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Posts tagged as parks and rec

Talking to Jon Glaser About 'Parks and Rec,' 'Girls,' and the 'Delocated' Finale

It's probably going to be a while 'til we see another show like Delocated.

The Adult Swim live-action series comes to an end tonight after three seasons of somehow making accessible a show about a Russian mob target in the witness protection program who moves to New York City to become a reality star. Delocated seamlessly blends avant-garde with lowbrow – the perfect middle ground between a network sitcom and Tim and Eric.

At the center of the absurdity is “Jon,” a suburban tool who wears a ski mask at all times to protect his identity. Based on a character by series creator and star Jon Glaser, “Jon” put [...]

Splitsider's Fall Comedy Preview: TV

It’s that time of year again. The new fall TV season! When the networks trot out a shaggy bunch of new shows, and in six months, half of them will be left. Can you guess which shows will make it and which shows will turn into a foggy memory a la last fall’s quickly-cancelled comedies like Man Up, How to Be a Gentleman, and Free Agents?

On the whole, it’s a broader batch of sitcoms than we’ve seen in years past, with NBC, home to critically-acclaimed but underwatched comedies like 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, and Community, making a clear attempt to pursue sillier, more accessible shows in order [...]

"I think coolness is kind of the death of good television."

"I think coolness is kind of the death of good television. I think if you’re too concerned with being cool or hip or liked, you can’t really make good TV because sincerity and coolness are opposites. And when you have main characters in your show crying, like, three times in an episode, I find it great, but it’s also not super-cool and ironic and arch and raised-eyebrow and hipster-y. I just far prefer it. If a show ever tries to be cool, then it’s going to be doing something wrong." — Parks and Rec's Michael Schur in the final part of The AV Club's amazing run-through of the latest [...]

Follow Friday: @MeganAmram

Everybody is a comedian on Twitter, but only a select few are worthy enough to have all of their witticisms transmitted to you, the ever busy comedy fan trying to navigate through an increasingly congested internet. Every Friday we'll make your life a little bit easier by introducing you to an individual who consistently makes us laugh. You're welcome.

(If you're reading this from an RSS feed, jump on over to the website where you can actually view the tweets.)

Odds are that you already are familiar with Megan Amram's twitter account. From around June of 2010 through now Amram has amassed over 228,000 twitter followers just by [...]

Did You Get It? The Year of Inside Jokes and Season-Long Arcs

In the beginning, sitcoms would almost always feature self-contained 22-minute stories, with there never being a consequence to what anyone did or said that would carry over to the next episode. Johnny slipped on a banana peel. And it was good. Eventually that would change: a character began to be able lose or get a job, and pick up a new love interest and maybe someday marry them, and the tired show would be able to sprout some more material. And that was good. Then the meteoric rise of The Sopranos begat the HBO model of airing shows that didn't have episodes, but installments of an epic story, making banana peels [...]

It's That Episode 51: Aubrey Plaza's Brush with Reality TV

On "It's That Episode" Craig Rowin (UCB Theatre) invites guests over to watch any episode of any TV show they want. They discuss the episode and other crap.

Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) introduces Craig to the most insane cooking show ever, Sweet Genius. Aubrey talks about her obsession with reality TV and the time she auditioned for a reality show about female comedians. Also, Aubrey and Craig discuss depressing movies.

This episode is brought to you by audible.com. Get a free audiobook and a 30-day trial today by signing up at www.audiblepodcast.com/craigrowin.

Download now (MP3), listen on iTunes here, stream the full episode [...]

Here are 17 Minutes of 'Parks and Rec' Bloopers to Improve Your Next 17 Minutes

Here's the blooper reel from season 4 of Parks and Rec, presumably taken from the DVD set of that season. It is long and full of the sorts of hilarious things that you usually find in blooper reels: people screwing up their lines, people screwing up their entrances, things falling down, lots of laughing, and Chris Pratt being the funniest person alive. Also, there's a version of the opening credits featuring a man I do not recognize pretending to be every cast member, so that is another big plus. All in all, if you like Parks and Rec you'd be pulling a pretty unfunny blooper by not [...]

Get Excited for Ron Swanson to Get Domestic

Here's a fun little chestnut from Parks and Rec's Nick Offerman, talking about what to expect when the show returns for its fourth season this fall: I think that the writers are looking to see Ron in a more domestic situation. There's a lot of talk about what kind of woman would Ron be able to actually have a lasting, healthy relationship with. We know that the relationships that he's had have not worked out too well, and so I think it would be fun to see what kind of compromises Ron has to make in order to get along with a lady in a lasting way.

And [...]

Survey Says: Here Are Your Choices For the Best Comedies of the Season

We've been running a poll all this week allowing you to vote on which comedies you thought were the best of the year. And the results are in! And not terribly surprising!

Parks and Rec and Community were the clear favorites, with Happy Endings taking a strong third place. Following them were a number of worthy shows. Some notable tidbits from the results:

-There's not much love for The Office these days; it received a paltry 3 votes. -The quickly cancelled BFFs beat out a number of heavy hitters, including How I Met Your Mother, Portlandia and South Park. -Animated shows ranked in order: Archer, Bob's Burgers, American Dad, [...]

NBC Renews 'Parks and Rec,' 'The Office' and 'Up All Night'

NBC is going to have a whole lot of sitcoms next season; they just renewed Parks and Rec, The Office and Up All Night, with Whitney rumored to be not far behind. That gets the number of sitcoms on the peacock up to a whopping 11 next year by my count, with five new series joining 30 Rock, Community, Parks and Rec, The Office, Up All Night and Whitney. And a sixth new show may be picked up as well!

It remains to be seen how long all of these seasons will be. Parks got a 13-episode order, as rumored, just like 30 Rock and [...]

‘Parks and Rec’ Showrunner Michael Schur Is Handing Out Season 5 Spoilers Like Crazy

Entertainment Weekly just published a series of spoilers from Parks and Recreation’s showrunner Michael Schur, but with the names of the characters in said spoilers blanked out as an attempt at a “fun” guessing game, with a key at the bottom so you can decode the answers. Well, I have a firm anti-fun policy, so I’ve taken the liberty of cracking the code to Michael Schur’s spoilers for everyone who doesn’t want to waste their time on Entertainment Weekly’s silly games. Behold!:

1. “Ann has a personal breakthrough thanks to a cowboy hat, and some tough love from Leslie.” 2. “Champion the three-legged dog may be the only [...]

The Biggest Liars, Braggarts, and Braggadocios in Sitcom History

This #NoBollocks content was produced in partnership with Newcastle Brown Ale. If you enjoy this article, won't you be a doll and watch a TV commercial on the Internet? Go on, it's right there on the right.

The lying schemer and the arrogant braggart are two tried-and-true sitcom archetypes that have been around since the early days of TV. Watching someone bury themselves in a string of fabrications or demonstrate their own pomposity is always good for a laugh. Here are 10 of the biggest braggarts and liars in sitcom history, including a certain guy who lied about being marine biologist to impress a date and the biggest [...]

Leslie Knope For President

"First, since I believe that the civil rights and egalitarianism our founding fathers instilled in this nation are not to be trifled with, I would issue a presidential order that would very simply state: marriage equality for all. Please don't tell me that gay marriage ruins marriage for straight people. I watched every second of the Kardashian-Humphries trainwreck. If the institution of marriage can survive that, it can survive two 50-year-old ladies quietly expressing their love in a courthouse somewhere." — "Leslie Knope" wrote a piece for Variety about what she'd do if she was elected president. It involves Beyonce and waffles. I'm on board! Knope/Swanson 2012!

Why 'Parks and Rec' Was the Best Comedy of the 2011-2012 Season

Wrapping up this season, we asked some of our contributors to write about some of their favorite comedies that have aired since the fall. Instead of handing out accolades to just one show, we're looking at a number of shows that all deserve to be called the best comedy of the season.

Watching Parks and Recreation's fourth season finale earlier this month, I was struck by a series of poignant moments — bits of genuine, hearfelt emotion — sprinkled throughout the episode. It takes a lot of confidence for a comedy to put laughs aside for a few minutes to work in some serious stuff, but doing it well [...]

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