Knope Knows

What’s Hutts and Recreation? Only a genius parody of Parks and Recreation’s opening theme uploaded to YouTube by a trio of Floridians. The video, which went live on March 6, is an unexpectedly hilarious mash-up between Parks and Star Wars (in particular, Jabba the Hutt).

For those of you who have yet to see the video, do yourself a favor and watch this 22-second clip:

And now, five questions with the creators of Hutts and Recreation!

Tell me about yourself. Who are you? Where are you? What are you?

JOHN: We’re just a couple of geeks who like Star Wars & Parks and Rec. We’re Florida residents and we’re mainly independent film makers/freelance videographers.

WILL: Speak for your geek-self! I’m not the one who owns FOUR different Jabba the Hutt action figures… Okay, maybe I am. Anyway, we’re roommates who work as graphic designers at our day jobs, and do film-work by night. I work for Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.

JOHN: And I’m also a musician in the steampunk band The Cog is Dead.

So you’ve said the reason you made Hutts and Recreation is because you sing “Jabba the Hutt” along to the theme of Parks and Recreation every time you watch the show. What is it about Parks (or the theme) that made you think of the Star Wars character?

JOHN: It’s kind of hard to pinpoint what made us think of Jabba. I just have the habit of making up stupid lyrics to theme music. We think I may have been the one to sing it first, but we can’t really even remember.

WILL: It’s all a blur. And it’s all in the syllables. There’s no actual thematic or conceptual connection. If there were… it would cease being “art.” The decision to actually go through with making the video, however, only occurred because the image of seeing Jabba next to his name repeatedly standing in for each cast member was so damn funny to us.

How many people are behind the video?

WILL: Three. John’s the technical mastermind, I’m the Star Wars scene expert, and our third roommate, Chris, joined us in the singing of the piece.

How much time did it take you to make?

JOHN: Probably about five hours. We just went through the Parks and Rec opening shot by shot and tried to pic what we thought was the best replacement for each clip. We were careful to recreate the titles and framing of each shot as closely as we could to the original opening. Then we each took turns laying down vocals to truly re-create the bizarre experience we have in our living room every Thursday night when the show begins.

WILL: Note that every time there’s a shot of “The Pit” in the Parks and Rec opening, there’s a shot of the Sarlacc in the Great Pit of Carkoon in the Star Wars parody

Parks and Recreation’s production coordinator said the production office loves your video. Show runner Michael Schur said the same thing about the writers’ room. GQ magazine named it viral video of the day on Tuesday. What’s running through your head?

WILL: Primarily, “What The!?” I mean, of all the goofy oddball nonsensical pairings to be well-received… why’d THIS one hit the spot? It might just be that Parks and Rec viewers were hungry for any fan video/parody of their favorite show, or maybe just that deep down each of us secretly maintains an ongoing love affair with Jabba the Hutt, but from a creative standpoint I’d like to think this bodes well for public reception of our style of humor. We have a massively epic adventure-comedy indie film we’re nearing completion on called “Flashback,” and when we finally unleash that on the world, we can only hope the welcome will be as warm! Ultimately, it’s just been an honor to get kudos directly from the Parks and Rec writers and crew. They crack us up weekly, and it’s nice to think we were able to put smiles on a few of their faces in return.

JOHN: I think my reaction was just, “HOLY CRAP, that was FAST!” When making the video we joked, “Wouldn’t it be great if the writers of the show found this?” and we kind of hoped they might eventually… but literally TWO days after we uploaded it Alan Yang and Michael Schur were tweeting about it! Then Will called me and said, “We’re in Entertainment Weekly!” It’s basically the reaction we had kind of hoped it would get, but much faster and on a much larger scale than either of us could have anticipated. In fact, Alan Yang just told me that Amy Poehler says she likes it. So yes, we’re just a bit excited, surprised and a bit confused by the immediate popularity of this absurd joke of ours. But in the end we’re just glad so many people like it, including those who make the show. And if anyone would like to know more about our work and our feature film project, they can check out www.flashbackmovie.com. Thanks for the interest and for laughing with us, everyone!

Special thanks to John Mondelli (DaPootieMan) and Will Phillips (SagaciousPenguin) for their participation in this Q&A!

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