted to have a voice somehow in the room. And so I realized I could do it with sound effects and bits. And so my favorite first one was I added a doorbell sound whenever someone would come in. Very mild start, right? You ease your way in, which is funny because like it would also be my favorite first one was I added a doorbell sound whenever someone would come in and very mild start right you ease your way in which is funny because like it would also be yeah

but it was a nice way for the room to say oh someone's here I should turn and look at the door but yeah Yang you were talking about this I had definitely had battled him in the republic playing for Mike whenever he would go on a very long rant about something so specific and you would see everybody's eyes kind of lays over out and he would slowly rise and every so often after about 30 seconds he would realize it was playing and turn yeah look at both disdain and like total comedy appreciation yeah because that's that's what it was i was talking about that and all the other writers on my new show were like why didn't he fire you i was like because he was a very tolerant guy he appreciated them oh another one i love was morgan sackett who was our line producer who was brilliant but he would come in and you know he's usually going to come in and talk about the budget or something

didn't work or whatever so so greg would play uh the star wars darth vader theme right did it wasn't that or yeah when he would walk in and then whenever he would speak, I would play the theme song from The Omen. Yeah, that's another one. Oh, amazing. And by the way, he's the nicest man in the world, which makes it even funnier. I know we had Gore on, and my favorite Dan Gore theme song

was definitely... It was the Masterpiece Theater. Yes, yes. He's a very fancy man. Hepiece Theater. Yes, yes. Because he's a very fancy man. Wonderful way. He's very elevated, yeah. Yeah, he's very high-spoken, well-spoken, and he would just say that thing

that needed that stinger afterwards. Those are definitely my favorites. And it just kept going to the point that I used to play it out of iTunes, and then I bought myself an application on my computer that I could play it with a keystroke because they were coming so fast.

It's true madness. He had a soundboard app. You can imagine that it takes the shit out of you. It takes the punch out of you. If Gore goes off and talks about the opera or something, like Dan Gore talks about the opera and then Greg plays Masterpiece's like if you know he talks about opera then you know greg plays masterpiece masterpiece theater it's like yeah you have a sense of humor about yourself but yeah it that's a i want to be in that writer's

room it's never it's never happened in any of your writer's room so credit to greg that i've been in but yeah it was very fun also wasted a ton of time but whatever it's it's nice when you've been on a show for that long and this was basically like later seasons i mean when we were sort of you know messing around a little more but man how fun i think sound and sound boards are very underutilized i think they should be they can be brought into so many different worlds um like on the actual shooting set the you know it's it's it's same as the writer's room in that the hours are long there's a lot of time thinking a lot of time waiting and then you have it's punctuated by a a certain amount of of actual acting and action um mike myers on austin

powers used soundboard and it was the greatest thing ever like we would be sitting around waiting for the camera to be set up and and mike would just kind of rate he would literally and i never knew how the sound guy knew mike would like raise his finger and you'd hear the beginning of car wash. How did he know? So when. So you'd hear. And that clapping beginning of car wash was the likely kind of, OK, let's go. Anytime you're ready.

We're ready to do. Like that's whenever it was a little bit of boredom, carwash would, would, would play. And, and then there were other sound things and, and I don't know how they had,

they had like an ESP thing going on. It was one of the most fun, cool things ever. The other thing I think about is you as a baseball fan, Alan, um, you know, people have walk-up songs.

Yes. In certain stadiums, a player has a, a song to walk up to. So this is really, it's all the same conversation. I'm always thinking, what would be your walk-up song? That's so funny. I remember reading about other people's walk-up songs, and it's usually like, you know, it's

a mix of really hard hip-hop or a country song or something. And then I remember Hideki Matsui was a Japanese player, and he would come up to Clocks by Coldplay, just like the softest song. I was like, that's really intimidating for the pitchers. Like, oh my God, Chris Martin's coming up to bat. But that always made me laugh. I was like, why did he choose that song? It's so funny. That's really funny. It's really funny, man. Yeah. I don't know. I guess you have to go with something hard, right? I don't know. What would you pick? What was Alan's theme song? We didn't get Alan's theme song. Oh yeah. I don't know. I guess you have to go with something hard, right? What would you pick? What was Alan's theme song? We didn't get Alan's theme song. Oh, yeah.

I don't know the name of it. It was just like kind of something with like some weird... He would play when I did pull-ups. It was like kind of like a weird swagger-y song or something. It was like a jazzy like Tin Pan Alley weird thing. But yeah, it stuck for years, which is so funny. funny you know the b-story is interesting because we're putting chess pieces into position right we're putting them into place i think there's an andy and mark sort of love triangle going on and i think you know i think we were figuring out what we had in prat which is this secret weapon

who's super likable and like we're like maybe we shouldn't make him a super unlikable character when he's a super likable guy so he has kind of a cute moment at the end he's living in that tent i thought it was just so adorable when he's like he has that talking head and he you know he's like i thought that went pretty well and it's raining all around him and he's clearly in a bad situation but he's positive right and that's you know we're we're adjusting the character in that in that situation that moment where he reveals like sticks his head out of the pit back in like a gopher is just a really really funny site yeah

and it's a precursor to a lot of physical gags he would do right i mean you see no on like roller skates you see him jumping over a counter you see him falling down you see so yeah that he was he got he does his own stunts so yeah there was there was a lot of that which is uh uh good and and and you know i think they are even trying to mark you know i say they we were even trying to make mark more likable right it's like in this one he's just more normal he's just kind of a straight man he's no longer like trying to sleep with everybody so i think it's just kind of adjusting these characters and turning the dial on them to make the show work and find the tone. You know, something I actually wanted to quickly call out as we are talking about Andy's character.

You know, we've discussed the first six episodes, the show was figuring itself out. The writing staff, the actors, everyone was figuring out what the show was going to be. But one of the original intentions of the series by Greg and Mike was for Andy and for Chris Pratt to only be on the show for the first six episodes, right? Andy was supposed to help introduce Anne and the pit in this comic way, but then leave. And so what became so clear to everybody was that not just was Andy a great character, but Chris Pratt is this, you know, once in a generation comic talent. And so when he stayed on as a series regular, I actually think that these first few episodes of the season of the second season is the writing staff figuring out, OK, then who is Andy going to be if not for, you know, a short storyline? What is his character going to be if not for a short storyline? What is his character going to be?

What will his comic traits and his failings and his interesting qualities going to be? And so you see so much of Andy in these first few episodes because it was a chance now to really expand on his character. So I always love that about the beginning of the season. I just wanted to call that out to you guys right here. The editing is a comedy masterclass in Parks and Recreation, but you can see in this episode that they're starting to learn some of the lessons that really make it hilarious. There's a jump cut sequence in the middle of the talent show bit in the beauty pageant. And so you can imagine the setup is you're going to have the old lady contestant who's clearly old.

She's old, old. And you're like, what the hell? And she's going to sing Donna Summer's song. Oh, it's so good. It's so good. It's so good. So that's funny. Okay's so good it's so good like so that's funny okay i told it everybody right that's funny but what you don't do is say and now the old contestant will show you her talent and then you don't know what she's going to do she stands up you know what's going to happen and she clears her throat and she starts to sing this that's not how this how it's done on parks and recreation out of nowhere you cut into not even the beginning

in the middle of one of the oh it's so good it's so good it's like a it's like a math jigsaw puzzle scientific bit of of editing when you think about how that could have been shot could have been edited and then how it was edited and it's Yes, I'm glad you brought up that specific moment, because to me, that is a great example of everything coming into place. And they say a movie or a show is made three times, essentially. It's made in the writing, it's made in the shooting when you're on set, and then it's made again in the editing room. And they all have to work in concert and each one can be additive or each one can be subtractive or deleterious to the process, right? So in that specific case, when I hear that song, I think of Katie Dippel because she would always pitch someone singing that song. I remember

her pitching that and writing it into the script. And wouldn't it be funny if you see all these young women and then you just see an older lady singing this song out of nowhere. You don't even see her beforehand, right? It's surprising and it's funny. And that's what comedy is, right? It's something unexpected. And so I'm glad you flagged that moment. Comedy is so subjective, as we all know, and people talk about what smart comedy is or isn't. What you just described as smart comedy because there is no setup like this is just joke and the setup is left up to the audience to be smart enough to figure out yeah i think it's always a fundamental respect for the audience and the audience's intelligence and the audience getting something unexpected and i do remember you know look i think the people making the show you know mike and greg and all the actors were really smart people. But I do think that sometimes they got annoyed.

Like, certainly Mike got annoyed. I think we were on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. All you guys were on the cover, you know, the cast of the show. And it said the smartest comedy on television. And Mike was like, it would be nice if you said the funniest comedy or the best comedy, right? Because we don't want people to think, like, you got to have a PhD to watch the show. But, you know, I agree with you in the sense that it doesn't pander, right? It's not trying to pander. It's not trying to go lowest common denominator. And I think that's a common thread through a lot of the stuff that Mike has worked on and hopefully

that I've worked on as well. Yeah. My favorite thing about, I remember shooting that Entertainment Weekly cover is we do all these different photos and the headline that they clearly want to use and did is the smartest comedy on television. And yet the picture they use is all of us with a gigantic stuffed bear in the background for no reason. Yeah, that was one of them. And then the other one was you guys like in a Jeep or something like, and I remember that one. That was on the covers. You guys were wearing like safari outfits or something.

I don't know. We were in the desert and I was doing a parody of Franco in two and a half hours or three hundred and a half days where we got his arm caught in a rock and saw it off. Remember that movie? Yeah, I remember that one. 127 hours. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was like that big movie at the moment. So if you ever look at that Entertainment Weekly and look it up, I'm in James Franco's exact wardrobe.

How strange. With little tiny rocks, tiny ones on top of my arm. Do you ever do a photo shoot and you look at what the photographer wants you to do and you're like, I'm not going to do that? Because I think they come up with weird ideas. Because I feel like they always, to me, not like I've done nearly as many photo shoots as you have, but I often feel like it seems like they're doing this photo shoot for you, not for me. You want to add something weird to your portfolio. You don't want to do something normal. Oh, all the time.

And I also find that they, with quote-unquote comedy material, is the worst. Can you wear fake glasses with a fake nose or hold up a banana to your ear and pretend it's a telephone like that? That kind of shit. It's the worst. I mean, even Annie Leibovitz is one of the greatest photographers in the world. And one of my personal favorites, you know, has a picture of Ellen DeGeneres and wait for it, clown shoes and a clown outfit. And of course course she's the sad clown. There's only one type. All clowns are actually sad. We know that. The curse of the comedy performer, right? The respect you want to get.

They want to put you in this box and put you in funny clothes, goofy glasses, all that stuff. I think that's why a lot of comedians, they want to do their serious movie. I literally think that's it, to avoid photo shoots like that. They want to do something serious. That's the only reason they do it. I was doing some photo shoot for The Hollywood Reporter,

some roundtable thing for showrunners or something, and we walked into this room, and it looked like the set of Saved by the Bell in 1989. It was all pastel, giant foam shapes and pinks and light greens, seafoam greens and light blues and a checkerboard floor. And all of us were kind of like,

wait, what is this? And it was like Bill Hader and Dracar Michael, Dave Mandel. And at one point, Hader was so funny. He's like, you want me to sit on this giant ball? It's just like

funny like you can pull up the photos of him he's like he's like has his head in like a circle i'm like that's what they made us we just we did it but it's like again like you know they're just trying to do their jobs and do something interesting but it's certainly hater was so funny he's like i don't know what is this because he doesn't care but it was very funny all right you want to take a step inside the ponty town hall where are we doing the town hall today we don't do it in the gym you want to do it in the pool where do you want to take a step inside the Pawnee Town Hall? Where are we doing the Town Hall today? You want to do it in the gym? You want to do it in the pool? Where do you want to do it? The pool? I don't know.

I think we should do it. It's hot out today as we're recording this, so I think we should do it at the Bandshell. Oh, that's nice. Outdoor at the Bandshell. Wow, that's lovely. That's a great place for a Town Hall. It might encourage too many people to come and ask questions

that I don't want to answer. That's right. Nico from New Jersey. This question is kind of for both of us. What season of Parks and Rec was the most fun to make and why? Which one was the trickiest? Thank you, Nico, for the question. You want to lead that one off? I will. So a lot of thoughts, a lot of thoughts. of thoughts uh you know for as far as the most fun to make i feel like the process might not have been the most fun but the one it's to me it's between two and three um because we were finding our groove and like that's when the show to me there to me there's a sweet spot in a show

certainly coming from it from a writing perspective and probably from a performance perspective as well you know you tell me but when you're first starting out, you're finding your footing, you're finding who the characters are, you're discovering who they are, there's a joy in that, but then at a certain point, you reach, to me, like a nice plateau where you know who they are, and you're hitting on their jokes, it's like, oh, I get it, Ron Swanson is the manliest guy in the world, so that's fun. Then you do that for a while. And then if you're on a show like this, which has to run many, many seasons, or if you're lucky enough to run many, many seasons, you're confronted with a choice. Do I either repeat the

same jokes and stories over and over again? Or do I change the characters completely and make them unrecognizable? And that's when it gets difficult, right? That's when it becomes, I think there's, again, some meme on the internet where it's like season one character is a normal season two is like a little bit more interesting and then season nine it's like it's a cartoon right it's like you don't know it's ron swan is just you know waking up and eating a whole cow or something right you just don't like how many jokes can we do well bacon right how many jokes like he's we get it he's manly but but you're in that position right you've done a hundred stories and people keep in mind like sometimes we have a b and c stories C stories on each episode. So that might be, you might be on story number 370,

right? It's not even 120. It's a 300 stories with these characters. Anyway, I'm going to say season three, that includes the Harvest Festival arc, that that's you guys, you know, Chris and Ben joining the show, you and Adam. And that's when it felt like, man, this is really hitting on all cylinders. And so yeah, that was, and I'll answer answer why don't you answer that one and i'll do the other one which one was the trickiest after you the shooting schedule was unlike any i've ever been on like you you do six episodes and then you shut down for nine months and then you come back and do 320 in a row so you could shut down for another nine it was like insane so i never know what season was what because of that but but i i will say that when we knew that it was going to be

my last season and rashida's last season um there was a such a like this great nostalgia and it was like senioritis it was like you'd graduated it was all fun and games and you were just enjoying every minute of everybody's company um because you knew this would you'd never have anything like this quite like this again that that's what that last senior spring kind of it's just fun everyone having a good time a show that we felt like was working and we knew we saw the sort of we also saw the finish line in some ways right that was really helpful and i always feel like that helps the writing as well as the performing but yeah and and rob's not joking i mean because of a variety of factors some of which was amy you know having kids stuff. Season two slash three ended up being 30 episodes in a row or something.

It was so bizarre. It was so many episodes in a row. It's an inhuman number of episodes to do in a row. Anyone who's working in the industry knows that, but we got through it, and I think we ended up with some really great creative stuff. I think as far as which one was the trickiest to me you know obviously season one is always tricky because you're building the world and you're building the characters and you're figuring out how your actors perform best um it also to me gets a little tricky as i said later on in the run but before

the end so to me like the last season is kind of cool it's like you know we're ending and like you know you're writing towards an end point this is where we're going this is but if you don't know that if you're you know people on long-running shows like season 12 like that to me starts getting hard where it's episode 17 of season 12 you're like oh my god it's like you know like chris and ron fight over a stapler or something like you're just trying to yeah i don't know man like we gotta we gotta make an episode right we gotta shoot on monday so we gotta figure this out so an episode, right? We got to shoot on Monday. So we got to figure this out. So that, but I will say this, you know, those later seasons that you were talking about, Rob, like one of the, the, the fun things for me was I started getting a little bit, uh, you know, Mike started trusting me to help run the room. So that was really exciting for me.

So the later seasons, um, you know, Mike was working on Brooklyn a little bit and Brooklyn nine, nine with, with Dan. And so Dan was gone. And so I was helping to run the room with Donna Carey, who was another writer. And so me being able to, as a younger writer, getting able to sit at the keyboard and make some decisions and sort of decide what goes in the script was really exciting for me. And I'm always grateful to Mike for that experience. Well, this was a great episode. And I thank you guys for downloading listening make sure that you subscribe to the show and like I say tell two friends about it and that math works

out to be a lot of audience very very very quickly they tell me I don't know I didn't go to Harvard does that does that math make sense there's still time they're still accepting people and we give us high ratings we need validation and that's the show thanks to producer greg and producer schulte goodbye for punny see you next week

this episode of parks and recollection is produced by greg levine and me rob schulte our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Alan Yang for Alan Yang Productions, Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna 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 rat aka 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.