Parks and Recollection - Freddy Spaghetti (S2E24)

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Hello everybody, welcome to Parks and Recollection How are you today, Mr. Co-host Alan Yang? What's going on Rollo? I'm good It's a morning record, we usually do afternoons. Morning record. Feel refreshed. Just watch the episodes.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Feel good. I feel, I think my coffee, my caffeine level is exactly right at the moment. I'll chase it for the rest of the day, but right now it's good. Well, I don't drink caffeine. Did you know that Rob? What? Yeah. I don't drink coffee. Isn't that weird? It's kind of weird. Wait, wait, wait. You, somebody as energetic as you? Well, you know, I guess, I guess it's right because you'd be off the walls if you added to your own energy. That is true. I just never started.

Starting point is 00:01:12 And so if I, this is actually funny. If I drink even the smallest amount of coffee, like I went out to lunch not that long ago. We were in New York and I had a Vietnamese coffee for lunch. We were at a Vietnamese place. And that night I didn't fall asleep till 6 a.m. Oh, no, no, no. Because I just had a coffee at lunch and then couldn't. My girlfriend was like, what's going on?

Starting point is 00:01:36 I was like, I don't know. I had one coffee. So for me, it's the most powerful drug possible. Like if I drink any coffee, my body has no tolerance to caffeine. So you're lucky. Oh, that would be my, my nightmare. See, I can drink it and then go to sleep. That's insane. The adverse. Anyway, today's a good one, right? How excited are we about Freddy's spaghetti? I think we're pretty excited. It's a great season finale, season two finale, and we're just ramping up we just did

Starting point is 00:02:05 the master plan your first appearance and so this is obviously you're in adam's second appearance and it's it's an awesome episode it's it's really like we talk about this is the pocket to me this is the pocket the peak the show starts to peak right around here and so it was it was really fun to watch this is uh uh written by mr dan gore our great friend friend of the show um and directed by jason walner the original air date um obviously was as we just said was season two episode 24 that sounds so insane that's unreal don't forget rob we also then almost immediately shot the first six of season three so we shot about 30 episodes in one calendar year take that all you streamers out there anyone doing a streaming show myself included who are doing

Starting point is 00:02:49 like i'm doing 10 episodes i'm doing six episodes 30 in one year 30 30 do you know how hard it is to do 10 great episodes of television how about try doing 30 in a row 30 decent ones you know it's like try try not dropping some duds in there But yeah, no, it's 30 episodes And I just saw Gore I went to the Super Bowl And I sat near Gore And we were in the Universal section

Starting point is 00:03:13 So it was fun So great So it aired on May 20th Traditionally the end of the network television season May 20th, 2010 And basically the overview is Someone shut the government down I'm not going to mention who it was, but somebody did it.

Starting point is 00:03:27 And the parks are closed. Leslie skirts the rules. No. And holds a children's concert in the vacant lot. The legendary lot. The legendary lot. And some quick notes to start the episode. This episode marks the final performance for Paul

Starting point is 00:03:43 Schneider as Mark Berdanowicz. It's also, some snark in the notes, by the way, one of the producers. This episode marks the final performance for Paul Schneider as Mark Rodanowicz. It's also, some snark in the notes, by the way, one of the producers. It's also the last time anyone on the show mentions Mark at any capacity. So someone just put that in the thing. The additional, in any capacity. Goodbye, sweet prince. Enjoy that big, beautiful architectural map in the sky. Do some

Starting point is 00:04:00 city planning. Do some city planning. Goodbye, sweet prince. Yeah, there it is. Natalie Morales, who plays Lucy, she's in this as well. She was in the last episode. I worked on The Grinder after this. Now has become a great director. And what else we got here? What else we got in notes?

Starting point is 00:04:16 More guest stars. More guest stars. This episode also features Jayma Williamson reprising her role as Tom's ex-wife, Wendy, and comedian and writer Brian McCann playing the titular Freddie Spaghetti. So that's a big, we'll talk about Brian a little later, but yeah, that's cool. And last note, April and Andy share their first kiss in this episode. A lot of romance happening. A lot of romance. That's my Howard Stern-esque sound effects. I'm going to start doing that, I think, in the show. Constantly, just all the time. That that's the coffee that's the coffee gun it is by the way the time we get to the end of it there'll be no more sound effects yeah um let's well hit us with the hit us

Starting point is 00:04:55 with the let's do it so the beginning of the episode as you mentioned the poni government has been shut down due to a budget crisis in the last episode of master plan when leslie explains at a town hall that a family concert featuring children's entertainer freddie spaghetti played by brian mccann must be canceled due to the shutdown the citizens are outraged leslie visits state auditors chris and ben seeking a way to keep the concert but ben insists there's simply no money for it leslie then goes to mark to vent about her situation and seek help only to learn he has taken a buyout and plans to join a construction company frustrated leslie angrily calls him mark brindana quits um it's it's a legendary joke it's almost worth having him on the show just so you can call him mark brindana

Starting point is 00:05:35 quits when he leaves the show so it's a super funny super funny joke do you know you any way of remembering who came up with that one mark brind with that one god i don't know man that really feels like there's a lot of wordplay in the show and so by this point this is end of season two um you know it's there's a greg is pitching that maybe it was gore this was an episode that he wrote it sounds possibly like him but i don't want to give him too much credit so i'm going to say tbd we don't know. We don't know. But yeah, it's a great setup for an episode, and really, you see the turn from Ron in this one. And he's happy about the budget being cut at the front, and then by the end of the episode, he has a turn. When Chris made his appearance, he talked about creating the character and where it came from and the references to Tom Cruise. the character and where it came from and the references to tom cruise uh and and i did in my first meeting with you guys in the writer's room i mentioned a story about how intense tom is

Starting point is 00:06:30 um even when ordering a glass of water and uh we put that in the show and that's in this episode um chris orders a glass of water and it's almost a word for word um recreation of my uh my story i told i'd like a glass of water i'd like it to be in a glass i'd like it to be cold good stuff we just put it right into the show and it's also like look this is the second i was like like you're probably your fourth or fifth scene in the show it's like yeah if you come up with these things that kind of explain who the character is or show who they are and you just you just pop them in you just pop them in it's also this is also very popular cold open and it's in i think it's in a lot of clip reels it's it's pratt falling over the the uh the desk on his skates in the very beginning and this episode

Starting point is 00:07:15 is so much physical comedy and dan gore loved writing that stuff in so in the cold open like it goes into that theme song and it goes dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum- goes dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum and all that shit like uh in the writer's room we would pitch cold open so we would go like okay and then and then andy comes in he's on skates and he falls over the the the desk at the front and it goes bump bump bump bump so we just would say bump bump every time every time we would pitch and then then we would we would go on to pitch a lot of things that would make no sense then we we'd go, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, Every time it would just be the same. And we'd bum, bum, and then we'd kill on. So that was the beginning of that, and that continued for like six more seasons, we would say that over and over again.

Starting point is 00:07:55 Wow, I'm looking ahead at some of our notes. These are amazing notes that we've been handed before we do this one. Shout out to the notes. Shout out to the notes. The shout out to the notes. Later in the episode, Anne struggles with her newfound feelings for Andy. April and Andy finally reveal their feelings for each other. A lot of feelings.

Starting point is 00:08:14 But April rejects Andy, believing that Andy still has feelings for Anne. Meanwhile, Ron has been assigned a task force to help fix the city's budget problem and is delighted at the prospect of deep municipal cuts, gloating is delighted at the prospect of deep municipal cuts gloating and chanting at the cuts chris and ben propose but when he learns the auditor's plans to fire leslie he refuses and offers his job instead in explaining leslie's dedication ron accidentally alerts them

Starting point is 00:08:40 about the freddie spaghetti concert i love freddie spaghetti concert it was like it's like we were shooting um you know coachella way way way later later we would do a huge concert right it was like what was the unity unity concert it was like yeah hundreds of people and like so freddie spaghetti was like a mini version of that we also got it we also got to go back and talk about this talking head where you're going to run to the moon you remember shooting oh we should go back and talk about that yeah legendary talking head and you're going to run to the moon. Do you remember shooting that? Oh, we should go back and talk about that. Yeah. Legendary talking head. And again, very character formative, right? Formative for the character. And we actually learned later that the math was kind of off, but do you remember shooting that? I remember shooting it for a number of reasons. I live in Santa Barbara and it's not close to LA. Everybody else in the cast lives in LA. I got a phone call from Morgan Sackett, our wonderful line producer.

Starting point is 00:09:28 And he said, I hate to ask you this. I know that you're day off and you're in Santa Barbara, but God, we have this talking head. And gosh, we're shooting in Pasadena, which is probably 200 miles away. Because would you mind, I mean, is there any way you could come in and shoot it? And I read it. It's hilarious. And I drove all the way to 200 miles and shot a 30 second talking head and turned around and drove 200 miles home. So I'm never likely to forget.

Starting point is 00:10:01 And then the other thing was I was super worried about, because I take off running so fast, about pulling a hamstring. Yeah. You're not supposed to, at my age, just run that fast. And the fast running was what made me laugh about it. Yes. Well, that was my follow-up question, was watching this, talking to him this morning, was this an exaggerated run, a little bit of a comedy run? Or was this your normal Rob Lowe, that's what you look like when you run? What is your opinion? Do you remember? I think I'm putting a little sauce on it too. But it's just enough so it's like, eh, you're not looking like a bozo

Starting point is 00:10:45 going way too big. It's just a little bit. But it's also, by the way, that is dangerous. If you ever played touch football or anything over the age of 40, you're going to pull something.

Starting point is 00:10:57 It's like, if you ever play pickup basketball, if you're over 30, people get injured every game. They're just getting injured every game. You just can't do that. You're not supposed to. Softball games, you know, that first step out of first base, off home plate to first

Starting point is 00:11:12 base, so many people roll those hammies up. And that was my big thing. I just didn't want to do that. It's a dead sprint. Take it from me, a man who has torn both of his Achilles tendons. You do not want to. We want to stretch. You want to stretch stretch um yeah that's a good talking head that's a that's i think it's i mean we all it's fun when we go through and and note sort of you know just memes

Starting point is 00:11:36 that live in perpetuity and i think that's chris running to the moon is is definitely one of them yes that's up there for sure um here's a little note about Anne's house and bedroom. This does make me laugh because people don't know what's a stage and what's not a stage. Like they don't know. You know, it's like they just don't know what you can't because you can't tell. And sometimes it's a duplicate of something that exists in real life. So Anne's house in the show is an actual house. The exterior obviously is an actual house in Studio City.

Starting point is 00:12:03 But what we then did was we duplicated some of the house on the soundstage. And so the inside we have on stage and then the outside, there's like a little bit of a fake exterior, but we don't know. We never go into her bedroom. So there is a little bit of a funny note here from Greg, which is like, if you see any of the bedroom, it looks kind of normal. But if you actually went into it, we never go in. It's a twin bed with like one foot on either side. There's like no, there's no room. There's no, it's like, it's like aunt's bedroom is the saddest thing. Every time you'd walk into like, Oh, this is like a child. This is like a doll's bedroom. It's, it's, it's a nothing. You'll just never see in the inside of it. Like when you watch the show, you'll realize you've never seen the inside of that, that, that room. So

Starting point is 00:12:40 that's a little, a little fun fact. I the lot all the time when i as i'm like driving around la and i and ann's house and i i go oh there's ann's old house and like that whole area of the valley we shot most of pawnee in um in the valley in the san fernando valley and i mean i feel like we shot every single inch that we possibly could. It's 125 episodes. Yeah, the lot is around Hazeltine and Collins, if anyone is from Studio City. Like, it's in that area. And then, yeah, every location is around there.

Starting point is 00:13:16 And then sometimes Pasadena, like you said, because the city hall, Pawnee City Hall is Pasadena City Hall. So sometimes we would, you would try to, as a locations person, you know, find locations near there so you could shoot out your days. Anyway, that's production logistics. We got to talk about this massage scene as well. I mean, that's the scene where Ron, you massage Ron first and then Ron is supposed to massage you. What was that like? What was shooting that like? The thing that I remember most about this was i could not believe how uncomfortable the wool sweaters are that nick offerman has to wear as ron swanson yeah you can't i mean for those of you who don't like to wear raw wool on your body like me it you just can't believe it so when i touched him and felt what those sweaters feel like i just i i just could i was like i almost

Starting point is 00:14:13 couldn't breathe it's the most uncomfortable wardrobe an actor has ever worn and and credits to nick man he just owned it i mean and it's so perfect. But that was the beginning, I think, of a long, wonderful flirtation, like bromance between Chris Traeger and Ron Swanson. Yeah, you do the burger contest later. You do all the stuff. It's like two very different kinds of men. But, you know, there's some kind of respect, I think, there.

Starting point is 00:14:41 Did he feel solidly built? I feel like whenever I slap Nick on the back, he's like's pretty solid it's like a this guy's made of made of oak you're talking about two midwestern boys you know he's from indiana my family's from indiana and ohio uh and uh you know we're solid as we're solid as oak but offerman is is is uh is is truly a rock. He's chiseled out of granite and bacon. He's very compact. Very compact. What I love about this massage scene is that it starts out with Chris is saying that a massage train will loosen everybody up. And it's not even that I want a massage. I'll be the caboose and Ron Swanson is the locomotive. You just

Starting point is 00:15:24 want people loose. And then by the end of the scene, and we have a screenshot for you to look at, your face is so pained that you are not getting a massage from Ron Swanson. Yeah, he really turns and wants the massage pretty quickly. He doesn't care about the rest of the meeting whatsoever. No. The meeting was a pretext for a massage it's also that did make me laugh also because it's really important plot information it's literally ben saying he's going to fire leslie nope the lead of the show like the lead character of the show is being fired and then meanwhile there's this comedy bit that's like very

Starting point is 00:16:00 funny but it's like ron is trying to defend les that has to massage you. It is. I really like rewatching. It's like, it's very important plot stuff happening. And this is what was fun for me. I know I talked about it last episode is I'm usually the guy involved with or delivering the plot. And in this, I didn't have to do any of that.

Starting point is 00:16:23 I was never asked to do any of it and i loved it that's just i just i just came in and was funny or you know tried to be anyway and never worried about any of the other stuff so like you said there's this big scene where the lead of the show is being fired i don't have anything to do with any of that and you're massaging somebody i'm just being ridiculous in the corner. And it was so fun. Yeah, that must be fun. Chris and Ben go to Lot 48

Starting point is 00:16:58 to shut the concert down and Leslie explains everything's been donated and nothing's on the taxpayer's dime. Leslie then learns Freddy Spaghetti has booked another gig and the concert once again seems in a state of peril. Leslie asks Andy to play instead, but he's hit by a car while driving his new motorcycle home to retrieve his guitar, breaking his right arm. Attending to Andy in the hospital,

Starting point is 00:17:18 Anne suddenly kisses him but immediately stops and guiltily walks out. Later, April visits Andy in the hospital and is relieved to see Andy's fine, finally agrees to go out with him, and kisses Andy. In an effort to be upfront and honest, Andy admits that Ann also just kissed him, but that it meant nothing. April angrily storms out,

Starting point is 00:17:34 taking back her decision to go out with him. Lot of plot. I mean, this thing flies. This episode is really packed. It just keeps going. I do love that. So a couple things. First of all, ron shows up

Starting point is 00:17:46 the concert he he's running and then he slips and falls really hard and it's it was kind of not really in the script kind of nick's idea and aziz has said that this is this moment's one of his favorite shots in the whole series because it's it's just it's a comedy fall it's a comedy pratfall yet another pratfall in this episode i remember it well because again i was so new to the show still what's what it's my it's my second episode jesus christ it's my second episode and nick went i mean he sold out he and multiple times i mean and there was no like half-assed actor dainty fake i mean he wiped the fuck out and it's so funny it's so funny because ron swans is a character who never moves you know he's like a stone right that that's his character like literally the one of those first

Starting point is 00:18:39 episodes he has a hernia and he doesn't move like this one and he it's like he slips on a banana peel i don't know how he did it but like yeah he's very very talented physical comedian when he has to be so yeah it's really funny also almost equally funny to me is when you guys show up you're wearing like you're wearing like sunglasses just Ray-Ban sunglasses there's something about that

Starting point is 00:18:57 and I don't remember I've been trying when I watched the episode back I was trying to remember there was a huge discussion about the wardrobe that day yeah and well again because Adam's character was new mine was new and we hadn't you know when a character's new you're just kind of figuring out what would they wear and yeah certain in certain things you you know look at ron swanson i mean he was wearing i think members only in the first few episodes wearing full suits it's like it just doesn't look like him right his hair's different and then now he's wearing those sweaters all the time right and see yeah you

Starting point is 00:19:28 guys were learning yeah yeah so we were learning and didn't uh did there's something about that that that outfit that makes me laugh the way we're walking the way we're walking onto that lot i also remember it being 1 billion degrees we would always shoot parks in the summer in the valley and it was just so hot you couldn't believe it it's just the worst but yeah you guys walking up like hitman with the glasses on always made me laugh i just want to say what i love about that is that also it kind of if you think about it like you guys are outsiders coming in and like you haven't been ponied yet in a way right so like here you are these people from the state budget office and

Starting point is 00:20:08 of course you're going to come in almost like like weird nerdy hit men and then you slowly become a panied person and that kind of facade goes away and become who you're supposed to be that's what I think about and you guys start dressing differently from each other too right it's like Chris is a little bit sportier

Starting point is 00:20:24 and then Ben's a little bit like hipster nerdier um speaking of improv this this is another thing that did make me laugh i saw it aubrey improvises the moment if you watch closely he andy's walking over to talk to her and she spits something i was like is she spitting i actually rewound it to see she's spitting out some hay straw so it's like some straw in her mouth and uh episode director jason woolner asked her not to do this, but she insisted and thought it would be great. And it did make the final cut. And a little color to this, Jason Wollner is a friend of mine, just the nicest guy. And it's so funny to imagine him trying to tell her to not do that. is really talented director he's super funny guy he directed borat 2 um he's he's he's on the shorter side so he like he looks really young so he he wears a suit to set so people know he's not a pa he's not a production assistant so it's just funny to me to imagine him asking a very stubborn aubrey plaza not to constantly spit hay out of her mouth and probably failing to do so so that

Starting point is 00:21:23 that that's very evocative to me i can just see here i think it's funny i can't it's horrible every applause impersonation i just did i know but it's also like okay i won't do it and then she'll do it anyway that's right that's right okay i won't do it yeah then she'll just do it i remember the other part i remember the freddie spaghetti concert itself um i i i'd mentioned earlier that um the way parks was shot was so shocking to me in that the freedom of it and that usually the way you shoot something everybody is you do your what they call your coverage it's you shooting cameras on you it's it's all the different angles of you and then you turn the camera in a different direction and do all the

Starting point is 00:22:10 angles of all the other people and that's how everything is done on parks and recreation we had multiple cameras shooting all the time and you never quote unquote turned around and shot the other people so you there might be someone shooting you every single moment you're on the set and that was like i i have very rarely worked like that and i remember during freddy's spaghetti there's a moment where amy comes out and tries to get the crowd hyped and it's like if you're happy and you know clap your hands and nobody claps it was amy's moment amy's whole thing and i'm way in the back of the crowd not near anybody and i am the only person to clap. That was my, it was an improv I did. And it made it into the show. And what it taught me, and I'm sure it's talked about this, is like at any moment as an actor, you can be giving something on the show and it could end up in the show.

Starting point is 00:23:17 Even when it's not a scene that's about you. Yeah, and that's actually really, I feel like it's energizing and liberating for actors because you're totally right when you turn around say you know we're shooting i'm in a scene with rob and you know cameras are on rob you know i could theoretically i'm not i'm off camera and some like like just let's let's you know the sauce is made on some of these sauces sausage is made i don't know either one there are actors who won't even be there sometimes like i gotta go and then someone will read the off camera like they won't even be there forget acting or improv and it's like you could technically leave or you could technically get a shoulder double or like the back of the head double you know it's like you don't even so to to actually do the scene, and be on camera for almost all of it's kind of cool. And that has to do with the

Starting point is 00:24:08 lighting. The reason, the reason it's possible on this show is because, you know, it's not meant to look like a, you know, David Fincher movie. It's, it's, it's a, it's a mockumentary. It's, it's, it's, it's kind of just like an overhead light and, and, and we try to just, just run and gun and go. So, um, and then you get get more it's called cross shooting sometimes you know when you're able to shoot both people in a scene and and it allows people to improvise together because if you think about it you're only shooting one side of the conversation and rob is improvising a bunch we don't get my side of the conversation and then you have to you have to turn around and reshoot it all again or whatever you know yeah i am it's my it's one

Starting point is 00:24:41 of my proudest moments it sounds stupid but it is as an actor on the show because it was early on and you know and the other thing is you don't know i mean there's there's you know 150 extras and it's a big thing and then in and the whole point is nobody claps and you choose to clap i mean i could have jason woolner coming over to me and saying don't do that yeah and you being terrified of this small man in a suit which happens all the time to me we love jason um let's see what else oh so there's a big stunt in this andy gets hit by a car on his motorcycle it's almost definitely a stuntman in this case since he's right he's riding a motorcycle getting hit by a car but uh you know we we did talk about the symmetry of you know we start the show with Andy in cast with his legs, and then we always kind of wanted him to end up in the hospital again.

Starting point is 00:25:30 We thought that would be kind of funny, and in this case, it matched because it worked with this story, and he ended up there again. But it's kind of a testament to, and I'm spoiling a little bit of the rest of the episode, but by the end of season two, he begins the series, no one likes him. End of season two, two women are kissing him. Two principal characters are going in there and kissing him. Like everyone loves him. And then there's obviously that joke where a nurse walks in and he's like, don't kiss me.

Starting point is 00:25:57 But yeah, that's how much that character evolved. It was the beginning of the Star-Lord. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it's Star-Lord. It's Owen Grady, Jurassic World. Owen Grady? Owen Grady. The character names are so funny, man.

Starting point is 00:26:13 It's, yeah. He's just still a little kid, man. I just, you know, this is going to date the episode, but the new Jurassic World trailer, what is it, Jurassic World Dominion or something came out, and there's like the older characters.

Starting point is 00:26:24 I used to love Jurassic Park, so I texted pratt and i was like man it's so awesome seeing like sam neill and laura duran and goldblum like in the scenes with you guys and he takes it back immediately he's like yeah oh my god it's insane like he's like he's just a little kid he's like he's like yeah it's like it's awesome man he's like he's just really excited he's like glad you like the trailer like he's just really excited about it before we move on can i just call up one of my favorite moments from the series and it's perhaps one of my favorite moments with rob with chris in the series and it made it into a producer's cut and i think actually now on peacock nbc's peacock you can watch this scene over the credits it's a deleted scene where tom and lucy

Starting point is 00:27:02 go off to have sex in Anne's house. And I pulled up the script, by the way, and when she says, hey, do you want to go to that house over there? She just wants to go to a random house and sleep with her boyfriend. But anyway, in the scene, you're just Chipper, and you're walking up to the front door, and you hit Anne, it's Chris Traeger, hello. And you peek in, right?

Starting point is 00:27:24 And you see Tom. Hey, Tom Haverford, and who's your friend? He's. And you peek in, right? And you see Tom. Hey, Tom Haverford. And who's your friend? He's like, what the hell? Get out of here, man. And he said, you got it, Tom. And you leave as happy and chipper as you walked in. It is so funny.

Starting point is 00:27:35 You're whistling both times. And in the script, it says, Chris walks off whistling to himself. Do you remember shooting that? Do you remember this moment with Aziz? I do because, because yeah they're having sex it's yeah that's the premise they're having sex in there and and and aziz like you know lays on he's like he basically he's like get the fuck out of here i'm like you got it tom and

Starting point is 00:27:58 i just leave like nothing nothing has happened it's so funny it yeah that's not in the so that's one of the instances of that got cut for time and so it's in you know if you watch it on peacock this episode and master plan are both longer than you're allowed to do on network so network is like something like 21 30 or 21 17 whatever it is and so these episodes are both much longer on peacock peacock premium is what i watch on so i don't the commercials but yeah i want to i want to point out to to people you know because you know most people just watch what they watch they watch it on their phone or they watch it on a computer they watch it on tv they watch it on peacock or they watch it on nbc they watch it on netflix but like

Starting point is 00:28:37 there's a real difference i mean you to pick you know Veep, for example. Veep's a hilarious show, right? Guess what? On Veep, if the episode ends up being a certain amount of time, that's what they get to do. On a network show, you have to cut it to a certain time. Have to. And you have to have commercial breaks that have to be at a certain time. So all that affects the storytelling, the writing, the shooting, the editing. And on streamers,

Starting point is 00:29:10 there are no rules and they get to do whatever they want. So again, if you ever see something on network television that you like, it's exponentially hard to make it good because of the constraints of working there. Absolutely. I felt it through like the editing walls like that was the nightmare of mike and dean's life like editing those episodes was not you know

Starting point is 00:29:29 making them great of course but then it's like it's 21 53 we have to take 30 seconds out of this and and you're just dying you're you're pulling frames out and now it's it's wild you know i'm looking at the ted lesser runtimes and they're like 46 minutes i'm like 46 minutes this is a half hour show but yeah but there's but you know it they really range and you get to do that we did that on master no we had a 50 minute episode and we had a 22 minute it's like it's so but but certainly like you know it's much more like film now with with with streaming and you know back in the day or on network it's it's it's it's just man you're it's to the It's to the second. Every episode has to be the same length to the second. So that was always a constraint. But, you know, sometimes constraints are good. You know, watching these episodes today, it's like, you know, they just move. They move and it's kind of a lesson. You know, certainly in comedy, faster, funnier, tighter. Sometimes those constraints can be good and i always love in parks where they were where you will cut into something way either way earlier or way later than you would have normally thought when you read the script and it and the cut itself makes you laugh because um it's because of the timing of it and and i think

Starting point is 00:30:40 parks does that better than i mean the office did it a little bit but parks took it to a new level and i think if you're paying any attention to the editing um you you should be paying attention to the editing because it's it's super super like a comedy masterpiece the editing on the park shows i think there's absolutely a lot to be said for economy just economy and the storytelling and you know all the jokes and the speed because you know on set you'll hear that a lot you know puller would say it all the time you know faster funnier faster funnier because it's a little bit faster than people normally talk it just is because if you have it's just when you get in the edit and people are talking slowly it's death it's just death it

Starting point is 00:31:19 really is speaking of which economy in this show back to the synopsis. At Lot 48, Freddie Spaghetti surprisingly arrives, having been paid by Ben to perform at Leslie's concert. Ben explains he's not a bad person, but the budget still has to be slashed. That night, Leslie sits on a bench in Lot 48 and Mark joins her. Mark tells her that if more people like her worked in local government, he wouldn't be leaving and gives her plans. He drove for a park at Lot 48 before giving her goodbye kiss on the cheek and walking away the next day ron withdraws from the budget task force and appoints leslie in his place as tom and his new girlfriend lucy are clearing out his office he notices ron is wearing a red shirt and black pants the outfit he always wears the day after having sex tom's ex-wife wendy then appears and and kisses Ron and the two leave together. Shocking Tom.

Starting point is 00:32:05 First of all. Soap arpa twist. I love, one of my favorite jokes ever is Ron wearing his, it was from Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods? Yeah, when Tiger on Sunday, it's one of my favorite jokes in the show ever. We have a little bit of a piece of trivia here. When Leslie and Ben are talking during the concert, the Freddy Spaghetti songs continue and are playing in the background, and you could just hear an endless call and response

Starting point is 00:32:33 of different types of noodles. It's funny. I guess you just had to say noodles for just hours as we shot the rest of the scene. That sometimes happens if you're in the back. You know what I mean? If you're in the shot, you're like, God, I just got to keep doing stuff. What made the cut is also he says like tortelloni

Starting point is 00:32:48 macaroni ziti then he just says egg noodles which is like not not the most fun name but yeah we should we should play the the bit about mark talking about writing the music for freddy spaghetti yes spaghetti stuff is so good i fred Spaghetti is one of my favorite Pawneans. Yes. Mark Rivers, drummer for Mouserat. He did a lot of the music for Mouserat, and he also did the theme song for the show. Here's him talking about Freddy Spaghetti. So when the producers first asked me to come up with some kid songs for Freddy Spaghetti, the direction was pretty wide open. Just come up with a few silly kid songs that this local Pawnee kids party entertainer would do but there was no uh specific joke angle that I remember so I came up

Starting point is 00:33:32 with a couple uh original songs and I recorded some demos one was called kitty cat farm about a farm that had nothing but uh hundreds of cats meow meow meow and a meow, and a mew, mew, mew, down on Kitty Cat Farm. Another was called Mouthful of Worms. Don't want to end up with a mouthful of worms. Yuck! But then they came back and said, what if Freddy Spaghetti is just all about pasta puns?

Starting point is 00:34:03 So they asked me to do just a straight-up parody of the old 60s novelty song, Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, just replacing bikini with linguine. Which at first was a little less exciting for me than writing original songs. But then I came to realize, ultimately, that that's a much more appropriate joke for the world of the show. ultimately that that's a much more appropriate joke for the world of the show. Of course, in Pawnee, you wouldn't have a guy writing anything close to clever original songs. You'd have this guy who finds one stupid angle, pasta puns, and he just milks that for all it's worth. She cooked an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot linguine that she made for the first time So good. I didn't know it would be pasta-based, and suddenly I was a pasta-based songwriter for a day.

Starting point is 00:35:02 And Freddy Spaghetti also, thank you for that, Mark. Very, very informative. Freddy Spaghetti was played by Conan writer Brian McCann. Dan Gore, who wrote the episode, also worked on Conan, and so they were friends. And I think he thought of Brian to play this part, and he did a great job. Well, I'm going to pop in, everyone, with

Starting point is 00:35:19 an early oops moment, just since we're talking about Freddy Spaghetti, that this is not the first time we see Freddy Spaghetti in the show. And his picture shows up in a slide in Season 2's episode, Park Safety, Episode 19. And that episode, he's played by one of our editors, Ivan Victor.

Starting point is 00:35:36 So, little fun fact. What's funny is I think, like, Ivan has kind of, he, at the time, he had kind of crazy hair on top. So, like, it was like, yeah, he looks kind of goofy, and like, not goofy, like Ivan has kind of, he, at the time he had kind of crazy hair on top. So like, it was like, yeah, he looks kind of goofy and like, not goofy, but he has kind of silly hair. Like use a photo of him. So then Freddy Spaghetti, I like to think that in the world of the show, Freddy Spaghetti is kind of like Batman. Like anyone can play him.

Starting point is 00:35:57 You just put the costume on. You just, it's just like, you know, you just keep putting, it's a replacement thing. Actually, Batman's not like that but i like um i remember um brian uh ad-libbing really inappropriate uh freddie spaghetti patter and yes he did a song about paying too much alimony about his divorce about his very bitter divorce it's like none of this is usable but not the tone of the show but it's very funny and again that's the stuff that you know stuff that I wish there were the extended cuts. That would be so fun to have of the show. Maybe we'll

Starting point is 00:36:32 get NBC to do that at some point. Another piece of information from the notes. The final moment between Leslie and Mark on the bench was written to mirror their scene in the season one finale, Rock Show, where they're kind of looking out over the pit. Dan Gore said he liked the symmetry of having it play a critical and opposite role this finale this time uh last time they sat on the bench and kissed and it seemed like they might

Starting point is 00:36:53 be getting back together this time they sit on the bench and mark kisses leslie goodbye um a note for me mark gives plans for a park and we never mentioned those plans again like those plans never go i mean she does build a park there so never mentioned those plans again. Like those plans never go. I mean, she does build a park there, so I guess you could fill the blanks, but we never specifically mentioned those plans, but it's still a sweet moment.

Starting point is 00:37:12 I mean, the thing about leaving, you know, leaving shows, being fired from shows, written off shows, whatever it is, is every actor who's been around long enough.

Starting point is 00:37:22 We'll have some experience with that. It's just, it's just part of what we do. It just is. And it's rarely personal. You don't have chemistry with your leading lady or you can't handle the jokes or whatever it is. is i mean um it happens i mean people get fired after table reads people get fired mid-episode i mean it just happens and um you know this was i mean you were there from the get-go alan i won't put words in your mouth that this is a character you guys had an idea for and it just never came together and it's it's it's just was not the right match for this actor who's a great actor and who's who's gone on who had a great career and still has a great career but he's he's not and if you look at the work he was doing it's obvious it's like he's in a different show than everybody else yeah and and to me it also you know made me think about

Starting point is 00:38:15 uh you know as an actor you don't have control over that aspect of your career a lot of the times you know and and that's just the job of an actor in some ways, you get hired, and you get let go sometimes, based on, you know, other people's opinions, whether it's the network, the studio, the showrunner, director, whatever. And, you know, that's kind of the actor's life. It's kind of, you know, the more I reflect on it, the more it's like, you know, it's great. There's obviously huge perks to be an actor, it's really rewarding, and it can be artist artistically fulfilling but there is that element of you're never quite in complete total control you know it's it's it's always like it's it's a cooperative it's a cooperation and it's a collaborative experience so you know the character of mark you know i think served served his purpose on the show and you know we're really

Starting point is 00:39:00 excited to have you guys come in you know adam, Adam and Rob come in and really felt like they became part of the town and, you know, kind of lasted for the remaining run of the show. Yep. Final thoughts on this episode? Great, great season finale. It's only the second season finale. We had to write so many more. Yes, it was a season finale, but as you alluded to, we went right into the next episode right after this. Yeah, we took a very limited break. So, Go Big or Go Home, the next episode, I think I ended up writing the draft of that one. We had to write it and come

Starting point is 00:39:30 up with essentially the whole Harvest Festival arc in the interim. So, it was a season finale, but at the same time, as Rob said, we had to almost immediately work on the next season. So, that's pretty unusual. But that being said, for a 24th episode in a season, that's pretty unusual. But that being said, you know, for a 24th episode

Starting point is 00:39:45 in a season, that's pretty fucking good. Shall we do an oops moment? There's a math one here. There's a math one here. Chris Traeger's math in the talking head where he talks about

Starting point is 00:39:56 going to the moon is faulty. Possibly justifying his partnership with Ben Wyatt who's a numbers guy. So Chris says he's run 10 miles a day every day for 18 years,

Starting point is 00:40:06 which is 65,000 miles. And he says it's a third of the way to the moon. We've done some fact checking. At his current pace, he actually has about another three to four years, three years to 10 months before he can honestly claim to have run a third of the way to the moon. So a little fact check there. It'll be another 43 years and eight months past that before he reaches his goal. That being said, you know, if he's continuing to do that, which I think he has, he's now only like 30 years away. So I think he's going to do it. I think Chris could get to the moon.

Starting point is 00:40:35 If anybody can, it's Traeger. He's not even middle-aged yet, according to his math of getting to 150 years old. He's young, you know. That's also true. That's also true. He's still in the prime right now. He's like LeBron. He's never slowing down. That's right. All right. Episode MVP, Most Valuable Pawn Ian. What do you think? Character moment? Character? Story beat? What do you think, Rob?

Starting point is 00:40:55 What's your favorite? I mean, it's the title of the episode. I kind of like Freddy Spaghetti. I mean, i'm kind of going with i'm going to go with freddie spaghetti because he made me laugh on the day shooting he looked so weird and i just had a good time clapping to his to his uh hijinks that's great i love that and he doesn't get that much shine in other episodes so so i like giving it to him i think my runner-up is uh is nick for running and wiping out and also for uh his acting in the scene where he gets a massage from you so good job nick

Starting point is 00:41:31 do you want to go to the town hall? I think you do. Let's take a trip to the town hall. Where should we do this, Rob? I think we need to do it at the bench. The bench where the world's greatest romantic couple separates forever. Brandanowicz and Amy. That's great. Yeah, let's do it on that

Starting point is 00:42:05 little bench with the moonlight. The moonlight, the dappled moonlight, and the romance. I want to know something about that

Starting point is 00:42:12 bench, actually, is that's the same bench from Rock Show and it's throughout the second season that bench sits in Leslie's office. Yes.

Starting point is 00:42:20 So there's some lovely chemistry and symmetry in that. I love the notion that Leslie would have brought the bench to have that conversation with Bernanowitz. I like that logic. I remember the talk and the writers was like, she really took the bench all the way out to the lot.

Starting point is 00:42:32 It's like, yeah, she did. She's a superhero. She took it out there. Like, yeah, don't think about that. Don't think about her carrying it out there, taking a pickup truck or whatever. All right. So this town hall from that lovely bench at the end of the season comes to us from Kimberly. Kimberly writes, I've always thought it was funny that Anne and Andy have the same names as the famous ragdolls and that Tom and Jerry have the same names as the

Starting point is 00:42:53 cat and mouse pair that always taunt each other. This is never referenced even when Anne is raggedy Anne for Halloween. Is this purely a coincidence or behind the scenes intention? Love the podcast, specifically that you're both fans of the show. What if we hated the show, Rob? Specifically that we're both fans of it. That's a tough pod to do if we hated the show. Or is it? I think I could

Starting point is 00:43:16 do a podcast of shows I hate. Shows you hate? Shows you hate watch? Man, I could talk about them for hours. Forever. Hours. Maybe that's just the next pod. Yeah, for sure. So, man i could talk about for hours forever hours hours maybe that's just the next pub yeah yeah for sure right you never want to so so as far as the names go uh it's really it's a coincidence i mean tom and jerry and ann and keep in mind keep in mind these characters didn't always have these names first of all so like jerry god with jerry was jerry always Jerry? Because I remember in the first draft, the first draft I ever wrote,

Starting point is 00:43:46 Donna was named Paris, which is insane. And then also April was named just Aubrey, right? So, you know, Jerry. And then Whitney. Whitney. I mean, so that was all confusing. Tom and Jerry, Ann and Andy, that's a little bit of a coincidence. This does remind me of a story in the writer's room, speaking of Ann's name.

Starting point is 00:44:06 You know, it gets late at a story in the writer's room, speaking of Anne's name. It gets late at night sometimes in the writer's room and Mike is at the computer or whatever, and he's in Final Draft, which is the screenwriting software. And sometimes you'll have to do a find and replace or something. And you find a name or whatever and you replace it with something. At one point, he accidentally found and replaced ann's name and wanted to replace it with something i don't know why this happened but he replaced her name with a space so just to say do you remember this greg so this happened for the entire script and so i bet you had to go back in and just look at look at her name every time was a space so every time it just like it just fucked up the entire thing and we're like oh no and you couldn't undo it and it was like this

Starting point is 00:44:51 is a night it's 2 a.m or whatever and we're in there trying to just replace it i have to tell you i remember that very well there's no there's no fixing it right that's the problem at the time the final draft software thank you final draft for everything you could not undo the find and replace so i had to then everybody watched me go through the script and find every instance of where there was an extra space to put an name back into it that's what it was it's like oh my god Go be writer's assistance People Go be writer's assistance It's a tough job It's a tough job But thank you for the question

Starting point is 00:45:28 Kimberly You know We'll do a spinoff Anne and Andy Tom and Jerry The animated spinoff For those four characters And that'll be future

Starting point is 00:45:37 I think that's it For this episode Rob What do you think? I think this is it Thanks everybody For listening Don't forget to subscribe. There's so much more fun to be had here.

Starting point is 00:45:48 We love our five-star reviews that have been showing up on Apple. So if you're inclined, we would love that. Very important for the show. And thanks to this wonderful team, Schulte and Greg. You guys rock. And for me, that's all I got to say from Pawnee today. Alan, what do you say? Thanks for listening.

Starting point is 00:46:04 Goodbye from Pawnee today. Alan, what do you say? Thanks for listening. Goodbye from Pawnee. Parks and Recollection is produced by Greg Levine and me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Alan Yang for Alan Yang Productions, Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco,

Starting point is 00:46:34 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

Starting point is 00:46:50 on Parks and Recollection. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

Parks and Recollection - Freddy Spaghetti (S2E24)

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