NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation” signs off tonight on its own terms, ending a seven-year run after coming so close to cancellation so many times during that stretch.
However, for a show which faced constant concerns about its future, it did so with a smile on its face, being relentlessly positive at a time in television when “cringe comedy” was prevalent.
The story about the show’s multiple endings is familiar in an industry as merciless as it is powerful. “Parks and Rec” rang classic moments such as the Harvest Festival, the 2012 Pawnee City Council election results and last season’s unity concert out of its multiple would-be series conclusions.
For as many endings as the show had, it effectively had several beginnings, too. While “Parks” began life as a spiritual spinoff of NBC cringe comedy mockumentary “The Office,” it was given the chance to be on the air long enough to discover its own, distinct voice.
In doing so, it changed from a cringe comedy — one which mines its humor from the feeling of superiority that comes from laughing at the social misfortunes of others — into a champion for the comedy of positivity. “Parks and Rec” chose to laugh with its characters rather than at them.
It struggled to get there. It’s a unicorn in modern television in that it survived its disastrous, albeit truncated, six-episode first season in which Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler, right) was a bit more like Michael Scott of “The Office” and less the effervescent government champion she became.
Leslie needed to change the most in order for the show to survive. Her first-season character was too dim, too petty and too inept to get behind, working in a me-against-the-world battle against local government bureaucracy while pining romantically for the unremarkable, droll Mark Brendanawicz.
Season two is the show’s transformative year. “Parks” made its mission statement during an episode in season two when April Ludgate breaks up with her boyfriend and his boyfriend, asking, “Why does everything we do have to be cloaked in, like, 15 layers of irony?” It was the show acknowledging the colossal shift in its intentions. From that moment forward, even the program’s biggest curmudgeons — April and steak-swilling, wood-carving man's man Ron Swanson — were softies just below the surface.
By the end of season two, Brendanawicz departs and Ben Wyatt and Chris Traeger jump aboard. When the third season begins, the show’s slow reconfiguring is set and Pawnee is so cheery and quirky a place that Chris’ spraying positivity like a fire house doesn’t seem out of place.
“Parks” became a show that was rarely about making fun of someone else’s misfortune or pointing and laughing at people because they were inferior, but often, laughing at people for being too much of themselves — Tom Haverford’s inability to give up electronics, Leslie’s determination to always be right, April’s lack of interest in anything that wasn’t her husband or her three-legged dog.
The show was hardest on Gary/Larry/Terry, whose revolving door of names shows the lack of regard his co-workers showed. Although he was a punching bag for his colleagues, he came home to a supermodel wife and kids who loved him.
Even when we laughed at Ben Schwartz’s scene-stealing Jean-Ralphio, we laughed at him for being who he was — “the wor-huh-urst!” It’s a choice that makes “Parks” distinct among even those with which it shared its schedule on NBC as well as TV in general.
Cringe comedy inspires mixed feelings. Although a number of shows built on that dynamic have their place — who doesn’t like to see Larry David get his comeuppance after being a selfish jerk for the first 28 minutes of a 29-minute episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm?” — what is the psychological and cultural toll is of having so many shows where the founding premise is laughing at other’s misfortunes?
That’s part of why “Parks” was special. It wasn’t ashamed to be exactly what it was. In and outside of the world of television comedy, that’s not just a way to create characters, but a way to live.
“Parks” bows tonight with an hourlong episode on NBC.
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