Parks and Recollection - Eagleton (S3E12)

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Call your friends and welcome them to Pawnee. Today Rob Lowe and Alan Yang are watching S3E12. In "Eagleton" Leslie is forced to deal with a former beloved colleague-turned bitter enemy when a neighboring town separates a shared park with a fence. On this episode find out how amazing it was to work with Nicole Holofcener, why a trash fight convinced Parker Posey to be in this episode, what in this script made Rashida cry, and why Alan never keeps ice cream in his home! Got a question for the Pawnee Town Hall? Send us an email: [e-mail] Or leave a 30-Second voicemail at: [phone]  Eagleton, a more prosperous neighboring town of Pawnee, has erected a tall fence in the shared Lafayette Park to keep Pawnee residents at a distance. Leslie’s theory is that it’s the work of Lindsay Carlisle Shay (Parker Posey), The Eagleton equivalent of Leslie. Lindsay is a former Pawnee parks department employee and used to be Leslie's best friend. While dealing with the fence, Leslie also discovers Ron's upcoming birthday, a date he has kept secret for years. Leslie promises a horrified and annoyed Ron that she will throw a surprise party for him. In the standard style of a disorderly public meeting, the citizens of Pawnee call for the fence to be removed. Leslie meets with Lindsay, who refuses to take the fence down and insults Pawnee in the process. Leslie, Tom, and Ben attend a catered Eagleton town meeting inside a country club to plead their case to its citizens. The people of Eagleton are wealthy and civil, but also incredibly condescending. Citing the poor maintenance of Pawnee's side of Lafayette Park, the Eagleton citizens would like the fence to stay up. Leslie reveals to Tom and Ben that she was offered the job of Eagleton parks director five years ago but turned it down. At the time, Leslie and Lindsay both promised to remain in Pawnee. However, Eagleton then offered Lindsay the job and she accepted, turning her back on Pawnee and worse… Leslie. Ron becomes increasingly paranoid of Leslie's birthday party, especially after he overhears April and Andy discuss outrageous plans. When Ron learns what a huge party she threw for Ann’s birthday, he becomes so paranoid that he resorts to sleeping in his office to avoid any potential surprises at home. While this is happening, Leslie seeks revenge against Lindsay by getting her parks employees to throw garbage over the Eagleton side of the fence. When Lindsay arrives to stop it, the two get into a fight amid the garbage bags. The police arrive and arrest both women: Lindsay is jailed in Pawnee, while Leslie is jailed in Eagleton's pristine holding cell.  After Ann bails Leslie out of jail, she tells her that Lindsay built the fence to get a rise out of Leslie, because she is jealous that Leslie was offered the Eagleton job first. Ann suggests that Lindsay should be hit with a baseball bat, which gives Leslie the idea to turn Pawnee's side of Lafayette Park into a wiffle ball field, with the fence serving as the outfield wall. Lindsay is impressed by how fast Leslie turned the fence into something positive, and remembers why she and Leslie joined the parks department in the first place. With their relationship on the mend, the two agree to get a drink together.  Later, Leslie returns to the office to throw Ron's party: she takes him to an empty room with steak, whiskey and his favorite movies waiting for him, and reveals that April and Andy's duties were red herrings. Leslie explains she made a party that he would want and leaves a content Ron alone to enjoy his birthday.

We're getting together to talk about all the things we used to do The laughs, the passions, the little Sebastian's, 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 everybody to Parks and Recollection. As always, it's your humble servant Rob Lowe with my partner Alan Yang. How you doing Rolo? What's up? What's up?

Same old thing, man. We're talking about parks, which is always a good day. Yeah, man. This is a good episode. And how's your production schedule? You're running around, right? My show, Unstable, is in big time pre-production. I love that.

Is your writer's room going for the new show? Yeah, we've got five episodes written. Oh, wow. And to put it in perspective on Lone Star, writers room going for uh for the new show yeah we're we've got five episodes written oh wow and to put it in perspective on lone star i don't think we ever had a written episode for the finale i don't think i don't think we ever did they're still writing it now weirdly it's in the can it's gonna air but they're still working on it they're still noodling that act two break i'm telling you man it's it's there's a lot of ways to skin a cat does it there really are doesn't uh doesn't eight sound good though does it's like oh wow eight it's

like we're we got five i mean on the 22 show you're like oh we're a quarter way there i was talking to some other showrunners and they're like yeah everyone has a different way of doing it because there's different you know like if you're on a 22-episode network show, you cannot be on set and in the editing room and writing at the same time. So a lot of those people sacrifice the set. And then meanwhile, I was talking to someone else who does a show where you write it beforehand and you can do the whole thing. You can be on set every second of every day. It's a different thing. It's super, I mean, they both have their benefits.

They do. Yes, absolutely. The bank account very much likes 22 episodes. That's true. I don't know nothing about nothing, but I know 22 is a lot more than eight. Yeah, it's an episodic fee, so yeah. I mean, can you imagine you're doing eight episodes of Stranger Things, and then you're doing your next eight episodes two and a half years later?

Not good. Not financially the best thing ever. No, it's insane. My girlfriend is on a show called Dave on FX and she's a series regular and they, you know, they've taken a ton of time off. And so you do, yeah, they do 10 episodes every like three years. Or think about Atlanta. Atlanta took like five years off or whatever.

So it's like, you got to eat, you got to do other stuff in between. All right. Should we get into it, Rob? Today we have Eagleton. This is, I always like spending time in Eagleton because let's face it, Eagleton is a nicer town than Pawnee. There, I said it.

It is. I said it out loud. It is. Shall we do the details? All right, episode title, Eagleton. As Rob mentioned, it's written by High Point, North Carolina's own Emily Spivey.

Directed by O'Toole, Indie Film Darling, Nicole Holofcener. Genius. Original air date, May 5th, 2011. The blurb, Leslie asks for help from a frenemy when the city of Eagleton puts a fence around one of Pawnee's parks. The notes notes, Parker Posey, guest star in this episode, was a big fan of the show and a friend of Amy Poehler.

She really wanted to be in the cast. Took until season three. This character's storyline was basically written for her. Amy told her they'd be enemies and get to fight in trash together. What an enticement for an actor. Leslie invited everyone Anne knows to Anne's last birthday party. Apparently, Ron was invited because he didn't know what Leslie did for Anne until she told him. The fight scene between Leslie and Lindsay was performed with stunt women during temperatures of more than 100 degrees. Hot garbage, I see in the notes. That is literally hot garbage.

And The Bridge on the River Kwai from 1957 is one of the movies Leslie provides for Ron in a season five episode. Ron says, I've seen three movies in my life, Bridge on the River Kwai, Patton, and Herbie Fully Loaded. Not an oops moment. Ron just didn't end up watching The Dirty Desk. So good. her be fully loaded. Not an oops moment. Ron just didn't end up watching the Dirty Desk. So good. I love that joke. I love that joke. I can never pronounce Nicole's last name and you just did beautifully. Hit me with it again. Hall of Center, I believe. Nicole directed an episode that I wrote, so I remember her very fondly. And it was a treat having her on the show. She's directed a bunch of great movies.

Dude, she's a big-time movie director. She is big. And listen, we have, you know, there's less and less, there's a dividing line between movie directors and TV directors in our business. When you walk on a set and you have a noted auteur movie director literally just coming in for a week and doing it, it's pretty exciting. It's so cool. And she has her own voice, but she also works well on television. She got nominated for an Oscar in 2019 for Can You Ever Forgive Me? She just recently co-wrote The Last Duel with Matt Damon Van Affleck for Ridley Scott.

And she directed Friends With Money, Enough Said, Walking and Talking, so she is no tour and it's, yeah, like you said, it's fun to get someone of that caliber come and play with us and yeah, it's sometimes just a slight digression in the difference between movies and television. Like you said, in television, you're kind of

working with an existing team and you're kind of, in some ways, you know, executing're kind of working with an existing team and you're kind of in some ways, you know, executing the vision of the showrunner in this case, Mike Shore. Or as people, when they want to be uncharitable, say you're a traffic cop. Yeah, yeah. It's been said. It's been said, oh, you're a glorified AD or whatever. I don't think that's the case. I think there's a balance to be struck of bringing, you know, something of yourself to it. And ideally, you're adding some of your own creativity

and your own vision, but always within, hopefully, the confines of the show. And maybe you can push those boundaries a little bit and maybe they give you the reins, they give you a little bit more freedom. But in the case of Nicole, she's great with actors, as I'm sure you experienced. And she's very fun.

And she also was very cool know very sort of cool to work with with the writers on set she would ask a lot of questions and and just say like well what do you guys normally do and and she was not at all you know sort of my way or the highway which i think happens sometimes not always but sometimes with film directors yeah she was great my my memory of her on this episode is that she um was um in between takes when she had time, was writing her next movie, which is always cool to see when that happens. That is crazy.

That's actually really crazy. And I'm sure it got made and became something cool. All right, let's get in the synopsis. Eagleton, a more prosperous neighboring town of Pawnee, has erected a tall fence in the shared Lafayette Park to keep Pawnee residents at a distance. Leslie's theory is that it's the work of Lindsay Carlisle Shea, Parker Posey, the Eagleton equivalent of Leslie. Lindsay is a former Pawnee Parks Department employee and used to be Leslie's best friend.

While dealing with the fence, Leslie also discovers Ron's upcoming birthday, a date he has kept secret for years. Leslie promises a horrified and annoyed ron that she will throw a surprise party for him it's a very funny cold open where she's kind of done the investigation you've established ron is very private character and uh it ends up uh being that leslie finds out his birthday from an employee at baskin robbins so so it's it's uh and because he wanted a free ice cream for his birthday i thought that was a very very funny way of for Leslie to do that detective work. Do you remember any of the pitches for other ways that Leslie might find out his birthday?

I think it was a lot of like going to the government, various government departments. But then we kind of hit on the joke of like, he's had that all redacted, like he's two steps ahead of her. he she goes through the documents and shows them all blacked out so it's like okay she could have done the digging you know she could have gone to the fourth floor she could have gone you know to the other departments the dmv or whatever i think in indiana it's the bmv anyway in california it's the dmv but uh it it uh so i think someone pitched that that she would uh go to basking robbins because he likes rum raisin ice cream and find out there. Baskin Robbins still exists, right? Baskin Robbins is still going, right? Is the ice cream store still going?

Because an ice cream is my Achilles. And I hesitate to use the word Achilles around you. Hey, man. Yeah. How dare you? It's a very traumatic experience. No, I've gotten over it. My Achilles are strong now.

They're strong now? After I've torn both of them. For those uninitiated, I've torn both of my Achilles tendons playing basketball. I tore one. Then five years later, I rehabbed, played basketball for another five years and tore my other Achilles. So I don't play basketball anymore. But literally, your Achilles is your actual, it is your Achilles. Yes. Very ironic because a guy who's always running and walking and all that shit and uh tore both by achilles but i'm fine baskin robinson ice cream is my achilles i in fact i was just walking into

the studio i was i honestly want to know what i think about my spare time walking in to record this i was like i need to go home and throw the ice cream out i did i need to throw it out in your if it's in your house you if it's in your that's. If it's not there, you're not going to go out and buy it or get it delivered. It's the activation energy. When the activation energy is walking your fridge and opening it, you'll just have some – do you eat straight out of the pint? Are you straight out of the – Oh, yes, right out. It's pinted up.

Look, if that's your only vice like that, it could be worse. You couldn't tell from looking at it. Well, the good people at Atkins who I've been working with for years, they figured out ways to make every one of my other, like their version of Atkins Doritos, there's energy bars, there's candy bars, and they literally are great for you and they taste great. So I do that, but they haven't made ice cream yet, and that's a problem. It's a real problem. That sounds pretty good. Yeah. That sounds pretty good.

Yeah. That sounds pretty good. I'm going to go ahead and fix it. And is this the first introduction of Eagleton, Greg? Is this the first time? I mean, it must be mentioned before this, but I feel like we actually dig into it and show that it's a rich town.

Is that right? That's right. In fact, we're going to get to that when we talk about an oops moment. But we've mentioned Eagleton before, and we've changed some of the details a little bit to make it make sense in this episode. Right, right, right. And I feel like, again, just a little bit of the backstory, like, you know, one of Mike Shore's favorite shows is Cheers, right?

And not that the show is entirely modeled after Cheers, but there are some similarities. And there's an episode of Cheers called Bar Wars, and there's a rival bar called Gary's Old Town Tavern. That's the rival bar to Cheers. And so there's a couple, like Eagleton is kind of Pawnee's Gary's Old Town Tavern, but there's also like the library department is the parks department's Gary's Old Town Tavern. So there's so many episodes of parks that eventually like you just start getting more and more rivals. So we've already established the library department. We've established some of the other government departments. But now we have a whole other town,

which is kind of fun, right? It's like world building. It's sometimes during a sitcom, you don't get to do that kind of stuff. But in this case of Parks and Rec, it's kind of cool to build out the world so much so that we always say Pawnee is like Springfield. In this case, they have another town.

It's like Springfield has Shelbyville, if you've seen The Simpsons. So this is kind of like their, anyway, this is all a sitcom theory. So very, very funny. All right. Tom comes in super pissed. They put up a fence.

Yeah, so it's always funny when the team comes in and they kind of agree with Leslie. A lot of times Leslie's doing something and no one agrees with her. But in this case, there's sort of a lot of momentum in the story. Yeah. Team Coco. Oh, here's a little note. Team Coco has a podcast called The Juice about small town drama. And this Parks episode would fit in perfectly. What is this? What is this podcast about, Sheltie? It's hosted by Solomon Giorgio,

and he's done with celebrity gossip. He's done with all of the hot button issues. He wants to hear small town gossip. I figured if any episode would be perfect for that, it's an Eagleton episode. Oh, that's what the juice is about. I just assumed it was an overarching deep dive into O.J. Simpson. So this is kind of an interesting thing when I was watching this one because, again, when you've worked on all the episodes they all kind of like have some not blurring together but

you forget what happened when so lindsey carlisle shea is the eagleton version of leslie but then later we we did another eagleton episode called the ponny eagleton tip-off classic which is season six which is like three years later and in that one kristin bell is in it that's the one i i really remember that one yeah that's so i get these two confused sometimes because they're both about eagleton and in that one there's an eagleton councilwoman played by kristin bell uh named ingrid de forest so it's it's they blur together but this is the OG. This is the original one.

And I think we wanted her to not just be like, you know, an evil version of Leslie. I think it's like there's some backstory where they used to be friends and she had plastic surgery. So that was kind of interesting. It also sets up the fight a little bit

for the next episode. But yeah, so I found that interesting as well. And then one last thing before we move on synopsis, the idea of Ron's birthday floated around in the writer's room for a long time. He had his birthday redacted from government files. And so we had this, you know, in a writer's room,

you have note cards with all your ideas. And so I think Ron's birthday was literally just a card that sat in the room for years. It was just sitting in the room. It was like, okay, what's the, sometimes like there'll be an idea that you like, but it never quite gets cracked. And so this one is like Ron's birthday,

just sitting on the wall, like haunting us for years. And finally it got broken for this story. And I thought the ending particularly is great, but yeah, it's a good B story. All right, moving on. Synopsis, in the standard style of a disorderly public meeting, the citizens of Pawnee call for the fence to be removed. Leslie meets with Lindsay,

who refuses to take the fence down and insults Pawnee in the process. Leslie, Tom, and Ben attend a catered Eagleton town meeting inside a country club to plead their case to its citizens. The people of Eagleton are wealthy and civil, but also incredibly condescending. Citing the poor maintenance of Pawnee's side of Lafayette Park,

the Eagleton citizens would like the fence to stay up. Leslie reveals to Tom and Ben that she was offered the job of Eagleton Park's director five years ago, but turned it down. At the same time, Leslie and Lindsay both promised to remain in Pawnee. However, Eagleton then offered Lindsay the job, and she accepted,

turning her back on Pawnee and, worse, Leslie. This is kind of reminiscent of like, Eagleton's kind of the newer town. It's kind of like when in a small town they build a second high school. In my high school, I went to Riverside

Polytechnic High School. Shout out to Riverside Poly, Bears. And they built a new one. They built Martin Luther King and like King High School is just better. It's like a nicer high school. I think they have better test scores and stuff, I think. So it's where NBA superstar Kawhi Leonard

went. I was going to say they have a better gym. And then you said Kawhi Leonard went in. There you go. They have a better gym. The guys are not blowing out their Achilles like me. So, Parker Posey wanted to come in. I think we gave her this villain role. What is it like when you play someone villainous as opposed to someone heroic? What is your take on that?

I do think comedy, my two favorite comedy archetypes are comedy villain. And I did, I did so many of them that I kind of almost don't do them anymore. Cause it started with Wayne's world, you know, and Tommy boy. It's like that.

Tommy boy. Oh man. Right. And, and right and and and and they they those movies worked so well and there's people so they're so in the consciousness it's like for a long time i was like the go-to you know kind of uh movie comedy villain the other thing that though that i love in comedy is comedy idiot. That's the best. That's, you know, playing a person who has no idea that they're just an idiot is one of my, one of my faves. And if you can combine that with a villain, that's super duper fun. But villains are always great parts. They're always like, you always come in and, you know, crush.

It's more fun to write. I mean, look at, I mean, think about like the Disney villains. Think about like, you know, all the, it's just easier to write. It's more fun. You know, it's like the hero's got to do the right thing. The villain can go on monologues. The villain is evil. And like the same thing, by the same way, same thing with comedy idiot. Like I think on this show, it's, it's kind of the Andy Dwyer character or like, you know, Homer Simpson, Michael Scott. It's just, you just, it's a home run. These other characters, we love them. They're great. They're amazing. But when you have a kind of an idiot,

it's so easy to write the jokes. We talk about how in a scene, whose comedy game overwhelms the rest, and it's always hard to top the guy or the lady who's just totally oblivious and just kind of it's it's just hard it's such a fun game you know you can always write a joke for that for that character and and on the other side of it it's also i have tons of respect and and it's also fun to do when you're not the joke engine because that archetype is always a great joke engine

but then if you're like krasinski in the office where he's got to be sort of the quasi-romantic lead not necessarily a joke engine but still has to be funny yeah you know that's uh and like adam scott kind of has that in yeah perks and you're driving story a little bit you're doing but you kind of have to do both keep it real it's like it's it's so it's a challenge um and shout out to parker posey in this episode i remember actually at long after this episode was made uh i was on a tribeca film festival jury and parker posey was on this jury as well and it was uh it was me and parker posey and mark consuelos like and and And not joking, we were judging documentary

short films or something. So we had to watch like 50 documentary shows. If someone ever asks, if anyone asks you to be in a film festival jury, it's a huge honor. It's great. But then you have to watch like 800 movies or whatever it is.

And documentary short films are always very serious i mean most of them are serious right it's like about really serious stuff about you know discrimination or you know or or the holocaust or all these tragedies so we you know we watch a movie coming we come in and like i just remember parker coming and really with a head of steam and be like i know exactly which movie should win and like making a very passionate argument so you know she watched the movie. So I will give her credit. She watched the movie.

Wait, are you implying that you did not watch the movies? Oh, I watched them all. Well, you know what helped? Documentary shorts, not filet. So at the very least, at the very least they were like under half an hour or something. But no, I still remember that experience. And then debating, debating for a long time.

A couple other little notes of this I really enjoy. So if you see this character named Pearl, we never say his name, I think, but there's a writer named Mike Scully. Famous. Yes. Legendary writer, helped ran the Simpsons when it was in its peak and its prime. And we love Scully in the room. So we ended up, he never wanted to act in the show, but we just kept forcing him to act in the show. So he's one of the citizens. But he just has such a funny way of talking that we just kept forcing him to be in the show.

And so there's a little Easter egg if you see him pop up. You just know that he was probably very reluctantly doing this. But Amy loved him. And Amy would always... I think when later Amy would host award shows like Golden Globes or whatever, she would always ask Gulley to write some jokes for her because he was such a powerful joke writer.

Guys, I have Pearl's line for you. So he stands up and he says, why don't we put a fence around their fence? And my favorite part about this is that in the action line it says she looks very pleased with herself so so we pearl was written as a woman yes that's why his name is pearl that so we wrote it so we write we would write these things obviously without the actors yet so we would have just a bunch of names and then i think this i think is this this is first appearance

i think i think pearl may have come up once before but what i really love is that um amy and he and scully then improvised and she's like well what would that do because that's not in the script and he would say well you know that way it would give us you know two fences i know i remember we'd always crack up the way he did that because we didn't see that line coming and the way he delivered it was just so coy and sly yeah so understand he's like well it's obvious then we get two fences like it's like obviously you want extra fences it's like anyway he's he's uh he's a treat very nice gentleman and uh if you get the chance to work with him i highly recommend it um and he's another show with amy i think it's a show called duncanville

on on uh on fox i think it's an animated show that amy voices it okay uh moving on ron becomes increasingly paranoid of leslie's birthday party especially after he overhears april and andy discuss outrageous plans when ron learns what a huge party she threw for ann's birthday he becomes so paranoid that he resorts to sleeping in his office to avoid any potential surprises at home while this is happening leslie seeks revenge against lindsey by getting her parks employees to throw garbage over the Eagleton side of the fence. When Lindsay arrives to stop it, the two get into a fight amid the garbage bags. The police arrive and arrest both women. Lindsay is jailed in Pawnee while Leslie is jailed in Eagleton's pristine holding cell. Now, why did they go to different jails here? I didn't really

understand why they got placed in opposite. Also't i think some of that stuff got cut because lindsey goes to jm ponny like i feel like maybe there's some stuff of her being in a bad cell maybe not but leslie's cell is funny it's like it's a very nice like uh beautiful cell with the people are very nice to play music and stuff different jurisdictions i guess right yeah maybe they're on different borderline right it is so funny when you watch i was re-watching the episode and you see the pawnee police show up it's just the chief hugh trumple but then you see like four eagleton cops arrive on their segways and like okay so they're both they're on the border i guess but we never do explain explain why one goes i guess it's like some kind of

compromise but like i'll take this one you take that one it's never really explained it's not explained i think it's really just for the gag of leslie being in a nice jail i mean they could have gone to that jail together anyway should we reshoot the whole episode it's like it feels like a story or do some adr adrs for the uninitiated adrs when you go back in and you just add a line on someone's back. You don't see their mouth moving, so you just add a line in. I've been doing a lot of that. Not a lot, but we're mixing our show right now.

So it's like, you have my Rudolph come in and she just says some line and you could be on the back of her head or something. It's kind of fun. It's usually to shore up some plot point. Yes. That's not entirely clear. Or you cut some stuff and then it's like you got to get this story out in the next scene. It happens. It happens, guys.

No script is perfect as much as you want it to be. We had a little prompt here. How would Chris Traeger throw a surprise party for Ron or any of the cast? Well, Chris Traeger, like Mr. Rob Lowe, likes a good celebration. like mr rob lowe likes a good celebration um so i i think chris would would uh would would uh love the chance to throw literally any kind of party for um uh for ron swanson um and there would be meat lots and lots of meat and um guns weapons all kinds of weapons maybe maybe shooting weapons at meat would be something that ron would enjoy how's that how's that for a quick uh little uh it's good and it's also like it's it's because chris is so nice even though he doesn't believe that he would do it for ron and he would that's

really he would i think he would have a great time because he knows his friend ron is having a good time himself and he would hope everyone would come. Shooting weapons at me. Shooting weapons at me is a good one. Just a note to when Anne walks in and has a bunch of balloons. Really good balloon popping by Nick. Like, really, really accurate. And then the way the balloon rotates at the end and says, get well soon, Tyrone.

It's for a sick child. That's the kind of thing where you don't appreciate as a viewer how you have to get the balloon to rotate the right way. As a director, I'm freaking out about the logistics of the balloons. Because you know you're having a million meetings about that and like, oh, what do they look like? And what if you don't see it? It's like, oh, I just know that took a bunch of takes. So shout out to that scene. Also the thing of like you want it to happen in a frame with other things happening you don't want to just isolate

it and have somebody move it below the frame which you could do but then it's not funny exactly like that like they sometimes say comedy works best in like the medium right it's not a bunch of close-ups it's not like a bunch of inserts like so what rob is saying is right if you just cut to the balloon turning and seeing like it looks fake like it'll look fake in the cut and so um well it looks like what it is planned yes plant that's a huge thing where it's like you just can't have everything be worked over i think that's a that's actually a real thing in comedy i've seen things be over directed and then you lose you suck some of the life out of it you don't get any of the comedy yeah um some Some of the things behind Parker Posey

in the Eagleton Public Forum, Governor's upcoming visit, and then another thing is Eagleton budgetary surplus. So there's these tiny details. Shout out to the set deck department of just being aware that Pawnee has had a horrible budget crisis for nine episodes. Meanwhile, Eagleton's sitting there with a surplus.

And yeah, foreshadows some season six storylines, as we mentioned before. Oh, I also like that the Eagleton Public Forum gift bag includes an iPod Touch. Very of its time. So great. So time capsule-y. Yeah.

iPod Touch. It's like, it was like, by the way, the iPod just got discontinued. Yesterday. So as we're recording this, it'll give you some sense of when we're recording, but the iPod just got discontinued and I'll never forget

the iPod Shuffle era, the iPod. How about the sound it would make when you would turn the dial? I mean, like like and also i i don't know if you ever had this i had a like a i had an mp3 player that only had like 13 songs like you had to like change them in and out like like it's the rio yeah i had a rio i think it was like oh what are my 13 songs gonna be like that's so crazy and then the ipod came out and it was

revolutionary all you kids out there all you young kids don't take this for granted every song of the history of humankind available at the touch of a button immediately that is not how life used to be no the i think we all need to pour one out for the ipod touch later today shout out to the ipod um shout out to steve jobs but it was it was in every swag bag and it was like the like the the re-gift they kept on giving yes and do you remember the other swag gift i remember from around that era was they the flip video camera it was like a little it was like a little video camera that like before iPhones, it was pretty small and it recorded pretty good video. I remember getting that sometimes for like doing a round table or whatever,

showing up or whatever. It's like, um, and, and it was just that era was right before like everyone in the, in the entire world had a smartphone that did all of this stuff and you didn't need to have multiple devices. Um,

shout out to this, uh, garbage fight too. I always love, take a look i always love take a look uh take a look at we mentioned texas switch in a different episode it it's it's you watch for when it switches to the stunt women because at a certain point the the the stunt woman for amy throws herself at the stunt woman for parker posey in a way that is extremely violent and and really aggressive.

I think whoever was directing this, I guess Nicole was directing this episode, they just, with no holds barred, just fling yourself at her as hard as you can into the garbage. But watch for the switch. And then also, Andy hits Aziz. I think that's also stunt people, right?

I mean, I don't know. I actually should go back and look at the scene, but Aziz falls into the garbage, so I think that's also stunt people, right? I mean, I don't know. I actually should go back and look at the scene, but Aziz falls into the garbage. So I think that's a stunt person too. I think that's what's happening there. That's too good. But yeah, very aggressive. And it's always funny when stunt people are in a comedy

because they're so used to doing whatever, superhero movie. And then they come in, they're like, this is so easy. This is like nothing. This is like one thing. They only kind of have no one gear. that's my favorite thing about stunt people they have one gear which is to make it as badass as they can and my favorite is always when it's like something's super benign and they just want to take your head off like no no no you just this is just a that's just like a slap and And they're like, they're going to decapitate you because they're stunt people.

It's what they do. This is a good sort of, I mean, to talk about production for a second, like, any department you're talking to, like,

you're saying stunt guys are really stunty. Like, they want to do, that goes for every department. When you're directing or show running or whatever, it's like,

you're talking to the props department. They want the props to be really, like, showy and ornate. You're talking to the production design department. They're like, what if the set looks like this? And it's unbelievable. it's like you're talking to the props department they want the props to be really like showy and or that you're talking to the production design department they're like what if the set looks like this and it's unbelievable it's like no no no they need to be just like a normal room but they always want it to be because because they have to take pride in their job right and so every department coming to you hair and makeup it's like what if the hair looks like this

it's like too much that's too much but the makeup's too much like it's like but not and again not to say of course people take pride in their jobs and they want, you know, they're always, it's like, it's, it's like a family. It's like everyone is looking out for their own department and that's good in a way.

And I think you kind of have to conduct that, conduct that circus sometimes. Yeah. And, oh, I, we got to talk about the kiss. It's,

we got to talk about, so we're at the point in the episode where, where Chris grabs Ron and kisses him. We got to talk about this, Ron. What the point in the episode where where chris grabs ron kisses him we got to talk about this around what what was this what was this day like i remember it i remember it vividly like it like i like it was yesterday first of all you know i've talked about it a lot i love everybody on the show and we all got along great we were you know we just love legitimately loved everyone and i loved nick still do i still do and um i just it was not in the script um that's just me and i and he didn't know what was happening and i just grabbed him and gave him the biggest kiss imaginable and it just i was overwhelmed with

wanting to kiss this man and so i did it i mean he's a very lovable like he's a lovable guy it's it made like there's a lot of funny jokes in the episode when watching this i was like this made me laugh out loud just because it's like how why would this happen and like well this is so funny like this is like it's so funny it's just i don't know i mean well you know that like if i was gonna kiss anybody the person who the character that would be the most uncomfortable would for sure be ron swanson yes so it just it just i guess in that unconscious level i knew that if i that that would be good story and a good a good a good joke right it's amazing you made your time this episode count

and it's like it he is like by the way like, like, yeah, he's just so lovable. You're like, yeah, you want to kiss him. This is, this is, he's in the background of this shot right now. This is, this is Ron. This is. There you go. Oh, look, you got, oh, you're going to see a little behind the curtain. Yeah, a little behind.

This is Nick Offerman. After this episode that I wrote, he gave me this photo. And it says it's signed by him. It's kind of nice. Oh, it's the best. He's the best. He's the best dude. It's one of my favorite moments, actually, of chris's it really is just so funny you know it's like you made your time count in this in this well that is the other thing is it's like

it's like a light chris's light and in this episode and uh and that is uh you know as an actor again there are no small parts only small actors actors. You can always find a way to pop. I have to say what I love so much about this case. I'm pulling up the script right now. And normally your line is the line, hey, happy birthday. And afterwards, Ron just says, thank you. And I have reason to believe that any moment Leslie's planning to throw me a party. And that's exactly how it is in the script.

Normally, Ron's character, I think, would be so taken aback by this, but he's so stressed about the surprise party potential or any kind of thing that he just blows through it. I think it's a continuation. It lives in the timeline of the massage train where you kind of first meet Ron. Yes, yes, 100% massage train. Yes.

There's like a secret sensuality of the Chris Traeger character that we don't delve into that much. But there's probably some fan fiction written about this somewhere. So send in your fan fiction if you have any Chris Ron fan fiction. They're very similar in a way.

They're very in tune. Yes yes an idea of who they are their their ethics and and their you know their ego in a way but they're very different versions of confident men yeah that's a good point self-possessed confident mass to do versions of confident masculinity to be honest it takes many forms so and for me what i like about this it's that's super emblematic of what i loved about my time on the show is like you you allow yourself you first of all you have the instinct which is one thing you allow yourself to do it which is another thing and then it works which is another thing and and you only get that in a certain type of show and And this was that show. Yes.

And then it's in the cut. And I would echo that and say on this show, it was my experience and it sounds like yours as well. There was no possessiveness about, hey, that's my idea, your idea. Who did the idea come from? Best idea wins. And it's in the cut.

You know, it's like, it felt like that in the writer's room where it's like, you know, it doesn't matter who the idea comes from. If it's good, it's good. It gets in there. Steal from everybody. Take from everybody. Steal from everybody. Accept from everybody.

Always. Good ideas are like gold. I don't care who it comes from. That's always my policy. Imagine if you did do that with gold, though. Somebody said, hey, I got some gold here. Well, I don't know. I'm not going to take it from you.

It's not my... Yeah, I didn't make that. I didn't find that gold. I didn't pan for that gold. Yeah, I didn't find that gold. I don't know. I'm not going to take it from you. It's not my... Yeah, I didn't make that. I don't know. I didn't find that gold. I didn't pan for that gold. Yeah, I didn't find that gold. I don't want it. We laugh, but there are people who do it. So many...

It is a real thing. It is a real thing in our industry, for sure. All right, after Anne bails Leslie out of jail, she tells her that Lindsay built the fence to get a rise out of Leslie because she's jealous that Leslie was offered the Eagleton job first. And suggests that Lindsay should be hit with a baseball bat. Which gives Leslie the idea to turn Pawnee's side of Lafayette Park into a wiffle ball field with the fence serving as the outfield wall.

Lindsay's impressed by how fast Leslie turned the fence into something positive and remembers why she and Leslie joined the parks department in the first place. With their relationship on the mend, the two agree to get a drink together. Very sweet. I'm a big Wiffleball fan. Huge. And I've never been able to play Wiffleball in a Wiffleball park. It's on my bucket list. I mean, just a Wiffleball park?

Also, the speed with which she erects this field. It's like, man, we've been trying to build a park by Anne's house for like years. She builds a Wiffleball park in a second. But it's very very uh it's a it's one of the most parksy endings i've ever seen where she it's like making lemons out of lemonade right making lemonade out of lemons right immediately and then she mends fences literally mends fences with her friend um a little little piece of trivia the exterior of the eagleton correctional facility is the prowers county courthouse in lamar colorado sometimes so is that just stock footage then i guess that's just right why lamar

colorado i don't know i think it's just i don't think we sent a unit out there no we didn't send we didn't send a unit there no so sometimes you'll just pull stock photo uh stock footage so that's what that is um yeah it it's uh it this is also this episode kind of at least helps with the idea that these characters have lives outside of the the characters in the show and and uh you know it's a friendship outside of ann that leslie wasn't always friendless until ann came along and it kind of sets up as we mentioned the fight which is the next episode a great episode um where leslie doesn't want to go down the same path with ann that she did with leslie or she did with lindsey rather all right later leslie returns the office to throw ron's party she takes him to an empty room with steak whiskey and his favorite movies waiting for him and reveals

that april and andy's duties were red herrings leslie explains that she made a party that he would want and leaves a content ron alone to enjoy his birthday i love this end scene yeah it's it's it's it it's so sweet. She has a steak, some Lagavulin, some movies set up, and some bacon. And yeah, I remember Rashida cried at the table during this scene. It was just very sweet. And it's like we were finding our groove in the show. And it's kind of them admitting that they respect each other and even admire each other. And the scene really makes you want to eat a steak too. You watch the scene and it's like, for everyone who's not vegetarian.

I love scenes in movies and TV shows that make me want to do something. Yeah, it's like you look at it, it's like, man, that looks really good. And by the way, the tag is just him eating the steak. It's just him sitting there eating. There's no dialogue. It's just him watching Bridge on the River Quiet eating the steak. By the way, a little check-in on gifts, parties, and jobs. This episode

ends with a party, basically, where she gives Ron a gift, the steak and the whiskey, and they talk about a job she didn't take, the job in Eagleton that she didn't take, and it's kind of a discussion of that. So, very sweet ending and kind of cool, because it's an A-story, B-story crossover. All right,

final thoughts on this? Fun episode, it's good to see Eaglin, and let's not blur together with the Eagleton tip-off classic, which hopefully we'll address a couple years down the road in Season 6. I think we need to have a competition between Parker Posey and Kristen Bell. I think they need

to vie for MVP of Eagleton at some point. Yesrician women uh a rich rich uh kind of snobby women ingrid deforest played by kristen bell and lindsey carlisle shea played by parker posey oh wait how great when you have when you can have those kind of people just oh by the way we're hello parker posey just coming in for the week oh hello kristen bell i'm just here for the the week i mean that speaks to at this point how how beloved this show was amongst um the comedy people and and and studs like that that they wanted to just come in and be a part of it yeah leads of their own shows capable of leading their you can really tell right you know guest

actor comes in and like yeah yeah he just kind of have it he i mean you guys at some point for with actors i kind of feel like you kind of either have it or you don't i mean you can get better but but when you have that that those sort of chops you have that sort of charisma you know you can't fake it you can't fake it nope all right our oops moment in season two episode six kaboom which we did a podcast on before eagleton is mentioned as being two towns over for potty but now Eagleton borders Pawnee. I think that was necessary because we needed the fence to be there. Oh, I see an optional previous

oops. Wow, I love just going back in time. Eduardo, April's Venezuelan boyfriend in Season 3, is not the same character in Season 2, Sister City. That character is Johnny, but for some reason they're both from Venezuela. I think that is a genuine oops right I think we just renamed the guy or I think we recast the guy I mean I don't know

no I'm not sure I I just love the way Johnny is spelled in the notes yes I remember I wrote sister city so uh Johnny was spelled that way it's j-h-o-n-n-y and the backstory is there was a baseball player named Johnny Peralta who played for the Cleveland Indians, and his name was spelled J-H-O-N-N-Y. A total trivia for Nick because no one would ever see the name Johnny spelled out. So in the script, it was spelled J-H-O-N-N-Y. That is true trivia. That's why you come here.

This is the gold. That's why you come here for gold like that. Hey, you take our gold, right? That's what you're possessive. All right. Episode MVP, most valuable pawn in Ian. Which character moment in this episode sticks out to you most and why? Listen, you got to give it to when you have a guest cast like Parker Posey.

You just have to. I love it. I would say the garbage fight. Also, Parker and Leslie fighting. And then I would say also, let's not forget Chris kissing Ron. Oh, thank you. That is my runner-up MVP. Maybe they're co-MVPs because

it truly made me laugh out loud. Listeners, let us know who your MVP was by tweeting Team Coco at Team Coco Podcasts or using the hashtag Parks and Rec Collection. All right. Should we do the town hall? It's a town hall today.

Not a town hall., not a town hall. I almost said town hall. Town hall. Town hall. Yep. I think we should do it at this Wiffle Ball Park. Let's go play some Wiffle Ball at the Pony Eagleton Lafayette Park Wiffle Ball Park. All right.

This town hall comes to us from Rachel from Maryland. Hi, Ellen, Rob, Greg, and everyone else who puts together this lovely podcast. I'm a huge Parks fan and love re-watching the series along with the podcast. My mom and aunts play Wordle and a lot of other related games every day.

One of these spin-off games is called Hurdle. Naturally, this makes me think of Ya Heard With Purd. Would modern-day Purd make his own version of these popular games

called Purdle? I like to imagine it to be a newspaper puzzle since Pawnee stuck in the 90s. Or Perd watching reruns of Wheel of Fortune and trying to solve them on his show. Do you think it would catch on with Pawneans? And what do you think Purtle would look like? Thank you, Rachel, for Maryland for sending in the question. Would it catch on with Pawneans?

Caught on with me. I would buy, download that game in a minute, wouldn't you? Yes, this is a fantastic question. This sets a new bar for town hall questions, Rachel. Very creative. I like to think yeah, Pawnee's stuck in this past. I think the game is played only via BlackBerry.

You have to have a BlackBerry, the physical keyboard. And I think Purtle is obviously hosted by Purtle,d happily and i think the answer every day is just the word purdle so he's like welcome to purdle uh the answer for today's purdle as it is every day is purdle so i think you just go in and type in purdle every day i just think it's one of those things where uh local bad television tries to compete in the off hours with actual television

and Pert might host his version of sort of Family Feud slash Wheel of Fortune shot in Pawnee with like a really small studio audience. I think I would watch that show. Yes, I would too. And shout out to all the other Pertl

or the other Wordle spinoffs out there. I've been playing something that sounds like Purtle. It's spelled P-O-E L-T-L. It's named after NBA player Jacob Purtle. Jakob Purtle, I guess is how it's pronounced. It's where you guess basketball players. I have a thread actually

with Mike Shore from Parks and Rec where we said each other other games there's one called i believe set a chordal which is like 64 words or something so wordle is one word and then there's there's dortle there's octordle there's there's for for more increasingly amount uh for increasing amount of words and uh we've gone crazy there's also one called uh god i forget what it's called hurdle yeah hurdle is the is the is this is the music one and then there's a a movie one too where

you see stills anyway i'm on a thread with uh with with mike and uh me to kimes vspn and pablo tori vspn and we just send each other puzzle results all day so uh it's it's that's friendship now i guess it's just sending each other wordle results. It is. It is. Okay. Anything else to add, Rolo? We good?

Well, I feel hugely satisfied. I feel like I've been kissed on the mouth by Nick Offerman. It's a journey. What a feeling. Feel that mustache. Feel those mustache crystals on your face.

Thank you very much for listening. Please subscribe where you get your podcasts. Give us a five-star review on Apple. It really helps. Thanks to Schulte and Greg, as always. And goodbye from Pawnee. See you next week.

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.