PARKS and RECREATION aka "Everything's coming up Amy"

http://i42.tinypic.com/1o5zx5.jpg

Here's hoping the show is actually good and keeps running so I won't have dedicated a thread to it for no reason.

I like good TV shows, but an hour a night is about right for sofa taterin' and I've got that on Thursday already.

u gonna hold that against parks & rec

Not if it's really good. Might drop The Office, though, if it doesn't pick back up.

this is like sophie's choice

so far... waaaaay too similar in tone to The Office.

Shouldn't be too hard to fix, though.

this wasn't funny

the office has enough characters to keep things fresh even tho all the jokes hit the same note, and this one has... 5 characters? obv more will be introduced but man that first ep was rough

Naw it was fine

aziz was funny actually

Parks & Recreation is the most talked about new comedy on television!

"It was fine!" - n/a
"this is ... choice!" - s1ocki
"It's really good!" - Oilyrags

Needs more Loudon Wainwright!

i thought it was pretty funny and great

is rashida jones hot in it?

pretty hot pretty great

The first episode of The Office was weaksauce too, mostly because it was a rehash of the UK version. Greg Daniels' jokes aren't funny on the surface. The funny comes when you know the characters (which we don't yet).

pretty hot pretty great

― Mr. Que, Thursday, April 9, 2009 9:19 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

ok that's a relief

xpost: I'm really glad they shelved Michael's hair plugs.

Couldn't get through this episode.

echo the 'it was okay' sentiments. laughed at the covering up of the violent parts of the mural.

I kinda liked the park dept manager who wanted to privatize the whole park dept. But overall, yeah, pretty thin gruel.

They must've known he's the real gold, since they did his little thing over the end credits.

I liked it. I hope Amy can walk the Michael Scott of seasons 1-2 line of balancing cringe-induction and geniuine lulz. That might be the dorkiest thing I've ever said, in a long line of dorky sentences. Anyway. Pancakes!

"This is where the rubber of government meets the road of actual human beings."

how is this show different from the office

like i am watching the pilot and amy poehler is exactly like michael scott, what's the point

(a: rashida jones)

There were times this week I thought "okay, this is actually getting better and can be good" and then there were times I thought "Jesus, why am I watching this? What else is on?"

i give it six more weeks

This needs to be completely retooled and fast.

There was an article last week in Entertainment Weekly saying that the pilot had been rewritten and shot several times so it would be less like The Office. Can;t even imagine how that must have been.

wau

yeah that was like

Maybe it was originally funnier?

"According to an early test screening of the pilot — results of which leaked online last month — many viewers felt Parks was ''too close and similar to The Office.'' But the Parks department claims the data was based on an extremely early version of the pilot — one that bears little resemblance to what viewers will see on April 9. ''By the time we had even gotten the results of the testing back, we had done, like, five more edits of the pilot,'' says Schur. ''The only thing that matters at all is the final product, and it's going to be very, very different from the version that was thrown in front of a group of people.''

Glad they got that all fixed before the premiere, was hardly like the Office at all.:/

My wife walked into the room, watched the show for like 5 seconds, and asked me whether the Office had a bunch of new characters. She had no idea that an Office spin-off had been created, and Rashida Jones wasn't even in that scene.

The tone is very similar to the Office, but the writing and acting are noticeably inferior. It's not good.

yeah not impressed so far- I expected them to get more mileage from the dour small town bureaucracy vibe but so far this is just like Dunder Mifflin

I've only seen the first five minutes of the most recent episode (watching it during my smoke break on iPod) but I thought the poop-bag flinging (and Poehler enjoying it) was very funny, made me laugh right out loud

That's the funniest five minutes of the whole series so far. You lucked out.

For some reason I find Chris Pratt acting like douche hilarious, so his guest star status makes me sad. Maybe they could trade him for that sulky intern chick?

Last night's episode was definitely way better than any that came before it. I can't tell if it's actually getting funnier or if I'm just more familiar with the characters and their behavioral patterns now.

The less content about "The Pit," the better the show.

was mildly interested in this until hearing her on terri gross and remembering that everyone on SNL is kinda dumb and annoying

Everyone? nah.

For some reason I find Chris Pratt acting like douche hilarious, so his guest star status makes me sad. Maybe they could trade him for that sulky intern chick?

― the devil's runes (reddening), Monday, May 4, 2009 3:06 PM

i've watched 2 or 3 eps of season 1 and the funniest part was probably him saying his band is called "just the tip"

I've been watching this and finding it mildly amusing. Tom is definitely my favorite character. Boyfriend with broken legs is also pretty funny.

this show would be a lot better if they remembered that michael scott wasn't the office's sympathetic lead and that there's already a show called the office that's been using the mockumentary stare-at-the-camera shtick for a bunch of years so wtf find a new shtick.

Either give Poehler's character half a brain and use her repub boss as the michael scott or make the show about more about rashida jones. and shoot whoever at nbc is tell them they have to be more "broad"

is telling them

loved how much Knope's "male"over looked like her Hillary impersonation, and the adjacent scene of her talking about becoming first female mayor, etc, but they also had a first female president gag in one of the first episodes so they better stop with that one for a while. Rashida Jones as Amy's trophy wife was pretty funny, also that guy who kept talking about how brave she is/it's OK to fight etc etc. Loved last week's bit with the guy cleaning the house and saying "someone's going to get gently laid tonight" and her "hey!" in the background too.

really hope they didn't hire that guy from All The Real Girls just have to him colin-firth around saving her ass, bridget jones style.

oh, and the speech Knope's boss gave: "You are a woman. You have won this award." etc.

I'm also in S3, watching for the first time. Don't know if I enjoy the show quite enough to make it through 7 seasons, but it's pleasant and has its moments. I didn't think the nastiness of the Office is why I think it's much funnier, but... maybe it is

Maybe inspired in part by Local Hero, I don't know, but where sitcoms overlap with (non-comic) art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frbsZ8TGsX8

Dumb joke that made laugh: Bobby Knight Ranger at the Unity Concert. "Wow, it's great to hear 'Sister Christian' that many times in a row."

Just looked it up--had no idea who they really were! Yo La Tengo

Still love it when Ben pwns everyone with his Cones of Dunshire game. It is just so ridonkulous in its complexity.

my favorite!!

"...the key is, you have to throw the dirt into the BACK of the fan."

Wow, young Ben seems insanely handsome now watching these videos, after becoming accustomed to (still good-looking) squidgy face mussed hair 2020s Adam Scott

Most insane/highbrow cameo since Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall: Werner Herzog. (Hidden for full effect in case, like me, it's your first time seeing it.)

OMG I forgot about that scene!

imagine if they’d gone lowbrow and gotten the baddie from a jack reacher movie or something

:)

or a guy who played a multi-episode villain arc in the mandalorian

Jerry is the funniest character and his constantly changing name cracks me up. His whole bit is easily the meanest thing in the show, he’s so nice that he’s repulsive.

Can't remember at what point they really started to dig in on that (second or third season?), but I don't think Jerry was quite such a buffoon at the beginning. Same with Andy--he just gets dumber and dumber. I should mention that my very favourite cameo thus far--I expect a couple more in S7--was Sam Elliott's first scene, when Ron's in full swoon. (He does appear in a follow-up episode, so maybe that's no longer a cameo.) "Dunn and done"--brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bq9TOA7EiQ

I’m sure someone in the thousands of posts up thread gave Perd Hapley some flowers … he was gold

Perd's great! And you know that's what I think because I just said so in a post on this message board.

I don't think Jerry was quite such a buffoon at the beginning. Same with Andy--he just gets dumber and dumber.

I'm sure I read an article years ago about this phenomenon in long-running sitcoms. Joey Tribbiani reached a point where he was so stupid, you wonder how he could feed himself. Similarly Homer Simpson. Annoyingly, other than pointing out instances of it, the writer didn't really have any suggestions for why it happens.

There's more counteractive sympathy towards Gerry from the writers over time too (the rolling reveals of his artistic talents, beautiful family, er...being v well endowed). IDK if he really got stupider as such but his clumsiness and naivety was certainly amplified (I love how Donna reacts with a kind of gentle enjoyment of this in later seasons). The early episode when Mark and April (iirc?) reveal he's adopted in is still so brutal tho.

I was thinking about the bizrre genius of Perd--he's right out of Fernwood 2 Night, and I think they would have spun him off into his own show in the '70s.

"bizarre"...bizarre genius not be confused with Ben Gazarra.

I don't think Jerry was quite such a buffoon at the beginning. Same with Andy--he just gets dumber and dumber.

I'm sure I read an article years ago about this phenomenon in long-running sitcoms. Joey Tribbiani reached a point where he was so stupid, you wonder how he could feed himself. Similarly Homer Simpson. Annoyingly, other than pointing out instances of it, the writer didn't really have any suggestions for why it happens.

― trishyb, Wednesday, November 12, 2025 11:04 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

You're talking about "Flanderization" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanderization

I've always felt the reasoning was pretty obvious: a new joke specific to a character or about one of their traits lands and the writers start calling back to it. It becomes part of their tool kit for the ways they can have the character interact with new situations. Naturally it escalates and over-simplifies the harder they lean into it to play into audience expectations and generate fresh laughs, eventually turning the character into a caricature / cartoon.

Is there a term for the reverse, characters who become more shaded as a series progresses? I think Leslie and Donna in particular are more nuanced in the later seasons.

I can't believe this character continues to make me laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aajzD91x4HI

You're talking about "Flanderization" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanderization

There we go. In the case of Friends, I wonder if it also has to do with the actor. I can't imagine Matt Le Blanc ever pushing back too hard against anything the writers wanted him to say or do, unless it was mean-spirited. He seems a lot more realistic about his popularity than some of the others. Like, I know that Matthew Perry was absolutely adamant that Chandler would never cheat on Monica, even though the writers floated that idea a couple of times.

Andy on P&R was incredibly stupid from day one. I think they just made him a bit less selfish as the show went on.

Down to the last three episodes. Surprisingly, I thought S7, E10--"The Johnny Karate Super Awesome Musical Explosion Show"--was possibly the worst of the entire run. The way they kept inserting close-ups of April to make sure we didn't miss her conflicted feelings (there must have been five or six of them) was so clunky.

Is there a term for the reverse, characters who become more shaded as a series progresses?

I feel like "Cheers" (at least this is the first to come to mind) was pretty good about starting with broader caricatures that give way to nuance as the show goes along, but I may be misremembering, and I'm sure there are others. "The Office," for example (at least the US one), for better or for worse. Michael Scott begins as a buffoon, then they steadily humanize him ... but also keep him a buffoon. So every time he acts normal or tries to undo some egregious decision or mistake, your (my) instinct is to push back, because you think of all the times he was an asshole or idiot. And then, especially later, he (or others) acts like an asshole or idiot and you (I) think, but wait a minute, we know he's smarter than this, why is he suddenly eating packaging peanuts or whatever.

Yeah, Michael was kind of back and forth--dismissive of Dwight's more inane ideas before proposing something even more ridiculous himself. I think Hank on Larry Sanders started sort of normal, became progressively more buffoonish, but then would surprise you with a moment of self-awareness or times when he was just as knowing and as acerbic about show business as everyone else on staff.

Finished up tonight. The two-part finale was a little better than the Johnny Karate episode, but still kind of ordinary. (The writers evidently had seen the Six Feet Under finale.) The most interesting thing about the series overall to me was how often it went for a type of sentiment that predates Cheers and (especially) Larry Sanders and Seinfeld--felt very old-fashioned. Succeeded more ofthen than not, I'd say.

I remember this show kind of flopping from the fifth season onwards -- it gets a bit too comfy with its cast, and puts too much emphasis on being nice instead of being funny -- Good Place had similar issues. "We're all just a crazy family who love and support each other" = too many 2010s shows.

Also, IIRC Sam gets super dumb in the later series of Cheers, like practically Homer Simpson-level at times. But there are some classic bits as a result.

I also found the final seasons of Parks and Recs a little too sickly sweet... Brooklyn 99 had the same issue at the end. I get wanting to give us the fantasy, but having government workers and cops be THAT upstanding was more than my brain could accept in the current reality. Give me a Veronica Mars ending that is bleak as hell, it's somehow more hopeful.

I remember this show kind of flopping from the fifth season onwards

I wouldn't go that far, it's still largely enjoyable, but the show's peak is Leslie's run for City Council imo. Once people start actually succeeding, the show kind of loses its thrust, which they seem to realize with the recall but then they overcorrect on that being a bummer and it passes into fantasy.

Sam gets super dumb in the later series of Cheers, like practically Homer Simpson-level at times

Sam always gets dumber the hornier he is, and by the later seasons he’s way less slutty, so his resting dumbness level becomes elevated

One huge miscalculation for me: Bert Macklin. I found that tedious from the start, and was surprised how often they went back to it in later seasons.

Conversely, I never got tired of Jean-Ralphio or Mona-Lisa (even more insane than her brother)--every time they showed up the show got better.

Something I don't normally wade into, but I was thinking about something that was odd: of all the major characters, Leslie/Ben, Andy/April, Ann/Chris, and Ron--all white--had children during the show's run, and the two characters who weren't white--Donna and Tom--didn't. (Jerry already had kids.) Could be explained easily by lifestyle--Donna and Tom were the two characters fixated on trends and lifestyle--but I'm surprised the show would open that up to questions.

I was going to say that you're wrong about Ann being white, but I'm not sure they ever address her race on the show? But yeah more broadly the show mostly ignores race iirc, sometimes in odd ways when it comes to Tom at least at first (though now I'm remembering the Native American character and hmmmm).

agreed on Bert, plus whatever Plaza does in relation to that bit -- all very unfunny

ps. TIL who Rashida Jones's mother is

You're right, Rashida Jones' father was Quincy--forgot. So much for that theory (and glad to shoot it down).

Leslie often refers to Ann's ethnicity, especially in terms of her beauty.

Tom summed up Mona-Lisa's insanity with possibly my favourite line from the entire run: "She once jumped out of a moving car to buy a Nicki Minaj poster."

xp Actually now I'm remembering that Amy does call Ann "ethnically ambiguous" or something along those lines. April could also possibly not identify as white now that I'm thinking about each character.

There is definitely a contrast to how TV would address these issues after this show though (thinking of e.g. Superstore)

There's also that whole bit about the mural in the corridor. I don't think race is ignored, it's just not Poehler's priority. I don't know.

I couldn't remember if they ever addressed why Aziz Ansari's character was named Tom Haverford, so I looked it up. Tom says in season 2 that he changed it from Darwish Zubair Ismail Gani to get ahead in politics.

Actually now I'm remembering that Amy does call Ann "ethnically ambiguous" or something along those lines

Leslie to Ann: "I’ve said this to you before and I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you’re thoughtful, and you’re brilliant, and your ambiguous ethnic blend perfectly represents the dream of the American melting pot."

April could also possibly not identify as white now that I'm thinking about each character.

https://media.tenor.com/s0DSWh8nhlgAAAAe/parks-and-rec-april-ludgate.png

yeah I thought about the mural. I retract the assertion that it ignores race, but I also think some of these examples don't put the show in the best light.

Since April's last name is Ludgate, I assumed they wrote the characters' names before casting and then didn't change them? I know they similarly have a back story for April that works, but still

Well, her Puerto Rican mom could've married a white guy named Ludgate.

She did! We meet them both. But the name April Ludgate does not scream "we intended this character to have Puerto Rican roots," though I probably wouldn't have thought that without Tom Haverford also being on the character list.

lol this is great

At the meeting, they told her the idea for the show's pilot and that they were considering giving Amy Poehler's character an assistant who was a doltish blonde. Plaza pitched them instead the character of a smart intern who is at the department only for college credit and does not care about the job, which Plaza thought would be an interesting, comedic contrast with Poehler's character. They liked the concept for the character and created April Ludgate.[43][14][6][42] Plaza, who said that in real life she was like Poehler's earnestly hard-working character, took inspiration from her younger sister for April's apathetic disposition.[

From a 2013 interview with Plaza

We started talking casually, and I threw out a couple of ideas. “Wouldn’t it be funny if they had a college intern who didn’t really want to be there and was only there for the college credit?” And they said, “That’d be really funny.” I found out later that they wrote me into the pilot, and they even used my name. But then I had to audition for it. I just went in and read on tape, but they changed the character’s name from Aubrey to April so I wouldn’t think that it was written for me. [Laughs.] I pretty much had it in the bag, but I didn’t know it.

I wonder what the show would have done with Ron Swanson had they gone beyond 2015 into the Trump presidency. His anti-government stance is presented relatively genially (and without ever, I don't think, following through on what that might mean in real terms), and I don't think you ever dislike him. With a hateful, nihilistic (and completely unprincipled) version of Ron in office, that might have been trickier. (They do soften him towards the end anyway, and he's always expressing his admiration for Leslie.)