Parks and Recollection - Gifts, Jobs, and Parties with Producers Greg and Schulte

Episode Date: December 26, 2021

Gifts! Jobs! Parties! All three are alive and well in Pawnee. Today producers Greg and Schulte reflect on their time with Parks and Recollection, talk with legendary Parks and Rec prop creator Gay Perello, and plot their own podcast spin-off! All of this and a really fun, extremely unique giveaway for a lucky Parks and Recreation super-fan, on today's BONUS episode! 

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 Alright, hello everyone, welcome to another episode A bonus episode of Parks and Recollection

You may recognize my voice, but now you're going to really get to know it. It's producer Greg, Greg Levine, longtime writer's assistant script coordinator on Parks and Rec, and then I became a writer, and I'm joined by my co-producer, Mr. Rob Schulte. Rob, say hi. Hello, Greg. Hi. Hi, sorry, I started with hello, but I meant hi. Thank you. This is great. I love bonus

episodes because you get to, you know, you get to put your foot on the gas a little bit, which I know you like to do. Before the recording, you said you like to drive. Alright, fine. I like to drive. I don't think we need to get into the details of that. We can save that for the bonus bonus episode.

Greg, there's a running theme that Alan has brought to our attention. That's right. Parks and Rec. There it is. Gifts. Thanks, man. Parks and Rec, gifts, jobs, parties, right? And the central role they play on parks.

And that's the theme of our bonus episode today. We're starting off with jobs. Then we'll have a party with Gabe Perello, the prop master extraordinaire for Parks and Recreation, to talk through how gifts impacted parks. And you know what? Then we've got a gift for you guys. A special giveaway for one of our lucky listeners. We're going to give you the details at the end of the show. So exciting.

I'm very thrilled i love giveaways you know this is my first um foray into the podcasting world it's great i was always told i had a face for radio this is great to see it come true um but shulty i know this is not your first rodeo on radio. Wow, Greg. Thank you. Tell us, I'm dying to know, can you tell me a little bit about your time in the podcast space? Tell me about this world that we're working in.

Well, I got my start with a comedy writer named Mike Sachs. We did a podcast together when I still lived in Kansas. And then I started working more professionally in Brooklyn, New York. And then I started working on this heck of a podcast and took me out to the West Coast. I think if you were to guess that I've produced under 10 podcasts, you would guess wrong so i've had experience making episodes this has been one of the most fun experiences though today you and me right now talking exactly the backdoor pilot to our new podcast um everyone hit us up on instagram we'll tell you what it is uh private links only now greg what i really meant to say was actually working

on parks and recollection thank you because uh i love review podcasts i love 22 minute tv shows this is the best length of time for a television show and i love being able to like poke fun at things as well as expand on like the details it took to make something. You have said a couple of things about your time on Parks and Recreation. And that you started as a writer's assistant and then eventually became a writer. Is that correct? Yeah, I started on Parks and Recreation when it was technically going to be a spinoff of The Office. recreation when it was technically going to be a spinoff of The Office. My little origin story is that I was working for Alison Jones, casting director we had on our show. She knew I wanted to be a writer. And one of the gateways to being a TV writer is being a writer's assistant,

that person in the writer's room, taking notes, helping them craft stories. And so unbeknownst to me, she would call Greg Daniels or email Greg Daniels about once a week and say, I have this guy you need to meet to be a writer's assistant. I know you're going to do potentially a spinoff of The Office. And so one day, we go to The office set for a visit i think it's just a visit and then greg daniels comes up to me and he says so you want to be a writer and we talked a little bit and for me this was just me meeting my hero this is incredible why isn't spending precious time talking to little me and then he says you want to meet some of the other writers and it was like i i i wasn't sure if like i was being fired and this was like a nice way to like say goodbye uh and so he walks me

through the office set and already i'm like kid at a candy shop he opens a door and mike shore and paul liberstein and jen salata the some of the best uh office writers are in the room. And I wind up talking to Mike for like 10 or 15 minutes. And again, I don't know I'm being interviewed for anything. I had worked on The West Wing, which is my favorite show of all time. So this is crazy now to be working with Rob Lowe. And so we talked about The West Wing. We then randomly talked about MASH, which is another show I love, and I thought, this is crazy.

I don't know what happened today, but this is really cool. Man, Greg, I have so many thoughts on MASH, but we'll get to that later. Sorry, keep going. No, it's okay. We could talk about, you know, the BJ Honeycutt years,

the Trapper John years another time. We could save that for our bonus, bonus, bonus episode. I told you it gets too arty in that last season, okay? So anyway, the point of the story is that I interviewed for this job without realizing I was interviewing for this job. Because then Mike and Greg said to me, you know, we think we're going to do a spinoff or another show if I wanted to come aboard and be the writer's assistant. a spinoff or another show if i wanted to come aboard and be the writer's assistant and so the i guess my takeaway from that is try to interview for things without knowing it's an interview

you're more yourself it's great now greg um in terms of establishing yourself um in the parks and rec world right did it take i don't know some getting used to if you've worked on other television shows we always talk about how parks is a little bit different when they're filming you know like you have a fun take or just go with it amy or faster funnier but when you're ingratiating yourself in a writer's room do you feel like that was any different than previous rooms you'd been in or experiences you'd been in um that's interesting you know i had worked on dramas before that because for some reason i thought i should be a drama writer because i liked watching dramas i learned actually a lot

of comedy writers like to watch drama to escape the work. And a lot of drama writers like to watch comedy for the same reason. And working on The Office and then Parks and Rec, you know, the writers' rooms tend to be more fun. At least my experience. Not to say that drama rooms are not fun. But there's just a lot of joking happening. And so you spend a lot of time in a writer's room. It becomes a very familial experience. And spending sometimes 12, 15 hours a day with people the first season or two, it's nice to be laughing a lot.

So that was a big difference I saw. um so that was a big difference i i saw but you know i like to say that the writer's room um is a bit like uh like watching um like a pack of lions or something right oh like the movie roar exactly like the movie roar thank you for calling that. It's just it's a lot of people who are so good at what they do. But, you know, everybody has to figure out their place. And everybody has to be collaborative, because the last thing you want to be in the creative space is someone who stops the flow of creativity. Yeah, tell me about it. Right. My wife's family has a don't yuck someone else's yum. Love it. One of my favorite phrases. And you just heard it today, which is incredible. Yeah.

And it's the same thing in the writer's room. You don't want to be that person who negates an idea and doesn't help out. And this is not my analogy, but it was told to me, I think it's a really great thing, which is building a story with a bunch of writers is kind of like designing a house, but there are no blueprints written down. You're not looking at anything. So the blueprint is in the imagined space between people, comedy or drama. You want to create something together in the imagined space. And if you are a person who can only see a flaw in something, you're not continuing the building. And that's one of the reasons I love writing. It's one of the reasons I love the TV writing

experience. The collaboration is because you are making something that is greater than the sum of each of your parts and can only have been made together. It makes a whole lot of sense with like the world that is built in parks and recreation. And on the side of like the podcast, I now understand why I've been told that I'm the Frank Lloyd Wright of podcast production. So, you know, I'm making light of like your analogy, but it really does make sense that when you have a group of people coming together that like, you don't know necessarily what's the finish line, but we're all making something that everyone enjoys. But I'd like you to make it real for me. The first couple of years of making a TV show, we've heard from Alan and we've heard from Rob,

like their perspectives of it. And like, you know, you're building a world or you're trying to connect the dots or you're trying to grow the characters but like from from your perspective in the room where like everything is new and you weren't necessarily there at like concept how does that change can you help me understand that like scenario something that i think is really interesting about tv writing that we haven't really talked about yet is the time before you start shooting a season. So in the case of Parks and Rec, you know, the show is ordered, and a bunch of writers are assembled. And now it's this group of people have to write a show based on generally just the pilot episode that the show's creators wrote.

So the show, the creators, Greg Daniels, Mike Shore, write the pilot of Parks and Recreation. It has the characters we've come to know and love, but it's just a little tease, right?

It's just a little taste of yet to come. And now the show is going to be made. And so we had a seven writing, a person writing staff at the beginning. And for about, oh, I don't know, like 10 weeks, these seven people are sitting around a bunch of couches in a room and just talking about the show, talking about what characters could be. And it's kind of what we call in the writing world, like just blue sky pitching.

Anything is possible. Pitch. Just pitch an idea. It could be something that contradicts someone else. It could be something that is just a half thought, a full thought. Just pitch. And we're going to throw a bunch of note cards with all these pitches up on a wall and we'll slowly start to see what naturally takes off like i was talking about the building

of something what naturally takes off down these characters because you could say that leslie nope is you know a civics minded type a tracy flick type character and we can kind of understand that but how is that now going to be actualized through um plot and character and action and emotion and so that's what the prep time of every season is it's where do we want to go with these characters what are their arcs going to be like um in the case of parks and rec season one the arc really was supposed to be how do you build a park and the minutiae of building a park like we're going to make a whole episode about just canvassing a neighborhood and talking to citizens and we're going to do a whole episode about just trying to get media buzz with talking to reporter right the day-to-day kind of unsexy but

maybe very interesting world uh you know of civics and so you take the plot you want to tell and then you say okay who are these characters supposed to be you know we see we get that ron swanson is a libertarian who kind of wants to stop the flow of, of government and bring the, you know, the responsibility back to the people, but how's that going to be actualized and plot? And then you spend an episode, you spend a day talking about Ron and then you're going to spend.

And then how do you make it realistic within a comedic world too? Right. That's the other side of it. That perhaps the, the art part is once you've, yeah, you come up with a story you come up with the story and come up with the characters you have to add and tell it through comedy and jokes

you can come up with your plot you come with your story you can do it all but then you have to also add jokes you have to add jokes that tell story and tell plot at the same time right they're not just jokes for the sake of jokes and so which is why like it's nice when we talked about harris whittles and his particular set of skills of being like harris i need to get from point a to point b and sometimes point c do you have some words who can throw in there and i could i could get how chuffa like that or silly scenarios can really help like add accoutrement to the recipe. Enfanté. Thank you.

Yeah, you know, for me as a writer's assistant at the time, I didn't have a career as a writer yet. And so I was learning a lot from these people in the room. And I was so lucky to have truly, you know, unparalleled talent in the same room with, besides Greg and Mike, you know, Dan Gore, who we've spoken to, Rachel Axler, just one of the sharpest, wittiest people I've ever gone to work with and know.

You know, Tucker Colley, who had had so much experience working on shows like Everybody Loves Raymond, and just the crafting of story after story after story, and Norm Hiscock. It was just a sight to see these people of different talents come together and make this thing. And so I got to learn how to craft story. story um and one of the things i think is so interesting for the writers listening or just the fans of shows is that so much of uh what becomes a story is just a bunch of people talking in a room it seems like you know you've always been a writer but like you started as a

a newer writer than you are now and do you think that becomes a harder stretch hitting your first big show that like you almost want to overcomplicate things? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that there is a tendency to, once it's your turn, so to speak, to put everything in the kitchen sink

in your episode, right? It's like, this is my shot. This is my shot this is my shot for people to see everything i'm capable of but the secret sauce to most writing and creating i think is that less is more um yeah right and i think the secret sauce to some of the best episodes of our show is less is more that's not less jokes or less story or anything but it's let's have something very specific have a very specific take and write it with your voice but to throw everything in you're going to lose your your gems in a bunch of stuff that maybe is not going to stick with other people

um so absolutely in fact when i got to write an episode or two on the show, you know, I went from watching the writer's room happen, taking notes on the writer's room, and I would pitch throughout. I think the writers, and then when I joined them on staff, they knew that I got the show and that I had talent, and I could be one of them and pitch with them. But when it's your shot to do anything, I don't know, for other people, for me, I went from always saying to myself, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. And then someone saying, okay, do this. And I immediately drove home once I found out I was writing an episode being like, can I do this? Can I do this? Can I

do this? I hope I could do this. I hope i could do this i hope i could do this i know that feeling all too well man it's it but it's weird how that kind of like messes with you when it's like no it's all i've ever wanted to do it's something i know i'm skilled at doing and then someone i look up to says okay cool i trust you to do this and you're like oh fuck i think i'm a fraud i mean not really but you know like know, like, I get that, man. I get that. And, you know, something that every writer I've worked with and every writer I'm friends with will say the same thing.

To pitch a joke in a writer's room and hear people laugh is one of the greatest feelings. You then see your joke enter the script on the screen, and you're like, I've done it. And then maybe three or four seconds later someone else will pitch a joke that gets maybe a little more of a laugh or it's just the most recent laugh and people like oh that's funny that's funny and then your thing gets deleted and then someone else's joke the beat of sweat drops down your temple yeah you go from

this high of oh look what i've just made and it's to be in an episode of TV, to, oh, it's gone, and no one will ever know this joke again. But, oh my god, my first time a joke made it in, I was elated. And then I remember pitching again, and it was like crickets. No one said anything. And you're like, okay, well, okay, so I'm one for one now. And you can't keep a running log of this or else it's crazy making. Well, I'll tell you my running log. My running log, you know, Yule log, Christmas time.

I wrote Alan at one point. And I had a little joke in my email. And Alan wrote me back and he said, that's gold. And I was like, cool, I'll never make another joke ever again on this show because now I sit at 100% comedy success. That's kind of like the writer's room, right? That's exactly it. You know, that's so funny

because I remember sitting down at my computer and writing an email to the first season writing staff to say, these are the details for your first day. This is where you're going to park. This is where you're going to come in. Read it over and over again to make sure it was right. You know, cause I'm, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Um, and I sent it off into the world and I got an email back from Alan, maybe 10 minutes later. Um, and I, we never met and he said, you know, it's like great email, firm handshake, great to meet you or something like that right and i was like that's just great

yeah i introduced myself with style they're gonna show up at work and everything's gonna be great alan doesn't know the power he has on his replies not at all i got to see a lot of writers come into the parks room and generally when you join parks and rec you you didn't leave because unless you you had your own show or whatever life took you somewhere and why would you it was a great space it was a great room and i know that greg and mike were looking for people that would want to be in this you know this room the space with people for this long and just get along and could add obviously be funny be funny, be good with story. But you're in this room for 12 hours with people.

I don't spend that much time with my family. And so, and I'm sorry. Greg, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I'm sorry to my family. That's going to be for the other more serious podcast. Yeah, right, my therapy session. You know, Shelty, something else I've been wanting to talk about, about the early days of the show and the writing of it, you know, those first six episodes we've talked about on our series here,

that they feel a little different. They were shown into the world, and then you started to hear from people what they liked to didn't like, we had the ability to then talk as a writing staff and say, what do we like and not like, and what do we want to shift? And then we started writing and shooting season two. And if this had been a normal network, 22 episode order, and we had to do that six or seven episodes in, well, when you're shooting episode seven, you're writing episode 12, your table read episode 10, and you're prepping to shoot episode 11. You are so in it that to change what you're working on means changing episodes that have already shot, changing episodes that are being broken now. It is so hard to shift that many stories.

So we actually benefited from this really weird six episode order. You've watched all of our series. You've watched all of Parks and Rec. What now? Parks and Recreation. Oh, yeah, of all of our series. You've watched all of Parks and Rec. What now? Parks and Recreation. Oh, yeah, of course, of course. And when you have been going back and watching this series now, as we're making our podcast, re-watching these early episodes,

they probably watch differently than they did the first time, now that you know who these characters are, right? Yeah, totally. It absolutely gives a better appreciation. And that's reason enough to move on. That's true. Now, can I ask you a characters are, right? Yeah, totally. It absolutely gives a better appreciation. And that's reason enough to move on. That's true. Now, can I ask you a quick question, Greg? It seems like you could potentially get into more hijinks

by having to work on multiple episodes at once. You could potentially put something into episode six that you guys make a joke out of while filming episode two. And I think ultimately that's a benefit, but did that stuff kind of happen over and all, or did it become like a, I don't know, well-oiled machine where of course that stuff's going to happen? Because if it's funny here, we're throwing it in there. That's interesting question. You know, I think about that with our shows nowadays that are shot all at once and you can really make some plants and set a lot of things up and foreshadow and do callbacks in a more production inclusive way, so to speak, and writing inclusive way. would watch as a writing staff the early cuts. And those are some of my favorite moments on the show when we would sit in the writer's room at lunch and watch a cut of an episode. It was the director's

assembly or the rough cut. It's one of the early drafts. And it has everything. It has everything in the kitchen sink. It has some fun run stuff that we've talked about, extras that the actors throw in. It just has everything. And those are tough to see because they're not the perfectly 20 and a half minute edited version that everybody gets to watch now. But what you do is you get to watch them and see what's funny. And see what's working.

And so these moments are living in your head and that informs your writing and your creative process. And then, of course, some of those moments stick out and say, oh, this was funny then. What if we now go back to that location, right? What if we now go back to the bulge? Yeah, yeah. Or the library or the fourth floor or things like that.

Right. A little joke that you're reminded of as you watch the episode is just going to naturally inform your writing of an episode that's going to happen six or seven episodes later. But in hindsight, it looks like you planned it all. But really what you're doing is you're just capitalizing on what has worked. Greg, we're going to talk about Pierre real quick. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

When I was sitting down with Greg and Mike for my interview, and they started talking about working in a writer's room, Greg Daniels said to me, you know, it's very confusing to have two people with the same name in a writer's room, in any room they have in a conversation. I'm Greg, I'm already in the room. Shulte, you are Rob Sh schulte i don't know how many people know this we have rob low you understand what i'm talking about i do so greg daniels one of my idol heroes is saying hey do you have any nicknames that we could call you

and so i was i said i remember saying i'm still cringing thinking about it. I remember saying, well, you know, actually Greg is a nickname. Thinking, oh, he's going to laugh. He didn't. Oh, no. I kind of panicked in a way. And so I said, you know, I could actually tell you my dad, this is true. I don't understand it. My dad wanted to name me Pierre.

Whatever. My dad is a fascinating man. He said, I want to name my son Pierre. My older brother's Josh, if that gives any clarification of the naming in our family. So anyway, my dad wanted to name me Pierre and Greg Daniels loved it. He's like, oh my God, that's great. We will call you Pierre. I worked on The Office for about three or four months before Parks and Rec Writers Room took off. And so I show up the very first day at the office and Greg Daniels goes around and introduces me to every writer there because I'd be working

with them as Pierre. Oh, great. He doesn't even say this is Greg Levine, but we're going to be calling him Pierre is just I have this is Pierre. He's working on our show. I signed emails as Pierre. It was just, this is Pierre. He's working on our show. I signed emails as Pierre. People would say, oh, bring that over to Pierre's desk. Like it's just saying, just breathing. Like go bring, oh, that's Pierre's job.

Go tell him what to do. I was Pierre for four professional years. But like when someone shouted out, Pierre, hey, Pierre, you have to turn your head and answer? Yeah. I was responsible for distributing every episode pretty much of Parks and Recreation. And they'd be signed Pierre to the head of NBC. This is not a way to make a name for myself or a career. No, it's a way to make a fake name for yourself. There's a shocking twist, I think, where Greg Daniels, he hires another assistant, an awesome guy

named Pierre. No, no. Yeah, it happened. It happened. And so here I am, my fake Pierre, my fake name is now causing the same problem that my nickname Pierre was brought about to fix. nickname Pierre was brought about to fix. And so Pierre Luigi, when he was at the Parks and Rec office, went by Luigi, which Pierre Luigi, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think that's was a nickname for a name for you. So my fake Pierre made a real Pierre not go by Pierre.

And I'm dying to talk to Greg Daniels about this. I never had the courage to maybe until now. Was that a bit of a social experiment? I will say one of my favorite things about it, Rashida Jones, who I love, called me Greer. Greer, which was a nice combination of Greg and Pierre. I thought that was sweet. The people who matter, they know who I am now. Everybody knows who I am now. I am Greg. I am Greg. This is a gift unto us all that you are now Greg, solid Greg. You are Greg, the producer of Parks and Recollection. Wait, Sheltie, can I tell you one more thing?

Oh, I hope you do. We're going to be talking soon to a good friend of ours about some gifts. Mm-hmm. We're going to be talking soon to a good friend of ours about some gifts. And we're going to, I want to talk to her about the gift giving that took place in the Parks and Rec writer's room. Let's make sure we do. Yes, noted. I was given a gift in the gift giving of the Parks and Rec writer's room by my fellow writer's assistant. There was a nameplate for my desk that said Greg Levine, human being. Wow.

All right, Shelty, this has been great so far. I'm loving it. Every moment of this. We're talking jobs. We're talking gifts. I need to party. So we have a good friend of ours from Parks and Recreation, Gay Pirello, prop master extraordinaire, coming in to talk about gifts, because it's our job. Yeah, we got to do this. Gay, welcome. We're so happy to have you. Thank you so much, guys. Yes, yes. Okay. So I was a big theater kid in college and high school. So like working in the props department was always a blast, especially when no one ever cast you. I am very envious that you get to make fun things like DJ Roomba and all the sort of ridiculous stuff that happened on Parks and Rec. Is there one prop that like specifically when I'm invited to a dinner party that like you're like, I got to talk about this, this gift, this prop. There's so many.

I'll take your top 10 then. Okay. Okay. Yeah. If we go to like the Christmas episode when everybody was kind of doing a thing for Leslie, but she gave all these amazing gifts out at the beginning i actually this is one of my favorite gifts and i didn't have that much to do with it and it was the black eyed peas painting that i think everyone freaking freaked out about and i freaked out about it because i thought it was freaking awesome too and i think um just that reveal too on the set like everybody because we nobody saw it

until we actually did a take of it and just having that like aubrey just freaking out when she saw it was really kind of you know i mean you had to be there but it was really freaking cool like nobody had seen that you know all of that that went into it. And I actually, I think Ian, our production designer, had commissioned the artist to do it. I know there was a lot of back and forth. The one thing I would say was we only had one, so we had to quickly wrap it. You know, after take, after take, after take.

And thank God Julie on set was like, we had these pre-cut pieces and it was like, you know. Because one rule that Mike Shore would do is like, guy julie on set was like we had these pre-cut pieces and it was like you know because uh one rule that mike shore would do is like you can't have a what he would call the um the soap opera gifting where you take the fake box off and then it's you know it's not really wrapped and that was his number one rule oh i just gotta say as a person who gives gifts god that sounds that just looks like a perfect way to give a gift it's perfectly wrapped you could take the box off and then you can get the top off and you can still

use it in the future it's a beautiful gift wrapping no tearing of paper it's a dream grandma's everywhere love you greg thank you it's so funny just thinking about uh the holiday episodes and the you know the gift giving episodes of Parks and Rec, I think about that must have been a crazy time for you specifically in your department. Like this is an episode that's all about gifts. There's going to be a lot of gifts to be made. It's like, I think about wardrobe. They must freak out every time it's Halloween having to come up with more

costumes for everybody that's cleared that anybody can wear so what's that like for you do you feel like do you get like the early like stress sweats getting into holiday time yes a lot of times we'll film this stuff Christmas stuff isn't out yet so then I kind of started um hoarding things and um for year after year i can go to my trailer and pull stuff because some things were you know they're not in season yet so finding that good wrapping paper and the bows and the specialty stuff and i also sweated anytime it was something for ann you know the scrapbooks that might actually be the the one that makes me sweat the most because it has to be so personal. And it just, you can't buy that shit, right?

You have to sit down at a craft table and make it. And so, you know, those are my most challenging that I would sweat about. Are there other ones that you don't sweat about? I feel like I actually always really liked when Galentine's Day came up because I knew it was a very niche type of gift. Here's the trick about Galentine's Day. I love all of the gifts, but you do realize we only see about four. They give me a list of like 20 things. And you gotta make them.

I remember the needlepoint pillows. I forget if that was Operation Anne, maybe, but we had the needlepoint pillows. And I think we only saw maybe three of them. But, you know, I had to make, I don't know, six, seven, eight. I don't remember how many ladies were at the table, but they all had to have their face and all had to have the headline. And when we guessed that they were born, and then they all had to be individualized. So it's not a character that we really know well. So I'm just trying to figure out the B story of their character

and what would look kind of, you know, what would Leslie do? When we had Fred Armisen on the show, he talked about like how much detail went into the coffee mug his character had. Down to like, look, like there was like hand painted coffee stains on his mug. Cause of course he wasn't gonna be drinking out of it when you guys are filming. But like, I would love to get some more examples

of like some of the like gift giving minutia. Do you guys remember the marshmallow Ron Swanson? Oh sure. It was that, yeah, it's like tootsie rolls and marshmallows but i gotta tell you i'm sitting there how am i gonna make this thing look like ron swanson it's like you know his mustache what bins what's chocolate i just get a shit ton of candy next to me and i just start playing with it you know god his hair look like this and then what can we use for the eyes and yeah well you have made so many super specific things on this show i don't know if it changed if that's different from other shows and projects you've worked on uh if this is a parks and rec specific thing were there

some that you were like i'm just so proud of these i need to put this in my house i need this to be on display people need to see what i have made okay so um you're not supposed to keep anything but the um on my kind of my thing i think this was in one of the um entertainment weekly it was one of my top favorite props to make which was the unity quilt that leslie makes for the engagement party of her in bed you know that's my episode that i wrote so then you and i are connected forever because that um it was a challenge because of the time frame i mean making a fucking quilt guys you have to yeah i mean can i'm so sorry you can say quilt. It's okay.

Rob says it all the time. My favorite square, and you tell me what yours is, was Smallest Parks. Remember we did a little Smallest Park thing and ran out of time and there's no shoes on their feet. But the little square with Leslie and Ben at leslie and ben at smallest park was my favorite i just remember it was beautiful um and we're gonna get to it in some some seasons to come but it was beautiful i remember it being unfurled and being placed at the center uh of the set and everyone just marveling at, cause it was a patchwork of not just Leslie and Ben, but a bit of a history of the show we were making. It was a gift to us all.

Little Joe Biden at the corner. Every workplace has holiday traditions, you know, and I can only imagine with this cauldron, bubbling cauldron of creativity, that maybe things are a little different. Did you guys do Secret Santas and things like that? Well, I don't know what it was like if you did something in your department,

but I could tell you that I've been dying to talk about this on our podcast. The Parks and Rec Writer room secret santa was very intense uh it got to the point that in the last season or two we picked our secret santa at the beginning of october because people get so personalized and so detailed and needed so much prep time. One of our writers, Dave King, massive baseball fan. So I got him a poster that was a history of some different baseball, you know, stadium. So I go, that's great. And I felt like I did a really good job. But then someone else is a big Kings fan, like LA Kings, the hockey team, and gets the Kings mascot to come to our office to then give a personalized signed jersey to the gift receiver. I mean, very intense. I will say something I'm secretly proud

of, and I've actually never told anyone, so this is probably the best place to do it, and I've actually never told anyone, so this is probably the best place to do it, is that I had Mike Shore one year, another huge baseball fan, and I went around to the cast and got them each to sign a baseball. So there's a baseball with all the cast signatures on it. And I was like, you know what?

This would be cool to have myself. And so I brought two around. And I had them sign a second one just in case something happened to it. Just in case someone smudges it or whatever. And I just now, I have my own baseball with the entire Parks and Rec cast autographed it. But Gay, we're also talking about the fact that these were so intense. And I know people would go to uh the art department your department to you asking perhaps some help did that ever happen have you ever people ever come to you uh yeah um i won't throw out every actor's name who said hey

help um but a lot of times that would be Mostly Christmas But at the end of the season The actors were so great at trying to give us Personalized props, I mean, gifts for us So, yeah, we would help them out with that I always knew what we were getting That was the joy of doing what I do

I always had the inside But individually, Greg, all of you guys All of the writers and the staff Would come to me around Christmas. And I had this section in my trailer that started out year one was just like a cabinet about this big. Like season four, it's one quarter of my trailer just says Christmas on it. And we upped the ante with the greatest ribbon and the paper and the bags and stuff. So, yeah.

I love helping that out. I mean, you know, what am I going to be, a crew member? No, you're a member of the team. Yeah, and make it pretty. Wow. And to be clear, it wasn't gifts for their personal relationships. It was for the crew or for um a secret santa gift for a parks person i know we only have so much time and we got to get gay back and talk more talk

details talk a whole episode i think just a fount of knowledge so no thanks gay this is amazing but i have to throw it back to you guys do you have a gift that is one of your favorites? I am not used to being on this side of the hot mic, but... My favorite Parks and Rec gift. I'm going to modify it a bit to say, because it's one of my favorite moments having worked on the show and it involves gay as well. And we talk about the seasons that come we could we talk about plot that comes spoiler warning for everyone if you need to leslie ben will get engaged whoa right so track their love story now and gay came in one day to the writer's room with a bunch of engagement potential engagement rings

for ben to give to leslie and there's this image of whatever writers were there you were there line producer morgan sackett i think dean holland director uh and mike and a few people just gathered around judging the various engagement rings um It was just a very cool moment because I think it is the ultimate gift to give in on the show, right? And so for me, that would be the memory, the moment, everything. I'm so sorry, but you just reminded me

of my favorite gifts. The jewelry box that first Leslie gives to Ben with the pen. And then that was Mike Schur's idea to do, I think it was Mike's idea to do it in the same box when she gives the Washington Monument. I was like, oh, that's freaking cool. I love that.

And then that's where the engagement ring comes out of. It's in that very same box. I didn't know that. That's amazing. That's one of the things about Mike, as much as i can be cute and clever and here's his little box but he'll he just says oh put it in the box that you know when he gave her the button out of it like oh my god that's genius that's so good yeah i think i'd

have to say you know that uh my favorite parks gift is uh the gift of knowledge that i've got from both of you spending all of this time oh boy you're a softy thanks man hey tis the season um gay thanks again for joining us okay okay great okay greg um i get it you're in the room. You're working. It's Parks and Recreation. But out of the episodes we've already covered, what is something that is yours? Undeniably, Greg Levine. who worked in city governments asked them questions hilarious it's hysterical i i called the parks department in claremont a local city uh to los angeles and asked them okay i have a piece of land how do you make that into a park and i said i'm doing research for a show um give me as many details as possible give me me every single step that it would take. I think this person was like, why would anybody want to know this?

And I did. And I spent about an hour or so with this lovely woman who told me every detail. And I just furiously typed notes. And so we had this document. And then in episode six of season two kaboom which we have recently talked about we yeah used kaboom to kaboom a park and there's that scene early on in the conference room and leslie is looking at a diagram on a whiteboard of this is how you make a park and one day uh we're doing the episode

greg and mike asked me to take the research i had done and turn it into a detailed but convoluted diagram the truth is it is convoluted there are a lot of steps so i made a flow chart of my interview of how to build a park i drew it up up. I showed it to them. And that diagram is the diagram I made of how to build a park. That was an early win for me. That was an early cool. That's awesome. And speaking of wins, one of our audience members is going to be a winner as well. Well, as you know, I love to give gifts. And I just recently was going through some of my Parks and Rec-ia, if you will. I don't know if that's a thing, but it's a thing now. It's the Parks and Rec leftovers of my time on the show. And I have t-shirts and I have memorabilia.

And I have something really cool that I think I want to offer to our listeners. It is a deck of cards, a Parks and Rec specific deck of cards with all of our favorite characters as the face cards. And it even includes Lil Sebastian. Watch out. 5,000 cancels in the wind. Lil Sebastian as the Joker. Could you imagine winning a hand of poker with like Ron Swanson and Lil Sebastian in your hand?

I could, I will. Cause you've done it. You probably have done it. Um, yeah, it's, it's a,

it's a joy. Why wouldn't you want to play some of your favorite games, uh, with some of your favorite characters? And so now you get to do those things. And listeners, if you'd like to enter this, just go to teamcoco.com slash parksgift. That's teamcoco.com slash parksgift. That's teamcoco.com slash parksgift. Greg, this is a dream come true.

Uh, I love, like I said, I love doing bonus episodes and I'm really excited for everyone listening to leave us a five-star review, uh, to leave us a town hall voicemail to keep continuing to listen to the show and then potentially maybe,

uh, subscribing to our other, other, other podcasts that could be about mash. We'll call it After After MASH. See, man, that's why you're the writer. Thanks. I appreciate that. And I appreciate everyone for listening.

I appreciate and thank Gabe Pirello for stopping by. Salty, it's been a joy hanging out with you and talking Parks and Recreation with you on Parks and Rec Collection. Absolutely. Thank you to our hosts, Alan Yang and Rob Lowe, for allowing us these microphones. Until next time, goodbye from Pawnee. See ya.

This episode of Parks and Recollection is produced by Greg Levine and me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Alan Yang for Alan Yang Productions, Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn are our talent bookers. The theme song is by Mouse Rat, a.k.a. 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.