19 Awesome Facts About "Parks And Recreation" You Probably Didn't Know

During San Diego Comic-Con, some of the cast of Parks and Recreation reunited for a panel in honor of the the show’s 10th anniversary.

The panel included Jay Jackson (Perd Hapley), Andy Forrest (Kyle, aka Andy’s shoeshine BFF), Colton Dunn (Brett from Animal Control), John Balma (Barney, aka Ben’s accounting BFF), and Kelly Washington (Allison Gliffert, aka Leslie’s protege).

Here’s all the cool stuff we learned:

1.Kyle, who was always at Andy’s shoeshine stand, was originally just written into one episode and was supposed to be the head of Water and Power. They ended up needing somebody at the stand a couple of episodes later, so they called him back.

2.Barney was originally only needed in one episode, too! But John Balma got called back to play the Barney that we all know and love (and feel bad for) about a year and a half later.

3.When people recognize John as Barney on the street, more often than not they come up and say, “Oh my god, we feel so sorry [for Barney].”

4.The first time Colton Dunn got recognized on the street for Parks and Recreation, a guy kept on looking at him and finally said, “Hey, man, do you work with animals?”

5.Many people know that Jay Jackson, who plays Perd Hapley, was originally a news reporter, but what you might not know is that casting for Parks and Recreation was specifically looking for a news reporter (not an actor) because they “wanted the sound of a real news reporter saying silly things.”

6.The scripts for each episode were usually 35 to 45 pages (which is long for a half-hour comedy), so a lot of good stuff often had to be cut.

9.In “Recall Leslie Knope,” Colton and Harris Wittels were on the call sheet for the parade scene, but they had no lines, so they decided to come up with some of their own to shout while on the float. They decided to chant “Legalize weed!” and it ended up in the show.

10.Another time Colton and Harris got to improvise together is when both their characters showed up for the same Animal Control interview for the job that they were both just fired from. Colton said the scene was “Bill and Ted level dumb” so they decided to just both shout “Wyld Stallyns!”…and, once again, it was kept in the show.

13.According to Jay, Aziz Anzari would often make other actors break character on set because he was just so funny. There was one scene in Season 3 with Perd, Tom, and Ben that the three of them just couldn’t get through because Aziz kept on making a face that would make them break.

14.Colton had trouble getting through the scene where Tom meets the Animal Control guys for the first time because apparently Aziz had a hilarious facial reaction to Brett’s “how do you know my name?” line.

16.The iconic scene where Jean-Ralphio walks around the office with Barney and then gets immediately fired was filmed in three takes.

17.Chris Pratt can somehow contort his legs in a weird way that allows himself to fall backwards, and so they had him do it several times throughout the series.

18.Andy and Chris Pratt thought it would be funny if it was revealed that Kyle was actually Andy Dwyer’s father and that’s why he kept on coming back to the shoeshine stand.

19.And finally, according to Jay, there were a lot of tears and people crying during the Season 6 finale because everyone was emotional while filming the Unity Concert.

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