Parks and Recollection - Camping (S3E8)

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Pack your bags because Rob Lowe and Alan Yang are heading to the Disney Ranch to recap S3E8 of Parks and Recreation! In "Camping" Leslie takes the whole department camping in order to brainstorm new ideas. On today's episode find out how this episode mirrored the writer's room retreats, why team building exercises didn't always help build the team, and some insider knowledge on a filming technique called the Texas Switch. Come for the Parks and Rec recap, stay for the NCIS lore! Got a question for the Pawnee Town Hall? Send us an email: [e-mail] Or leave a 30-Second voicemail at: [phone]  The episode opens with Pawnee’s city manager, Paul, touting the success of the Pawnee harvest festival, then immediately collapsing from a massive heart attack. While Paul recovers from Octuple bypass surgery, Chris is brought back to Pawnee from Indianapolis to fill in as City Manager and tasks Leslie with coming up with some new large-scale revenue producing ideas for Pawnee.  Always up for a challenge, Leslie organizes a mandatory camping trip for the less than enthusiastic Parks Dept to help brainstorm ideas to generate new revenue. Ann tags along in an attempt to avoid an awkward run in with Chris—and Andy decides to join the trip in order to have a romantic getaway with April out in the woods.  Once at the campsite, Tom reveals his audacious camping set-up complete with a large screen TV, fro-yo machine, and of course DJ Roomba. As the group settles in and everyone starts pitching their ideas, Leslie starts to panic and it becomes clear she cannot think of anything that would top the harvest festival. Meanwhile, Andy has set up his love nest in the wrong campsite miles away, forcing him to trek through the wilderness and leaving April miserable and stuck with the rest of the group without Andy.  As night falls, the group sits around the campfire listening to Ron tell ghost stories about government bureaucracy. Chris emerges from the woods during his evening jog and Ann decides to go for a walk with him to clear the air of their recent and confusing breakup. With morale low, everyone decides to scrap the trip and go home, but much to their dismay, due to Tom’s siphoning of electricity from the group’s van for his many Skymall luxury camping amenities, the van’s battery is now dead and they have no way to get home.  Luckily, Jerry remembers seeing a small bed and breakfast down the road. The group hikes to the creepy cat infested Quiet Corn run by a strict old lady named Elsa Clack, where Leslie reveals to Ron that she’s totally blocked. Ron reacts by locking Leslie in her room to get a good night’s sleep. Meanwhile, Andy finally catches up with the group at the inn and recreates his romantic tent setup for a smitten April. After a restful seven hours of sleep, Leslie emerges recharged with a fresh set of new ideas that Chris ends up loving. The episode ends with Ben revealing straight to camera that the bed and breakfast owner Elsa Clack, died the night before shortly after playing the group a song on the piano.

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 Welcome, welcome

What? We do have a jingle Obviously we have a jingle But do we need to like in season two Do like you and I singing A welcome to parks and recollection yeah at a second like a courtesy that again shout out to that real theme song you meet you meet rob to sing for 30 seconds a minute for no reason i don't know i think they

probably have heard enough of our talking but it doesn't change the fact that this is parks and recollection and you are listening as pert happily would say this is a. And you are listening, as Pert Happily would say, this is a podcast that you are listening to. Parks and Recollection with me, Rob Lowe, and Alan Yang. How you doing, Rolo? Super, super good. I'm excited about this episode. Today we are doing camping. I'll let you describe it. But I have many things to say because it feels like I did this last week. That's amazing. I'm really excited because I wasn't on set for this one. So this is a good tag team effort. But yeah, this is a lot of outdoor shit. This is like you in the woods. It's like nighttime.

We'll talk about how that is to shoot Parks and Rec at night in the outdoors as opposed to on a soundstage. Because the next episode is back on the soundstage. So episode details. Episode title, Camping. Season 3. Episode 8. Written by the great Ayesha Muharra, my former roommate. We lived together in Hancock Park while we were working on the show.

Directed by Rob Schraub. Original air date, February 24th, 2011. And the blurb, Leslie sets up a camping trip to brainstorm for new ideas, but she's the one who surprisingly can't come up with anything. the one who surprisingly can't come up with anything. Notes really quickly, the building we shot at the Quiet Corn, the bed and breakfast, is Mansion Adina in Pasadena, a 12-room Victorian mansion built around 1885 before Pasadena officially became a city. That's some deep trivia. Love that.

The episode marked the appearance of Rob Lowe as a member of the regular cast. So this is your first appearance as like you're officially in, you're part of the team, you're part of the squad, no longer recurring, no longer guests, no longer just dropping by like a visitor to a bed and breakfast. You're one of the family now. That's right. Very, very exciting day for me. Really, really big day. And final notes note, during the introduction, footage of the Harvest Festival includes footage from the Calgary Stampede. What does that mean?

Wait, is that, what is that? Is like a, what is that? The Calgary Stampede is a big deal. Okay. Like, I've known about it. Like, first of all, it's also the name of one of their sports teams. That's what I thought. Is it a football team or something?

What is it? It's the rodeo. It's the big rodeo in calgary and um it's a it's a super super big deal i've been to calgary but it's been a long time it's in uh am i wrong is it manitoba i believe is it it's in man i believe it's in alberta i think it's alberta because i think edmonton alberta yeah you're right yeah my fault alberta it's in... Or is it Alberta? I think it's Alberta. Ooh. Because I think Edmonton, Calgary. Alberta. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, Alberta.

My fault. Alberta. It's Alberta. And the great thing about Calgary is, that's where people, if you're ever going to do a Western, you want to go there in the summer and shoot because it's daylight to like 1130.

Oh, wow. Because it's so far north. Yeah. Is it near Banff, kind of? I mean, whatever. It's a big province. But yeah, I feel like we did that. Are people tuning in to just listen to us talk about geography?

A place we don't know very well? Yeah. Calgary's deputy is a rodeo. Okay, great. Let's get into the episode, I think, right? I mean, why not? Why not? All right.

So the episode opens with Pawnee City Manager Paul touting the success of the Pawnee Harvest Festival. Then immediately collapsing from a massive heart attack. Hilarious comedy. I mean, that's what you're looking for. It kind of took me by surprise. I was like, I forgot. I forgot this cold open. I was like, oh man. And then of course, he grabs her chest on the way to the ground. While Paul recovers from octuple bypass surgery, Chris is brought back to pawnee from indianapolis to fill in as city manager and tasks leslie with coming up with some new large-scale revenue producing ideas for pawnee that's right i mean you're back like how do you get chris trager back from indianapolis where we

last i believe that's where we last saw him and like i know we'll just murder a character i like that you very uh diplomatically say like paul is uh out of commission for a while it's very unclear what happened like he's not dead we're just saying he's recovering also you come back as city managers it's like this kind of like a nitty-gritty political thing but a lot of cities they have a city manager who's very powerful sometimes almost more powerful than the mayor which is sometimes a ceremonial position and i think in pawnee it's kind of the case case because Chris is kind of the boss of the city, like city manager. In some cities, the mayor is powerful. Some city, city council is powerful. I think in Pawnee, the city manager is kind of the nuts and bolts guy.

And it is funny how they do that. In Los Angeles, everybody knows the mayor literally has no power. Literally, it's ceremonial. All city councils. It's like power literally it's all city councils it's yeah city it's like one of the most powerful city councils in the world which is kind of crazy because i uh a friend of mine ran for city council and she won so she's on the city council kind of crazy um but uh yeah so you're back you're back on the on the team and um yeah i i think we talked about in the writer's room a little bit how to get you back and what the structure would be. And we had Paul Ioresco who played, that was the character's name.

And we're like, let's give him a heart attack, I guess. Let's give him a comedic heart attack and bring Chris Traeger back. That comedic heart attack that we all know. Yeah, a classic, classic. Now, was this a pitch? Did you come up with this on a retreat? I believe the timing would have been that you guys had been on your annual retreat. And we talked about the season arc at our annual writer's retreat. So just to tell you guys a little bit about this, I believe this started happening season three. It probably didn't happen until this season. So this was in between seasons two and three. And like we've mentioned before, we only had a very short break because we extended and we shot the first six episodes of season three after season two immediately. And so we didn't really have a break. So I think we needed a little bit of creative juice refreshing. And so we would go to this hotel down by Laguna Niguel. And this is very, very generous of the studio and Mike to just take us all down there. And we'd stay for a couple nights and talk about where the show was going.

And it's kind of this opportunity to like, you know, it's what people do with their corporate retreats, et cetera. But it's kind of more fun because it was just a bunch of comedy writers. We'd go and we'd hang out in the conference room and just kind of pitch ideas. And you're just, you know, that energy where you're kind of stuck together. Like, I think it's also like a good bonding exercise. That's what I was going to ask. Yeah.

I mean, it was all just like, you know, we do the writers, the writers you know you do the room or whatever but then you'd have lunch together and then afterwards you'd have a glass of wine and then you know we like we would play celebrity a lot yeah what kind of team building did you do what kind of team well i mean i think this is where we were very fortunate like it was just such a good group of people you know and like i said like aisha was my roommate like literally like i love i live with one of the other writers and there was kind of a good camaraderie a good and there was just kind of like by this time there was kind of the second generation of parks writers like the first season um you know i think i was the youngest kid and then season two we added aisha we added kitty dippled and we added harris whittles and we were

all kind of our 20s and it was like okay now we have like a little little JV team of writers who are all kind of younger along with all these great veteran writers who'd been there for a while and no it was just a really friendly group and I just remember going like we would go back to the conference room at night and just like play games and it would just be I mean that's kind of fun right that's how you kind of build not not hating being in that room because even though you have to spend a lot of time with each other, it is fun, man. I remember Mike coming in being like, you know, like, obviously, I miss my family when I work, but it's so funny to be here because everyone's so smart, right? Everyone's so smart and hilarious at the same time. So we got to know each other a lot better. And, you know, I remember having great times with, you know, all those writers that I mentioned and Mike Scully and Emily Spivey and Dan Gore and Mike and just, you know, just a really fun time. So this was kind of inspired by, okay, well,

what if Leslie had essentially writer's block and took everyone on a camping retreat to try to jog her brain? But yeah, there'll be more stories about register treats in the future, but a lot of it was celebrity. And then, uh, us getting into fights about the game celebrity and what you're allowed to choose as a clue because,

it wasn't always us picking celebrities. Sometimes it would be, uh, uh, be random nouns or, uh, a phrase like, and it was impossible to get.

Like what? So it was like, uh, it would be like, uh, it would, the clue instead of you know celebrity is a game where you say like it's brad pitt or whatever and someone has

to make like you know either give clues or gesture like charades to like for someone to guess brad pitt right um at a certain point in at the writer's retreat we would uh it would be so abstract and obscure it would be like the clue instead of being something tan like tangible like brad pitt would be uh aisha standing behind harris making a peace sign with her hands and harris is bending over and they're both singing uh the star spangled banner and so you'd have to guess that which is impossible i mean it's impossible and then we would get into fights like that would be that would be the answer jesus so that is so so so this people got like huge fights over this like that's not a clue you would write that down and put in the hat you'd pull that out of the hat you'd be like i can't give

clues for this because it's impossible anyway that's that's the kind of shit we were doing it was a truly a waste of time but also a ton of stuff got done there so this was one of the episodes we broke there in the next one as well and then we'll we'll get to that next episode um but yeah and also the final note is the retreat was in the same place every year and i think that's uh mike sure is like he he didn't want to go anywhere else so he just always at the same place i like um i i love that people who get to do that, like Adam Sandler, when he makes his movies, he just makes them wherever he wants to vacation. If you've ever noticed that, I'm not kidding, he legitimately is like, it's going to be in Cabo San Lucas or whatever. is like, is there anyone who's figured it out more than Sandler? He makes movies with his friends, has a good time, makes a ton of money, shoots.

And by the way, every so often he'll throw one in with a Prestige director. He'll do a punch truck love. He'll do an uncut gems. And it's like, oh, he's figured it out, man. He's figured it out. And I think he clearly wears his own clothes as well. I mean, he's always comfortable. Dude's wearing basketball shorts to the tonight show and uh people love him so god bless sandman um did you guys do anything like you guys did

new retreats but you guys hung out as actors right as a cast i mean this this was a very close cast the parks and rec cast of all the different things i've been on um you know texting was kind of everybody had a text thread we were on, but we were also so, so busy, which is the thing I loved about the show is everybody was so industrious as he is doing his standup, you know,

Nick Offerman with the wood, the woodworking shop and writing books and, you know, Amy, you know, directing and Rashida writing screenplays and that this cast was so ambitious and had so much else going on in addition to the show chris was doing movies money ball and audition all that stuff and i at one point i was doing um three other projects when i was doing

parks that we were the closest of any cast that i've been a part of really, but very rarely got, we had a chance to get together because we were so busy. I remember we had a great Indian food night. I do remember an Indian food night. That was particularly fun. And I think Greg Daniels did a, um, season finale party or something,

but we were busy little bees. Yeah. It's always so fun always so fun we should do it more often the show uh the current show i'm doing right now which is called loot um we did a season finale dinner downtown and just like fun for everyone to to to be together because a lot of times people don't realize like the cast isn't on set at the same time you know they're often split up into different stories so it's kind of fun to to have everyone uh kind of in the same building at the same time. They're often split up into different stories, so it's kind of fun to have everyone kind of in the same building at the same time. Onwards with the synopsis. Always up for a challenge,

Leslie organizes a mandatory camping trip for the less than enthusiastic Parks Department to help brainstorm ideas to generate new revenue, and tags along in an attempt to avoid an awkward run-in with Chris, and Andy decides to join the trip in order to have a romantic getaway

with April out in the woods. So this was kind of the idea of, well, we just finished Harvest Festival. It's like all this energy had been expended. It's like, what's next? And now this is kind of like a meta episode because Leslie's like, well, what do I do next? It's kind of like the writer's saying,

like, what do we do next after this? So this is, I don't know, it felt like a little bit meta to me watching it for sure. I love, I listen, you know, what's the number one rule about writing, write what you know, you know, write what you're going through, right. Write what, what's what you're living through whenever you can. And that's what you guys were doing. Like, Hey, what's next? I know let's write an episode where it's about what's next. Yeah. And, and what was it? So you went out there and shot out in the wood, right?

Where was the shot? I mean, okay, first of all, Parks and Rec is such an indoor show that to have an episode that's almost entirely, or feels like, it's almost entirely outdoors, so jarring.

And then you add it's at night, a lot of it. And it was hot as hades recurring theme in the show by the way like if you listen to this podcast you know it's like so hot and then also listen you know the outdoors of southern california does not look like the midwest it looks nothing like indiana nothing and it kind of makes me laugh if you look at where we're camping it looks nothing like anywhere in indiana i've ever been before i'm sorry it's just yeah it's clear like the yeah it's the it's not the woods like indiana woods like

the mountain they should retitle in the in the like single line description of the show the parks gang goes clearly and very obviously goes camping at the disney ranch yes the disney ranch by the way where they shoot everything outdoors everything it's like everything that's like it's a farm or a ranch or whatever it's that always they shot the entire season of justified in the disney ranch they shot the entire season of true blood which is supposed to be new orleans like the disney ranch yes it's it's the legendary indiana mountains right they're climbing these mountains like that but but it's also like and we talk about night shooting because because if people don't realize you know if you're basically turned around into nights like

it makes your day crazy you're like for the cast and the crew like you know i don't know if you guys have read these stories about the shooting of that show euphoria but that show happens at night a lot and so it's like you're just getting to work at like 10 p.m and shooting till 10 a.m or whatever every day and that's really crazy it's actually really crazy to do like and it's you know we try not to do that as much as possible because it's a really a grind for the crew and the cast it looks great that's the night there's no getting around it nights look amazing and most people it's one thing to do them on a movie but on a television series you're shooting so often so many hours so many episodes that it's it just kills you to do nights so when you see nights on tv it's super special you ever

notice like like more crime happens in the daytime on television than actually happens in the world because nobody wants to shoot crime at night because it's hard. Yeah. And when I worked with Ricky Gervais on a movie called The Invention of Lying, we were super excited for Ricky's. He didn't write the script. He rewrote it. And the very first thing he did when he rewrote it was took out every single night shoot. Yeah.

Every night turns into day. Every single one. Look at this. Find and replace. Just do the slug lines there's a refined replace and then let's make most of the exteriors ext into int interior just make it make it make this thing shootable so we're not outdoors and not all inside but yeah there's a time and place there's a time and place um but yeah so we were breaking this story kind

of injunction with the with the andy and april story which we'll get to next episode you know sort of talking about placeholder or bottle episodes or whatever it's like this show was a kind of a fine balance between episodic which is like stories that stand on their own like kind of like a flu season or you know you could just watch it you kind of get it and and also tying into the larger arc right so um these are both kind of good examples both this episode and the fancy party episode of you get a little of good examples, both this episode and the Fancy Party episode of you get a little of both, right? It's like you referenced the Harvest Festival episode, but this one has its own story, right? It's like she's doing the camping thing and at the end, she gets cured by Ron. But I think that delicate balance is part of the challenge of show running

a show, especially one that runs 16, 20 episodes, whatever it is per season you're gonna have a lot that are just episodic and they're not an overarching story arc so there's challenges to both you know a show like breaking bad is like it's kind of like it's one continuous story but a show like parks it's like you kind of get both um also want to shout out one of the particular jokes here uh at five minutes ron says that uh fishing is like yoga except he still gets to kill something so yeah that's that that's uh that's a one of the one of the all-time greats all right continuing on the synopsis once at campsite, Tom reveals his audacious camping setup, complete with a large screen TV, fro-yo machine, and of course, the legendary DJ Roomba.

As the group settles in and everyone starts pitching their ideas, Leslie starts to panic and it becomes clear she cannot think of anything that would top the Harvest Festival. Meanwhile, Andy has set up his love nest in the wrong campsite miles away, forcing him to trek through the wilderness and leaving April miserable and stuck with the rest of the group without Andy. Well, so many bits here. So many bits here. The best is we were so excited about Tom's tent. And that's where we all hung out.

You can tell. We all hung out. It looks nice. Well, there was there was no usually, you know, you have your trailer or something to hang out in. But Base Camp, where all that stuff was so far away from the set. So far. And it was so hot that we, because he had a portable air conditioner, I believe. Oh, wow.

So, and I think, did he have a blow-up kids pool? I mean, there's a couch in there. There's like an Xbox and a big wide screen tv or whatever a flat screen tv and yeah it looks very nice he has an ice cream machine i mean it looked like it was functional it was but yeah that really made me laugh i mean this is i feel like this was glamping before the portmanteau glamping was even invented like this was like real real fucking glamorous camping you know anytime i get to work with DJ Roomba, I was super excited. He's back.

As you know, DJ Roomba is one of my favorite characters on Parks and Recreation. Yeah, it's DJ Roomba and Pert Happily. That's right.

But this is another example of like, you know, just fun sitcom writing and acting where it's like, okay, the characters are all camping.

What would each of them be like? Go. And then you can just pitch on that, right? It's like, okay, Tom has a crazy setup like that. Ben doesn't like it. He doesn't like the outdoors. Chris loves the outdoors. He runs all the time. And it's like, everyone has their own specific

attitude towards whatever obstacle you're putting in their way that episode. So this one's so clear, you know, it's like, and it comes up later when they're, when they're pitching ideas too. It's like, everyone's so on character. Um's another thing, Jerry Fishing with Ron talking about losing his virginity rather than Gail taking it when he was 24. Apparently, you know, Nick, I think,

had a really hard time getting through the scene without breaking. I mean, was that a problem? I mean, I feel like he's so professional, he almost never broke, but I think in this scene

he was just breaking a lot. It's funny, this whole thing about breaking, right, and in comedy. and people love it and it's just so funny because on saturday night live i remember in the day it was a badge of honor to never break and i remember one of the one time this is the pre-jimmy fallon well this is pre-jimmy fallon that's the thing is like it was so shocking to the old guard like you know i'd hosted a bunch and all the other people yeah because if you broke

lauren would famously say um get it together we're not the fucking carol burnett show yeah yeah yeah and like it was a real thing and then of course it became a thing but i think you're right i think that the the real comedy assassins never ever break it's just not what you do and so the fact that nick would break was shows how funny this particular thing was i mean it's just like it's losing yeah losing his virginia at 24 and yeah gail taking it gail took his yes gail taking it christy brink his ring. Yes, Gail taking it. Christie Brinkley, by the way. But yeah, it also made me laugh seeing, so Tom pitched it, like we were saying, everyone's a character, right?

They're pitching their ideas. You know, Offerman's Ron is like, you know, we're going to give back the money to the town people, whatever. And Tom pitches, you know, asking what Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Drake have in common. Like, they haven't performed Pawnee. They need to come perform.

But like, this was, I think, before we before we ever knew like as he's got in that world and would appear in a jay-z video like he became friends with jay-z like he became like reality like what he was pitching became his life it's so crazy like i remember the day that video came out i remember watching it with disease on his phone and i was like this what is what is the world coming yeah what is your well what is he's in a video called otis which is off watch the throne with jay-z and kanye i was like this is yeah he just there's a little indian dude from south carolina is in this video it's like why is he in this video but like also like for all you like i went on to direct a different jay-z video it's like why would like how did this all happen you know it's like this, you make these jokes.

And when you're kids, right? We're kids. And then within a couple years, you're working with those people. It's very crazy, man. Anyway, I just want to point that out, how insane life can be, you know? Just a lot of things. You know, the other thing about this episode is a lot of times, you know, the Leslie Knope character, it seems almost superhuman.

And I think it's a good lesson in writing to show that, okay, well, maybe 80% of the time or 90% of the time she can be superhuman. But you have to keep showing flaws, vulnerabilities. And in this one, she has the essential, you know, essentially what is writer's block. And so, you know, it helps develop her character to not always be perfect. And in this one, she's struggling. And, you know know the act break is like i have no ideas right i i don't know what i'm gonna do and i think you have to sort of pepper that in so that the character doesn't become you know superhuman and just totally insane um i also

want to shout you were mentioning how different the doesn't look like indiana there's a shot at 11 minutes 24 seconds where where leslie and ben look at the sunset and it's massively visual effects over because it's like it's so clear like i remember them like they had the shot like they had in the edit room and we would look at it it's like yeah this doesn't look that good it's like get the vfx in there like let's make this sunset look like paris in the 1800s or something beautiful just like unbelievable pinks and like whatever purples and whatever but if you look at that shot it's like yeah this is uh this is not natural this is not real uh what made me laugh all right onwards with synopsis as night falls the group sits around the campfire listening

to ron tell ghost stories about government bureaucracy chris emerges from the woods during his evening jog and anne decides to go for a walk with him to clear the air of their recent and confusing breakup. With morale low, everyone decides to scrap the trip and go home, but much to their dismay due to Tom's siphoning of electricity from the group's van for as many SkyMall luxury camping amenities, the van's battery is now dead, and they have no way to get home. Very funny bit, though. The Chris and Ann stuff is really funny. We'll get to the stuff later, but very funny. I also thought it was good. By the way,

kind of a repeat beat. I didn't notice this, but also in Harvest Festival, there's a blackout. And in this episode, the van runs out of power. It's like, this is a go-to move. Parks and Rec in this era. I don't know who kept pitching that, but yeah, Tom siphoning the van's energy is very funny.

I remember being gacked up. That's a phrase we use. I don't know if that's a phrase in the real world, but it's a phrase in movie and TV world where you're wearing a lot of crap on you. And I had like 75 different lights on me because I was jogging at night. I look like a robot coming out of it.

And I remember trying to figure out what kind of bushes I would come out. And there was a big hill and I almost fell and hurt my leg just trying to make it super, super bizarre. And I believe when Ann and I go on a run, uh, I run on a run, I run off and run up a tree and we had a parkour guy come. Come teach you.

No, no, no. What we did was what we call it. Oh, he shot it. Yeah, we did what we call a Texas switch. So a Texas switch is a thing when an actor, here's the famous Texas switches would be would be you know in the old cowboy movies used to see them all the time we're like you know an actor runs and does a horrible tumble you know dramatic tumble behind a and then lands behind a barrel and then the star is already

hiding behind the barrel and then he gets up and runs away so it's all in one thing and you never know that the first part was a stuntman and the second part was the actor so we did a texas switch with me where i said i said to him like i'm gonna go for a run and i took off down the trail went past a tree stopped at the tree that the parkour guy was hiding behind it and he continued on so it looked just like me and then the guy was like a monkey it was it was insane what he was able to do climbing up that tree this is also kind of like when parkour was hot it was like they were trying to put it into movies and stuff like a guy like just running up buildings and like yeah he just ran up the tree like it was like he was an animal like you're saying like it was there was no there's no, he just ran up the tree like he was an animal, like you're saying. Like it was no, there was no climbing.

He just ran straight up the tree. It was unbelievable. Super funny. Super fun. Yeah. And then you come back in, you're like, I'm much more receptive to ideas. My heart rate is elevated. That was you.

And then I also love the Ron joke. When she looked back in the back of her car, she saw that although it was her own property, she would be forced to take it in for a state inspection. That's his ghost story. Very, very funny. I also want to know, Tom, when the power goes out, he says, no, I was

Tebow in Cupcake Wars. First of all, Tebow. Tebow. Tebow keeps going up in the show. Tebow. Big, big, big. And then him being in a Cupcake Wars made me laugh because it later uh in master none he would his character would host a show called clash of the cupcakes so i guess that era was uh very big cupcake shows are very big but was it kind of a but is he's a huge foodie

though yes huge foodie um so much so now that like uh like i was telling you rob i was over at aziz's place yesterday and like he's so into food now that he's like he's like i'll just cook at home because like he's like i i feel like i get the ingredients myself i'll just cook it myself he's like he's like i'll go get some fresh fish he got some fresh fish and he was like okay i made these tuna tostadas they're inspired by a country mar in mexico city it's like this is insane like this is a very high level he's gone from like going to restaurants like i just will cook the food better than the restaurants now so it's hey it's a good friend to have you know very much better than it's a better better than a friend who doesn't do that shit so um all right oh a prompt a challenge from the producers

here's in the notes tom holds up a rented dvd of n Angeles Season 1 from Pony, quote unquote, Pony Video. Well, first of all, go ahead. Finish the prompt because I have it on. Yes. In a town with amazing names for stores and businesses, the video rental store was just named Pony Video, which is a good point. They didn't really try on that one. Well, you know what we have here, don't you? We have the first moment in this episode of the ray donovan it's ncis is like

an even more mainstream ray donovan that's like ray donovan is like a little bit ray donovan's like your cooler cousin likes it ncis it's like you're down the middle man you're down the middle but in particularly season one i think there have been 17 seasons of NCIS. Yes. And my mom is a big NCIS head. She watches CSI. She watches NCIS. She watches Criminal Minds. It's like, she's just like, yeah, once you're on those shows, she'll watch.

What you forget about, NCIS is the one with Mark Harmon, right? I think so, originally. I mean, this says NCIS Los angeles that's like a spin-off isn't that the uh isn't that the uh ll cool j chris o'donnell version i could be wrong well here's what's what people forget is ncis can trace its lineage back to aaron sorkin because what it is is it's a few good men on TV. That's right. That's what it is.

It literally is how do we make a few good men a TV series? And that became NCIS and they hired Mark Harmon to play it because Mark Harmon

at the time was playing the handsome stud Secret Service man on The West Wing. The West Wing. And that's how

it all happened. There you go. There you go. NCIS. Tune in. Come for the Parks and Rec The West Wing. And that's how it all happened. There you go. There you go. NCIS. Come for the Parks and Rec recap. Stay for the NCIS lore. The history. Just get your network right down to it.

Let's break down NCIS. By the way, the challenge from Schulte and the producers, what could the video store have been called if not Pawnee Video? Let me think for a second. How about this? Instead of Pawnee Video, Indie Movies, but Indie is spelled I-N-D-Y because it's Indiana. That's a mic drop. That's why you get the big bugs. It's something it's something all right

luckily jerry remembers seeing a small bed and breakfast down bed and weirdly i said that very strange luckily jerry remembers seeing a small bed and breakfast down the road the group hikes to the creepy cat infested quiet corn run by a strict old lady named elsa clack where leslie reveals to ron that he's totally she's totally blocked ron reacts by by locking Leslie in her room to get a good night's sleep. Meanwhile, Andy finally catches up with the group at the inn and recreates his romantic tent setup for a smitten April. After a restful seven hours of sleep, Leslie emerges recharged with a fresh new set of ideas that Chris ends up loving. The episode ends with Ben revealing straight to camera that the bed and breakfast owner Elsa Clack died the night before, shortly after playing the group a song on the piano. A lot of death in this.

It's honestly one of the funniest things. When this episode ends, when this episode ends and he says she died 20 minutes afterwards, it is really funny. It's really funny. It's like it killed, that killed, and then the other thing that killed at the table read was Ron Swanson saying, what the fuck is a German muffin? It still destroys me. He's so funny, man.

It just destroys. It's so funny. I would like to point out that your reading just now of the synopsis was bordering on Christopher Walken-ish. Chris Walken is famous for the way he talks and what he does not a lot of people i i discovered it when i grabbed his script accidentally when i was doing a play with him is he removes all the punctuation he takes it out there's no periods there's no commas there's no nothing so he makes up his own stuff so the first line of this is luckily luckily, Jerry remembers seeing a small bed

and breakfast down the road. Yes, that's exactly what I did. It's like putting pauses. You know, some other people do. Like, I notice Alex Baldwin does this sometimes too. Not as extreme, but putting pauses in just random places. Like in this case, between bed and breakfast, which is what I did accidentally.

But it's so funny. And Walken is the king of it. The king. Walken is just like, he's running through periods, right? It's like bed and breakfast down the road, the group hikes. It's like, what? You're removing all syntax. It's great.

I mean, it's a great acting exercise. It's a great trick. It really is. It makes people like like it keeps them on their toes or something i noticed the same thing about walking for sure and and i saw it a little bit with bald until you don't notice when they yeah it's it's a good comedic device also um this bit about the quiet corn this uh bed and breakfast was based on mike schur's hatred of bed and breakfast we we went on a long rant in the room about this it's like no one wants this it's like

you're getting you're getting you know you want a hotel you're kind of left alone they come and like clean your room and like they use the room service it's like no what about if there's a weird owner like hovering over you constantly you got to eat with them it's like they're you're in their house you're uncomfortable the bathroom's down the hall or whatever it we went off on in a long time so that's kind of where the quiet corn i have to agree with Mike Schur Bed and breakfasts give me the heebie-jeebies It's weird, right? Big time

And people love them Oh, we're just going to find a B&B Ugh, yuck You're just living with like a whatever This weird proprietor I mean, they're always weird And they're haunted They're usually haunted That's the one By the way, that would be the Like whatever, this weird proprietor. I mean, they're always weird. And they're haunted.

They're usually haunted. That's the one. By the way, that would be the only, if there is a selling point about a bed and breakfast, to me, that's it. If you say it's a haunted bed and breakfast, I'm so down. I would rather be there than the Four Seasons. But other than that, no way.

Yes. And, you know, Craig Levine makes a note here. Ben reads the note in the guest book. There's a guest book, right? About the three nights of ecstasy in the room. He says, I might be wrong, but I remember that the original joke was that Jerry wrote the note. Alan, does that ring a bell for you? Yeah, I think. I also believe the joke was that Jerry had stayed there with his wife and wrote about three nights of ecstasy in the room. also think it got changed because mike was afraid of doing that i think he didn't want the characters to have seen that so i i think it got changed to just a random person um and and finally like just going back to this ben talking head saying that elsa clack died uh mike always claimed that well greg was like he's being sarcastic like he's Joking about how old she was whatever But we had this debate in the writers room

As well and Mike kept claiming That no she did die which is like Very dark and also like not His sense of humor which is like I don't know what He was what was going On in his brain at this time but he Never does dark stuff look at all his shows That the most positive shows in the world but for

Every reason he he wanted Elsa Clark to have passed away so um final thoughts on the episode i a really fun one and and uh you know it's hard to come back from something like harvard's festival but again i just really thought there was a lot of great character comedy in this one you're seeing all the characters kind of express themselves in this different setting and yeah it's a fun way back into the show i am i loved the fact that people were so concerned that we would all get poison oak shooting oh really was that like a safety thing there's always these safety meetings like safety meetings like every day you know yeah it's like all right listen up everybody okay today um we're gonna get through this we're

gonna have a really good day we've got eight pages to do so we really gotta hustle and uh weather looks like it's gonna be good on your left is poison oak make sure you stay away from the poison oak there are snakes in the vicinity we have our snake rammer bill do you want to say anything no i'm good bill will be taking care of the snakes that's literally what like a safety meeting was yes that's a great impersonation of it and it's also like it's the ad right so it's like on this show steve day was a wonderful ad and uh you know suzy flower was another idea we had and they're just very business-like they're very sort of like they're On this show, Steve Day was a wonderful AD. Susie Flower was another AD. They're just very businesslike.

They're very sort of like they're authoritative. We will be burning someone to death in this episode. There is a fire gag. Ambulances are standing by. Yes. It's like that kind of stuff. It's always like, we are outdoors. Stay hydrated. We're sunblocked.

The medic has sunblocked. Be careful. Watch where you step. There are holes in the ground. There are rattlesnakes. It's always that, right? It is. Exactly. It medic has sunblock. Be careful. Watch where you step. There are holes in the ground. There are rattlesnakes. It's always that. It's so business-like. Stay hydrated. Always stay hydrated. Always stay hydrated. Which is a good

advice for life. Good advice for life. Alright, oops moment. We see DJ Roomba in this episode, but as we all know, DJ Roomba died in the Sweetums episode and haunts Jerry in the halls of the Parks Department. Yeah, in my headcanon, he keeps rebuilding DJ Roomba. He's kind of like C-3PO.

He just keeps rebuilding over and over again. I think he's never going to let DJ Roomba die. No one wants to see DJ Roomba dead. Nobody. No, it's fantastic. Okay, episode MVP, most valuable Pawnee, and actually a lot of choose from. Which character moment of this episode sticks out to you most and why wow I'm going obscure I'm going super super obscure I'm going with the parkour guy who

by the way most of his performance got cut out of the show because I'm telling you the guy was a monkey yeah I mean we got to dig this up we got to dig up this footage and it's not it I don't think much of it if any is actually in the. And so he sacrificed his best for naught. I'm going to go with Elsa Clack and her 50 cats. And then close runner up, Paul Ioresco, who comes to the show for two minutes, has a heart attack and grabs Leslie's breast. So that was his work day. And then he went home. Just like, all right, what a weird fucking work day.

All right. And listeners, let us know who your MVP is by tweeting at Team Coco podcast or by using the hashtag Parks and Recollection. You ready for a town hall? Do you want to go to the town hall? I think you do Is this a town hall or a town howl today? It's a town howl. It's an audio message. Thank you for all your messages.

We take a look at all these emails and messages, so thank you so much for sending them in. It's really exciting. We're getting them from all over. So yeah, town howl. We clearly need to do this at the campsite. Yes. Campsite slash and then we'll do the second half of the quiet cord. The abetted breakfast.

Everybody, this is a safety meeting for the Town Howell that we will be listening to a call in. It will be audio. You will be able to hear it with your ears. Please make sure that you are standing in a proximity to listen to the howl. Thank you. Let's have a good day, everybody. Let's get to work. If it's too loud, there is ear protection available.

The set medic has ear protection, so you'll have the ear. There's always ear protection, right? It's like there's like a helicopter on set or a plane. It's like ear protection. I mean, it's great. Look, they're doing their jobs. All right. Should we play this down, Sheltie? Let's do it. Hi, this is Diane from Oceanside, California. Huge fan of the podcast. Thank you so much for doing this. It's excellent. My question is about coming into a new show

as a writer or actor. Rob, you mentioned that you hadn't really seen Parks and Rec before you came in, and I was just wondering if that's typical for actors or for writers who join in later seasons. Do you typically not watch a show so you don't come in with preconceived biases, or do you just sort of trust the showrunners and the directors to get you where you need to go? Just curious what most people do and what your reasoning is for not watching before you join a show.

Thank you for considering the question and have a great day. Bye. Good question. Super good question. I've done it both ways. I've done it where I've done tons of research because you definitely want to know what's going on. And then I've done it where I feel on Parks and Rec where part of it was I think that it was sort of in the zeitgeist that the show was actively and consciously trying to go into a new gear. So I didn't want to look at the old gear. But I think as a rule, you definitely want to do your due diligence and get a sense of what people are doing. And so you can fit in and hit the ground running. As a rule, you definitely want to do your due diligence and get a sense of what people are doing. And so so you can fit in and hit the ground running.

Parks was was really in a in a transition, as we've talked about a ton when Adam and I came in. So we kind of wanted to to to start our own our own thing. So there really wasn't that much of a reason to look at it. And also, I so trusted Mike and and Amy and knew that I would just follow their lead. Yeah. And I feel like sometimes the director or showrunner will sort of guide you as to what they're interested in, right? Sometimes they'll be like, hey, you know what? Don't watch 100, or if you're adapting a book into a movie, don't read the book. Sometimes they'll tell you that. And it's similar for a writer if you're joining late and especially even for your meeting, right? It's like you're coming in.

There are certain shows where it's like you need to watch them all and just be able to be conversant in the show when you get in. I remember a funny story. I think my friend met on The Office to write for The Office. And then I think, I don't know if this is apocryphal, but I believe Craig Daniels was like, what do you think we should do with Jim and Pam? Just like asking the writer, like, oh, that's a big question i feel like that that's a tough one even for like the the the existing writers to pull off but yeah i mean i think and i think actors and writers also differ on like how much they want to go into that like preparation wise like there are type and it's kind of different strokes right it's like some actors will prepare like crazy you know they'll become a cobbler in

italy for two years before doing it and then some actors will do like crazy. They'll become a cobbler in Italy for two years before doing it. And then some actors will do something totally different. But yeah, I think sometimes you want to sort of be really, really conversant, but it depends. I think Rob has a salient point, which is the show was kind of changing in tone. I think if you watch the episodes that Rob's in, they're very different from, say, the pilot. And so the other thing is I'm glad that he didn't watch the show because then he got to watch them fresh for this podcast. So that's a great job, Rob. Great job. Decade ago, Rob.

Thank you very much. All right. That's all I got. Rob, you anything else? No, I think we're good. Thank you all for listening. Don't forget to subscribe where you get your podcast and leave us a five star review on Apple. It really, really matters.

Five stars, five stars. Thank you to Schulte and Greg, and goodbye from Pines. See you next week. 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.