‘Nick Offerman and I used to make out every year for the blooper reel’: Oral history of Parks and Recreation
Can you believe it’s been 15 years since we first visited Pawnee? Beginning back in April 2009, offbeat mockumentary Parks and Recreation first welcomed us to this weird and wonderful fictional town, courtesy of its relentlessly optimistic parks deputy director Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler).
Together with her mustachioed boss Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), beautiful best friend Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), entrepreneurial assistant Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), utterly over-it intern April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza), loveable layabout Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) and the rest of the show’s colourful ensemble, Knope and her adventures in small-fry bureaucracy gave us a comedic look inside the frequently bizarre and often all-too-relatable world of local politics.
That’s the elevator pitch. However, over time, Parks and Rec became so much more than a fly-on-the-wall workplace comedy that started its life as a spin-off idea, capitalising on the success of America’s take on The Office. Under the guidance of that show’s boss, Greg Daniels, Parks and Rec co-creator and writer Michael Schur defied near-constant cancellation threats to transform his new show into a fully realised world, packed with scene-stealing regulars, big-name guests like Paul Rudd, Bill Murray and Michelle Obama, and more moments of genuine heart than even its cast expected to find.
Its cheery vibe escaped screens and translated directly to viewers, too. Whenever real life gets a bit much, many of us often find solace in the comedy comfort food of sitcoms – and no show is more incessantly happy, uplifting and restorative than Parks and Rec.
So, as the series turns 15 years old, we return to Pawnee to catch up with many of its key players, including co-creator Schur and stars Poehler, Ansari, Jones and Jim O’Heir (aka office klutz Jerry/Gary/Larry/Terry Gergich), to reflect on the show’s rocky beginnings, eccentric world-building, impromptu dance parties, political guest stars and lasting legacy of hope.
After achieving what many deemed impossible and translating Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s gamechanger ‘The Office’ into an American TV megahit, showrunner Greg Daniels enlists ‘The US Office’ writer Michael Schur to start work on a new show with a similar mockumentary style
Michael Schur (co-creator): Greg Daniels was my mentor and taught me everything I know about writing half-hour TV. The British version of The Office was, among comedy writers at least, the most revered piece of art that had been created for TV. He had taken on the challenge of adapting it [for American audiences] and literally everyone thought it was a terrible idea. However, he’s so thoughtful about the way he broke things down to figure out how to Americanise it that [The US Office] became one of the most successful TV shows of all time.
Amy Poehler (Leslie Knope): I had been on Saturday Night Live for seven or eight seasons and knew I was looking for a life change. Then Mike Schur came to me with this idea. It definitely felt nerve-wracking but also a great next thing to do. Saturday Night Live is great but you have to know when to move on, so it was just great timing.
Rashida Jones (Ann Perkins): As far as I remember, it was never really going to be a spin-off of The Office. I think people just thought that because I was the common factor [having played Karen in The US Office] but there were so many rumours about what this was or wasn’t going to be and they were figuring it out in real time.
Schur: One of Greg’s many theories is that the premise of a show should be very boring so the thing that’s interesting is its characters. It’s a very smart observation. Local government is a very dull setting for a show but in 2007/2008, we were coming off of the world collapsing. The financial crisis had hit, the world’s financial markets were teetering and America was coming out of this 25-year fever dream that said free market economics was the answer to all the world’s problems – and that predictably blew up in everyone’s face. Suddenly everyone was, hilariously, turning to the government for help.
Poehler: We were coming off of this “Yes we can” post-Obama optimism of “one person can make a difference” and [the show] was really about the Sisyphean task of a person with power feeling like they can make change. That was Leslie’s giant [character] arc – how do you stay engaged and not get corrupted by the fact that local government often feels like a futile attempt at staring into nothingness?
Schur: Greg and I made a pretty safe bet that for better or for worse, people were going to be caring a lot more about their governments and paying attention to the ways in which their governments helped them or hurt them. It wasn’t exactly an Office spin-off but the tone and the ethos behind it was.
With his concept locked down, Schur started recruiting his Parks Department staffers, led by Poehler’s tirelessly optimistic Leslie Knope. ‘Parks and Recreation’ made its debut at 8.30pm on 9 April on NBC and it wasn’t long before Schur discovered he was onto a winning formula. However, critics had other ideas…
Aziz Ansari (Tom Haverford): They really liked this one sketch about viral internet videos that [his comedy troupe Human Giant] did and basically cast me off of that. I don’t think [the character was pitched]; I feel like I just read the script and it was like, ‘You’re this guy!’ I trusted [Schur and Daniels] based on their track record and was more excited about them than anything – and, of course, the cast seemed really great. I knew Aubrey [Plaza, played April] and was very excited about Amy being our lead.
Poehler: Lowering the power that Leslie had but raising the stakes was always super fun. I just thought, oh, I think I can play her. She’s optimistic in that she does believe there can be an answer to something but what was great for comedy is that she was often just trying to get things done to get even, a leg up or gain some sort of power. She was no saint and that was fun to play. It was a dream job. I got to go into a room with people I loved, point at them and tell them what to do.
Jim O’Heir (Jerry/Gary/Terry/Barry Gurgich): I initially auditioned for Ron Swanson but two weeks later, I got a call saying they wanted me to consider auditioning for Jerry. My agents didn’t know if I should do it because they’d been told that they didn’t know what was going to happen with this character and they didn’t want me to feel like an extra. I thought, these are the guys who did The Office and I knew what had happened to Kevin, Phyllis, Stanley, Angela. All of those side characters had become major players. For me it was a no-brainer. I said: “I’ll risk it.”
Schur: We started with Leslie and then thought, who should surround her? She needs a very apathetic intern and then you meet Aubrey Plaza and are like: “Yep. That’s who that should be.” She was a left-of-centre progressive idealist so her boss should be a right-of-centre libertarian who doesn’t believe in anything that she’s doing, then you meet Nick Offerman, look at his moustache and you’re like: “That’s the guy.”
Poehler: Working with Nick was a gift. He uses five words when Leslie uses 100. He’s super private and Leslie lives everything out loud so it was super fun to bounce up against him. I would literally often be poking, pushing or getting in his space physically. Nick’s a big imposing guy, even though anyone who knows him knows he’s a giggly softy, but he has a lot of typically masculine qualities – he can build a boat and has a moustache. It was really fun to dance with him as a character and a person.
Jones: Leslie is such a leadership-forward, controlling optimist who’s always corralling and recruiting people for her own idealistic fantasies and I was the foil for her, or the straight man. I’m not sure how far the writers got in thinking she’d start to buy into Leslie’s contagious excitement but to begin with [Ann] was just this person who has a problem and wants somebody to fix it, then she becomes charmed by how much Leslie is giving her. I think [the writers] thought it’d be a nice balance.
