Parks and Rec: Hilarious & Underappreciated

The Comedy-Sitcom television show we have all gotten to know and love recently has been a very popular genre in today’s media. From shows like Seinfeld and Friends in the early days of it, to modern day with the success of The Office, Community and many others. The laid back, lackadaisical approach these television shows give offer the viewer a great chance to sit back and relax while the show plays through episodes again and again. This popularity as almost a ‘background noise’ show is what I believe makes it so appealing to our generation. I just completed another member of the Comedy-Sitcom family, Parks and Recreation, and it definitely holds up to its competitors of its time, and those before it. With the star-studded cast of well know Hollywood faces and how iconic some of the roles they play have become, Parks and Recreation successfully solidified its spot as a top show of our generation and did well to the Comedy-Sitcom genre.

When comparing it directly with its competitors of the time Parks and Recreation always help up ratings wise, as well as the eyeball test from me. Although many would say the genre gets old fast with no real plot lines and just chaos in every episode, I would say this as well as The Office so a great job in respecting the genre of the Comedy-Sitcom while also developing storylines and creating real actions and consequences for the characters. Parks and Recreation is centered around a local government in Indiana and is manly focused on how dysfunctional government usually is and of course some added satirical comedy throughout. Before the filming of the show, writers Amy Poehler and Mike Shur traveled the country speaking with government officials from small towns all across the nation. In fact, one of the main characters is modeled after a government worker they met traveling. This extreme viewpoint mixed so well with Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope.

“Ron was based on a real person the writers had met. They thought it was really funny that the head of department was trying to bring down the government by keeping things inactive”

Mike Schur, co-creator

This extreme viewpoint mixed so well with Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope. The main character of the show and seemingly the only sane person in Pawnee, Indiana, Ms. Knope is a hyper driven women looking to vastly improve the quality in her town as well as advance her political career as much as possible. The dynamic between her and her boss, a man that’s trying to sabotage every facet of government he can while the vigilante Leslie moves night and day to get everything done and keep the government program afloat.

Getting into the cast selection and the nitty gritty of the sitcom, the show helped catapult a few actors and actresses to stardom in Hollywood. Although the cast had already established Hollywood stars like Amy Poehler, Rob Lowe and Adam Scott, it also greatly accelerated the careers of newer stars like Aziz Ansari, Aubrey Plaza and Chris Pratt. The plot as a whole works very well. The one thing Comedy-Sitcoms struggle with is finding a surrounding that the viewers can relate to. The Office did it well with having their environment be a typical job, Seinfeld took place in New Yor City following the relatively normal moves of these humans. Parks and Recreation is no different, mixing in all of them with a job environment in the government buildings, but also using a lot of off-work locations, mixing in the personal lives of all the characters. That’s where I believe the Comedy-Sitcom genre thrives, when its relatable content regarding the lifestyle of the characters.

I wanted to talk about the script writing for the show just for how I believe these shows are successful. In The Office, a majority of the script was written by the actors on the show as they had the best sense of the characters emotions and tendencies. On Parks and Rec, Amy Poehler was one of the majority writers for the show and I think that translates heavily to the success of the show. When you have that talented of actors that can also write for the show and communicate between the two sides affectively, I believe it translates to the television.

All in all, the TV series is a fantastic watch and one that I would group with a classic. There’s a certain number of shows that have great re watchability and remain timeless throughout history. To this day you still see TV stations running Friends re-runs, there’s always a Seinfeld episode on somewhere, and every streaming service has already bought the rights to these classics. I believe Parks and Recreation will fall perfectly into this category and will remain timeless for generations. Its lovely storytelling combined with this country’s recent fascination with politics and government will keep it relevant for years. Its satirical take on the worst parts of our lives mixed with beautiful undertones of never giving up and always finding the good in the bad make Parks and Rec what it is, a classic.