Things You Never Noticed In Parks And Recreation's First Episode

NBC's collection of early 2010s comedies ranks among the finest in broadcast TV history, with multiple acclaimed and innovative single-camera comedies including "The Office," "30 Rock," "Community," and "Parks and Recreation." Created by veteran "The Office" writers Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, "Parks and Recreation," set in the fictional Pawnee, Indiana, found the hilarity in people being nice and helping each other achieve big things, while also satirizing the ins-and-outs of municipal government, office work, and small-town life. "Saturday Night Live" star and improv comedy legend Amy Poehler starred as the extremely driven Parks Department assistant director Leslie Knope, leading a cast that included comic heavyweights like Aziz Ansari, Rashida Jones, Aubrey Plaza, and Nick Offerman.

"Pilot," the appropriately named first episode of "Parks and Recreation," debuted on NBC on April 9, 2009, per IMDb. The show still had some evolving to do and would work out the kinks over its first couple of seasons. That makes for a pilot that doesn't look or feel much like later episodes, resulting in a lot of overlooked stuff. Here are some things even huge "Parks and Recreation" fans may have forgotten or not realized happened in episode number one.

"Parks and Recreation" wasn't Chris Pratt's first big role — he co-starred on the WB teen soap "Everwood" for four years — but it did mark his breakthrough as a comic performer. On the long-running NBC sitcom, he played Andy Dwyer, a fairly dim but utterly sweet wannabe-musician and shoeshine guy who eventually marries former Parks Department intern April Ludgate. But before all that, producers had to find a way to get Pratt onto the show full-time, because it's evident in the pilot episode that he was originally supposed to be a temporary character (per Showbiz Cheat Sheet). Pratt is listed in the credits as a "guest star," but Andy drives what would become the main storyline of the show's early seasons and is the indirect impetus for setting up the show's most prominent love story: the friendship between Leslie Knope and nurse Ann Perkins (per POPSUGAR).

At the outset of the series, Andy is Ann's ne'er-do-well boyfriend, a sloppy frat-guy-type hanging out on the couch eating junk food and nursing two broken legs. He digs into his casts with an "itching stick" and does other gross things, while viewers learn that he endured those injuries after falling into the open pit near his house — the pit that Leslie Knope wants to replace with a park.

While four major characters on later seasons of "Parks and Recreation" don't factor into the show whatsoever in its first episode, there's another guy who is so prominent and seemingly important that viewers take notice, particularly because he'd later disappear without a trace. Prolific indie movie actor Paul Schneider appeared in this and other early "Parks and Recreation" episodes as Pawnee city planner Mark Brendanawicz. He works in City Hall in an office visible from the Parks Department where most of the action takes place, so he's kind of the workplace-comedy version of the family sitcom's wacky neighbor character.

However, Mark Brendanawicz is far from wacky — he's soft-spoken, straightforward, and bland. He's also casually mean and a little off-putting. In a talking head segment, Mark shares that he lost his faith in government and became jaded almost immediately after taking his job, meanwhile Leslie has never swayed from her idealistic nature. And speaking of Leslie, she tells the camera that she had a fling with Mark some years earlier. She's clearly still hung up on the guy, but Mark completely and dismissively denies that there was ever a relationship at all ... until he suddenly recalls that yes, he and Leslie did have a brief dalliance. He'd just forgotten about it.

Leslie is nervous and a little scared about running a community outreach meeting in her duties as a high-ranking employee of the Parks and Recreation Department, but she pulls it off, hosting a wide array of local oddballs in a school classroom. Public meetings would become a running bit on "Parks and Recreation," as would be the town eccentrics who step up and voice their wild and weird concerns, and this recurring source of comedy is thus established in the first episode of the series. Two of the Pawnee cranks who share their troubles with Leslie are played by comedians — well-known among comedy fans — that travel in the same circles as the show's regular cast members.

Musician Loudon Wainwright III, who showed off his comic chops in the college comedy "Undeclared" (in which Amy Poehler had a recurring role), plays a man who unloads his anti-Masonic conspiracy theories and passionate feelings about actor Laura Linney onto the Parks Department panel before he's cut off. Recognizable character actor Ian Roberts plays a guy concerned about the welfare of his children who also, ironically and for comedic effect, curses profusely. Roberts and Poehler got their big TV break at the same time, co-starring on Comedy Central's "Upright Citizens Brigade," an outgrowth of the comedy theater they founded together (per The Atlantic).

It's at the classroom meeting where Leslie Knope springs into action, setting into motion the plot for the first seasons of "Parks and Recreation." Leslie, who would eventually be depicted as a master and careful planner, blurts out to Ann a steadfast promise to turn that pit into a park. That's something she almost certainly can't guarantee because, as "Parks and Recreation" will demonstrate to viewers over and over again, it's difficult to get anything done in Pawnee, Indiana, what with oppressive bureaucracy, financial concerns, paperwork, internal resistance in the city government, and routinely vocal and vicious public opposition.

Still, Leslie right away aggressively pursues the project, debuting a couple comic bits that would become hallmarks of the series. First, Leslie's ambition far exceeds what she can actually accomplish — she promises to fill the park with a playground, multiple sports courts, and a regulation football field, despite the lot being way too small for all of that. Then she has to get Parks Department director Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) on board, and viewers see her trying out every possible angle on the boss who says "no" as a matter of course, making for a classic "Parks and Recreation" rapid-fire comedy montage.

Andy Dwyer is depicted as something of a dummy for injuring himself in the Sullivan Street Pit — after all, who but someone of less-than-average intelligence could manage to break both of their legs in a massive hole that could easily be avoided. But later in the episode, Leslie Knope falls into the pit, too. In a marvelous and painful-looking piece of physical comedy, a businesswear-clad Leslie spectacularly tumbles, head over feet and again and again, from a high perch into the dirt 20 or so feet below.

Because this is a live-action sitcom and not a cartoon, Leslie is worse for wear and is moderately hurt in the accident. Fortunately, Ann Perkins is a registered working nurse, and she's able to treat Leslie's wounds and injuries, providing a quiet and intimate moment that kindles what would turn into an epic, worshipful friendship. Nevertheless, Leslie nearly breaks her hand as well as her clavicle and bonks her head on an old piece of rebar menacingly sticking up out of the ground.