I’ve posted it in full here on Knope Knows. Enjoy!

From Talented But Humble:

After all these years, after seeing how you so often ignored other programs with just that right combination of warm and weird, offbeat and endearing – Moonlighting and Northern Exposure and The Gilmore Girls – I should know better.

But oh, Emmy, so little love for Parks and Recreation?

Why is the best comedy not nominated for best comedy? Why is a show that was consistently funny and filled with heart, not getting one slot for writing? And what about Nick Offerman being snubbed for supporting (scene-stealing) actor?

Well, I’m speechless. So I’d like Ron to give the speech “honoring” the other shows that did get the nod. Other shows: “It is true. That you have won this award.”

At least we have Amy. As sweetly strong, slightly crazed Leslie. Who can’t figure out why anyone would rather be Cleopatra than Eleanor Roosevelt. Leslie who insists “I’m Not Nervous” about this date. Leslie, who just happens to have Amy Poehler’s gift for singing and rapping.

And somehow the jaunty little theme song snuck in for a nom too. So Emmy voters, perhaps next year, you’ll watch the show all the way through. Not just the opening credits. And then we can all sing Kum Bay Yah together. Or maybe Jabba the Hutt, Jabba the Hutt.

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The 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be on August 29, 2010 on NBC. Jimmy Fallon hosts.

From The Huffington Post:

Start me from the beginning. At what point did you realize you were funny and going to really make a go at it?
Ben Schwartz: That’s a terrifying question. When I was young I loved comedy more than anything. My family was so funny. I’d watch SNL, The Simpsons, Whose Line is it Anyway?, Kids in the Hall. Just like anybody, I started as a fan. I was addicted to it, I was a goofball when I was a young. I love watching people laugh. So far you’re doing great with this interview by the way, I’ll tell you when you screw the pooch.

I’ll get us back on track. Talk to me about when you first thought to put your content on the web.
One day I passed by Letterman’s Ed Sullivan Theater and saw these people cheering up the crowd while they’re waiting in line. And I thought, “I would love to do that.” I had resumes on me from a different failed adventure, so I gave this guy one, and next thing I knew I was a page at Letterman. I was so happy, I got to watch this guy who I idolized and try to learn just by watching. I was a page for 9 months, I met everybody, and people started to know that I was doing stuff at UCB. So I asked the monologue writer for the show if I could freelance some jokes. He told me very politely that they were all filled up and I should ask again later. After another few months, I politely asked again he said “OK man, hand in five jokes.” I wrote my first batch of jokes, he gave me notes, I quickly learned how to write a monologue joke. And then I started to get a couple jokes on, and couldn’t believe it. But for every joke that got on, there were hundreds of rejected jokes.

How did you get to Parks and Rec? I love the show.
I went to meet with one of the creators of the show, Michael Schur, who is an absolute genius, and it was around the time they were casting Louis CK’s role, which I was not right for. Months later, Katie Dippold, a great writer from UCB, Harris Wittels, another great UCB guy, and Mike worked out this douchie character Jean-Ralphio and Mike thought I would be a great fit for it. I got the call and was beyond excited. I read it and I knew it was gonna be so incredibly fun. I improvise a little in the show but it’s so well written that I didn’t even have to. I think Parks and Rec is so funny, all the writers and actors should be nominated for Emmys. It was so fun. And I was surrounded by friends, which made it so easy. I hope that Jean-Ralphio keeps popping up throughout the series.

So next up is the JJ Abrams pilot.
I had a general meeting with some people from Bad Robot about writing and met the wonderful Athena Wickham who is a producer on the show. She told me about the script and thought I should come audition for the role of Hoyt. My first audition was the next day. Then I came back for a callback with JJ Abrams. So at that time, it felt that even if I didn’t get the role, I got to meet JJ Abrams which was pretty amazing. Luckily he and co-creator/showrunner Josh “Reims of Gold” Reims, who is as talented of a writer as they come, liked what I did with the character and two tests later, JJ called me up personally to tell me I got the role. It was amazing. I am so intensely excited to be a part of this show. I can’t wait for people to see it. It premieres in the fall, we start filming in July.

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From MitsuCat2:

Parks and Recreation was pushed to midseason, which means no new episodes until 2011! I really don’t wanna wait that long.

May 21, 2010:

One thousand three hundred and ninety-one words on why benching Parks and Recreation was a bad idea | Author

“I’m sorry, I just started hearing really loud circus music in my head. What did you say?”

So ended the penultimate episode of Parks and Recreation’s critically acclaimed second season, as deputy parks director Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) reacted to the shutdown of Pawnee, Indiana’s government by state auditors.

Fans of the show had a similar reaction four days later, when NBC announced ahead of its annual upfront that it will hold Parks until January, replacing it in the otherwise stellar Thursday night lineup with a comedy called Outsourced, which is about…you guessed it, outsourcing. (Except that it’s not. More on that later.)

Like the fictional shutdown, NBC’s decision leaves the future of the Parks Department in serious doubt. As a midseason show, Parks won’t get a full-season order unless the network has an unannounced scheduling trick up its sleeve—or Outsourced meets an early demise.

With the strength of its Thursday lineup not in question, and five more hours of available primetime than last season, NBC had been widely expected to add another hour of comedy to its weekly schedule, much like first-place network CBS. Instead, NBC picked up three big-budget action dramas, the “romance anthology” Love Bites, and an L.A.-based spinoff of The Procedural That Will Not Die—leaving no room for new half-hour comedies, unless one was bumped off.

The move was surprising enough that New York Magazine wondered if it was all part of an “admittedly convoluted, somewhat paranoid” plan to eventually place Parks in the coveted 9:30 slot behind The Office—essentially asserting that Outsourced is being set up to fail.

Perhaps NBC truly believes Outsourced can out-draw Parks at 9:30. Or perhaps NBC is intentionally sabotaging a comedy series that it developed. Either way, the decision has garnered the sort of negative attention to which this network is now accustomed. In the wake of the Tonight Show debacle, NBC has clearly and consistently shown that it is incapable of managing its content effectively—and that it can’t learn the lessons of its past.

In late 2007, NBC commissioned producer Greg Daniels to develop a spinoff of The Office, a low-key British remake that blossomed into NBC’s flagship comedy series. Over the next year and a half, that project evolved into Parks and Recreation, which debuted last spring to mixed reviews. Comparisons to its sister series couldn’t be avoided; co-creator Mike Schur, a former Office writer, mused to the L.A. Times that “if we had built [the show] around a 90-year-old Maasai warrior people still would have said, ‘He reminds me of Michael Scott.’”

Certainly, the bumbling behavior of Leslie Knope can outwardly resemble the well-worn antics of her Office counterpart. But the characters themselves couldn’t be more different. Michael Scott’s naïveté and awkwardness stem from his lack of intelligence and drive; Leslie’s, from a surplus of both. Where Michael couldn’t find his way out of a cardboard box, Leslie would devise a five-point action plan and second-guess herself until she was sure she found the best possible exit point. They’re different kinds of crazy.

And really, who wouldn’t be a little crazy when surrounded by a supporting cast like Parks and Recreation’s? Leslie’s boss, the curmudgeonly libertarian Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), thinks his entire department should be eliminated; her assistant Tom (Aziz Ansari) is a wannabe playboy who seems allergic to hard work; office intern April (Aubrey Plaza) brings teenage apathy to an entirely new level; and shoe-shiner/aspiring musician Andy (Chris Pratt) can scarcely hide his insanity behind his half-bearded face. Rounding out the main cast are the show’s resident straight men, city planner Mark (Paul Schneider) and Leslie’s friend Ann (Rashida Jones).

The brilliance in Parks’ second season came from evolving these cartoonish caricatures into real, complex characters. Ron is revealed to moonlight as a sappy jazz musician named Duke Silver; Tom’s marriage to an attractive surgeon turns out to be a green-card sham, though he has real feelings for her; and April finds a reason to care about her job in the form of Andy, who despite his flaws continues to prove himself as one of the nicest guys in Pawnee. The talented Paul Schneider was never given much to do in the series, and having successfully completed Mark’s character arc—a transformation from horndog to husband type—he’ll be departing the show after Thursday night’s season finale.

The loss of Schneider, however, seemingly cleared the way for two big additions to Parks and Recreation’s cast: Rob Lowe and Adam Scott as the aforementioned state auditors, sent to fix Pawnee’s budget crisis. Lowe will only be sticking around for eight episodes, but Scott was added a regular—and, coming from the much buzzed-about series Party Down, will fit right in with the cast of upwardly mobile comic talent. Scott, Jones, Ansari, and Plaza have all appeared in films produced by the current king of big screen funny, Judd Apatow, and Ansari recently signed a three-picture deal with Apatow Productions. He’ll also host the MTV Movie Awards next month.

With the stock of its cast rising, the near-universal critical praise surrounding the second season, and Greg Daniels’ undeniable track record, you’d think NBC would be savvy enough to realize Parks was in for a significant ratings boost next fall. It’s a formula that has worked for NBC before—twice.

In a better timeslot and with increased star power, the second season of The Office almost doubled the ratings of the first. And NBC’s other successful Thursday comedy, 30 Rock, barely managed five million viewers in its 21-episode first season before steadily increasing to almost eight million for the third, thanks to critical acclaim and star Tina Fey’s much-talked-about impression of a certain ex-governor.

Would keeping the Thursday night lineup intact for next season have been a risk for NBC? Sure. But it’s the kind of forward-thinking, creative risk that other networks regularly take, while NBC plays it safe and avoids anything that might affect its bottom line in the immediate future. The late night debacle is an obvious example, but there are plenty of others. Do you think NBC would have revived Family Guy? Gambled on repeat-unfriendly serial dramas like 24 and Lost? Indeed, in its current lineup, The Office stands alone as evidence of NBC’s ability to think outside the box and be rewarded for it—and by benching Parks, the network has shown that it hasn’t even learned from its own experience.

And in case Outsourced, with its halfway-around-the-world setting and predominantly South Asian cast, seems like a refreshingly original concept, you won’t be surprised to hear that its unconventionality is only skin-deep. According to Deadline.com, the “socio-economic aspects of exporting American jobs to India are not expected to be front and center story-wise”—instead, the show has been billed as “the Midwest meets the exotic East in a hilarious culture clash.” The trailer attempts to draw laughs from an employee whose name sounds like “Man-meat,” as well as several Indian characters singing American pop songs with thick accents. It’s no wonder the reaction at NBC’s upfront was reportedly muted. Time writer James Poniewozik blogged that Outsourced “did not look good at all.”

A fan campaign to move the Parks and Rec back to the fall lineup is under way, and the adversity may end up cementing the show’s status as a cult hit. But whatever happens, it’s hard to see any of this working in NBC’s favor.

To be sure, benching a show that attracts five million viewers per episode isn’t going to incite open revolt. But in once again choosing to chase the easy advertising dollar, NBC is further alienating a demographic with outsized, and ever-expanding, influence on the new media landscape: young, educated, tech-savvy viewers.

They’re the ones who made The Office NBC’s highest-rated comedy, through iTunes sales and blog posts. They’re the ones who turned Conan O’Brien from absurdist funnyman to cult hero overnight. And they’re the ones who will be writing the next chapter of television history.

In ten years, when the current business models have crumbled and we’re all watching “television” on the internet, the National Broadcasting Corporation will have to compete based on the quality of its content, not hype from an upfront funneled through a subservient press. And unless the network brass learn their lessons now, they will not stand a chance.

May 18, 2010:

Dear NBC | Kelly Nakashima

I hope it’s becoming clear to you by now that there are A LOT of people really pissed about you guys bumping Parks and Rec to January 2011, but in case it hasn’t, I’m here to set it straight one more time.

You’re saying that you can boot Conan and his comedic genius off Late Night because of “money problems” but you’re willing to invest in three completely new shows that to be honest, look totally flat, unamusing, and all-around godawful? I’m sorry, but I think that’s the root of your money problems right there. Call me biased, but even Parks and Rec in its pilot episode didn’t look like that Outsourced preview.

Take a moment, really, and look at how far this show has come. It hasn’t had an “okay” episode the entire second season. I’ll admit it: Parks and Rec has been my “baby” every since its pilot episode. I’ve looked out for its well-being, and I’ve appreciated it with unconditional love. But since season two started, I’ve combed the Internet and read every review hiding in every corner of cyberspace, and all have been very satisfactory, if not first-rate.

Greg Daniels and Mike Schur did wonders with The Office. They’re trusted names in NBC comedy, with unique gifts and talents that after the less-than-great first season, beautifully zapped all the craziness and molded Parks and Rec into something that is starting to (dare I say it?) surpass The Office. What started out as a fixer-upper in season one has transformed into a smooth, well-oiled machine that has several superb seasons ahead of it. Why cut it back when just now it’s starting to build a devoted audience? With Rob Lowe and Adam Scott on board, Parks and Rec is only going to get better, and gain more and more viewers.

That is, if they can remember this show even existed when it returns in 2011.
At any rate, I love NBC Thursdays. I really do. Only because Parks and Rec and The Office are on! Why not let the Parks and Rec writers light up the screen with their stellar material, and the outstanding cast work their magic on it?

All I’m saying is, Parks and Rec is awesome. It’s endearing, it’s charming, it’s hilarious, it has romance and wit and local government. It has freakin’ Amy Poehler. And Aziz. And Aubrey. And Chris. And Nick. And Rashida. You’re telling me you’re going to boot the Wu-Tang Clan of Comedy to January 2011? I don’t think so. In case you haven’t heard, nobody f***s with the Wu-Tang. And I’m not about to let you, either.

May 18, 2010:

A note to Jeff Gaspin at NBC | Author

So I hear you’re going to push back the third season of Parks and Recreation until 2011. This is very disappointing for a variety of reasons. Parks and Recreation is one of my favorite shows on TV right now (a tie between it and 30 Rock). I understand you have a lot on your plate right now, what with commissioning a bunch of new shows for 10pm and finding another lanky, witty redhead to replace Jay Leno someday, but please reconsider this one move. It doesn’t help anybody.

I don’t watch a lot of TV, but the Thursday night lineup of Community, Parks and Rec, The Office, and 30 Rock is just right. In executive land, when something works you have to fix it. Why don’t we just pretend the current slate of shows doesn’t work so it can stay the same?

Parks and Recreation is, in its second season, far better than most shows, ever. With each episode the characters and the town of Pawnee, Indiana expand in natural, interesting directions. There is not a weak link among the cast. Ron Swanson has become the Libertarian father I never had. Rashida Jones is always a favorite. And of course parks are a resource I hold close to my heart.

It doesn’t matter the reason: bring back Parks and Recreation this fall, not next year. Do me this favor and I promise to watch your shows on an actual TV set instead of on the computer or DVD.

From AV Club’s Todd VanDerWerff:

Yeah, it’s a great time for TV comedy. But to my mind, one show pretty much towers above all the rest of them. Because it’s been a long, long time since a show had a season as airtight as the season Parks and Recreation is having. Honestly, it may be since the heyday of Arrested Development. I don’t know that there’s been a dud episode this season, and the show, which famously started out pretty weakly, has really figured out its voice and where it wants to go both now and in the future. Even better, it’s started growing and expanding the world of Pawnee, Indiana, over the course of the season. The show is simply clicking on just about every level at this point, and it’s giving itself a tough act to live up to in season three.

[...]

I don’t know if Parks and Recreation will ever be anything more than an acquired taste for plenty of people, but for those of us who’ve keyed into its very specific sense of place and its terrific way with character-based humor, there’s really nothing else like it on the air. As much as I like the “50 jokes a minute” style of comedies like Community or 30 Rock (both of which have done very fine things with their characters, mind), I’m a sucker for a show where the characters are as well-wrought and as purely funny as they are on this show.

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