Parks And Recreation Returning For One Special Night
It was asked, “Are we going to let this crisis defeat us as a nation?” And a voice said, “Knope.” Michael Schur, creator of Parks and Recreation, revealed to the press today that Leslie, Andy, Ron and all the others are coming back as themselves for one night only, in an NBC special designed to raise money for COVID-19 relief.
How can you have a new Parks and Rec episode out of nowhere, especially now? If you haven’t already guessed, the actors will be playing their characters remotely from their own homes, because the plotline will directly involve our current events. This means that the first scripted TV series to directly include the pandemic in its plotline will be Parks and Recreation…who would have figured?
(Actually, to be technical, The Simpsons opened last Sunday’s episode with a chalkboard that simply said “CLASSES ONLINE” and no Bart, though the actual episode had nothing to do with the virus’ impact).
“Like a lot of other people, we were looking for ways to help and felt that bringing these characters back for a night could raise some money,” says Schur. “I sent a hopeful email to the cast and they all got back to me within 45 minutes. Our old ‘Parks and Rec’ team has put together one more 30-minute slice of (quarantined) Pawnee life and we hope everyone enjoys it. And donates!”
Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Rob Lowe, Jim O’Heir, and Retta are all confirmed. No word on if Rashida Jones will make a surprise appearance as Ann.
A Parks and Recreation Special, which is the official title, airs a week from today, April 30 at 8:30 PM.