Original air date: November 12, 2009
Writer: Rachel Axler | Director: Millicent Shelton
Summary: THE PARKS DEPARTMENT GETS ARTISTIC—After one of the murals (”The Spirit of Pawnee”) in City Hall is defaced, Leslie (Amy Poehler) and the Parks Department compete to come up with a new design. Meanwhile, Andy (Chris Pratt) and Ron (Nick Offerman) share an uncomfortable moment at the shoeshine stand. Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari and Aubrey Plaza also star.
Poll:
In a poll conducted on Knope Knows from November 12-15, viewers gave “The Camel” an 8.21/10.
Ratings:
4.580 million viewers | 2.1/6 A18-49 | Source
Videos:
Promos | Deleted Scenes | Highlights
Other:
Pioneer Hall Murals
Knope Knows Q&A:
Doug Jones (Arnold)
Quotes:
Leslie: The mural that normally resides here is called The Spirit of Pawnee, and it’s very controversial. We’ve had someone throw acid at it, tomato sauce. Someone tried to stab it once.
Leslie: We really need better security here. We also need better, less offensive history.
Leslie: Joe, you work in sewage. Your department literally specializes in crap. You really want to do this?
Joe: Sewage! Let’s roll.
Tom: Damn! How does sewage always get the hottest interns?
Leslie: You can have two legacies. Look at Madonna: great singer, amazing arms.
Tom: Look at O.J. Simpson: Heisman Trophy winner, Naked Gun.
Donna: No offense, Leslie, but I’m not an artist.
Leslie: That’s not true, Donna. I’ve seen your fingernails.
Donna: Um, I pay someone to do this.
Leslie: Designers, make it work. Tim Gunn.
Andy: You, my friend, are ready to go dancing!
Andy: Ron, how about you? Need a little dog waxing?
Andy: Come on, beat it! This is Ron Swanson we’re talking about.
Ron: I got my first job when I was 9. Worked at a sheet metal factory. In two weeks, I was running the floor. Child labor laws are ruining this country.
Andy: Do you have a key in your shoe?
Ron: No, no. I have a bunion that’s practically it’s own toe. Normally the pain howls through my loafers like a banshee on the moors, but these past three minutes its been reduced to a faint growl.
Tom: Just give me $20 worth of art. Just something that seems personal that only I could have done.
Arnold: Tell me about yourself.
Tom: No. Just paint.
Tom: I have no interest in art. Let me clarify: I have no interest in non-nude images.
Tom: Dude, what the hell kind of art is this? It looks like a lizard puking up Skittles.
Arnold: I’m an abstract expressionist.
Tom: No, you’re a con artist, and I’m a guy who’s out 20 bucks. Ugh, whatever.
Ann: I’m a terrible artist. But the Parks Department has done so much for me, that if I can help them out in any way I will. Oh god. Maybe I should just give them all free flu shots.
Leslie: I know everything about this town and these murals, and that’s why this is a dream come true. Literally, I have had a dream where I design a mural, but then it turned into a nightmare because the mural started talking and it came alive. And it was whispering and I couldn’t hear what it was saying so I leaned in close and then it ate me. At one point Gina Gershon was there.
Andy: Do you need your money back, Ron? Because I already spent it.
Ron: Really. How did…nevermind.
Tom: That looks like something a death row convict would make in art therapy.
Ann: Dude, I tried.
Tom: And you failed.
Tom: It’s OK, sweetheart. You can’t make art because you are art. You’re beautiful. But that sucks.
Tom: It’s abstract, Leslie. Over here you’ve got some shapes. And then, you come over to this side. You know it’s actually kind of interesting. Each shape is its own thing, but then when it comes together, it really gives you a sense of, completion. Hmm.
Tom: A piece of art caused me to have an emotional reaction. Is that normal?
Donna: OK, so, here’s where it gets a little dicey ’cause there’s not that many celebrities from Indiana. So, um, a Nascar. Uh, my friend Becky, Ron Swanson…
Leslie: Donna, who’s the Jesus?
Donna: That would be Greg Kinnear.
Leslie: Do you think he’s the best choice for Jesus? I mean he was great on ER.
Tom: Greg Kinnear wasn’t in ER.
Leslie: Yeah he was.
Ann: I don’t think that he was.
Leslie: Who am I thinking of?
Jerry: For my murinal, I was inspired by the death of my grandma–
Tom: Hey, you said murinal (laughs)
April: Jerry, why don’t you put that murinal in the men’s room so people can murinate all over it.
Leslie: Disqualified!
April: So this is a multimedia project. First, a bunch of rats made out of garbage. And um, this is a TV screen that’ll be like a big flat screen TV and it’ll play looped video of knee surgeries. And then, this is a human-size hamster wheel that will be next to the mural, if we can get one. And it’ll be spinning and there will be like a fat guy in it all the time like screaming and like eating raw beef and like bleeding and like blood will come out of his mouth and stuff. And um, it’ll be like right next to, the mural.
Leslie: I have one question. Why?
April: If you have to ask, you don’t get it.
Leslie: If we’re going to beat all the other departments, we have to choose something that will stand the test of time. Like the Mona Lisa, or the music of Squeeze.
Leslie: We lost a lot of good bread that day, as well as several human lives. And it also made the whole town smell like toast, which one resident described as quote, “disturbingly enticing.”
Leslie: People love voting for tragedy. Look at the Oscars! This is our Holocaust movie. This is our English Patient.
Ann: Sounds like you’re exploiting the tragedy.
Leslie: See, Ann gets it.
Leslie: May the best, most tragic project win.
Leslie: We all voted for ourselves, didn’t we?
Ron: Mmm. That’s a good shoeshine.
Ron: I don’t know what happened, frankly. I emitted a noise. The noise was involuntary. Sometimes a sound is just a sound, you know.
Leslie: Can we all agree on eliminating any of these designs.
April: Ann’s blows.
Ann: Wow, don’t hold back.
April: No offense but it’s a giant picture of a park. That’s not art.
Ann: Well, at least it’s not a fat human hamster eating meat.
April: You don’t even work here.
Leslie: OK, guys you both have a point. Ann, yours was a little trite. And April, yours was hellish, and might make someone vomit.
April: Thank you.
April: Any kid could do that.
Tom: No kid could do that. Only god could do that.
Donna: What is so great about the shapes?!
Leslie: He likes the shapes, OK? And he’s part of the team.
Leslie: It’s like if you got Michelangelo and Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollack and Jim Davis from Garfield to do one painting. Imagine how good that painting would be.
Leslie: Ann’s in trouble. We think it might be pills.
Mark: What?
Leslie: No. That’s a lie. But this is just as important. We need you to look at a piece of art.
Mark: What you guys have here is one ugly camel… featuring Bill Paxton.
Donna: Greg Kinnear. Oh, is Bill Paxton from Indiana?
Leslie: I’ve seen you sketch things.
Mark: Uh, yeah. Like poles for stop signs.
Leslie: That everybody stops and looks at.
Mark: By law, Leslie. They’re required to.
Mark: I was going to go to Arby’s and watch Frontline.
Ann: How is that better than my park scene?
April: It isn’t, and that’s saying something.
Donna: And who’s the man. Is he famous? Is it Martin Landau?
Tom: It’s nothing. It’s mush. There’s not even one shape in there, Mark. Where are the shapes?
Tom: This, is, garbage. We’ve gotta go back to the shapes.
Donna: I wouldn’t take the shapes over anything. I’d take Jerry’s murinal over this.
Tom: Mark’s not even in the department.
Mark: Neither is Ann.
Tom: But Ann’s hot. And that counts for something.
Joe: Hey, Knope. How’s life in the Parks De-Fartment?
Leslie: Better than life in the Sewage De-Fartment. Which makes more sense.
Mark: Us? Old man feeding pigeons. No stance. Absolutely no point-of-view whatsoever.
Leslie: No point-of-view. Smart.
Ron: Mention what again?
Andy: The moan, Ron. The weird moan you made that was super weird. Do you not remember that?
Chief Conner: It’s your basic “dogs playing poker,” but with an “everything’s on fire” theme. And this is my nephew over here. And uh, this is an attractive lady with a hamburger for a head. Just some stuff we liked, you know?
Leslie: I want my team back. And my team made this hot, crazy camel mess.
Leslie: God I hope we win. But we’re definitely going to lose.
Ann: Probably.
Woman: Forgive me. Is that Michael Jackson?
Donna: He-he. Yes. The pride of Indiana.
April: That’s right. So it’s relevant.
Woman: Who is he carrying?
Leslie: Jesus Greg Kinnear.
Man: You know, it looks like he’s carrying Kinnear into the burning building.
Leslie: Oh, well that’s because he’s moonwalking. So he, um, should be going the other way. That did not occur to me.
April (laughs)
Arnold: I don’t know what you mean by good.
Tom: Neither do I. Just do another one.
Tom: Shut up, and do more art for me.
Tom: This one’s racist.
Tom: I like the green one. And the red circle right here. I’m tearing up, man.
