Parks and Recollection - Harvest Festival (S3E7)

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

It's a festival of massive proportion on today's episode, when Rob Lowe and Alan Yang recap S3E7 of Parks and Recreation. In "Harvest Festival" the day before the fest, a local Native American leader places a "curse" on the event because Leslie refuses to give in to his demands. On today's episode find out what happens when the entire town of Pawnee comes together, the origin of Li'l Sebastian, we get to the bottom of the Matchbox 20 / Rachel Ray mystery, and why a drone shot was necessary for worldbuilding. Got a question for the Pawnee Town Hall? Send us an email: [e-mail] Or leave a 30-Second voicemail at: [phone]  With the Harvest Festival days away, Leslie surprises everyone by booking Li’l Sebastian, a miniature horse and legendary Pawnee celebrity. Everyone is thrilled except Ben, who doesn't understand the fascination. The chief of the local Wamapoke tribe, Ken Hotate (Jonathan Joss), visits the Parks department and requests the Harvest Festival be moved, as it is built upon the site of a Wamapoke massacre. When Leslie explains it is too late, Ken warns them the festival may become cursed, although he privately tells the documentary crew that he knows white people are terrified of curses.  Ann works the Harvest Festival first aid tent, where she confides in Donna that she has not taken the break-up with Chris well. April tells Andy that she loves him, but grows angry when he replies, "Dude, shut up! That is awesomesauce!" Joan Callamezzo arrives to report on the festival and is determined to find a negative story, although she does show excitement over Li'l Sebastian. She initially fails to find a scandal, but then overhears Leslie and Ben discussing the curse. It becomes the focus of her story, especially after Tom tells Leslie that Li'l Sebastian escaped his pen. Tom blames Jerry, although it was entirely Tom's fault.  The Pawnee media swarms the festival to cover the curse, endangering its opening the next day with the bad press, with one reporter likening Ben's past as a failed teen mayor with the curse. Now believing himself to be the curse, Ben leaves the festival. As Leslie reassures the reporters there is no curse, the power generator blows out, leaving the festival dark and stranding most of the parks department on a Ferris wheel. Using the blackout as an excuse, Ann takes Donna's advice to make out with Kiley (Joey Russo), her dumb but attractive patient.  On the Ferris wheel, with April and Andy arguing below him and Tom and Jerry arguing above him, an annoyed Ron clears the air by announcing the obvious: April is mad at Andy for not telling her that he loves her back, and the missing Li'l Sebastian is Tom's fault. Andy tells April that he clearly loves her and they hug, and Tom apologizes to Jerry. Later, everyone spots Li'l Sebastian in the corn maze and they recover him. Leslie learns the power outage was due to television crews plugging into the grid and overloading it. The only replacement generator in Pawnee is at the Wamapoke casino, and Leslie humbly asks Ken to loan it to her in exchange for placing a Wamapoke cultural exhibit near the Harvest Festival entrance. Ken agrees, and during the festival opening the next morning, he performs a meaningless ceremony to remove the fake curse.  People begin to swarm into the festival, and Leslie cheerfully greets them. Ben returns to apologize to Leslie for leaving, admitting that he is not over his past. She reassures him the festival is as much his accomplishment as hers, and even has Ken break Ben's "curse", although Ken's gesture is also completely meaningless. At the end, Ben appears to have been won over by Li'l Sebastian, but admits to the camera crew that he still fails to see the appeal and remains as baffled as ever.

We're getting together to talk about all the things we used to do The laughs, the passions, the little Sebastian's, the pets we fell into And we're putting it on in a podcast, then we'll send it up into the sky We're calling it Parks and Recollection Come on, little podcast Spread your wings and fly Welcome, everyone, to Parks and Recollection. It's yours truly, Robert J. Lowe. What was the name that Mike Schur came up?

Rob Bocifius Lowe? Bocifius. Robert Bocifius Lowe. What was the name that Mike sure came up? Rob Bofis? Bosefius Lowe? Bosefius. Robert Bosefius Lowe, I think he would introduce you sometimes as. Robert Bosefius Lowe, and what would your phony name, if it weren't Alan Yang, which it is, and I'm happy for it, what would it be? Uh, Sebastian.

Sebastian. Well, and it's the perfect episode for it. It is Parks and Recollection, and this is the Harvest Festival episode, the legendary Harvest Festival episode. Legendary for so many reasons, which we will get into. So pull up a chair, turn the treadmill down, whatever you're doing, because this is a very special episode yeah man listen carefully legends only legends only this episode harvest festival i mean classic it's on a lot of people's top 10 top 5 top 1 lists yep um uh really really great episode season 3 episode 7 the culmination the finale of the harvest arc, which began with the first episode, of course, written by Dan Gore, directed by Dean Holland, original air date March 17th, 2011, on the day before the Harvest Festival. A local Native American leader places a curse on the event

because Leslie refuses to give in to his demands. And curses in quotes because obviously it's made up and that's not real, but it's the kickoff, the inciting incident to the episode. Nope's notes, number one, no Rob Lowe in this episode, so you can speak freely. He'll return in the next episode camping. As you guys have hopefully heard in the last episode of Indianapolis,

he broke up with Anna Perkins. He's in Indianapolis, and we don't know if he's coming back to the show, but he is, and he'll return for 70 more episodes, but he's not in this one. Second, nope's note, when Leslie recounts how the town is so superstitious, they burned a traveling magician at the stake for pulling a rabbit out of a hat in 1973.

A closer look at the mural reveals that the town also executed the rabbit. It's a very good joke. Zoom in on that, guys. Pause on that. Pause on that. If you're on your laptop, zoom in. It's a very funny kind of tiny visual joke um the book that ron is reading at the harvest festival is called the

nutmeg of consolation by patrick o'brien the 14th book of the series from which the film master and commander the far side of the world was drawn hang on hang on go ahead we may have a ray donovan moment here. It's absolutely a Ray Donovan. That's exactly what I was going to say. This is why we do the pod together. If you didn't listen to the last episode, we named some shows that are like your uncle's favorite shows

or your aunt or your niece or someone in your life, but they're not your favorite shows. Ford vs. Ferrari was mentioned. I think you actually have to say 4V. Ford vs. Ferrari was mentioned. I think you actually have to say Ford v. Ferrari. Ford v. Ferrari was mentioned. I think that's the key to that. Rizzoli and Isles was mentioned.

Anyway, Master and Commander is a great Ray Donovan. Great one. Master and Commander. Because when was the last time you thought about Master and Commander? It's not a bad movie. It's good, in fact.

It's just, it's in that ether it's in that milieu so great call yeah a lot of notes notes on this one of course big episode number four due to budget constraints we didn't have the production build out the entire harvest festival and corn maze sets instead this is fascinating we filmed the episode at the annual halloween harvest festival at la pierce. So it lined up. Now, was that really the Halloween? I guess it was. It looked hot as hell out there.

I got to say, if this was Halloween, man, it looked pretty hot out there. Well, it's really hot in Los Angeles in October. Yeah, I guess you're right. October is actually, it is the hottest month. It's super hot. It is always the hottest month in L.A. Always.

Number five, the episode was filmed out of sequence. It was filmed ninth in the order, though it airs as the seventh. This was so the weather would be cooler when the scenes were shot. Look at that. The notes coinciding with the topic of conversation. Number six, the episode was screened for the media during an NBC press junket in January 2021. Is that right? That's got to be wrong. 2021. 2011. Okay. 2011. All right. 2021. Man, guys, got any new shows? You going to just show a Parks and Rec app? Hey, didn't want to show Keenan?

By the way, the way things are going, that might be true. Hey, man. Hey, we got a reboot of Parks and Rec. Wait a minute. That's just an old episode. Yeah, you caught us. Okay. After reporters got a tour of the Parks and Rec set and were able to pose for photos with a miniature horse who played Little Sebastian. We're going to go off on Little Sebastian later.

Oh, yes. So save your fire. Speaking of Little Sebastian, this episode is his first appearance. It is also, sadly, his penultimate appearance. Second to last appearance. So basically, there's two of him. Side note, he will be a hologram at one point spoiler alerts for people who are waiting for him to be a hologram he was a hologram before tupac tupac was he or was that written after

tupac i actually i'm not sure was it not inspired by the tupac hologram i don't know actually i got i literally just read a piece on coachella what what year was the Tupac hologram? I don't know, actually. I literally just read a piece on Coachella. What year was the Tupac hologram at Coachella? I'm looking it up right now, guys. This is riveting podcasting. It looks like 2012. Tupac, Snoop, Dr. Dre. They could have brought him back for the Super Bowl, to be honest. I wouldn't have been mad at that. Maybe a Biggie hologram, too. All right, let's get in the synopsis. With the Harvest Festival days away, Leslie surprises everyone by booking Lil' Sebastian, a miniature horse

and legendary Pawnee celebrity. Everyone is thrilled except Ben, who doesn't understand the fascination. The chief of the local Wampapook tribe, Ken Hotate, played by Jonathan Joss, visits the Parks Department and requests his Harvest Festival be moved as it's built upon the site of a Wampapook massacre. When Leslie explains it's too late ken warns them the festival may become cursed

although he privately tells the documentary crew that he knows why people are terrified of curses so it's pretty much a bit okay so what you've just described for me might be the funniest like pound for pound second for second minute for minute experience in all the parks and recreation it's up there it's up there i am not in it so here's here's okay so i realized i'm like why have i not seen here's what happened i'm not in the episode so i didn't read it and then when i look back and when it aired i'm like why have i not seen it and realized it aired on my birthday march 17th 2011 i was I was doing other things than watching television. So in prepping for this was the first time I've actually seen the famous Harvest Festival. And can I just tell you, it surpasses anything that I had heard about it. That's amazing.

This episode is sheer genius from beginning to end. That's great. And I think Rob always likes the sort of comedy forward episodes. And I think this is not only comedy forward, but it encapsulates and crystallizes and was the essence of so many elements of the show coming together, right? It's not only the hard comedy, it's the group coming together, it's Ben and Leslie, it's the town, right? It's the media, it's all of these peripheral tertiary characters which pop in and get two great lines, one great

scene. No, it really is the apotheosis of all those things coming together. And a little bit of background on Little Sebastian. I know I mentioned, actually not even related to Lil' Sebastian, that my fake middle name would be Sebastian. All of the writers had fake names on the show. I don't know why we did this. My fake name on the show was Sebastian. So Chelsea Peretti was Kim, I think. Harris Whittles was Lou. I think Aisha was Daisy. I mean, this is insane. I don't know why we did this, but everyone had a fake name, and my fake name was Sebastian. I don't know how that tied in.

But I also remember very distinctly the origin of Lil' Sebastian the horse was because there was a real news story. And I actually dug up the emails. I had emails from that time. This is from April 25th, 2010. This is an email I sent to Mike Schur, Dan Gore, Ayesha Muharra, Kitty Dippold, Emily Spivey. Subject line, I will click on any link, subject or body, dot, dot, dot,

that asks the question, is he the world's smallest horse? And it's a link to a cnn video and it's called the smallest horse in the world and at the end of the email says his name is einstein and the email chain continues aisha writes back terrifying katie dippled right back writes back that's a cat i'll tell them and then And then in 2010, I wrote back, I guess I remember this episode, and I said, our tiny horse idea from eight years ago would later turn into a week-long, multi-billion-dollar production

involving hundreds of extras, a tribute video, rock music, and a giant fireball. What a show. The CNN link still works and includes the phrase, for now, he's just busy being cute so so that is literally emails from that day or around when we were pitching the episode and um uh that second episode i sent was uh when we were kind of finishing it right so it was it was it's 2010 right little sebastian has to be has to be out of all of the peripheral things about Parks and Rec and the Parks and Rec universe, has to be the most famous.

It's got to be up there. And it's also like it works with fucking Ben, right? It's Ben's view to the town. It's a great metaphor. It's a kind of a metaphor for him learning the town's weirdness, right? metaphor it's a kind of a metaphor for him learning that the town's weirdness right he's so funny with his whole it's a little horse i don't i don't get it it just makes it's it's it is literally like um it is like a softball pitch right down the middle of the plate of Adam Scott's sweet spot to play that move, that comedy move. I would also say it is a great use of the mockumentary conceit because he's able to

share his true feelings with us, the audience, essentially by talking directly to camera. Otherwise, he doesn't have anyone else in the world to tell that to, because he doesn't have another outsider. You're not in this episode. So he's telling the viewer directly. So I would say that's a good use of the talking heads. Jonathan Joss, who plays Ken Hotate, previously voiced John Redcorn in the animated television series King of the Hill, which was co-created by Parks and Rec co-creator Greg Daniels. And I remember this. I remember this in the room. Ken Hotate's last name was made up. It's the word Hotate is the Japanese word for scallop.

If you ever go to a sushi bar, you'll see Hotate on the menu. It means scallop. And in retrospect, maybe we should have made that up, but whatever. That's what happened. He has one of the great talking heads.

He goes, I know in my experience, Pani has taught me that white people white people like rachel ray and are terrified of curses is one of my favorite amazing and i think there was an alt there's one thing i know about white people it's that they love matchbox 20 and they're terrified so that was the other by the. It's very much in the vein of, again, dare I say it, Ray Donovan. Ray Donovan. This is becoming a real catch-up.

This is becoming a real catch-up. Yes. And so the other thing is a couple notes from this section. Basically, Mike Schur said while writing about this curse, the writing staff wanted it to be the local media that turned it into an issue instead of the citizens of Pawnee because they felt like it would be too cartoonish and unbelievable for the residents to really take the curse seriously. But it's kind of something that the media in the town, which we've seen is pretty silly. You know, we've seen a lot of media figures, John Calamezzo, we've seen Per Happily, we've seen, you know, Crazy Iron the Douche, like that's the kind of people who might gin this kind of thing up and so uh you know look i think we're looking for external conflict i think we're looking for challenges for leslie and so um this curse thing was really more of a pr thing in essence it wasn't that they actually believed in the curse

it was more like oh it's bad pr and no one will come to the harvest festival i also like how in season three you were worried about the citizens of Honey, worried about a curse. But in season four, we have a, or five, we have a whole episode based on the end of the world and everyone believing that the cold open uh when everyone meets little sebastian a big turning point in breaking this story was realizing that everyone everyone including ron loved little sebastian the moment of giddiness that ron has in seeing little sebastian is such a fun moment and a wonderful payoff for this unflappable and scrutable character it's the first time that you see him get truly nakedly emotional and it's because he gets to meet this miniature horse and that seems like that's what you were responding to rob right it's like it's just the it's the pure unbridled joy of this little tiny mini horse and everybody i mean like you said in almost any other iteration of anything you could think of when you have the gang together

someone is going to have a count a counter reaction to some other character you know usually it would be uh april yeah right she'd be the one i think and whatever yeah or whatever and and they all love this horse like every single person and and so did america as it turns out that's i put little sebastian up as the most most beloved horse since uh since what international? Who would it even be? Seabiscuit? Seabiscuit? Mr. Ed? Secretariat?

Mr. Ed? I mean, yeah, whatever, man. Mr. Ed. We're now just playing $10,000 pyramid. Famous horses. Or I guess it's family feud. Famous horses. Let's go. Famous horses.

Famous horses. Bojack Horseman? I guess it's family feud. Famous horses. Let's go. Famous horses. Famous horses. BoJack Horseman. Anne works at the Harvest Festival First Aid tent where she confides in Donna that she has not taken the breakup with Chris well. Man, you ruined her, Chris. April tells Andy that she loves him, but grows angry when he replies, dude, shut up, that is awesome sauce.

Legendary moment. Joan Calamato arrives to report on the festival and is determined to find a negative story, although she does show excitement over little Sebastian. She loves him too. She initially fails to find a scandal, but then overhears Leslie and Ben discussing the curse. It becomes the focus of her story, especially after Tom tells Leslie that little Sebastian escaped his pen. Tom blames Jerry, although it was entirely Tom's fault.

One of my favorite songs ever is, we should put, fair usage, we can probably play it in here. What's the song about the famous 70s yacht rock classic by Firefall? Wildfire. The pony she named Wildfire busted down the stall in a blizzard. He was lost. And the horse dies. It's a very sad song. It was the number one hit.

One of my favorites. That's super sad. Very reminiscent of this Lil' Sebastian story in this episode. I mean, thank God that doesn't happen, right? Thank God that doesn't happen. It was, look, it's also making use of the Jerry game in a very funny way.

What's Tom doing when he's, is he on the phone or something? What is he doing when Lil' Sebastian escapes? He's going to talk about the Snake Hole Lounge. Oh, he's... Is he on the phone or something? What is he doing when Little Sebastian escapes? He's going to talk about the snake hole lounge. Oh, he's promoting the snake hole lounge, right? So, Little Sebastian has that kind of jacket on too, right? What do they call it when a horse is wearing it? I'm just calling it a horse jacket.

But I remember being on set for part of this too because I remember when Little Sebastian came down to the Parks parks direct office, which obviously is a soundstage on the CBS Radford lot in studio city. But the writers went down and I have like photos with little Sebastian. I remember like, I it's, it's very,

it's a time capsule photo. I'm like, I remember the outfit. I was wearing white vans and it was like, yeah, this is it. But I remember being on set for this a little bit. One of the harvest festival booths features ponies celebrity aunt tilda the fictional and of

basketball player larry bird i remember joan calamouts was very excited you got tilda that's a great joke um and ron sits on a launcher we talked about this this is the the uh master and commander book this is when i feel like that's a that's we talked about ron liking master and commander book. I feel like that's a, that's, we talked about Ron liking master and commander, like a lot. I think Nick actually loves this series, if I'm not mistaken. It's also, there's a little Easter egg.

It's on the, uh, the poster for the pyramid of greatness, besides all the real ones like honor and dignity and whatever, uh, freedom. Uh, one of them is old wooden sailing ships.

So this is all in character for us. Yeah, so look, it's also the awesome sauce. So this is weird. Maybe this was a blind spot for me, but I didn't really know the phrase awesome sauce when it came up in the writer's room.

I guess 10 years ago, was this a common phrase? Because it got pitched in the writer's room as if everyone knew that phrase. I guess it's a phrase for first of all there's nothing i hate more than phrases that pop up and all of a sudden everybody is saying them like it's been going on since the beginning of time i was yeah i was i was shaking i didn't know what this was it's strong bad the character from home star runner which was a animated short series um by brothers mike and matt chapman in the early 2000s home star runner that's all that's a deep pull man it sounds like i just described a fever dream again i like when we come up with categories of things like you know like we did with the ray donovans for specific

types of movies we need to do it for phrases because right under awesome sauce for me would be amazeballs yeah that stuff i don't like any of that stuff get out of here with amazeballs awesome sauce get out all of it i feel like i think there's a there's a show called workaholics that was on comedy central and i think in their writer's room, I'm pretty sure it was their writer's room, they had a whiteboard where it was like every like hack comedy phrase. It's adjacent to this. It's not like a hack. I'm not saying Awesome Sauce is a hack phrase

because it's not really a joke. Right. But on this board, it was hack stuff. It was the cliched stuff like, you know, that went well, like that kind of stuff. Yes. Like that kind of stuff.

That's going to hurt. Yeah, that's got to hurt. I'm okay. Like someone someone gets hit by something it's in the trailer i'm okay like that kind of shit yes like like another thing was another thing by the way this is in that category that harris whittle specifically talked about was in a movie trailer when somebody was about to say a curse word like oh my god holy and then they cut out and then he's like he once tweeted like i love when this happens in a movie when someone's about to say a curse word gotta watch the movie see if they say the word it's like what are we doing here like come on man this is not this is not funny or interesting anyway apologies to movie trailer cutters and you know

the the but the ultimate of all of them would be the needle scratch. Yes, that's the worst. And that's been going on for decades. They're still doing it. They're still doing it. They're still doing it. It's the worst thing. It's the worst.

It's a war crime. Just a little note out to writers, creators, directors, whoever, try to avoid that shit. Try to avoid it in your writing because it's painful. What about promo departments? Yeah. If you're listening, if you work in a promo department, if you're cutting movie trailers, I'm begging you,

don't do anymore. I can't wait to see, wait, what's going over there? You'll slip, drop, scratch. You would think they would stop doing i mean it's 2022 we're way way back like a lot of shit has happened like can we stop using these old cliches and tropes and movie trailers it's all i ask that's all we ask all right synopsis continues the punny media swarms the festival to cover the curse endangering its opening the next day with a bad press, with one reporter likening

Ben's past as a failed teen mayor with a curse. Now believing himself to be the curse, Ben leaves the festival. As Leslie assures the reporters there is no curse, the power generator blows out, leaving the festival dark and stranding most of the park's department on a Ferris wheel, using the blackout as

an excuse, and takes Donna's advice to make out with Kylie, Joey Russo, her dumb but attractive patient. I leave for one second. I mean, by the way, like you got to, God bless Joey Russo, some questionable choice, decision making, some questionable decision making for man here. Like this character, I don't know, made me laugh. laugh like i don't know what we're doing with this character he's like a jersey shore guy is that what's going on do you remember this

greg writing this character i remember very vividly all of us in the writers room watching the casting videos and the debate being what type of a guy it should be right and some people really loved this voice in this take yeah some people And some people were like, this isn't someone we'd naturally find in Pawnee. So maybe that didn't matter because it was more about who's the type of guy that would both be someone and would never want to see again, but also want to hook up with.

And so much time was spent thinking about the nuance of who this random hookup should be. I think the wrong choice was made. This took me out of the episode a little. Rob, what did you think? What did you think of this guy? He's like a New York guy or something. I'd say I was totally taken out of the episode

by that character. I was. Why is he talking like that? What is he doing? Just cast a normal corn-fed football football player type guy or something who's like dumb or something i mean like just do just someone who would be in in this guy where do we find this actor sorry i'm sorry to this actor you're just trying to work i get it but this is it was more of a writing casting choice but i remember arguing we watched the tapes we're like no don't cast this

guy and then he got cast anyway well he he the role well, but in a very unexpected way. I sometimes have found now, I like to look up where these actors we've cast, what else they've done. I'm just curious. And he's in Jersey Boys, the movie? And of course he's in Jersey Boys, the movie. Yes. Right? Is he in Pawnee, Indiana?

I don't know. That's what it was remembering. I was remembering the sense memory of arguing about this character who I guess is named Kylie, who is a hot but attractive patient. A hot but dumb patient, I guess. But anyway, the rare Donna and C story, which is like Donna giving and dating advice. Yeah, this is a fun episode like we mentioned earlier about uh purd uh shana and joan they end up being really important to the show because ultimately we we realized we recalibrated the show so that there was less internal conflict

although of course there's conflict between our characters but there's often like they're a team against the rest of the world so to do that i think you need exterior external conflict you need external antagonists and the media was natural like there's in in harvest festival they're kind of the antagonist not just in this episode but also in the media blitz episode right so it's like there's just so it's just useful to have these characters put the screws on and sort of tighten the vise on on our gang. And also because those two characters are also as you say, I love the hard comedy. I love it. And you know,

I prefer it even over story. And those actors and those characters are killer. What is Pert saying this? This reporter's statement is a question. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean just again maybe the most fun character right for it like bird was just like

it's every line is a joke and it just every line makes me laugh it just it's just hilarious delivery and and shout out to joan as well like joan is like okay as time went on we just made her a more and more like just a just a mess, just a walking mess. At a certain point, Tom Haverford walks up to her, Joan, you look great. Did you get your breasts done? She's like, thank you for noticing, yes. It's like, this is insane.

This is just an insane couplet of dialogue. Like, what is happening in the show? You know, something else I think we should talk about just briefly, I'm curious to get both your takes, is this moment where ben believes he's the curse and he decides to leave it's such an interesting choice i think because we've spent so much time um uh with ben being this visitor from outside helping but this felt almost like you know uh something that someone who's worked with them forever and feels like he's at home

here he's so invested in the harvest vessel at this point so you know what i mean it didn't feel a bit like he oh he's one of us he's one of the community now well here's what i thought is as a true outsider as someone who's not in the episode and who hadn't seen it until about two hours ago um i thought that that that ben's thinking he was the curse and leaving was just an homage to the nutmeg of consolation by patrick o'brien which was later made into the movie uh master and commander because in master and commander there is that famous sequence where there's the jinx that puts them in the doldrums and the jinx grabs a cannonball in one of the most disturbing scenes in movies, and commits suicide by jumping over the ship, holding a cannonball, plummeting to the depths. See, I felt this was just an elaborate nod to that.

Wow, when's the last time you watched Master and Commander? That's an incredible recall of that movie. I could have watched that this morning and not remembered that. I'm telling you, I'm a big master and commander guy. I mean, secretly, it turns out it's not just your uncle's favorite show, it's your favorite movie. I wouldn't have watched it if he was just the master. The fact that he's the

master and the commander, I was like, wow, this guy's I'm going to see Russell Crowe in this. That really seals the deal. It's an amazing title. By the way, Nutmeg of Consolation also is an amazing title. When I started reading that, I thought it was a joke that we had written because it's a what it's an amazing uh amazing title by the way nutmeg of consolation also an amazing time that's really i started reading i thought it was a joke that we had written because it's so funny nutmeg of consolation also we've talked about these ray donovan movies these ray donovan

so he's bachelor commander was nominated for 10 oscars i think it's worth calling out well that's the thing that's the thing like it's a pretty broad category at this point because Ford v. Ferrari also nominated for a shit ton of Oscars. I'm sorry. I have the ignominious honor of losing an award to someone on fucking Ray Donovan. So let's just fucking get real, guys. I lost the Golden Globe to Jon Voight for Ray Donovan. Awards don't inoculate you from not being in the Ray Donovan silo. Absolutely.

By the way, John Voight, he's Ray Donovan's dad, right? He's Ray Donovan's dad. Can we get it? What's his character's name? Now we're just into Ray Donovan, Manusha. But I just want to know what his name is because i just want to know his characters oh man we got some bad donovan mickey donovan okay of course it's mickey mickey donovan uh okay let's get back to the synopsis on the ferris wheel with april and andy arguing below

him and tom and jerry arguing above him an annoyed ron clears the air by announcing the obvious april is mad at andy for not telling her that he loves her back. And the missing Lil' Sebastian is Tom's fault. Andy tells April that he clearly loves her and they hug and Tom apologizes to Jerry. Later, everyone spots Lil' Sebastian in the corn maze and they recover him. Leslie learns the power outage was due to television crews plugging into the grid and overloading it. The only replacement generator in Pawnee is at the wama poke casino and leslie humbly asked ken to loan

it to her in exchange for placing a wama poke cultural exhibit near the harvest festival entrance ken agrees and during the festival opening the next morning he performs a meaningless ceremony to remove the fake curse wow a lot of plot and it's like it all ties together it's all tying together and it's funny it's all funny and It's all tying together. And it's funny. It's all funny. And Jonathan Joss, very funny actor. Very funny actor in this show. Really funny in this.

He did a great job. Super, super funny. I love his voice. His voice is great. He's a cool voice. And his vest is great. He's wearing a wonderful, wonderful vest. Shout out to our costume department. Kirsten Mann, still working with her, doing my new show. Great, great costume

designer. Yeah, this is a producer note. This episode's a perfect example of punching up. It could have been all the murals and the town used to be bad, but we do see the town actively working to better itself. That's true. That's actually true. It's still a long

way to go, with the help of Leslie. There's just a couple anti-jokes that help of leslie um i there's just a couple uh anti-jokes that i wanted to shout out that i really enjoyed uh he's playing the carnival game where he's throwing like a ring toss game where he's throwing rings i think and he keeps messing up and he's like it's almost like they don't want you to win which i thought was very funny and then uh and then he's in the corn maze and he says, this maze is like a maze. Just crazy jokes. I mean, like these jokes are funny.

And also, Brad, very funny delivering them. But yeah, very, very funny. Oh, wow. Okay, someone's typing in the Google Doc right now. This maze is like a maze and they added an I to the first maze. Oh, boy. Schulte making a little pun. I love the real-time uh wordplay happening yeah um yeah and by the way this pert happily joke is also in the notes pert happily says yes the statement

that this reporter has is a question god it's so good so there you go there you go um oh by the way the exterior shot of the casino says uh rachel ray which is a callback to i'm unclear what she's doing is she doing a cooking demonstration is she's is she's doing a concert like what's that what's rachel ray doing they're signing a book she's gambling yeah i guess she's just in there gambling you know um i remember dan gore talking about uh being really impressed with this uh well in in general with Dean Holland as a director, but this choice and the way lighting and directing everything came together

at that moment where they spot little Sebastian in the maze, right? The way that the light is kind of like shimmering off of that horse jacket, which we don't actually, I think not the actual term for still. Yes, the horse jacket. Horse jacket that he almost like gets lit up like this angelic

thing in the middle of the maze like furthering the lore of the greatness of little sebastian such a smart directing choice um that maybe you can get go unnoticed but i think it was wonderful yeah and shout out to dean too because because he had like you know we had him as a guest listen his episode of this podcast as well. But his first episode, obviously, was, I think, Sweetums the year before. I think it was episode 10 or something. That's season two, which was an episode that I had the writing credit on and was on set with him with. And by this time, he had already become a pretty confident, solid director, and he would become the most frequent director of the show.

I think this episode was a big reason why because it came out so well and him and Dan were a great team because Dan ended up being, he wasn't quite yet the number two on the show I think at this point but maybe close to it and he ended up being kind of the second command for a while on Parks so a really good team and yeah, Dean killed this episode.

Dean was great. We were blessed to have really good directors. We never had a bad director and that's so rare on television yeah and and we did so many episodes every director was was wonderful but uh dean was my favorite i think dean d i think dean was the best director we had in throughout i think he's amazing and and part of that is because he just has this deep understanding of the show. That's something I kind of learned after directing for a while. It's like part of your

job, there's all this stuff you can do with directing actors, blocking your lenses and lighting and all this stuff. But really you need a deep, deep, deep within your bones understanding of the story, understanding of the characters, understanding what the show is and what the sort of vision of the show is. And because Dean was an editor and he had literally seen more footage of the show than any human being on earth, right?

So it's like he understands what worked in the show. He understands the pieces that he needed. He understands how it comes together in post because he ran the post department. He watched the show with Mike more than anybody. And also know he ended up and also like you know he's a good communicator so he ended up being a great director for it so shout out to dean on this one you know dean also worked at the office right with greg and mike yes that's right he just knew this style of comedy and storytelling so well and i looked it up his credits he will have gone on to direct 27 episodes of Parks and Rec. He directed one-fifth or more of all Parks episodes.

It's incredible. It's staggering. It's staggering. And he's gone on to do a lot of other great stuff. So, shout out to Dean. I think he, was Parks the first thing he directed? He might have done one episode of The Office or something. Anyway, we'll fact check that later. People begin to swarm into the festival. To wrap this synopsis up and leslie cheerfully greets them ben returns to apologize

to leslie for leaving admitting that he's not over his past yet she reassures him the festival is as much his accomplishment as hers and even has can break ben's curse although ken's gesture is also completely meaningless just a joke at the end ben appears to have been won over by little sebastian but then admits to the camera crew that he still fails to see the appeal and remains as baffled as ever um really cute ending very cute ending i also um speaking of direction parks and rec is a lot of things wonderful wonderful things of which we have based a podcast on but one of the things it is not is a show of tremendous scope and scale and i almost fell out of my chair when i saw a drone shot an overhead helicopter shot of of the entire you know the the the the festival and the city and

the sunset and it was glorious and beautiful i'm like wait a minute what show am i watching here you're absolutely right because we would joke a lot for those of you who who know a little bit about shooting the show like there's no dollies there's no steadicam there's no you know you would never people would never be laying down track to put a dolly on to put a camera to move it like and and and so to suddenly go from that it's 100 handheld like super easy to light super you know wide open apertures and it's sort of like the irises or you know whatever you get it and and then at the end of this episode a couple things not just that drone shot the show basically never uses music it almost never uses

either non-diegetic sometimes diegetic music which is music that's in the story of the show but this is an actual song that is played over the end of this episode mike agonized over this and he asked the writing staff a few times like should he use the music at the end and he ended up using it it's kind of cool it's it's american girl by tom petty but it's it's like that paired with the drone shot it's crazy it's like it's one of the craziest things and mike said at the time it was the most expensive shot of the entire series because it was both that drone and i believe i think this was a real helicopter i'm not sure if it's two drone shots or a drone and then a helicopter i couldn't tell but then there's also a ton of vfx because they put in like a roller coaster and like the

a sweetums tent you know it's not the most expensive vfx in the world if you watch this out now 10 years later but there's still some shots in like an nbc sitcom so there's still some vfx shots which is like that's really tough to do by the way on this kind of schedule and on this kind of budget it's it's tough to do that having dealt a little bit with vfx uh now it's man it's tough to do. But yeah, it was worth it. Did you enjoy the shot? I loved it.

I loved it. And Tom Petty ain't cheap either. That's right. That's right. I mean, well, I will say this. The music budget for Parks and Rec must have been vanishingly small. So maybe they amortized that song over the course of 125 episodes. That's right.

They never used any other songs. So that's very funny. So to use a song, you have to pay the publishing and the songwriters and everyone. It's extremely expensive. I promise you that song was between $50,000 and $75,000. If not more. Yeah, maybe more. We're doing a lot of music clearances now.

We had someone quote us $200,000 for a song. We didn't use it, maybe more. We're doing a lot of music clearances now. We had someone quote us 200 grand for a song. We didn't use it, but yeah. I'm told here that the Drew Carey show isn't streaming because of the music in it. gratuity and they call it like you know different you get you pay for different levels of rights you know so sometimes i believe this happened with freaks and geeks they had to go in meticulously and replace some of the songs that they couldn't clear for you know streaming or dvd or whatever but it's a pain man it's like a you really you really fall in love we're doing a lot of music on on the new show i'm working on it's a ton of music it's all like late 90s early 2000s hip-hop so it's like you know biggie and diddy and mace and little kim and it's like it's great ton of music it's all like late 90s early 2000s hip-hop so it's like you know biggie and diddy and mace and little kim and it's like it's great i'm really happy but it's also just

impossible to clear because it's like you know what like this diddy song has a david bowie sample it's like can you get david bowie's estate to clear like this is insane this is like this is just it's a it's a it's a quagmire it's uh crazy to watch some shows on streaming now and like i think of dawson's creek that has that amazing cut to like the paula cole song like i don't want to wait and i just think of record it's not it's a new song and so you just you're like ready for that moment like i like injected into my veins kind of a thing and it's just this like lovely little thing that's this is not the show i know what do you you, I want to also just point out something about that overhead shot, which I think is worth talking about,

which is that we rarely, because it's a mockumentary, get to see Pawnee from this vantage point. And besides it being fun to see the, you know, the enormous like version of this harvest festival, but it kind of reminded me that oh this is like a city right where people need to find activities on the weekends and where people live and work and you get to see streets around it as opposed to this more myopic view of like the library or like a park and i think it was nice it kind of reminded me again of like what we talked about in the room

of poni being like this live action version of Springfield, right? That everything exists together. And of course, Sweetums is sponsoring something. So to me, it had this lovely encapsulation of the Pawnee we've come to know for the last few years. I also liked that it proves that old thing is that rules are meant to be broken. Yeah. And because there's a world where, we just talked about it, Alan, where Mike agonized. He's like, we're not that show that ends every show with a needle drop pop hit that's not what we do should we do it you did it it's

great it's like we don't do overhead drone shots because it's not the point of view of a mockumentary what are the mockumentary guys up in the helicopter no okay so how are you getting that you broke you broke a rule of making the show. And it's great. Nobody cares. It's awesome. Yeah. And I feel like one of the things I contributed to that was I think, you know, I think they were rightfully proud of having gotten to this point. You know, the show built and built and built and got better and better and added new and improved cast members and all this stuff.

And this felt like a huge achievement, I think, for us. I think it felt like, you know, wow, we kind of got over the hump and figured out what the show was. And God, it's clicking. It's fun. It's like all of these actors are amazing. It's, you know, it's just really firing in all cylinders. I'm like, yeah, let's do a little helicopter shot.

And yeah, kind of bask in the glory for a second. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, go on with the rest of the season. And keep in mind. Do you know where else they take victory laps? Where? Ford v. Ferrari. Ford v. Ferrari.

I mean, that's really, Ford v. Ferrari. We should do a whole episode on Ford v. Ferrari. I actually have some thoughts on Ford v. Ferrari. It's good. I just have some thoughts on it. But, yeah, it's good. I just have some thoughts on it. But yeah, it's good. I'm glad that you watched it fresh. Yeah, I did.

How about that? Yes. All right. Let's go to the oops moment. Okay, so I mentioned this casually earlier. I'm kind of curious about the origin of this. Ken Otate originally said that white people like Matchbox 20. But later in reruns, it got changed to Rachel Ray.

Why did we do that? Why did that happen? Just for fun? Did Matchbox 20 sue us? Did Rob Thomas from Smooth sue us? They're both great jokes, but I'm curious why they changed. They're both hilarious jokes. It seems like we don't know why.

It seems like it just got changed. Did you not have the right... It's the music streaming thing. It's like, not only can you not use the right it's the music streaming thing it's like not only can you not use matchbox 20s music you clearly can't say their names you can't even say matchbox 20 is it did did mike strike up a friendship with rob thomas the guys from that show or that band you didn't want to you didn't want to offend them anyway i guess i'm looking at the script right now and the script we shot said that they love Rachel Ray and they're terrified of curses. I wonder

if there was an alt so there's a version and some version it had it but I am a bit mystified by this oops as well I have to tell you. Well this may be a false memory but I feel like I've seen the marquee say Matchbox 20 at the end. Like I literally feel like I watched a version of this episode

where it said Matchbox 20. Let's write in. I don't know if this is a Berenstain Bears moment. I guess there's no way to really know because all the versions now will be Rachel Ray. Unless someone has a VHS recording from 2012 or whenever this airs. 2011.

What was the original DVR thing? TiVo. TiVo. I love the noises that TiVo would make. That was one of the first sound effects in the room so satisfying yeah wasn't it satisfying wasn't it like i would love to just that i would love to add that to my we literally said it was it was like that phrase that like yeah i'm gonna tivo it it was it was a thing now do you think the owners of tivo like kick themselves got to sell well or did they sell do you think or owners of TiVo, like, got to sell? Well, or did they sell, do you think?

Or did they get acquired and make some money? Or did they just get booted out of the business? Or are they just the other version of Blackberry, who had the world at their feet and then just fiddled while Rome burned? You know what I like to record on my TiVo? Ray Donovan. Yes! Okay. Episode MVP.

Most valuable Pawnee and which character moment sticks out at two? This isn't even a conversation. One, two, three. Lil Sebastian. If you say anything else, you're not a true Pawnee and you're not a real fan. You're not anyone else.

But if you want to let us know another MVP or a different MVP for a different episode, tweet us at Team Coco Podcast or by using the hashtag Parks and Recollection. So, you know, we all know the real MVP of this episode. You can give us the runner up. Why don't we do that? The runner up for this episode,

runner up MVP for Harvard Festival because we all know the winner is Lil' Sebastian, the most adorable horse in the world. Shall we do the town hall let's do it do you want to we do the town hall from the Sweetums tent at the Harvest Festival where we're doing it. I know it's a little hot in that tent. The ventilation is not good. Maybe we do it in the corn maze where Jerry's still eating corn to stay alive.

Yes. Okay, let's do it in the corn maze. Hopefully we can make our way out after we answer this question. Yeah. From Matt, from Australia, all the way down under. I love it. I'll spare you my Australian accent. This is literally my favorite pot, he says.

And favorite is spelled F-A-V-O-U-R-I-T-E. So he's really not lying about being Australian. Well, there's another dead giveaway coming up. Keep reading. My question. Since the show was left the telly bingo okay now i feel like you're pushing too hard maybe you're not australian matt from australia asks since the show has left the telly are there any real world inspired story

beats you'd love to explore if the show was still running second question i think something pokemon go inspired would be fun oh yeah chris Pokemon? The parks here were flooded with peeps during that time. I love this question. Would Chris play Pokemon Go? Are you kidding? He'd be in a league. Pokemon Go. And I would love to

see you on Wednesday, but that is the night I meet with my Pokemon Go league. I have to hatch another egg. I have one that's 50 kilometers. It's just... I just hatched an egg. I just hatched an egg. It's a Clefairy. He's like,

he's like, another Jigglypuff. It's a Sprite-o. It's just, I mean, just a quick story about Pokemon Gun. So, Pokemon Gun was a phenomenon how many years ago? Like, that's... Five to seven? Yeah, it's got to be like five years ago, right?

I mean, it's got to be at least... So, I played for... I actually did play for a little bit. I love walking around, right? So, I love, you know, just getting my steps in. Got to get, you know, six, seven miles a day, right? You want to get... Okay, so it's 2016.

So, six years ago. So, I played Pokemon Go for a while. Like, I feel like it was a fad that went around people play for like a month like i played for like a month my sister still playing pokemon go so when we go anywhere i see her take out her phone she has kids she's like a grown woman she's a lawyer very successful person just like taking out her phone playing pokemon go so you know she's like got so many pokemon and the other thing is my my friend's husband still plays. So there's still a secret society of some Pokemon Go people still going. And they're just still, she's traveling.

She's like, I'm in Bora Bora. There's some interesting Pokemon. You're like, there's Pokemon in Bora Bora. Or wherever they are. It's very funny to me that they're playing. I think Pokemon Go is a good idea. Boy, I mean, I think we feel lucky in a way that some of this stuff got avoided,

but I feel like there's a lot of social media bits. I know we did, near the end of our run, we did some tweets. I think Tom had a Twitter story, but I think that's very ripe for... And then, I don't know, I think things got a little dark in america so i feel like maybe we're it's good like i don't want to do i don't honestly really want to

do like election or pandemic stories so maybe it's good we got out while we did pokemon go that was a good answer that's that's very nice and light it's very cheerful and chris would love it that is he would love it dude he would be the world champion he would have one from every fucking running well just think how fast he'd run around and get them. Exactly. Just hatching eggs like a motherfucker. I love it. I'm busy hatching eggs. All right. I love it. Thank you, Matt, from Australia. We are departing the town hall. Any other last comments, Rob? I just want to thank everybody for listening, as always. And don't forget to subscribe. That's very important.

You want to get everything here. You know, there's a lot of good stuff to come. So wherever you get your podcasts and five-star reviews on Apple. And as always, thanks to Schulte and Greg. Another great episode. And I'm going to go play Pokemon Go. That's what I'm going to go do right now. I've been inspired.

I love it. Goodbye from Pawnee. See you next week. Parks and Recollection is produced by Greg Levine and me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Alan Yang for Alan Yang Productions, Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco,

and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn are our talent bookers. The theme song is by Mouse Rat, a.k.a. Mark Rivers, with additional tracks composed by John Danek. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on Parks and Recollection. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.