Category: Parks and Recreation

Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman and Mike Schur talked to The Guardian about making ‘Parks and Recreation‘ for their series ‘How we made‘. They talked about how the show and the characters were created. Read the full interview below!

Mike Schur and I worked together at Saturday Night Live; he wrote Leslie with me in mind. She was this optimistic, determined person with very little power but big aspirations. She evolved over time, but the idea of this person who was motivated by the hopeful spirit of the government employee, and how one can stay inspired when they keep getting knocked around – that was there from minute one.

It was like wearing a suit: after a while, you stretch it out or alter it to fit you. I’m not as consistently enthusiastic as Leslie, but I really related to the energy she got from trying to make others succeed. She was fun to play because every day you got to show up, tell everybody what to do and how much you loved them. The cast was that very rare instance of everybody really liking each other and hanging out. We bonded very quickly, and still see each other. We text each other and stay in each other’s lives.

The female friendship on the show is one of the things I’m most proud of, and it certainly came naturally because Rashida Jones and I had been friends for a long time. My female friendships are very important to me, and it was nice to play a consistent relationship.

Amy Poehler, Mark Rivers (composer), Mike Schur (co creator), and Emma Fletcher (writer) were interviewed by LAist to talk about Li’l Sebastian, 5,000 Candles In The Wind and more about the legacy of Parks and Rec. Read the full interview below!

Parks and Recreation debuted this week 10 years ago and immediately took a place in all of our hearts. OK, fine, people were preeeeetty mixed on it until season 2, but then it took a place in all of our hearts.
Note: Spoiler warning for a 10-year-old TV show.
One of the most iconic moments in the show’s history was the funeral of town icon/miniature horse Li’l Sebastian — it perfectly summarized the show’s extremely earnest heart.

We interviewed star Amy Poehler, composer Mark Rivers, show co-creator Mike Schur, and writer Emma Fletcher about the enduring legacy of Li’l Sebastian — and the show. (You can also read our previous Parks and Recreation oral history on Galentine’s Day right here.)

HOW CHRIS PRATT’S ANDY DWYER MADE SUCH TERRIBLE BUT COMPETENT SONGS

Mark Rivers started playing in Boston rock bands, but ended up working as a comedy writer. He used his songwriting for shows like Mr. Show and Human Giant — where he met Aziz Ansari.

Rivers: When they did Parks and Recreation, he recommended me for that gig. They needed somebody to write all the silly Mouse Rat songs, and I had done a bunch of weird comedy music.
Schur: We said, they’re a bar band. They’re not incredible musicians. But, the joke here isn’t ‘this band is terrible’ — they should be competent songwriters.
Rivers: They were like, they should be bad, but not musically bad. They should be bad taste bad. It should be like s——- corporate rock.
Schur: I was sort of saying, it’s in the vein of late ’90s radio rock.
Rivers: So without listing any bands too specifically, we mentioned a handful of types of bands to get me in the right genre.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the Parks & Recreation series premiere on April 9, the cast and crew of the show talked to Bustle about one of the legacies of the show, “Galentine’s Day”. You can read the entire interview below!

Regardless of whether you like to spend Valentine’s Day on a romantic date or hanging at home solo, chances are that you spend the day before, Feb. 13, surrounded by friends. After all, while Galentine’s Day — the annual celebration of the bonds between women — isn’t an official U.S. holiday, it’s so ingrained in our culture that it might as well be. Every year around that time, businesses ranging from ASOS to Target feature Galentine’s Day sales, specials, and friendship-themed products, as countless women take to social media to profess their love for their BFFs. Yet while Galentine’s Day may be practically a part of the vernacular at this point, it’s easy to forget how it all began: not with some brand’s promotional campaign, but in a Season 2 Parks and Recreation episode all about — what else? — Leslie Knope’s love for her best female friends.

In the 2010 episode of the NBC sitcom, fittingly titled “Galentine’s Day,” Leslie (Amy Poehler) throws her annual party meant to honor the ladies in her life on the day before Valentine’s. It’s a sweet scene, but a seemingly throwaway one in a show full of similarly adorable moments — except that in the years since the episode, Galentine’s Day has taken on a life of its own. In honor of the 10th anniversary of the Parks & Rec series premiere on April 9, the cast and crew of “Galentine’s Day” tell Bustle how the now-iconic episode came to be — including those Leslie Knope-designed mosaic portraits.

SO WHO CAME UP WITH “GALENTINE’S DAY,” ANYWAY?

According to the episode’s creators, no one actually knows who created the idea for the holiday in the first place. Regardless, everyone was on-board with a day celebrating female friendship.

Mike Schur (co-creator and writer): I don’t know who came up with the original idea, or who was the first person to say it out loud, so I just credit the entire writing staff.

Amy Poehler (“Leslie Knope”): I feel like it was not me — I feel like I read it in the script. I have no memory of it… but [credit] is really not the point of it… I remember it being an early storyline about all of us women hanging out together, which wasn’t always the case on the show. So I just have fond memories of us getting to spend so much time together, which is great.