Parks and Recollection - Practice Date (S2E4)

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

Pawnee is a gift to us all and today Rob Lowe and Alan Yang dive into the 4th episode of  the second season of Parks and Recreation! In "Practice Date" a nervous Leslie gets ready for her first date with Dave, by going on a test date with Ann. In today's episode Find out how nervous Duke Silver made the writer's room, the amazing Perd Hapley audition, and how Greg Daniels would deal with the stress of ending The Office—all on Harris Wittels first writing credit of Parks!Got a question for the Pawnee Town Hall? Send us an email: [e-mail] Or leave a 30-Second voicemail at: [phone]

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 Rec Collection Come on little podcast, spread your wings and fly Hello everybody, welcome to Parks and Rec Collection It is literally the best Parks and Rec podcast you'll ever hear Top 100 for sure, no doubt I doubt i mean look man let's not be braggarts about it maybe maybe top 10 maybe top i think by the way i think braggart is a word

that i have not heard in a long time and i think we need to bring bring that back don't be a braggart it's almost like good it's like medieval times or something, right? It's like an old word. I know. Well, that's why Alan Yang, my partner in this, gets the big bucks. He is a wordsmith. He's a writer. He wrote on Parks and Recreation. And he can use the word braggart. It's a very difficult word. It starts with brag, and it's about bragging. Yeah, we got a big episode today man this is a really exciting one this is like when people talk about the all-time great

episodes of parks this is often up there it's often up there it's kind of one of the ones that kicks it into gear into like uh you know the real the real feel of the show i really enjoy this one um so practice day shows up in in the top Parks and Recs for you? Yeah. I mean, this episode is episode four, season two. It's called Practice Date. Yeah. It's a really, really well-loved episode for a variety of reasons.

Just for housekeeping purposes, it first aired on May 7, 2009. Remember where you were on that date? Oh, I do. Oh, I do. Oh, there you go. You remember when the sunrise and sunset was? 702 AM and the high tide was at 835. Hey guys, I just want to say I checked my records and sunrise that day was at 558 AM. The high tide actually hit at 932 AM and the mercury topped off at an 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Back to you. It was written by the legend, the man, the legend,

Harris Whittles and directed by Alex Hardcastle. Yeah, yeah. This is a little bit of a Harris tour de force. I'd like to get into a little bit more of that later. But yeah, I mean, this is one that people talk about because it's the introduction of so many different things, so many different games. And I have only two words for you duke silver out it's a wild swing a wild swing for

the show so i remember when that got pitched in the writer's room and it was like are we really gonna do this this seems really insane like i don't know if we could do this seems like a very big swing for this character who previously up to this point, we're talking about Ron Swanson, of course, had been very buttoned up and wore suits and all that kind of stuff. And so what we did with him was kind of different. Shall I read an episode synopsis, Rob? Would you enjoy that? I would so enjoy it. You know, for all you synopsis fans out here, let's get into the synopsis.

A local story breaks about Pawnee Councilman Bill Dexhart. Wait, should I be like a choir and say things during your synopsis? Would that make it more entertaining, do you think? I'm sure that would make our audio engineers thrilled. I'm sure just tons of cross-talk

and a lot of amens. Say it again! Remember that guy? Just people tearing their hair out i actually don't know how the engineering works but but i don't know sure i mean feel free i'll try it this time i'm gonna try it this time so so there's a there's a story about councilman dexhart at a at a press conference councilman dexhart played by kevin simon yeah at a press conference he admits to having four-way sex in a Brazilian cave while pretending to be,

quote, building houses for the underprivileged, unquote. The scandal inspires Tom to start a game with the other Parks employees to see who can get

the most dirt on each other. During the game, Ron and Tom find some incredible dirt on one another and decide to call it truce. The game also prompts Mark to be more open and honest with Anne. Meanwhile, Anne and Leslie try to tackle Leslie's nervousness

about her first date with Officer Dave by pretending to expose her to terrible date scenarios. When Anne tells her she's now ready, the two celebrate and have drinks. Later, a drunken Leslie visits Dave's house. Dave seems annoyed and takes her home. The next day, Leslie tries to apologize to Dave, but he says she can make it up to him on their second date,

saying the worst is behind them. So that's a very quick summary, but it's a very rich episode. You know, it's a very rich episode, so much so that you almost can't tell what the A story and B story are. You know, usually the main character, Leslie, you'd say that's very simply the A story. But in this one, they're both really complicated stories. This episode

opens with all the people in the Parks Department watching the scene we've seen a ton of times where some contrite politician is having to just eat a shit sandwich and apologize for something they've done, and he's saying, and to my wife, I apologize. All I can say is I wasn't just having sex. I was making love to a beautiful woman and her boyfriend

and a third person whose name I never learned. And it goes on, but it's so... I love Parks when it's in this gear because it's got an edge to it. And I think a lot of that's Harris. I go, oh, you just know this is going to be good when it opens with that kind of a gambit. Yeah, so I just want to shout out Harrison. And I want to talk about this with this episode

because it's the first one he's credited with writing. And he joined the writing staff season two. And for people who don't know who Harris was, Harris was a really funny writer, stand up comedian, actor, you know, he did a lot of, you know, he did all kinds of things in comedy, but he's one of the funniest people I'd ever met in my life. And, and, um, you know, he, he passed away a few years ago, but the mark he left on, on, on comedy and, and, and, and a lot of different shows, you know, he worked on not, not just Parks and Rec, but he worked on Master of None with us. He worked on Eastbound and Down, a Sarah Silverman show. Um, and in, in, in, you know, his, his, his young life, he had a lot of impact, man, this one is just like has his fingerprints all over it.

And he brought a joy to the show. So he was one of the younger writers. And he just brought this fresh perspective. He ended up writing 12 episodes of the show. Other things about Harris, he invented a word. I don't know if you guys, I don't know how many people out there have invented a word that made it into the dictionary, but Harris did that.

He invented the word humblebrag. So Rob but harris did that uh he invented the word humble brag so rob i remember you know you must have heard this going around but it's the best but it you know essentially humble brag is when man this this episode started with the word bragger we're just going right into humble brag it's when you brag about something but you couch it in terms that also express your your humility and how much you appreciate life and how much, you know, like there's just like, you know, man, so blessed to be on set today. So blessed to have this beautiful trailer.

So blessed to get paid so much money and have all these beautiful decorations. Whatever it is, right? You get what that is. But he came up with that. And I remember we had offices next door to each other in the Parks and Rec office when he first started the show.

And first of all, I remember he loved the band Phish. So he would constantly blast Phish in the office next door to mine, which was horrible. Yeah, I'm sorry. Horrible. But I remember going into his office one day. We were talking about this phenomenon. He had identified it. It made him very angry.

It happened with a lot of entertainment people,, etc. And he had a few targets. And he's like, I'm going to start a Twitter account called Humblebrag, at Humblebrag. So we all went into his office. It was like me and Ayesha Muharra and Harris. And we saw him start the account in his office. And then he started retweeting people. And just that's how it started. He just started retweeting the worst offenders. Just that's how it started. Just started retweeting the worst offenders. And just like, you know, that's when the origin of the humblebrag Twitter account, which later turned into a book and later turned into an entry in the dictionary. And if I could just echo what you were saying, Alan, I think I had an interesting viewpoint of the writer's room. You know, the first few seasons, I was the writer's assistant sitting in the corner watching everything happen.

I had a bit of a David Attenborough position watching everybody do their thing. And it was amazing. We've talked about this. The Parks and Rec writing staff, maybe this is a humble brag, was incredible. I can't think of a single weak link. And yet still, you still see those apex writers in the pack. And that was Harris. It was incredible to watch him work. You would see his brain kind of do its Harris thing. And then all of a sudden, he would make a pitch that maybe at first you thought, is that something? And then that was the pitch. That was the episode um and i still remember him storming

out of his room his office one day saying i think i created a word or something like that it was just an amazing thing to watch this guy work i loved hearing you talk about him alan and i'm curious you also worked with him on master of none and uh you know for years in parks what else what are some of your great uh harris moments so harris had a thing called foam corner or phone corner one thing on parks or on master of none if we ever needed what's called chuffa in a show which is like just it's a funny term it's it's so two characters are walking into a room and you need two or three lines before they sit down like like you need those lines

because they can't just walk in silent. To make it feel real, they're just saying... So we call that Chuffa, C-H-U-F-F-A or C-H-U-F-F-A-H. I don't know, whatever. It's a nonsense word. So we called Harris the Chuffa King because we're like, Harris, we need three lines here. Just look at your phone. Look at whatever nonsense you just wrote down in the notes app. whatever nonsense you just wrote down we'll just put it in the show so there's some lines in parks and rec like that where he's like what's your kind of favorite what's your favorite kind of cake and and donna i think says birthday cake and she's he's like that's not a kind of cake that's like an occasion for a cake she's like yeah whatever it's my favorite like stuff stuff that's not really a joke but but just close. Joke approximate.

That's kind of what... And so that's what Foam Corner is. Foam Corner, they've done it on other podcasts. But just to give you an idea of who he was, I looked up a couple that I remember. It's like, these are not jokes. Where there's a will, there's a way-ins. That's something. That's what he said.

Where there's a will, there's a way-ins. That's right, like a way-ins brother. Amazing. And then there's another one that says, why-fi, because-fi um there's wheat thins let me know when you got wheat fix give me that wheat uh and then the the legendary uh the legendary of course it's all from comedy bang bang but the legendary one i want to open a jamaican irish spanish small plate breakfast restaurant and call it tapas the morning to jaw

so anyway that's that's Harris's phone call I want to dedicate this this is a sensibility that unfortunately or fortunately from your point of view did permeate Parks and Rec a little bit and I think practice date was a good showcase his first credited episode that is a little bit about Harris but we'll talk more and by the way for he's in and for people may not know he is in parks and rec as an actor of course yes he's part of the animal control group so it's i believe his character's name is harris harris and brett right is the him and colton dunner and the animal control so yeah he's he's in the show and he what he brought to the show is just this sense of fun very comedy comedy forward. Apologies for the blue language,

but sometimes Harris would say, motherfuckers just want to laugh, right? So we talk about story, we talk about character, we talk about all this stuff, but he would always push for the comedy. He would push for making the characters just fun and funny, and so you're having a good time watching the show. How does that

discussion go because i'm the same like when i like as the actor i'm like guys if people want plot and all that they can watch the dramas i'm watching i just want to laugh i honestly i don't i hate to say it i don't really care i'm struggling with it right and we're i'm working on a show right now and and we yeah it's a it's a tone issue right every show has sort of um a balance right you look at super super joke heavy shows you know like the ultimate is like an animated show like family guy or something that's all jokes no plot right no story no character they don't care about lessons you're not changing the characters they're not learning and then you go all the way to the other side now we look at comedies and you know like there's shows that

are a little bit more dramatic. Right. It's like, you know, a show like Atlanta is kind of like interesting and kind of whimsical and weird. But it's not they're not going for jokes or like Maisel or shows like that. Like, you know, Fleabag has jokes in it, but it's more a little bit more dramatic. And so there's a huge range. Right. There's a huge. So you have to pick the tone of your show. And I think we've seen that in the episodes we've covered in this show already in in parks and rec i think it started out a little bit quieter and then moved to a little bit more rollicking and fun and comedic and harris was

part of that and some of the other writers who joined season two aisha and kitty dippled and you know mike scully that they all contributed as well and and it's a balance because to me to me rob i totally get what you, where you're coming from. But I think as the writers of the show, and I think the showrunners of the show would say, um, you gotta,

you gotta care about the characters and you gotta care about the stories to be laughing in a lot of cases. And, and, and it's, it's that balance, right? And I actually,

there's a weird thing I worked on South park briefly and, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone ran that show, of course. And Trey Parker, he only wanted story pitches and like character pitches. And he's like, if you don't care about the characters, no one's laughing. And he's just like this very earnest piece of advice from Trey Parker, which you wouldn't expect. It's like the guy literally like writes jokes all the time. Right. But he's like, don't worry, like I'll write jokes and stuff. But what is the reality of the world we're living in?

And when it's consistent, then you're really onto something, I think. Yeah. And I think this episode is, um, has the perfect amount of that. Um, when you have these hitters, let them swing away, you know, and, and, uh, you know, I'm sure a lot of that montage stuff of Amy's in this episode is written and I'm sure some of it is just Amy just doing her thing. Yeah. And, and, and again, she gets to go bigger in this one which is really fun and um man you also get to learn

about jerry and donna a little bit more you know jerry has the sad sack routines going in this one um there's a potentially ill-advised bit but a bit in there nonetheless where donna admits she voted for david duke white supremacist so you know it's pretty broad but it's like but she's so high profile it's like oh that her reactions are so funny retta's reactions are so funny when it's like this shit just got real like she's react like like when they're digging up dirt on each other and she yeah she looks to camera rob's doing the look right now yeah but she does the look to camera retta's, without a question, the hall of fame of looks to camera, in no particular order,

are Adam Scott's sort of like vaguely confused, Aziz's gigantic eyed, smiley, excited, and Retta's like, I can't believe this is happening. This is great. Look. me the they those three you know you can't compete yeah i think it happens i think the first time it happens is is after tom reveals that ron's both of ron's ex-wives are named tammy and then he says this was that was a jaeger secret you breached a Jaeger secret. And then Donna just looks at the camera and she's like, yeah, this escalated a lot. But yeah, man, that was a delightful exchange. And then the talking head where Nick says, you know, why?

Yeah, my mom is also named Tammy. Why do you ask? It's just my mother's also named Tammy. That's a very good joke. Total deadpan. That's a very good joke. Total deadpan. What I was struck by was Tom Haverford is in full Tom Haverford mode now.

That crazy smile, wide-eyed look that eventually made its way into the opening credits. That's right. It's in there. And Drunk Leslie, as I've said before. Drunk Leslie is my favorite Leslie. When you let Amy Poehler play drunk, just stand back, get out of the way, because the magic is about to happen. She goes big in this one.

I forgot all that stuff, because it's like, she's really like, yeah, oh, it's like, oh, wait, we have this extremely funny person as the lead of the show. Like, let's let her go. She does all those bad, intentionally bad accents, right? English accents.

And she goes, she's playing drunk, and she gets to's playing drunk and she gets to do silly stuff and make stupid mistakes in the show and then on the b story side yeah you have those disease moments where he's really fun they're going nuts and you get ron playing saxophone at the end so again it's just a it's a rollicking episode it's like they really are you know i say they i guess i worked on the show, but it's like, they're really going for it. It's like, but, but, but it truly, you know, it, it cuts loose in a way that, that, uh, you know, embody the spirit that the show would take on. And so everyone gets a great moment. How about the one, another moment I love was, was, was Jerry finding out he's adopted. Like that happens

accidentally. Like there's just, yeah. The, the digging up dirt storyline like again that's that's an example to me of something that comes about organically like it's in the world it's like they're talking about public service they're talking about politicians then you hang a little bit of a story on it like what if we all dig up dirt on each other and then it becomes this character thing where you learn you it's a secret exposition you learn about all these different characters and they can be funny but you also deepen the relationship and how about the pathos at the end when ron finds out that you know tom has a green card marriage like that is that that punctures tom and that makes you feel for tom and they come to this truth and so all that stuff's like oh wow that stuff is really well constructed so kudos to the

people running the show you know tom haverford being the uh connoisseur of all things cool and hip and happening has a blackBerry in this episode. Man, yeah, he's using this BlackBerry. Remember that little ball? Remember the BlackBerry Pearl? Remember the little track ball? Now we're aging ourselves like a child. It's like, I've never seen what you guys are talking about.

But those BlackBerrys had like a sphere in the middle, like a rubber sphere that you would use. Sometimes computers would have those too anyway. The worst cameras ever. I mean, the worst cameras of all time. Well, and then at some point at the end, some lady comes up, an older lady comes up to Duke Silver and she uses, she has like a big digital camera.

No one has that. Like no one's taking that to a concert. It's like you use your phone, but yeah, he had a BlackBerry. That was really funny, man. So let's talk about Duke Silver. uh duke silver you gotta walk me through this you're in the writer's room and somebody goes i know ron swanson should have an alter ego and at that point people say you're fired i think correct me if i'm wrong i i've i've I looked in the research a little bit, and it either was pitched by Greg Daniels or Dana Gould, and if it was Greg, it's like, okay, Greg created the show, so no one can

fire him, but if it's Dana, it was like, well, maybe he could be fired. No, Dana was really funny. Dana was a consultant. He would come in like once or twice a week. He worked on The Simpsons, so he was, he just kind of like a stand-up who's been around forever like a legend of all comedy so regardless of who pitched it it is one of those things where like like we talked about a second ago you have to decide whether it's too crazy for the show whether it's too crazy for the world of the show like will it break the show and in this case it sort of just gave this other dimension and the show became a little bit more cartoony and that's okay like people really enjoyed that but I don't know it is I look back and I'm like i don't know if i would allow that but yeah it's funny man it certainly it certainly gives ron another dimension that's for that's for sure

um i don't think i ever had any in any interaction with duke silver and i so i obviously knew about it and i knew it was a thing but i don't think I'd ever really properly really seen it until rewatching this episode. And here's the thing that struck me was like, it's one thing to have him have this alter ego and it's so funny. This was smooth, jazzy, sort of sexy, very white, you know, patter that he has is great. sort of sexy very white you know patter that he has is great but then he literally says i've cultivated an image in the office very carefully and you're like oh wait so he's self-aware enough to know it wait wait wait and what are you saying are you saying that his office persona is something that's a pose that he's cultivated yeah it's very self-aware we also talk about that where you shouldn't have characters be aware of their

own characteristics in the show but you know look i think something that really pulled us through and sometimes pulls us pulls you through in many ways on a show is when the force of nature of the actor behind a role is so great. Yep. You can smooth other things like that. You can smooth other things like that where the writing isn't 100% perfect, detail perfect, everything's perfect for 100 episodes. When you have Nick Offerman and his look, his persona, his voice,

his acting level, his comedy, comedy his mustache everything about him when all of that is such a strong strong force it's almost like it's just gonna smooth everything over and i think that's the case with ron swanson because it's like it was to me look i think a lot of credit goes to the writers and to mike and for and greg for creating this character but man when you fuse that with nick offerman it's it's just so powerful. And people just accepted this Duke Silver thing as like, yeah, he plays jazz saxophone and Eagleton on the side. It's like, wait, what? And it happens in episode 10 of the show.

It's like season seven. It's like, fuck, we don't know what to do. Let's just make him a saxophone player. Episode 10. It's like, it's pretty soon. So no, it's a wild swing. And also, it sort of resolves a story where you just found out a guy's marriage is a sham like that is also funny like kind of goes from kind of serious to like a really wacky kind of ending but anyway it's it's it was a

joy to watch and then it kind of it dovetailed with the a story in a great way where i i love the story turn at the end where, you know, Dave, Officer Dave comes in and is like, you know, well, don't be so nervous about your first date because tonight's actually our second date. You know, it's like we hung out and like, you know, that was actually touching and then it just kind of ends. But yeah, that stuff all worked for me. I thought that was one of the running bits i have about the show is is gifts parties and jobs like the show is just gifts parties and jobs and like maybe we should add secret persona because like so many people have secret personas on the show like like we're like there's there's there's burt macklin and duke silver obviously but there's

janet snakehole for for for aubrey and then by the way ben white who joins the show later with you he has like 10 secret things that he does he like does claymation he wants to start a calzone restaurant i mean like there's just everyone has so many interests it's like man they just have so many interests on this show greg you you must know how all of this was put in. What secret sauce do you have to share with our listening peeps? If I remember correctly, I believe Greg Daniels pitched Duke Silver, but it was one of those moments in the writer's room when everyone was just pitching on what his album should be called, that Dana Gould shouted from across the room,

Hi-ho, Duke, and it immediately was typed into the script. It's a legendary joke because his name is Duke Silver. We obviously go Hi-Ho Silver, but Hi-Ho Duke is really funny. I just remember that. Hi-Ho Duke. And I wanted to make a comment too about what you were saying about the alternate personas.

I remember Greg Daniels saying in the room that with a character comedy, people love the character. You'll kind of love them doing anything. And so there was a lot of time spent in the early days getting people to love these characters so that when Ron Swanson becomes Duke Silver or when Andy Dwyer becomes Burt Macklin, people are like, yes, this is incredible. I must see more of it. This is also the introduction of one of my favorite satellite characters, Perd Happley.

Just one of the characters that was the most fun to write for, because he has a very small joke in this one where he's like, and now in a story that just won't stop unfolding, or something similar to that. And then we took that, this is an example of what happens on a comedy right you take one line a character has and then in the future episodes you're like well all we have is that one line let's just turn whatever he did that one line into some crazy like personality for his entire character and so later we just had him talk in circles about you know every line he ever had was incredibly circuitous and just never got to the point but but yeah it was casting jay jackson i guess was a newscaster

so it was you know like he just felt like a newscaster and one of our favorite moments i think in casting the show you know sometimes we'd watch the tapes from from our casting director and and you know watch him in the room and so he read this audition for for pert happily and because he was a newscaster he did it the way a newscaster would so we gave him the line and he began his line like holding a microphone and he said three two one now when a story that is not you know that will never stop developing three two one this story will not stop but he just kept he would say he would 3, 2, 1 before reading the line, which no one else did because they were all actors pretending to be newscasters. Jay Jackson was a newscaster. I love that because that's, you know, there are a lot of people who, I'm sure a lot of

actors out there listening to this, and it just goes to show you that, like, if you can figure out something special to do in an audition, man, the sky's the limit. It's a good tip. And make sure that swing connects. And you also see him in big budget movies. So sometimes he's in Fast and Furious and he's just a newscaster. I like to pretend he's Pert Happily. It's just like he's in that universe too.

They're all in the same universe. But I think in later seasons, he's playing P he oh you know he's playing per happy he's playing a newscaster and part of the joke was that he had this incredible voice this incredible presence this incredible cadence that was unmistakable but i think he at a certain point like am i just going to keep playing this character so we'd always have him do the lines as purred and sometimes he would just kind of read it more like a normal guy and then i would just sometimes i go to him like you got to read this one like a newscaster he's like okay to read it like a newscaster it's like yeah that's the bit man well that you know it's

funny because that is one of the things about about parks and rec that i struggled with um is there's like kind of a i don't know how to put this because it's not a negative it's not but like i was like when i started playing chris i was like so i'm and i'm gonna be like super positive in this scene too yeah i know and and you realize no no that's the thing yeah you play that this is an orchestra that is your instrument play that instrument And it really makes it work. And it's like, the more you try to overcomplicate it, the more you try to, it's an interesting discipline to be able to be okay with playing a note that is very similar over and over and over again. That's a great way of putting it.

And look, ideally, ideally, if you're hopefully writing the show correctly and shaping it correctly, you get to play different scales and different keys with that instrument, right? You can play a lot of interesting stuff with one instrument. You know, Rob, like I think that's a great metaphor because you can have great solo flute. You can have a great solo violin. But, you know, and we never wanted to box actors in and be like no you're doing every line the same way look part happily is different from chris or different from like ron swanson or or or you know whoever so but but you know look the the the more character has to do the the more range they can show and yeah you know we saw we eventually did show chris gets sad we showed chris fall in love we showed

chris's heart gets get broken and all that stuff. So, you know, look, yes, we, we never want an actor to feel like they're boxed in and feel like that. Oh man,

I, everything, every line reads the same, but at the same time, you're right. It all kind of works in concert. That's what's beautiful about an ensemble show like this is, is the pieces do fit together.

And if suddenly Chris is super negative for seven episodes, like it's, it throws everything out of balance. It's, it's, it's, it's instruments in an orchestra or ingredients in a recipe. Right. So that's a, that's an interesting observation. And I totally sympathize with actors being like, oh, same thing every episode. We'll try our best to not have it be that, but you know. That said, I'd love to see Pert Happley doing his acting thing. That would have been great. Hapley doing his acting thing. That would have been great. Pert Hapley, I think, I believe, is a jazz singer of some kind. I feel like in one of the rap parties, he sang with Duke Silver and Mouserat. By the way, Duke Silver would play with Mouserat at the rap parties sometimes. That's another insane thing about the show. But yeah, he would come out and play

saxophone. I remember that, too. It was very, very wild. Kept using all the ingredients, all the characters. I would say to nick is is duke silver playing did i be i don't know i have to ask him that's oh man now is is it my imagination or is pratt not in this episode oh wow i think you're right and this is actually also interesting like this weirdly has to do with contract stuff yes this is get gets into weird behind the scenes business stuff but i do remember at some point it was like look some of these actors are 7 out of 13 or 10 out of 13 and not 13 out of 13 and that means episodes right so you don't have to pay them for all those episodes and in fact you are not budgeted to pay them so if you have

them then you have to pay them extra and it's not out of the budget so i remember there was something really funny season i think either season one or season two but it was saying who was seven of 13 and 10 out of 13 and there was just these moments of i i feel like a pa would come in production just to bring in like a card that said all the actors and how many episodes they were booked for and yeah i remember mike being really surprised it was like it was like aziz is 7 out of 13 it wasn't that it was something like that that was like wait a minute we don't have like it wasn't polar because she was all episodes but like yeah it was someone really like big characters like nick or whoever just like 7 out of 13 it makes no sense like it just doesn't make any sense at all but yeah pratt pratt look pratt

was bumped from a guest star uh season one to a regular season two so i i don't think he was all episodes he wasn't all episodes produced so yeah he's just not in this one so sad for pratt i mean what happened to that guy i know it just ruined his career i i again i just love the by the way it's so funny that that ann as a nurse has a lot of time on her hands to be at the Parks and Rec department. That always made us laugh. Like, why is Anne there? Is she really a nurse? Does she have like a secret identity?

Is she not a nurse? Is she lying? Like, that was fun. That was fun too. We used to pitch on what her real job was. What was the, when Ron Swanson gives his, his, his scientific scale of hotness in the episode, and at the top of the hotness is Steffi Graf. That was really funny.

Man, I forget who pitched that. I think it might have been Dan Gore. But this was also, by the way, before we realized, before we entered it into canon, that he loved pretty brunette women and breakfast food basically like he loved brunette women but steffi graf made it to the top so i think like there's some sort of element of disconnect there but we we let it slide because i think he just likes he loves like the wnba he loves like strong women he like does not want a shrinking violet and like steffi graf like

a perfect perfect joke at the end of that that was really funny like i took me by surprise i forgot was there any other pitches you remember for god i don't know i think it was a lot of like athletes i think it was like strong women like people who were just like something about stephy graph also like not just a very successful athlete but just no nonsense like you were it's just like yeah man i'm the best and like just really good at my job and like graceful but also just really strong and fluid but yeah that just see i feel like when that guy pitches like it's going in just like put it in the script

you do you know that in the room when when everybody's pitching and one is clearly the one it's a relief it's like yeah let's move on so i yeah i think we talked about this briefly but the way it's set up kind of is is there's a there's a anyway in the parks and rec writers room there was a a main computer with a keyboard that would be at the sort of head of the table and there was a long like banquet style table and then the other writers would sit around this table and there were other monitors that showed the screen but did not have keyboards so basically the person running the room you know at the times typically mike sometimes it was dan and then later seasons of some other people as well um but yeah we would go through

the script you know we're in final draft looking at the script and okay we're on this joke everyone goes around and we just pitch on the we just pitch on on the joke. And, and, you know, yeah, it's, it's some jokes would take hours. Some jokes would take two minutes. Some jokes would take literally hours. And it was like, oh, this is, um, really, uh, really difficult, but yeah. And, and, and we started, so like, you know, that, that kind of system they used on the office. And I think it's pretty common with shows and, and, you know, we would, we would do variations of it, right? Like on Master of None, we would sometimes, if we were working out of someone's house, we would just put up, you know, on Apple TV, we'd put up the screen on the Apple TV,

and everyone could just sit around the couch and pitch. And so it's like, oh, it's a smaller room. Like, you can just hang out. It's a little less formal. But yeah, for a show like that, at a certain point, I think season two, we got above 10 writers. Then it's like, okay, we're using this kind of banquet table setup. And so when Greg Daniels pitches, he's got air superiority. I mean, right?

But I feel like he, but here's the thing about this room in particular, and I thought it was a great thing. Those guys don't have egos like that. They just don't have egos like that. They're really not just diplomatic because that expresses a sort of meaning where they're just listening but like they were genuinely curious what other people had to say they were interested in other people other people's opinions and they valued them and so look ultimately they're going to make the decisions but it wasn't

like hey that's my pitch it's going in it's like well let's is this the best pitch like is this like is this the funniest is this hitting with the most people because you might you might think even if you're the showrunner you might like think like oh that joke is my favorite but if you got 10 writers and they seem to really vastly prefer a different joke you might pick that other joke because you're weighing your own opinion against theirs so that that's where it kind of comes into play like oh i might not get this one but hey this one seems to hit amongst younger people or or whatever whatever demographic and and and that that that works in that sense so yeah greg would never force stuff in i mean he would he

would he he loved to just hang out and by this point i think season two i think it was largely mike at the keyboard anyway so i think think Greg was just like having it. Greg would come over and have fun on Parks. He would just have fun because it's like he wasn't, I think he was more stressed out about the office. I think like at a certain point he was running the office when it was ending. He's like, oh my God, I got to end the office. Like how much pressure is that?

And meanwhile, he'd come over to Parks and like, it's a bunch of young kids having fun and Mike was helping run the room and really, you know, running stuff. So that was really, that was really easy for him. Amazing. I feel like we need to hear from the people. Let's do it. Let's take a trip into the Pawnee Town Hall. Where do you want to do the town hall this week?

What part of town? Lake Wawasee. Okay, great. We're doing it by the lake. This question comes from Rosalind from Rosemead. I like the alliteration there. Who are your favorite pop culture politicians outside of parks and recreation

and the west wing the two shows that you worked on rob who are your favorite pop culture politicians oh for there's not oh but he's not a politician who are you thinking of i was gonna jack donaghy of 30 rock yeah he seems like a he seems like a politician he's not fun fact they were gonna they were gonna do do another show with him where he runs for mayor. So you're in the vicinity. They didn't end up doing that show, but they almost did that.

I got a couple. One I like is Clay Davis from The Wire. A really, really fun one, man. His great tagline, great catchphrase, just the word shit, extended a long time. So Clay Davis, really just a horrible guy too just a horrible character um uh really good who else who else it would be oh i gotta i i got a really good one i i just had to google his full name just because i uh um i really want

to read the whole thing you guys remember a movie called idiocracy oh there's a president named president duane elizondo mountain dew herbert camacho so that is played by terry cruz he's got the machine gun he's got the long hair so that's uh i'm going with that that movie idiocracy is first of all it's all true and um that movie's amazing that movie is absolutely i had dax shepherd on on literally yeah um my podcast and um and we talked about idiocracy at length because that if you haven't seen it um it's not a perfect movie by any means but it is absolutely riddled with genius it's got enough good stuff in there and it's like now that movie is like a little bit older. So you watch it like, wow, that is like sadly true. It's, it's, it's really, it's, it's, it's almost like a series of sketches, but it's really fun. It's, it's really funny, man. Yeah. And my Rudolph in that movie and yeah, it's been a bunch of really funny people. There's,

there's a bunch of presidents that like are honorable mentions for me where it's like the president independence day, the president air Day, the president Air Force One, the president. What's Bill Pullman Independence Day? God help our nation, whatever the hell. He's got that great speech. Yeah, legendary speech. Get off my plane, Air Force One, of course.

Get off my plane. There's a lot of good ones, man. There's a lot of good ones. I know I don't answer every town hall question, but this is one I got to answer. I got to pop in. I love politics and I love politically set things. I'm not allowed to talk about the West Wing, although it is my favorite. President Bartlett at the top. However, to follow the rules, I have to call out Dave from Dave. Have to. It's an amazing movie, an amazing role, amazing character. And, of course, Andrew Shepard, the American president.

Just a beautiful, beautiful romantic comedy. Highly recommend. And this is just coming in on the wire. Schultes is calling out Bullworth. And, of course, he's absolutely right. Back to you. That was great. That's it.

That's all we got for this episode. We got nothing more. All right, cool. Yeah, join us next week. We got another great episode and equally mediocre hosting all coming up for you next week. That's not the way to be a bragger, Rob. I got scared. I don't want to be called a bragger.

I don't want to do a humble brag. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell a friend. Thanks to producer Greg and producer Schulte. Goodbye from Pawnee. Bye, everybody. you get your podcasts and tell a friend thanks to producer greg and producer schulte goodbye bye everybody this episode of parks and recollection is produced by greg levine and me rob schulte our coordinating producer is lisa berm the podcast is executive produced by Alan Yang for Alan Yang Productions, Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher.

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