The Top Ten: Parks And Recreation ranked.
Mount that tiny horse and head on down to Pawnee as we bring you the very best of local-government comedy
10 City the hunting Party (Season 2, episode 10)
parks official Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) insists that the office ladies (and Aziz Ansari’s Tom) be allowed to join boss Ron Swanson’s (Nick Offerman) annual hunting trip. It’s all fun and games until someone shoots Ron in the head with buckshot. To protect the culprit, Leslie takes the fall — even though it jeopardises her campaign for equality with Ron. It’s an early example of the show working best when its characters look out for one another rather than their own ambitions. Even when they disagree — or almost kill one another — a sense of mutual devotion gets them through.
9 Citizen Knope (Season 4, episode 10)
The show takes a more explicitly political direction as Leslie runs for office — and into a sex scandal over her relationship with co-worker Ben (Adam Scott) — but at her lowest ebb, the department rallies around her in one of the show’s sweetest moments. This is also when we first meet the accounting firm whose staff fall collectively, madly in love with Ben, only for him to repeatedly turn down their job offers. In a show packed with running gags (calzone, Tom’s business schemes, Jerry), the unrequited love for Ben is richest in pathos.
8 Ron and diane (Season 5, episode 9)
Many of the best episodes involve Ron’s love life, and this is no exception. His new flame Diane (Lucy Lawless) joins him when he’s nominated for a woodworking award — only for his ex-wife Tammy Two (Megan Mullaly, Offerman’s real wife) to threaten their evening. This one could earn its place just for the stoic Ron’s rarely-heard giggle, and for the montage of deceased carpentry legends with their handmade coffins. Bonus points too for a glimpse into the home life of office loser Jerry (Jim O’heir), who’s blissfully married to the gorgeous Gayle (Christie Brinkley).
7 LI’L Sebastian (Season 3, episode 16)
The death of the titular Shetland pony sends the town of Pawnee into paroxysm of grief: think Princess Diana but more so. Ron Swanson cries for the second time in his life (the first when he was hit by a school bus, at age seven). The tribute concert that Leslie and company organise is parodic enough, but it’s heightened further by her farcical attempts to hide her affair with Ben, and Andy’s (Chris Pratt) genuinely catchy guitar anthem 5000 Candles In The Wind: a final, overblown tribute to the departed equine.
6 Ron and tammys (Season 4, episode 2)
It’s an epic battle for Ron’s soul between his two hellish ex-wives: government tax inspector Tammy One (Patricia Clarkson), a domineering woman who turns him into a “neutered wimp” while evil
librarian Tammy Two makes him a “demonic sex maniac”. Everyone risks turning into a different person when dating someone new, but seeing it happen to someone as solid as Ron makes the point more sharply than most. Across town, Tom’s new venture, “Entertainment 720” turns out to be a styleover-substance parody of all that is wrong with start-up culture. The show has often ridiculed late-stage capitalism, but never better than this.
5 THE DEBATE (SEASON 4, EPISODE 20)
Leslie’s race for City Council comes down to a candidates’ debate, with her main opposition rich bimbo Bobby Newport (Paul Rudd), son of the town’s biggest employer. No attack or fact can dent Bobby’s likeable platitudes or Rudd’s boyish charm in an episode that skewers the theatricality and lack of substance of modern politics brilliantly. Leslie struggles to make her point against not only Teflon Bobby but the other no-hoper candidates: a gun nut, an animal activist and a porn star. Draw your own parallels to real-life figures.
4 JOHNNY KARATE SUPER AWESOME MUSICAL EXPLOSION (SEASON 7, EPISODE 10)
Andy Dwyer should always have been a children’s entertainer: he’s pleasantly silly and basically the same mental age. This anarchic cable-access-show-within-the-show is proof. Andy’s TV hit is all about “learning, music, animals, fireworks, water-skis, and above all, ice cream, pizza, ninjas, getting stronger, sharks versus bears, and above all, karate”. Someone get Pratt off the latest Jurassic set and make this a real thing.
3 TWO PARTIES (SEASON 5, EPISODE 10)
Ben’s bachelor party turns into a series of treats for each of his friends, none of whom had their own stag bash, while Leslie’s hen do goes south when she attempts fraud to protect a park from developers. One plotline is a celebration of male bonding in a disparate group; the other a look at cultural sensitivity, past atrocities and penis-shaped gummies. The pun about a Abraham Lincoln stripper getting “Gettysburg undressed” is the cherry on a near-perfect episode.
2 PAWNEE RANGERS (SEASON 4, EPISODE 4)
Ron and Leslie lead competing scout-style trips: hard-living survival for Ron’s Boy Rangers and treats for Leslie’s Girl Goddesses. The prospect of a “puppy party” leads to all the boys defecting to Leslie — leaving her to confront Ron, the casualty of her over-achievement. Meanwhile Ben is introduced to Treat Yo’ Self day by Donna and Tom, in an episode that showcases the show’s unlikely friendships and rivalries, and the importance of managing both well. It also features Batman crying.
1 ANDY AND APRIL’S FANCY PARTY (SEASON 3, EPISODE 9)
Andy and April have only been dating for three months when they invite their friends for dinner, asking everyone to supply food and basic necessities (50 pairs of 3D glasses. And a 3D TV). Surprise! It’s a wedding! The shambolic but strangely romantic ceremony that follows is the first of several last-minute scrambles by the team to put on an event (see also: Leslie and Ben’s wedding), but this one’s the funniest. More than any other episode, this sums up the show’s appeal: basically decent, often eccentric people overcoming their hang-ups and doing their best to help each other. It’s almost impossibly heartwarming.