To be anywhere near the set of a TV show from creator Michael Schur sounds like the absolute dream of dreams. Over the course of his 20+ year career in television, Schur has given people shows like The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and the current A Man on the Inside. But it’s Schur’s first series as creator, Parks and Recreation, that remains the most beloved in our hearts. Not only was it delightfully funny and endlessly memeable (if that’s important to you), but by all accounts it was just an absolute joy to work on. How fun was it? Infamously, the cast and crew took time out of their actual shooting schedule to shoot a fake 2000s-era legal drama called Philly Justice that no one has seen.
That is, no one has seen until Parks and Rec star Amy Poehler welcomed Mike Schur onto her podcast, Good Hang. It seems fans have pestered her to get a glimpse of this fake show they made for no reason. As part of a recent episode of the podcast, Poehler finally let the world see Philly Justice. But not before giving everyone the full rundown of how it happened.
It seems all of this began during the fourth season of Parks. That year, Leslie Knope (Poehler) ran for City Council of Pawnee, IN. That meant she and other characters wore a lot more business attire than biz-cazh. It also meant Paul Rudd and Kathryn Hahn were on the show a bunch as Leslie’s opponent and his flashy DC campaign manager, respectively. Series regular Rashida Jones commented that they all looked like they belonged on a David E. Kelley show. (Jones herself was on Boston Public for 38 episodes, so she knows.)
Not to simply “yadda yadda yadda” the story, but eventually the entire writing staff and actors had worked on characters and scripts for this not-real show. Producer Morgan Sackett then began trying to make the shooting of the first episode plus behind-the-scenes documentary a reality. When it came time to shoot, Rudd was no longer available. What to do? Well, ask Dylan McDermott to come in. Once again, no one was ever going to see this because it’s not a real thing. The only reason behind all of this was “Fun.”
This is legitimately one of the silliest things of all time, and the podcast about its creation makes it even better. If only all workplaces could be that rampantly ridiculous on purpose. Will we ever get a reboot of the fake show that never happened? Only time will tell, apparently.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
Content shared from nerdist.com.