Parks and Recreation quietly became a cult favorite thanks to its cast of quirky, eclectic
characters and hilarious one-liners.
Whether you're a devoted super fan or a relative newcomer to Pawnee, Indiana, we've got plenty
of juicy behind-the-scenes details.
Speaking of juicy…
"This Snake Juice is basically rat poison!"
Welcome to Pawnee
It's probably no surprise that Parks and Recreation was initially conceived as a spin-off of The
Office.
With its low-key tone, hyper realism, and mockumentary format, Parks and Recreation
looks a lot like The Office.
The two hit TV series also have cast member Rashida Jones in common, and both shows sprung
from the minds of Office writer Michael Schur and creator Greg Daniels.
But how much do you really know about Parks and Recreation's birth story?
"Absolutely nothing."
In 2008, reports surfaced that SNL star Amy Poehler was considering joining a spin-off
of The Office, alongside comedian Aziz Ansari.
Soon after, Deadline reported that Daniels resisted NBC's request for a pure spin-off
in favor of a show that was just stylistically similar.
At one point, that series was going to be called Public Service, before producers settled
on Parks and Recreation.
The series also drew inspiration from another acclaimed NBC predecessor: The West Wing – the
White House-set drama that co-starred Rob Lowe as presidential adviser Sam Seaborn.
Lowe claims the brain trust incorporated his old show's DNA into his new show.
He told Entertainment Weekly:
"When the Parks and Recreation producers were asked to develop a spinoff for The Office,
they said, 'Let's do the comedy version of West Wing.'"
I thought, 'Wow, that makes perfect sense.'
It seemed like a good fit."
Johnny Karate 4ever
Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt played lovable goofball Andy Dwyer, a role that originally
wasn't supposed to last more than a handful of episodes - but according to GQ, because
Pratt played the character with such, quote, "wide-eyed, open-hearted glee," producers
decided to keep him on the show through its season finale.
"The hardest part of living in this pit is probably keeping my suit pressed… and the
rats."
Towards the end of Parks and Recreation's run, Pratt's star in Hollywood rose exponentially,
thanks to roles in movies ranging from the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy to
the Osama bin Laden drama Zero Dark Thirty.
Despite becoming a mega-movie star, Pratt never considered ditching the show that made
him famous.
At a Television Critics Association event in 2015, he admitted:
"I would never f------ ever leave this show!"
Script?
What script?
What do the following Parks and Recreation bits have in common?
An ill Chris orders his body to "stop pooping."
"Stop… pooping!"
Andy enters Leslie's flu symptoms into the URL bar of a web browser and diagnoses her
with "network connectivity problems."
"Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the thing up here, and it says you could have 'network
connectivity problems.'"
The Parks Department staff goes off the rails under the influence of the brutal liquor known
as Snake Juice.
"You don't even know ONE thing.
I didn't even say ONE thing.
And she asked me the WHOLE thing, and I didn't even do it ONCE!"
Not only are these three of the funniest sequences in the entirety of Parks and Recreation, but
they were also all improvised.
At a cast reunion at PaleyFest 2019, creator and showrunner Michael Schur discussed "fun
runs," a shooting policy wherein the crew tried to leave five minutes at the end of
the shooting of a scene, quote, "for the actors to just do whatever they want."
Once in a while, those improv explosions would generate new lines and new jokes, and then
cast and crew would shoot the scene again with that spontaneous golden material.
There can be only one
Jim O'Heir plays everybody's favorite punching bag, Garry - or Jerry, or Larry, or even Terry
- Gergich.
"It's pointillism.
And each dot is a photo of a citizen of the town."
"No one cares - at all!
Hahahahahaha!"
While it's hard to imagine O'Heir in any other role, he originally auditioned to play Ron
Swanson.
O'Heir told Uproxx:
"You never know who's going to be in a room for an audition, so I always try to be prepared.
I had heard Greg Daniels was going to be in the room.
That adds to the pressure.
I put in a lot of time into the audition process.
I think my take was stern like Nick, but I feel like I was more affable."
The role, of course, went to Gergich's eventual co-star, Nick Offerman.
In retrospect, Gergich admits the show made the right choice.
The actor admitted,
"The thought of anyone else playing the character other than Nick Offerman is beyond absurd."
Darn tootin'.
"Keep your tears in your eyes, where they belong."
Race against time
At the end of Season 6, Parks and Recreation unexpectedly jumped three years into the future.
The sudden time lapse was jarring for a number of reasons, particularly because actress Amy
Poehler's character had become pregnant with triplets.
As it turns out, babies played a key role in the decision to fast-forward the script.
Parks Co-Star Retta told Vulture:
"I saw Amy Poehler at Aziz Ansari's birthday party and she was like, 'I'm not working with
babies, so I told them we're doing a time jump so I don't have to work with babies.'
She was like, 'I just had two kids.
I've had my share of babies for the last three years.
I'm not doing another year of babies.
Especially triplets.'"
That decision wound up opening doors creatively for the show, and it allowed the cast and
crew to skip all of the "new parents" sitcom tropes.
Writer Michael Schur told Yahoo!:
"We could skip the pregnancy, the birth, all that stuff.
And also just in general, the idea of Leslie taking a new job, we'd already seen that … So
it was like, 'Oh, we can skip three years of that!'"
I'm the Maverick
Parks and Recreation character Ben Wyatt is a man of passion.
He's really into '90s band Letters to Cleo, calzones, Batman, and table-top games.
During a brief period of unemployment in Season 6, he utilizes his love of games to create
a bewildering, inscrutable, prop-heavy concoction called The Cones of Dunshire.
"Presenting the Cones of Dunshire, a brand new gaming experience."
Among its intricacies: Eight to 12 players roll dice to … uhh… well, to see how many
dice they'll roll.
The goal is to acquire cones by building a civilization.
It all seems too comically absurd to ever be a workable game, and yet people keep trying
to make a real-world version of The Cones of Dunshire.
Settlers of Catan publisher Mayfair Games, which built the game at the behest of the
show, even attempted a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a retail version.
It fell short of its target, but at GenCon 2014 in Indiana, Mayfair offered exactly 33
tickets to fans who wanted to play.
All those tickets sold, even at a price of $100 each.
Proceeds were donated to the Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana.
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