Parks and Recreation is an American comedy television series on the NBC television network, starring Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a perky, mid-level bureaucrat in the parks department of Pawnee, a fictional town in Indiana. Conceived by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, the series debuted on April 9, 2009 and concluded its fifth season in May 2013. It uses a single-camera, mockumentary filming style, with the implication being that a documentary crew is filming everyone.
The writers researched local California politics for the show, and consulted with urban planners and elected officials. The Leslie Knope character underwent minor changes after the first season in response to audience feedback that she seemed unintelligent and "ditzy". The writing staff tried to incorporate current events into their episodes, such as a government shutdown in Pawnee inspired by the real-life global financial crisis. Several guest stars have been featured in the show, and these characters often appear in multiple episodes.
Parks and Recreation received generally mixed to negative reviews during its first season. However, after a reapproach to its format and tone, its second and subsequent seasons received much higher critical acclaim. Parks and Recreation has received several awards and nominations, including a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series and three Emmy nominations for Poehler's performance. In Time's 2012 year-end lists issue, Parks and Recreation was named the number one television series.
On May 9, 2013, NBC renewed the show for a sixth season.
Read more about Parks And Recreation: Awards and Nominations, DVD and Streaming Video
Famous quotes containing the words parks and, parks and/or recreation:
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Media mystifications should not obfuscate a simple, perceivable fact; Black teenage girls do not create poverty by having babies. Quite the contrary, they have babies at such a young age precisely because they are poor—because they do not have the opportunity to acquire an education, because meaningful, well-paying jobs and creative forms of recreation are not accessible to them ... because safe, effective forms of contraception are not available to them.”
—Angela Davis (b. 1944)