Over the years, Parks and Rec has featured many funny and clever improvised lines, and it’s hard to decide which scenes are the best. The show stars Amy Pohler, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, and many other hilarious actors as the Parks Department of Pawnee, Indiana. The town is run by and inhabited by comically inefficient people, and as the main characters try to improve the city, there is no shortage of absurd and hilarious situations for them to maneuver through.
The show’s episodes are a group effort between the writers and the cast. Cast members are heavily involved in their characters’ storylines and personalities, which helps them seem completely fleshed out despite existing in a goofy version of the world. As the show was shot, it was common for the last take, dubbed the “fun run” of the scene, was reserved for the actors of Parks and Rec to go as off-script as they wanted, as long as it followed the general direction of the scenario. Though many jokes were too edgy to make it out of the blooper reels, many of the show’s funniest scenes were a result of these improvised scenes. Here are eight Parks and Rec scenes made better by improvisation.
8 Amy Pohler’s Show-Saving Line
Season 1 of Parks and Rec is generally regarded as the least enjoyable, mostly because of the imbalance between Leslie’s overenthusiasm and the deadpan demeanors of the rest of the characters. In season 1, episode 4, “Boys Club,” Amy Pohler improvises a line during her talking head segment. It was a move that several writers credit as what “fixed” the show’s tone.
After feeling excluded by the rest of the men working in the government building, Leslie joins them out on the patio and immediately knocks over the table, sending bottles crashing to the ground. Talking to the camera while the group throws the glass away, she says with a smirk, “I kind of feel like I’m already in the boy’s club. I mean, look at these b*tches clean up after me.” That was a turning point for Leslie’s character, and she was much less uptight going forward.
7 Snake Juice
After Tom (Aziz Ansari) promotes a new liquor called “Snake Juice” at his club in season 3, episode 13, “The Fight,” the characters are all completely drunk by the end of the night. None of their drunken behaviors were scripted but instead, the Parks and Rec actors improvised their Snake Juice reactions. According to several of the cast members, the idea came from the cast trying to make Amy Pohler laugh. The resulting footage included Ron (Nick Offerman) dancing wearing April’s headband, April (Aubrey Plaza) ranting in Spanish, Ben (Adam Scott) talking gibberish, and Ann (Radisha Jones) making an aggressive show of confidence at the expense of a random bystander.
6 Andy Does Road House
While Leslie attends a debate against her city council opponent in season 4, episode 20, “The Debate,” her campaign donors are unable to watch the televised event due to Andy’s (Chris Pratt) unpaid cable bill. To entertain the group, Andy acts out the plot of Road House from start to finish. The script meant for him to explain the movie in words but Pratt decided that Andy would act it out instead. Some characters look understandably confused, but many of them are enthralled with Andy’s improv performance.
5 Andy And April's Romance
Andy and April are an interesting couple because they are complete opposites but somehow go perfectly together. They weren’t intended to get together in the show’s original plan, but one quick-as-a-flash improvised line from April in season 1 is where Aubrey Plaza thinks their romance potential started. In season 1, episode 6, “Rock Show,” Andy invites the Parks Department to come and see his band play, and as he’s describing the band’s sound, April quips, “I totally know what you mean.” She could have joined in with Mark Brendanawicz’s teasing, which would have been very in character, but instead, she shows interest and support.
Plaza said of the scene, “In that moment I was like, ‘I feel like April would think Andy is really cute. Maybe that’ll be something.’” After their romance is fully set up, Andy and April’s chemistry continues to build until they become one of the best couples on Parks and Rec. Even though it’s an easy-to-miss line, it set up a very believable romance and convinced the writers to start planting seeds for their romance to develop.
4 Filibuster Fan Fiction
Patton Oswalt guest stars as a Pawnee citizen named Garth Blunden who is dedicated to preserving the town’s history. In an attempt to keep Leslie from changing any of Pawnee’s antiquated laws, Garth leads a filibuster and fills his time with reading his fan fiction of a Marvel-Star Wars-Clash of the Titans crossover in which Thanos uses the reality stone to combine the two universes. Oswalt said later that he didn’t think he would actually get to say much, since the scene only called for about 10 seconds of his content, but no one ever called “cut.” The result is about nine minutes of improvised content on the blooper reel.
3 Jean Ralphio and Mona Lisa Not Being Suspicious
This memorable scene from the series finale was one of the best examples of the Saperstein siblings and their outrageous immaturity. In a classically silly execution of maybe the worst of all his bad ideas, Jean Ralphio fakes his death, only to blow his cover while attending his own funeral. As he tries to sneak away, he and his sister can’t help but break into song. Almost immediately, their chants of “Don’t be suspicious” do, in fact, draw everyone’s attention.
2 Tammy II Going Topless
Ron’s second ex-wife named Tammy is known to bring out the worst in him with her own crazy behavior. Tammy II is played by Nick Offerman’s real-life wife Meagan Mullally and is introduced in season 2, episode 8, “Ron and Tammy.” Due to her relationship with Offerman and the fact that the scene was being filmed at 6 in the morning and she assumed few members of the cat and crew would be on set, Mullally went all out with her scenes. When she and Ron run into a motel, the camera censors her bare chest after she pulls her shirt completely off.
1 Band Names
Andy’s band, first introduced as “Scarecrow Boat,” goes through a lot of different band names before settling on Mouse Rat. In “Rock Show,” Andy is preparing to get on stage with his band for the first time since breaking his legs, leading to a talking head segment where he recounts all of the band’s name changes. This particular ad-lib was eventually revealed by Pratt as one that he didn’t have to come up with on the spot, because he had already been thinking of a list of silly band names before the script even called for them.
Though the writers of Parks and Rec are very talented and script the majority of the show, there’s no argument that the improvisation skills of its cast bring a lot to the scenes. Their ability to take a line and run with it is one of the things that keeps Parks and Rec feeling genuine and truly funny and it's no surprise the show continues to be popular in the years since its conclusion with this brand of seamless humor. Clearly, the writers and cast worked well together and the actors' skills were given opportunities to shine, which only made Parks and Rec better.