First of all, we have plenty of food.
There are not dozens of escaped convicts.
And at no time was any Parks Department worker feasting
on petting zoo animals.
This is Parks and Recreation, a mockumentary-style,
single-camera sitcom about the Parks Department led
by Leslie Knope in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana.
Although Parks and Recreation is now a fan favorite,
it famously took a while to find its footing
and connect with audiences.
Most viewers agree Parks and Rec is
a show that you have to power through until,
of course, season 3, episode 7, Harvest Festival, when
the show finally clicked.
Seven days over 30 different locations and four hospitality
kiosks.
God, I gotta stop ending on that boring thing.
Parks and Recreation had a seven-season run from 2009
to 2015 and initially started as a spinoff to The Office,
but eventually had to be adapted because co-creators Greg
Daniels and Michael Schur couldn't find a way to make
the worlds fit together.
After the first season had mixed reviews,
the writers realized they had to change the format
and tone if they wanted the show to survive.
Schur said in a perfect world, no one would discuss a new TV
show until it had aired eight episodes,
and the creative team had already
worked out all the kinks.
Luckily, fans and even NBC were willing to put up
with over 30 episodes of a half-baked Office lookalike.
My God, these could be tracings.
The first six episodes of season 3
are building up anticipation for the Harvest Festival.
Leslie is trying to convince Chris and Ben to give the Parks
Department more money from the town's budget.
She's hospitalized by the flu, and they're
combating a media frenzy over Ben's failure
as a teen mayor, while also trying to positively promote
the festival.
So the stakes are high.
I really wish you guys could see this guy right now.
He is drawn-ched in sweat.
The Harvest Festival opens with Leslie introducing everyone
to Pawnee celebrity miniature horse, Lil Sebastian.
Everyone is thrilled.
Even Ron Swanson breaks his normally stoic facade
with a childlike giggle.
[HIGH-PITCHED LAUGHTER]
Ben is the only outlier, spending
the entire episode confused about Lil Sebastian's appeal.
So what am I missing?
What's the deal with this pony?
Ben's character started as what was
meant to be a brief guest spot as a grumpy bureaucrat sent
to fix Pawnee.
This episode sets up Ben as the perfect straight man
for the rest of the series, voicing
the perspective of the audience in a charming and sensible way.
He becomes a permanent fixture on the show
and a complementary love interest for Leslie.
And watching them flirt as they work together
to put on the Harvest Festival is one of many ways
the show took something cynical and turned it into something
optimistic.
Immediately, the main conflict in Leslie and Ben's storyline
is introduced-- the curse.
The chief of the native Wamapoke tribe Ken Hotate
threatens to curse the festival if it isn't moved off
the site of a historic Wamapoke massacre.
Leslie refuses because she knows that the curse is fake
and because the entirety of Pawnee
is host to historic Wamapoke massacres.
The atrocities are in blue.
Yikes.
Compared to earlier seasons, Leslie's character
has become an intelligent and strong leader,
handling the conflict with poise and tenacity.
In the first season, she starts out as foolish and incapable.
But by season three, she's become smart, strong,
and endlessly optimistic.
Her failings come from a trusting and naive nature
because she believes in the best characteristics of everyone
she's around.
Leslie started out as more of a Michael Scott archetype,
but changing her to be his opposite
is what saved the show.
Her kindness, intelligence, and joy
is exactly what audiences needed.
In this episode, she is faced with obstacle after obstacle
and handles each of them quickly and brilliantly.
One person who set out to make Leslie's job impossible
is Joan Callamezzo.
She comes to the festival determined
to find a salacious story, finding it
when Ben lets it slip about the curse, which is seemingly
becoming more real throughout the episode.
So what is this about a curse?
Hmm?
Curse?
What?
Nothing.
Did you--
Tom Haverford adds more coals to Joan's fire
when he tells Leslie that Jerry lost Lil Sebastian.
Jerry's storyline in this episode masterfully
brings all the characters' storylines together
and weaves them into the cohesive ensemble that
continues on for the remainder of the series.
Tom, Ron, April, and Andy are all
roped into searching for Lil Sebastian around the festival
grounds.
Everyone is in conflict, and the festival is skirting disaster.
Tom keeps trying to throw Jerry under the bus, which everyone
enthusiastically gets on board with.
(CHANTING) Jerry's fault, Jerry's fault, Jerry's fault.
Stop it!
Jerry has been the punching bag of the entire series,
but this episode turned him into a lovable punching bag.
This is a small, but notable shift
that the entire series moves from cynicism to optimism,
starting with how they treat Jerry Gergich.
This is also apparent in the tonal
shift of April's character.
April could have stayed a one-dimensional sullen
teenager, but the writers shifted and made her
into a delightfully weird and sarcastic counterpart to Andy's
uplifting and childlike behavior.
Watching her be vulnerable as she falls in love with Andy
throughout the rest of the series
really kicks off in this episode.
And audiences get to fall in love with her, as Andy does.
Hey, I love you.
Dude, shut up!
That is awesome sauce.
The media frenzy continues, establishing
how both the media and the townspeople of Pawnee
are really the main antagonists of the show.
This helps continue the tone as Leslie
and the Parks Department are people
who are doing everything they possibly can to make Pawnee
a better place to live.
But the people who live there are constantly
demanding the impossible and refusing to be helped.
This concept was something that audiences
could latch on to more easily.
It was easier to laugh at stupid residents
getting in their own way and obsessing
over the wrong things, like a phony curse that
ends through a phony cleansing ceremony,
then it was to laugh at incompetent bureaucrats.
Wow.
Thank you.
Intense stuff from Ken Hotate.
Michael Schur realized he needed to care more
about the story than individual jokes
when he said jokes are pointless and empty if the story doesn't
hold together, where the characters are generally
positive, and the comedy comes from goofiness and satire,
instead of cattiness and negativity.
The writers realized that the cynical tone that
worked in the corporate America setting of The Office
did not translate to a new setting of local government.
Earlier seasons of Parks and Rec consistently reminded
viewers of the failings of their administration,
incompetent civil servants, and left audiences
with a disappointment for the world they lived in.
Even with choosing a relatively non-offensive department
of government, the show still needed to find its heart.
This project, this is as much yours as it is mine.
It's ours.
And I'm glad you're here.
The Harvest Festival inspired the heart
of the show to soften from a story of unlikable government
workers into one of well-rounded people compelled to do good.
Our ensemble cast is well defined by this episode
and each character is given a thoughtful storyline
and balanced screentime.
They turned from one-note apathetic employees
into three-dimensional characters with goals,
wants, and emotions for the rest of the series.
The storylines are interwoven and have high stakes
within the world of the show.
And each character have specific dynamics
and a unique relationship with each other.
This episode encapsulates this perfectly
through the resolution of the episode.
Everyone is trapped on the Ferris wheel,
arguing about their differences, when
serious, authoritative, libertarian Ron
Swanson mediates and heals everyone's relationships,
forcing them to apologize and finally be
able to rescue Lil Sebastian.
Everyone apologize to everyone else!
At the end of the day, this episode
is a turning point for Parks and Recreation,
where we get to see the show become
a truly feel-good show led by a delightfully positive Leslie
Knope.
Michael Schur said, I find the world
so tumultuous and hardscrabble and generally terrifying
that I will never tire of stories about people
caring for each other and doing nice things for each other,
and in a very basic way, trying to make each other feel less
alone on Earth, which is exactly what Parks and Recreation does
best.
That's all we have for this week.
Is there anything we missed?
What's your favorite episode of Parks and Rec?
Let us know in the comments below.
And if you want to stick around, there
are a couple of links in the player window.
Feel free to click on those.
And thanks for watching Nerdstalgic.