A star of Parks and Recreation has expressed surprise that a Donald Trump-supporting senator’s staff were fans of the show.
The hit comedy series ran between 2009 and 2015, and focuses on bureaucrat Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and the Parks and Recreation department in the fictional U.S. town of Pawnee.
Jim O’Heir, who played the role of Jerry Gergich, has now revealed that he crossed paths with Trump-linked senator’s staff during a charity event, admitting he was shocked at their love for the series given the gap between their politics and the show’s.
“They were so excited that I was there – ‘Oh my God, it’s the best show!’” he recalled them saying (via The Guardian).
“Parks and Rec, I think, is the opposite of what your agenda is, and yet you call it one of the greatest shows of all time.”
Meanwhile, earlier this year star Rashida Jones revealed that Parks and Recreation was always close to being cancelled.
“[Parks and Recreation] is kind of iconic now—It’s like one of those great comedies of that time, which is so awesome…But we didn’t feel that way,” she told the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast.
“Every single season, we were like, this is it. They’re not gonna want us back. At one point we were cancelled and then the president of NBC got off the plane and changed his mind. It was like, ‘Eh, don’t cancel it yet, I guess.’ It was not really a thing at all.”
She added that “we never succeeded” in ratings, admitting: “The whole time we were just holding on for dear life, hoping we got to do more…which is probably part of why it was so good—because there was no stardom. It wasn’t infiltrated by any outside feelings about us. People kind of liked us if they knew who we were.”
As well as Poehler, the series famously starred Adam Scott, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Rob Lowe and Nick Offerman.
English (US) · 