Parks and Recollection - Pilot (S1E1)

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

It's the first episode! Rob Lowe and Alan Yang pack their bags and journey back to Pawnee as they begin their Parks and Recreation rewatch with episode one! In the pilot, Leslie Knope navigates the red tape as she secures permission to convert an abandoned pit into a park. But were Donna and Jerry supposed to be background actors? Why is Ron wearing a suit? What is Parks and Rec’s origin story? Learn answers to these questions and more by listening to today’s episode — and ask your own by emailing us at [e-mail] or leaving a 30-second voicemail at 310-893-6992. 

We're getting together to talk about all the things we used to do The laughs, the passions, the little Sebastians, the pets we fell into And we're putting it on in a podcast, then we'll send it up into the sky We're calling it Parks and Recollection Come on little podcast, spread your wings and fly Hello everybody Welcome to Parks and Recollection What's up, what's up? That's my pal right there

That's Alan Yang, ladies and germs. Happy to be here. Happy to talk about the show. Happy to talk to you, Rob. For those of you who don't know the great Alan Yang, Alan Yang wrote on Parks and Recreation from day one, and later we'll get into this, was a kind of the inspiration for Chris Traeger. That's a fair assessment of your contribution, wouldn't you say? It's somewhat fair. I would say I was a writer on the show for all 125 episodes, and there are definitely elements of Chris in my personality because we're both very high-energy people and relentlessly positive, hopefully not annoyingly so, but yeah.

Listeners will be the judge of that. Yeah, we'll see. As everybody comes into this little club we've started, I'm excited to have you guys listening. This is, fasten your seatbelts, going to be the ultimate parks and recreation experience. And we're just going to spend some time on a show that Alan and I worked on and loved. Yeah, it's also nice to go back and look at a show like, you know, there's no monoculture anymore, man. Not everyone's watching the same shows, but like back when this show was airing and The Office was

airing and 30 Rock, people would watch shows on one night. Like Thursday night, people would watch television. Community was on that night too. It was like, can you remember a time? I think the last show like that was Game of Thrones. Wait, are you asking me if I can remember a time when TV was good? Is that what you're asking me? It sounds like what you're asking me.

I'm not saying it's not good, but it's just a warm, funny, familial show. And every time we see each other again or people from the cast and other writers, we do talk about it because it's also this formative experience, right? You're just spending time with these cast members and these writers every day, every day. And the show ran for seven years. So few shows run that long anymore. So we really were like a family. And if you ever watched the show and you felt the tone of the show and the warmth and the sort of, you know, the camaraderie, that was all because the writer's room and the cast were all kind of like that in real life. I hate to disappoint anyone looking for horrible gossip because we just loved each other too much. And I think it came across in the show. So it's going to be really fun to watch

these episodes. I haven't seen a lot of them in a long time. So we're starting from scratch, man. We're starting from the pilot and it's cool to see them again and see how the show changed over time. Alan, how would you describe my performance in the pilot? Just getting started. It is powerful. I would say say i think uh award worthy i believe you were nominated for seven emmys for your performance in the pilot no chris trager is not in the pilot rob's not in the pilot he's watching these as a fan so we're gonna talk about the show i think it's gonna be really interesting because rob is gonna you know he shows up in season two season one is really short it's six episodes and we're gonna burn through

them just watch these episodes and talk about how the show changed. And Rob is going to be able to offer his opinion because when he joined the show, the characters had changed a little bit and the show had kind of found a groove. And so it's going to be fun to sort of watch them. Me as someone who's worked on them and Rob as someone who is kind of watching them, if not for the first time, then sort of, well, sometimes for the first time. What about that, Rob? I mean, well, listen, and we'll get into more of this as we progress, but I watched the pilot last night. I'd never seen it before. And I have so many thoughts for you, sir.

Let's describe the show this way. Parks and Rec is a dead body and we are Quincy. Yeah. We are doing an autopsy on each episode of Parks and Rec is a dead body and we are Quincy. Yeah. We are doing an autopsy on each episode of Parks and Recreation. Yeah, we're really excited to do this podcast and we're going to give you a rundown of what each episode is going to feel like. We're going to kick off each episode of Parks and Rec collection with a recap of the episode. We're going to discuss just a little summary. Then we're going to tell you about all the juicy details about what happens

behind the scenes, the writing process, the casting, the props, all that stuff. Members of our cast and crew will be stopping by along the way. And then we'll close out each episode with what we like to call the Pawnee Town Hall, where we answer your fan questions. So send them in. And now that you know what the deal is, I think we're ready to kick this off and get going. Episode one, season one. This is the pilot episode of Parks and Recreation. It aired on April 9th, 2009. It was written by the creators of the show. Greg Daniels, hot off his success

of creating the American version of The Office, and his, at the time, number one lieutenant at The Office, Michael Schur, Mike Schur as we call him. And it was directed by Greg Daniels. This is the opening of the entire series. It's the opening of the entire show. And we meet Leslie Knope played by Amy Poehler, of course. She's a mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. After holding a community outreach forum, Leslie sets out to turn a construction pit into a park after local nurse Ann Perkins, played by Rashida Jones, complains about the ugly and dangerous pit.

She also mentions that her boyfriend Andy, played by Chris Pratt, broke both legs after falling in. Later on, Leslie's anti-government boss Ron Swanson, the legend, played by Nick Offerman, reluctantly allows her to form a subcommittee. And this is only after her friend, former lover and colleague, Mark Brundanowitz, played by Paul Schneider, secretly asks for a favor from Ron. All of Leslie and Anne's efforts set the park creation in motion

and kicks off the entire series. So that's just a real quick summary of what we're going to be talking about. And yeah, it is the beginning of the Leslie and Anne relationship. It's like their romance. It's really like there's the two of them together and they start the episode not knowing each other and by the end and singing and being the lovey-dovey little lovebirds in the air couple that you know and love within one episode. And I love it. And it felt more like an independent movie comedy. like it i felt like there was more and i don't mean this in a bad way there was way more acting going on in the pilot than historically you got in this in the series and i felt like like for me there's a great moment in the town hall where a man stands up he's just a rando and says i have many things that i would like to say about laura linney and like that's a joke that we made

meals like that vibe whatever that that branch of comedy would be called that's where we the show lived and breathes going going on but in the pilot you could almost feel that that felt tonally odd whereas as the show developed that that was became the tone of the show. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's so interesting to see what stayed and what changed, right? That's, that's what I was watching. It's like, it's like watching a kid grow up, right? It's like, you see that you see what's similar, but you see how the person matures. Right. And, and one of the big things for me, and even, you know, I remember obviously working on the show, how this changed, but a big thing was in the pilot, it's Leslie versus her coworkers and the world.

And then later in the show, it was Leslie and her coworkers versus the world. It just changed pretty drastically and hopefully pretty organically. But in the pilot, it's the comedy of Leslie being wrong. She's wrong over and over again. It's people scoring off her. And, you know, in writing a show,

we sometimes talk about status and the status games of the characters in the pilot. Like Leslie's kind of low status. The other characters are making fun of her. But as the show progresses, she kind of becomes higher and higher status. And I think a big part of that was just working with Amy and being like, oh my God, we got this actress

who's one of the funniest people in the world. And in real life, she's one of the highest status people in the world. She's always scoring off everybody. Like everyone, she's like one of the funniest people in the world and in real life she's one of the highest status people in the world she's always scoring off everybody like everyone she's like one of the coolest people so i think over the course of the show i was like yeah let's let's kind of steer leslie a little bit more towards that and you're right what i again what i was really surprised when she goes to see ron swanson um for the first time and you meet ron swanson he feels very much like her superior they do do not feel like, listen, the yin and yang of Ron and Leslie has always been one of my favorite things about the show.

And that always stayed throughout the run of the show. But in this first meeting of them, like she comes in sort of hat in hand to Ron Swanson and Brent Danowitz. She definitely feels like a junior member. Yeah, it's also funny to see Nick. Nick, as soon as you see him, because you've seen the later episodes, it's like, man, his voice is so funny. He's kind of fully formed, right? He's spraying.

I think Mike had had him in mind for a while, but his voice is so unique. His look is so unique. But he's also wearing a suit. And you're like, why is he wearing a suit? Because later on, he's never wearing suits. He's so much more formal in this episode, but he still has like the essence of the character. I found him like a delight to watch in this one

because, you know, a lot of that stuff's still there. He's still libertarian. He's still like very calm and collected. But later, like we were saying, we incorporate the person into the character. So later it's like, yeah, Nick is a woodworker. So we just put that into the character. And then, you know, for someone like Aziz, it's like in this episode, Tom's pretty tamped down.

And like Aziz is very high energy. So we just kind of put that in the character. Tamped down. Dude, I thought Aziz was on medication in the pilot. He's very small in this one. I was like, that doesn't sound like him. I felt like, I mean, Aziz in the pilot is like Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at the end. It's like, I thought, did someone give Aziz a lobotomy before the pilot?

It's almost like, it felt almost like he's playing Jim from The Office a little bit. Because he's playing that role because he's like looking at the camera and it's like he's looking at someone do something dumb and he's looking at the camera. He's like doing those takes. It's a very different character from what he progressed into. But there's some of the game still going on there. He's a hustler, and he's gaming the system. And then you look at Pratt, and Pratt's character changed because Pratt was kind of written, Andy was kind of written

as someone who was kind of mooching off Ann. And then later in the show, he's just super nice, and everyone loves him because Pratt is very lovable. So it's like, yeah, that's what we ended up doing. Yeah, Chris Pratt's andy in the pilot um the reason that rashida shows up and starts this whole thing in motion at the town hall is that pratt has fallen into the pit and broken both of his legs and when you see pratt in this that's the other thing is he's a he's his character is vaguely i don't want to say unlikable, but like you said, you definitely got the sense that he was maybe mooching off of Anne.

And that's a great thing about what good writers like you guys do is like, that's a great idea, but you end up with Chris Pratt. And Chris Pratt is one of the most likable people on the planet and funny. So it's like you pivot away from that sort of you know the minute you recognize it and you guys always did such a great job of finding somebody's essence and then you know not covering it but why would you do that but people do it all the time in tv um you guys brought it out yeah but and it's a total adjustment right it's a total like okay that's the beauty of a television show because it total adjustment right it's a total like okay that's the beauty of a television show because it's ongoing right it's like you learn who these people are and you learn

who the actors are you just adjust towards it and red is character and jim o'hare's character in the pilot they are literally extras they're act they're actual background artists yeah i think that wasn't that wasn't uh an arrangement we kind of had with them where we knew they're really funny people, really funny personalities. I think Jim O'Hare, who plays Jerry, auditioned to play Ron Swanson at some point, I believe.

And we're just like, hey, we got to focus on these main cast this season, but if you guys are willing to do it, can you guys be in the office, fill out the space, and kind of be there, and we'll give you a line here and there, and then we'll flesh you out. And then look at how much they developed, how funny those characters

are, how integral they are to the show. Like, by the series finale, it's like Jerry is like the mayor, and like Donna's getting married to Keegan-Michael Key, and they've become such a big part of the family, and, you know, they're such funny actors. You know, they went on to have great careers it's great who's the guy that looks like jim o'hare but has the hair of elvis fucking presley who's that everyone looks different there's so many

people look different it's like when aubrey shows up i'm like is aubrey 12 like do we cast a child like is this okay oh she says she's from she's the college intern by the way i never knew what she was doing on the show like what her what, what her, where she came from. She, cause you always seemed like this, her character, the disinterested outsider. I didn't realize that her Genesis was, she was the college intern. Yeah. She starts at an intern. I think the idea is like Leslie's trying to aspire her, but obviously, you know, with Aubrey's personality, like she cannot be inspired. So that actually stays pretty similar.

But what doesn't happen immediately is like, you know, she runs into Pratt and there's like you just almost no interaction there because it's we hadn't planned that story yet. The Office was a massive hit. Everybody loves The Office. Everybody still loves The Office. And they were deputized and paid a lot of money, I'm sure, a lot of money to make a sequel. Not a sequel, but like a spinoff to The Office. Is that not correct? make a sequel, not a sequel, but like a spinoff to The Office. Is that not correct? Yeah, I'm trying to jog my memory here because I was hired on the show at the time. It was called Untitled Office Spinoff. I was a really young writer. I had worked on South Park and I met with Mike and Greg and it was for anything. It was like, we might hire you for The Office. We might hire you for a new show. We didn't know sort of what was going on there. I was really happy to get a little backstory on me. I had started writing comedy and this is really just an example of how crazy and fortuitous life

can be. For years, I had been writing on a baseball blog with Mike Shore and we didn't really know each other. And it was a very crazy thing. We were on an email list together, and at a certain point, we were complaining about baseball commentary and making jokes and stuff. And at a certain point, people on the email list were like, can you guys take this to a side conversation? Because I don't want emails about baseball commentary in my inbox every day.

So Mike and I and our other friends started a baseball blog, but we really didn't know each other. But we were writing on this blog. Mike was writing for The Office at the time. And when I saw this, my agent told me that this show was looking for submissions. I submitted my pilot and stuff. And again, I emailed Mike. I was like, I heard you have a show. He's like, well, the good news is I like your pilot. The other good news is I've read roughly 1 million words of comedy that you've written over the last three years or whatever about baseball. So I met with Mike and Greg and yeah, it was, we didn't know, right? I think, is this going to be a spinoff? Is this going to be a new show? And I think what they decided to do was let's just create this new world. And I think the,

the first people they cast were, I think Rashida and Aziz. And I think the first people they cast were I think Rashida and Aziz. And I think the first, I believe one of the first writers they hired, I think they hired Dan Gore and they hired me. And that was really early on. One of the things I learned coming into Parks and Rec when I did, and one of the things I think is successful

and something I've stolen on anything I have the ability to do since is, as you said, they had the talent before they even had the characters. They didn't write these characters and go, oh, let's go find an actor who can play Tom Haverford, which is how everybody does it. They went, oh, we have Aziz Ansari. He's really unique. He's really special.

We have Rashida Jones, really unique, really special. What can we build for them? Yeah, it's finding these special people, right? We kept doing it. Me and Aziz went on and created a show called Master of None. And we kind of did the same thing. It's like, we met Lena Waithe. She's interesting. Let's write a character for her. And by the way, we had the same casting director, Alison Jones, who parks and rec and master. And Alison's so great. She's got such an eye for talent. She'll just introduce you to people. These people are special. These people are funny. And you'll even see watching the pilot, you'll see a lot of the characters change over the course of the show, and they become more similar to the actors. So even if we try to write them a certain way, it's

like, well, sometimes the person's essence come across, and that's honestly what makes them funny. And so you'll see in the pilot, Aziz and Nick, they're kind of the same, but a lot of the other characters kind of become more and more like they're, they're, they're sort of actors who play them. And I think that's a really smart thing to do, but yeah, I mean, I remember, so I remember this first meeting, right. We had all these writers. It was a pretty small writing staff that first year. It was Mike and Greg, me and Dan and Norm Hitchcock and Dr. Tucker Colley, Rachel Axler. So we were just having lunch. And I still remember this lunch because I was so excited. It was like, I was freaking out. This is my first big gig. I was 25 or whatever. And, you know, we all sat down. I was like, okay, who's the star of the show? And at

a certain point, Amy Poehler's name came up and Mike was saying, you know, Mike worked on SNL with Amy, was friends with her, said, I think she's available. And everyone kind of agreed. It wasn't really even a debate. We're like, well, if we can get her, if we can get her, shouldn't we just cast her and we'll just write the character around her. And yeah, it was pretty unanimous. It was no, it wasn't really a debate. I, I was like, why do we even have this lunch? Let's just cast Amy. But yeah, it was, it was kind of a cool, you know, everything kind of started from there. Right. So and then you start building the world around it.

Right. You start building the energies and sort of the sort of you fill out your family. Right now. But wait, do you do you have any idea? Like, does it take place on Mars? Does it take place in Pawnee yet? Does it is it are they in the FBI? I mean, it's still anything.

Is that right? Yes. Well, I think at that point they had had some idea of the pilot and Mike and Greg were the pilot together. And I think they really wanted to do a show about local government. And I think have a show that had some optimism and sort of, you know, believed in government as something that could work. Why Pawnee? Why that name? Why Indiana? Why that? I like the name. I think that's something

that Mike and Greg came up with, and I think they wanted to set it in every town in America. I think that's basically Springfield from The Simpsons. It's basically like, this is a representative of America. This is a metaphor for America.

And we could have used you on the writing staff, because I think we run around season one, it's like, has anyone been to Indiana? Has anyone lived in Indiana? I don't think anyone had been to Indiana. So a great representative crew there.

My dad, born in Indiana, raised in Indiana. I've spent my summers in Indiana. I kept trying to get you guys to write us going to Lake Wawasee I mean, so I thought I was a little helpful when I came into it, but you guys picked it and Pawnee was a great name the name Pawnee sounds

very, very, very much like it could be a town in Indiana Yeah, and just a little fun fact from our producer Greg the map of Pawnee is actually a map of Muncie, Indiana, but turned upside down and flipped. So if anyone sees a map of Pawnee, that's what it is. Just a little fun fact. Well, in one of the very first scenes, they're holding a community outreach forum, which became one of my favorite runners in the show when Leslie or anybody from the department would have to go and deal with the community of Pawnee

was always, for me, a great place for jokes. The things that the folks stood up and said were always really, really funny and really hilarious. And you got to really get to know the people. And that's where, in the first scene, I was so surprised. I just assumed that Leslie and ann always knew each other and were besties because by the time i came on the show that was such a critical critical baked into the dna thing leslie with her 75 different amazing lovely um pet nicknames uh always made me laugh and here I am watching the pilot last night,

and this woman stands up, hi, my name is Ann Perkins, and I live in Los Angeles. Oh, tell me, they don't know each other. They do not, they meet at a town hall. It's the origin story of their love story, basically. It's the origin. It's like, is there a meet cute?

And it's, you know, and you said, it's so funny watching the show and seeing what stayed and what changed, right? It's like, and you watch this episode, like the town hall, right? You see so funny watching the show and seeing what stayed and what changed. And you watch this episode, the town hall, right? You see town halls throughout the show until the finale, essentially. And you see Leslie and Anne meet each other. And yeah, you're right. That changes over the course of the series.

They become really good friends. And by the way, the show opens with her sort of trying to get this drunk guy out of a slide. And he's played by John Daly, a really funny comedic actor. And then in the series finale, you see him quickly, and he's in his suit, and he's all cleaned up, and it's like a metaphor for the entire series, right? It's like she made this dude better too by getting him out of the slide in the pilot.

We were talking briefly about the evolution of the characters, and again, I think that Tom Ha, uh, Aziz in this pilot grows maybe the most of all, cause like I said, I thought Aziz was medicated on the pilot. Um, the, the, he literally says at one point, I'm a redneck. Yeah. Tom Haverford as a redneck. And then he goes from from I'm a redneck to being the world's foremost authority on Kanye West.

That's that character's journey. And by the way, it's like, it also is preceded, that talking head is preceded by Leslie saying, she doesn't know his race, which is like, that changed pretty quickly. She's like, I think he's Libyan. I'm like, I think we adjusted that. What I like about him is we're both outsiders. I'm a woman and he's, I think he's Libyan. I'm like, I think we adjusted that. What I like about him is we're both outsiders.

I'm a woman and he's, I think he's a Libyan? Part of her character changed pretty rapidly. You know, again, this is written before the staff is working on it or anything like that. But there is that Aziz talking head, the Tom talking head where he's like, yeah, I'm basically a redneck. I'm from Bennettsville, South Carolina. And it's like, that's where Aziz actually is from. He's from Bennettsville. It's a really small town.

And, you know, he and his brother, Aniz, who's a really funny writer where Aziz actually is from. He's from Bennettsville. It's a really small town. And he and his brother, Aniz, who's a really funny writer, they grew up there. And it's like, they were the only two Indian kids. So Aziz and I bonded over that, where I was one of the only Asian kids when I was growing up. And that's one of the things that I think made us become friends very early on. It's like, yeah, he's from Bennettsville. Imagine growing up in the 80s and 90s in Bennettsville, South Carolina, and you're an Indian kid. It probably helps make you funny a

little bit. I remember coming into the makeup trailer one day and he had on this leather jacket and it was so insanely beautiful. And I'm like, what is that? He's like, it's, I don't do a good, you do the best disease ever. So I'm not even going to try, but he's like, it's St. Laurent. he's like, I don't do a good, you do the best Aziz ever, so I'm not even going to try, but he's like, it's St. Laurent. So he also like happily pays for brands. Yeah, yeah. No, I actually have a very similar story,

which is we were at an SNL after party, I think, and I was sitting with Chris Rock, and Aziz was there too, and Aziz walked in, and he was wearing a, like, take that YSL jacket, it was like a leather jacket he was wearing a, like, take that YSL jacket. It's like a leather jacket. He was wearing like a real, this was a crazy jacket. It had like a, like a parrot or something embroidered on the back. Like it was a very outlet, like it was very long and it was like a very flashy jacket. And Rock just turned to me and he was like, that is a confident man. Like he's a very confident man. Like that is, I was like, yeah, man, he's doing it. He's doing it. He's doing it he's not he's not

scared of anybody but yeah as he's and as he's over over the years like you know he changes his fashion too that's like i respect that about him i always just wear a blazer right i always wear a blazer but but yeah he'll change and he'll wear like gucci slides and he'll wear like you know he he he he takes it he takes the comedian uh role seriously he's like i'm not gonna be one of these uh schlubby comedians no he's old school like. Like he's silhouetted in a spotlight light holding a microphone. That's the other thing people need to know about you, Alan, is that you are also a clothes horse. And writers, everybody has a uniform in life. I think there's an actor's uniform.

There's a crew member's uniform. There's somebody who works at the DMV. Literally, like there's caricatures of the way people dress. You, my good fine sir, dress nothing like a writer. Nothing. You are immaculate. You're always in. And not only are your clothes good, but you're tailoring.

Because not everybody has the tailoring down, but you have the tailoring down to a science. Well, I appreciate it, man. That is certainly a luxury of having worked for a while is that you can afford to buy some clothes that fit you. But I definitely like, yeah, my guilty pleasures, like if I'm traveling, I really like going to Japan. So I started going to Japan and getting clothes there sometimes because it fits me because everyone in Japan is little like me. So in Japan, I'm like an extra large like i'm a giant in japan like i remember getting fitted at one point there and they were like now there's a real tangent but he legit was like you know this this this woman

was measuring me for for for a suit and they were like wow like are you a professional athlete i'm like i'm a sitcom writer just because i go to the gym occasionally and i don't mean i am not that built so i don't know what she was thinking. But no, Polar would always make fun of us. You know, me and Aziz both. She's like, okay, what kind of unstructured blazer are you guys wearing tomorrow? It's so interesting because Aziz in the show is,

in the pilot is actually interested in his job. He's still hustling, but he's focused. Yeah, by the time you joined, he was running like an entertainment company or something, right? Yeah. running like an entertainment company or something yeah okay one of the things i learned from my time on the show is is that how funny the mundane the smaller it is the smaller the detail and and extrapolated to the nth degree the funnier it is like there's never a big event ever that happens ever it's like they get smaller and smaller and smaller and that's what's

funny about it it's uh and and the pit was also you know again we talk about a show that that was really on the bubble forever and i remember when it premiered and there you know this is the big the office spinoff like it like people put a lot behind it and i just kept seeing pictures of amy in a in a hard hat standing in a bunch of dirt and i was like boy i don't know sexy world rob television yeah i was like i don't know we're talking local government we're talking local government because i remember i remember when when i was thinking to come is that the show that takes Television. I was like, I don't know. We're talking local government. We're talking local government. Because I remember when I was thinking of coming, is that the show that takes place in a dirt pile?

That's literally what, that was the message I got from the initial images of how they sold the show. You're right. And we were the show that couldn't be killed, man. I feel like, I swear, I feel like we wrote six series finales because we kept thinking we were going to get canceled. And we would have drinks at the end of seasons and be like, we're not going to make it. We're not going to make it to next season.

Then we get picked up. And no, it was kind of a, I think that helped the writing in some way. Because it was like, we were writing for our lives. It was like, man, we really got to make this as funny and juicy as possible because we don't know how much longer we have. And then the whole thing ran for 125, man. It's so many episodes. You look back, it's, you know, we're, you back, we're so proud of all that work. It's because it ended up being a show that found its way. Because all those shows on must-see TV, and people forget this was on the must-see TV night.

The lineup was, let me make sure I get this right, it was Community, Parks and Rec, The Office, 30 Rock. Is that right? Were they all on one night, one after another? Yeah, that was going on for a while, I think, those four shows. And I think, yeah, I think people take for granted now sort of a female lead. And at the time, it was like, wow, yeah, can we literally remember those headlines? Can women be funny? Like, we've come a long way. I was 12 years ago, but it was legit. Like, can women be funny? And so it did feel a little bit fresher for us, I think, to, to, to go with a female lead. And I think Mike and Greg made that decision, you know, obviously mainly because of Amy Poehler's incandescent talent, but yes, it, it, it brought up interesting storylines and interesting issues, and I think

it made the show stand out. And it was, you know, it separated from the pack a little bit. So yeah, that was a, you know, and again, like, you know, as I was talking about, once Poehler's name came up, it was like, oh, this is the person you gotta cast. Like, I don't know if there would be, if the show Veep would exist

without Parks and Rec before it, honestly. It's all in a lineage, it's all in a lineage it's all in a lineage right we take all this stuff for granted but and and by the way also the the look of the cast right the the racial makeup of the cast it was it was it was healthily diverse at the time you know it's healthy diverse and um you know again having an indian american guy and a biracial woman you know all these things it was we were just starting to get that that was important and uh you know that that helped us us sort of diversify the characters. That's how you know that you guys had never actually been to Indiana, because it is the most diverse room that's ever existed.

Super diverse. 99% white. So let me – the other thing I was struck with watching this, I just was like – so much goes into, in a pilot, what the show looks like, right? What the show. First of all, I have a suspicion that for the first time ever, they used a long lens on Amy Poehler. And what a long lens does is it compresses the background and it makes the background blown out. And it's traditionally what you give. Like a star, like a movie star to make them look good. Right. And our show, when I came on, did anything but make you look good. It was literally throw a camera up. There's no lights and God help you. Good, good luck. It's all about the comedy, but I'm telling you what, my friend, I saw at least three closeups of, of Amy Poehler in this pilot where there's a long lens on her making her look like Julia Roberts

in Runaway Bride or whatever the hell. Yeah, still figuring out how the show's shot, right? Put that 85mm lens on there and make it look all Godsy, right? But later on, you're right. I mean, the way we shot the show was just hang some lights up and then you're just shooting. It's all handheld, right? It's all docu-style.

And they're still kind of figuring it out and i think in the shooting this in the pilot so my eyes didn't deceive me they get they they did a little bit of uh show busy professionalism to it i also noticed there were less um just technically i always love the snap zooms like they they quick the camera quickly adjusts to somebody. And I don't even think I saw one snap zoom in the pilot. Yeah. And then there's like wide shots of her falling into the pit and all that stuff is like, it's just, it's so funny to watch. It's like, it feels like a different show in some ways, but you know, it, I still remember having a conversation with Mike after season one. He was like, you know, this happened on the office.

Like you look at the episodes and you adjust and, and. And, you know, I feel like the writing staff and the cast really did that. There are pilots and there are premise pilots. And the premise pilots, you take the audience and you literally hold their hand and introduce them to the world. And then there are pilots where it could be episode five. Like, the sort of introduction-ish stuff is really dispensed with.

They just put you right in the world. Which are you a fan of? Dare I say there's a third kind too? Because I think those are the two basic kinds, right? It's setting up. And the Parks pilot's a little bit of a premise pilot, right? It's setting up the pit. But there's also the new guy pilot and it's, it could be a new guy,

new girl, but it's a new person enters this world and you see it through their eyes. And so you get to meet all the characters. So the world exists like those kinds of hangout pilots that you said, that could be episode five. It's not setting up the whole world, but you get the benefit of seeing the introduction of this new character and you get to have people introduce themselves to him or her. And so it's kind of a hybrid of the two. And so that's kind of nice, right? That's kind of like, you know,

you get to have your cake and eat it too, where it's not like everyone introducing themselves to each other and they don't know the dynamics and all that stuff and you're building this. That can be really hard and really annoying, but it's also not everyone's already here and it feels like episode seven, right? It feels like, you know, why now, right?

So yeah, I think those are the three kinds. We figured it out. There's only three kinds of pilots. Listen, that's a big deal. That's if you're a fledgling writer, you got it from an expert. Okay, I want to talk about in the pilot because it's kind of a premise pilot. Leslie literally walks the audience through the set and, and because, and they use the new guy device because it's Ann Perkins.

Yes. And they get to my favorite thing, which are the murals. The murals on Parks and Recreation set may be my favorite piece of set design I've ever seen. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't sit and, I'm not kidding, marvel at them every single day and laugh out loud at how wrong and politically incorrect they were i mean they and they actually showed i'd always wondered what they showed in the pilot to introduce the murals and they showed that insane mural where there's the pioneer person who founded pawnee with a machete with a machete certainly not politically correct it's so someone like basically being killed. I think there's a lot of atrocities committed against Native American people that are depicted in these murals. And we try to cover them up. I think it was based on a trip that Mike and Greg took to a government building and they saw offensive murals. It's like, how is this up? Like, this is a horrible recap of American history. Like, and that was real. So it was like, oh, well, let's, let's try

to parody it and show that, you know, people are really sort of out of touch and insensitive um and yeah i think you know our production designer dan bishop did the pilot uh you know he also did mad men and i think you know ian phillips later was picking up the production designer duties but yeah i think we used the murals later on for a lot of story uh ideas you know there was an you know episode about called the centaur that was about a mural, and then Leslie and Ben, when they kind of fell in love, would meet by the wildflower mural. And so they're always part of the world. And I can't, I'm trying to remember what some of the other ones were, but yeah, they were very offensive. I think there was- Oh, there's the building of the railroad.

Oh yeah, there's some real racist Asian shit in that one. But so it's just uh it's pretty rough man it's pretty rough it's so rough it's so rough that we couldn't even actually describe them on this show yeah we're like uh i don't know if we can talk about this uh are we gonna get canceled for these murals that we are making fun of but yeah um one of the jokes that i saw in the pilot and again it was so fun for me to watch it as just an audience member where you go oh yeah i see that form of comedy this is what i remember from the show as it evolves and oh i don't remember ever seeing this is when leslie starts her big speech at the very beginning um at the town hall it's very early in the show and and she's established as like a she literally says i'm you know basically i'm like i want to be a young Hillary Clinton. By the way, it was I was really surprised at how overt and not subtle her characters sort of inspirations were.

And I was also like thinking because there I want to be like all of the women in politics. And then she she lists, I think, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin. And I'm thinking, I know the folks that made this show. They must have held their nose with the Sarah Palin thing. But we're like, fuck it. We got it. We got it. We got to be some sort of democratized show. It was almost like a pre politicized time because she there was no cognitive dissonance in her naming those three people. Right. That would never make sense now. But at the time, it's like, yeah, these are all politicians. And like on her desk, she had pictures of Hillary Clinton, but also photos of Connie Rice. And, you know, it was like that it was a different time. I think it was where you could kind of say you were just into politics. I don't know. Maybe it didn't even work at the time, but certainly she, yeah, she definitely says Clinton, Palin, Pelosi. It's like, wait a minute.

One of those is different from the other two. I'd say, yeah. But I also love what she's about to start talking. She does her speech. Welcome everybody to the town hall. And we are here to blah, blah, blah. And the lights start going off, going out in the town hall one by one.

And it's like the most mortifying sort of humiliating. And that to me is, and it's just a little detail that would happen. Somebody decides to turn the lights out in the middle of her speech. It's not a big deal. It's not a huge comedy set piece, but so funny because it just feels so real. Yeah. And I think honestly it was because it was, it was kind of real, where I think Greg was scouting that day, and it was originally supposed to just cut to the classroom, but then

he saw that location. He's like, well, wouldn't it be funny if, you know, they're doing it in this big auditorium and the lights go out? So I think they just shot that, like, really quickly and grabbed it while they were at the location. So kudos to the director and the writers. I also just noticed, like, really technical stuff in that scene where Leslie also says, I just want to thank everybody for the incredible turnout. And then you see that there's barely any people there in this huge room. And Greg Daniels directed the pilot. And he's also a great director as he is a show creator. But that was shot in a way that is very different. That joke, that exact same joke, one season later is shot completely differently. You know, I think the show just gets a lot faster later, right? Oh my God, so fast.

I remember later the show is so fast, I'm not sure if they were just speeding it up in post because, man, it's so fast, there's no breaks. You're just getting a joke every two seconds. But yeah, this one feels like, it's a little bit slower and it feels like a different feel. Do you think that's

a performance thing? Is it just an editing thing? It's both. It really is. Like, if you took the pilot and then pick something from season five,

one would feel like a nice drive across country where you're stopping at a Stucky's every 45 miles and the other would feel like a nice drive across country where you're stopping at a Stucky's every 45 miles, and the other would feel like a race car. Yeah, I think it's also partly the directors and writers on set being like, faster, faster, faster. You know, people telling you to do that faster.

Like, Rob, I'm sure you remember that. It was like, yeah, faster and funnier, faster and funnier. That's what Polar would do sometimes, even when she was directing herself, too. She's like, I gotta do it faster. It does help. Rhythm helps in comedy. All right, Alan, it's time for a town hall where we hear from the citizens of Pawnee. Where should we have this town hall?

Where should we invite the citizens today? Let's keep it simple, you know. Let's take a trip to Andy's shoe sign stand and group everyone over there. How about that? I love it. My shoes could use a shine-in. All right, let's get in those seats. This town hall question comes's get in those seats.

This town hall question comes from Molly in New York. Molly asks, what was the thought process behind the show being shot like a documentary? Was it simply that it was a spinoff of The Office? Was there a deliberate decision not to address what the documentary is or why it's happening? I have a fairly quick answer to that, which is, yeah, I think it was because the office did well and it was the same creators and it was like yeah maybe this is a good format for us and i will say for speaking just for myself not for for mike and greg the show drifted away from the idea that it was a documentary and i think it was a fun way to shoot in some ways because you know you get a little bit of the um quick and dirty version

of shooting i think you know um you know we've we've had we've talked to some actors about the show and how fun it was to shoot no marks sort of the cameras can hunt around and find you so it's conducive to comedy and i feel like you know the more attention you spend on the fact that it's a documentary i think you take away from the immersion in the show a little bit. Like I actually found that there's later episodes of The Office where they're talking about the boom guy and stuff. And as an audience member, I didn't really want that. So I like that we kind of didn't discard the premise entirely, but it was more like, yeah, this is how the show is shot and whatever. It's fine. I mean, if you look at a later show like Modern Family, it's like they don't address it. It's just that's how it's shot. And it's like

single cam, multi cam, mockumentary. It's fine. And don't think too hard about who's operating the cameras or where they are, where the sound guy is. Don't think about that because we go away from it. That's what I would say. For me, it's just as simple as the mockumentary was the way that people saw their way clearer to putting talking heads in the show. Yes. Really, at the end of the day, it's just that simple. And there's nothing better than a talking head. A, you can use it for exposition if you get screwed in the storytelling. And B, it's just free shots on goal with jokes all the time.

And I mean, I would love to have talking heads in apps. I want to see all the president's men with talking. I want to see one flew over the cuckoo's nest with talking heads. I think talking heads should be in everything. Yes. That was a good question. Thank you. This has been not only the first episode of Parks and Recollection,

but we've been talking about the very first episode of Parks and Recreation. And I hope you all come back to our party next week for episode two. What's on hand for episode two? Canvassing. Canvassing. Well, that's it from Pawnee. Don't forget also, this Thursday is another episode of my podcast, Literally, with Rob Lowe.

We have an amazing guest this week. You're not going to want to miss it. So you can get that wherever you found us here today. Thanks everybody for listening. Subscribe where you get your podcasts and tell a friend. Tell two friends. Thanks to producer Greg and producer Schulte. Goodbye from Pawnee.

This episode of Parks and Recollection is produced by Tamika Adams, Greg Levine, and me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Byrne. 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 Danik. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on Parks and Recollection. Today's episode of Parks and Recollection is brought to you by JJ's Diner. Home to such dishes as the Leaning Tower of Pancakes, the Leslie Knope favorite that comes with a bottomless jar of maple syrup,

and the Swanson Scramble, a dish in honor of Ron that is made with all the bacon and eggs that the kitchen has in stock. JJ's Diner has been filling the stomachs of Pawneans for 26 years. At JJ's, you can hobnob with city counselors, spill the beans with local reporters, and hey, you might even see some of your favorite Parks and Recreation Department head employees. When you go in, mention Parks and Rec Collection for 10% off your order, and they'll add 10% to your plate. That's a JJ's promise.

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