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Boys' Club (Parks and Recreation)
Encyclopedia
"Boys' Club" is the fourth episode of the first season
of the American comedy television series Parks and Recreation
. It originally aired on NBC
in the United States on April 30, 2009. It was written by Alan Yang and directed by Michael McCullers
. In the episode, Leslie
tries to integrate herself into the local "boys club" by drinking wine from an illegal gift basket, and gets into trouble as she tries to accept responsibility for her supposed mistake. In a B story
, Andy
cleans his apartment while Ann
is at work.
The episode included beer and props from Upland Brewing Company
, a real-life company based in Bloomington, Indiana
, in an attempt to give Pawnee an authentic Indiana
atmosphere. "Boys' Club" received positive to fair reviews, with some commentators praising the episode for better developing the show's supporting characters.
According to Nielsen Media Research
, it was watched by 5.28 million households in its original airing, which was consistent with the previous week. "Boys' Club" and the rest of the first season of Parks and Recreation was released on DVD
in the United States on September 8, 2009.
(Amy Poehler
) and Tom
(Aziz Ansari
) responding to an incident at a park trail, where teenage boys are picking up plastic baggies of dog droppings and throwing them at each other; Leslie tries to stop them but ends up playing along with the boys and admitting it is fun. Later, at the Pawnee town hall, a construction company has sent a gift basket with wine and cheese to the parks department, but Leslie locks it away because they are not allowed to accept gifts over $25. Later, she and the others in the department look at a new social-networking site
that April
(Aubrey Plaza) has set up for the pit construction project. The site already has seven friends, including city planner Mark
(Paul Schneider
), who Leslie is disappointed to see is friends with many scantily clad young women. Leslie and Ann
(Rashida Jones
) see Mark and other city planners drinking beer in the city hall courtyard. Leslie describes it as the exclusive "boys' club" and proposes the two ladies crash it.
When they come outside, Mark and the others welcome them warmly. Leslie enjoys herself at the party and, when the beer runs out and the party is about to end, she keeps it going by retrieving the wine from the gift basket. The next morning, she feels guilty and, despite her boss Ron
's (Nick Offerman
) assurance that it isn't a "big deal", Leslie issues a public apology to every government official in Pawnee, including a link to the new pit website. Later, however, she learns April has placed a drunken video of herself drinking the rest of the wine on the site, even though she is only 19. Ron tells Leslie an ethics board has called for a disciplinary hearing with Leslie. Leslie apologizes to the board and defends April, accepting responsibility for the video. As the questions from the board continue, Ron angrily defends Leslie, insisting, "Leslie has never broken a rule in her life, to the point that it's annoying." He abruptly ends the meeting and insists they will have to go through him to give Leslie anything more than a slap on the wrist.
Later, Leslie learns she will receive a letter in her file, which disappoints her strongly until Mark tells her he has seven in his file, and that most of the guys have at least one. Mark welcomes Leslie "to the team", which makes her proud. In a B story
, Ann's normally lazy boyfriend Andy
(Chris Pratt
) decides to surprise her by cleaning up their messy apartment while she is gone. After cleaning it, he bathes himself in a children's pool in the back yard and plays music; an angry neighbor steals his radio, prompting Andy (who has two broken legs) to chase the neighbor naked through the streets on his crutches. Later, Ann arrives home and is pleased with Andy's housework, prompting Andy to tell the documentary crew he expects to get "laid" later.
. McCullers co-wrote two of the Austin Powers
and directed Poheler in the comedy film Baby Mama
. The cold open
scene, with kids throwing bags of dog feces at Leslie, was added to the episode after the rest had already been filmed, and was directed personally by series co-creator Greg Daniels
. The bags were actually filled with mashed potatoes. Daniels said of the opening, "There were a lot of people who felt this was not in good taste, but to me, this was one of the most fun things about the show." The restriction prohibiting Pawnee employees from accepting gifts over $25 was based on real-life municipal regulations the Parks and Recreation producers encountered during their research. The scenes filmed in the town hall outside courtyard were filmed on a studio sound stage, and the ethics board review scene was filmed inside the city hall building of Pasadena
, California
.
Like most episodes of Parks and Recreation, a great deal of the scenes in "Boys' Club" were improvised by the actors. For example, Nick Offerman improvised the line "Put it in an e-mail?", which he said when Leslie told him she had a very long story to tell him. Schur thought the line was "my favorite thing in the show", and they made him say in it every subsequent take during filming. Aziz Ansari also improvised a majority of the scene in which he helped Leslie prepare for her ethics board review. Dean Holland, Parks and Recreation editor, said it was his favorite scene from the entire first season. Amy Poehler improvised the line at the courtyard gathering, after she accidentally spilled several beer bottles, "I feel like I'm already in the boys' club. Look at those bitches cleanin' up after me." Schur said the line helped develop Leslie's character in future episodes because "we realized that Leslie can be a little bit cooler than we had originally thought". The scene with Ron describing his ideal government was written for a different episode, but was moved to "Boys' Club" when the producers decided it fit better there. Schur said it was his favorite moment in the episode. "Boys' Club" ends with Leslie and Mark toasting a beer to each other because Schur said, "It's a running joke in the writer's room that every episode should end with clinking beers."
Photos of Parks and Recreation producers were included among the photos of past city council members on the town hall walls. The photo of Hiscock is the one Leslie said she believes, "No matter what direction I move, he's always staring at my chest. Mark's social networking site featured in "Boys' Club" included the character with a wide range of promiscuous women. The pictures were shot during a photo session during which, according to series co-creator Michael Schur
, "We brought in a lot of women and basically said, you're really trashy. You're trashy women, and we're going to take your picture now." During the courtyard party scenes, a brief clip shows Poehler, Jones and Schneider dancing together. The clip was actually the three actors out-of-character playing around between takes, but the Parks producers decided to add it to the episode.
Michael Schur
, co-creator of Parks and Recreation, said "Boys' Club" marked an attempt to better develop Andy Dwyer. Schur said, "We definitely wanted to dimensionalize his character and not make him just a one-dimensional douchebag." In the episode, Andy plays a tape of himself singing a song called "Ann", which he wrote as a romantic ballad for her. Chris Pratt actually wrote and performed the song himself for the show, although he said in an interview, "it really wasn't much". Pratt actually appeared on set naked while filming the scene in which he chases Lawrence through the streets without clothes on. Schur said the scene was written because Pratt "loves taking his clothes off". It proved difficult to film the scenes with Pratt bathing in the children's pool because the bubbles disappeared so quickly that multiple takes were required. The scenes with Andy running naked through the streets with his crutches to get his boombox back were inspired by a real-life experience from the set. During filming, an announcement was made that specialty coffees were available for the cast and crew, and Pratt ran quickly after them with the crutches. Greg Daniels added it to "Boys' Club" because he found the experience extremely funny.
In an attempt to lend authenticity to the fictional Pawnee, Indiana
setting, Parks and Recreation producers contacted the Bloomington, Indiana
-based Upland Brewing Company
and asked them to provide empty beer bottles and labels for the scene with the characters drinking in the town hall courtyard. The company provided props for their beer brand Dragonfly IPA, and Upland officials said their prominent appearances in the episode generated positive publicity for the company: Scott Johnson, marketing operations manager for the brewing company, said, "As soon as it went off, everyone starts calling me and e-mailing me." They also drink Vernors ginger ale, a soft drink very popular in Indiana. Windell D. Middlebrooks
makes a guest appearance as Brian, one of the men attending the during the courtyard party. Middlebrooks was cast simply based on his work on Miller High Life commercials, in which he steals beer from bars that he deems unworthy of it.
On the day of the episode's original American broadcast on April 30, 2009, the official NBC
Parks and Recreation website launched a duplicate of the Sullivan Street Pit social networking site which was featured in the episode, complete with photos of the pit, the list of "friends" from the show and a link to Mark's page and his photos with scantily clad women. The pit page, as well as the regular NBC website, also included the actual video of Aubrey Plaza pretending to drink wine and get drunk, as it was featured on the episode. Schur said for those scenes, "We just gave Aubrey a camera and told her to just drink wine and talk to the camera."
and Facebook
, which were extremely popular when the episode was first broadcast. Leslie makes a public apology to all female government officials in alphabetical order, starting with Minnesota
Republican
Rep. Michele Bachmann
, Wisconsin
Democratic
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (Democrat, Wisconsin) and Illinois
Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean
. On her desk, Leslie has framed photos of U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton
and former Supreme Court
Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor
. The apology scene was filmed with the camera on a tripod, something seldom done in the documentary-style series. An online game of Scrabble
is visible on the computer screen in Ron's office during one scene. It is exactly the same Scrabble game he had been playing with Tom in the previous episode, "The Reporter
". While preparing Leslie for her ethics board review, Tom asks if she has ever fantasized about Ron "covered in Powerade
". This is a reference to commercials for the sports drink, in which athletes sweat the multi-colored liquid while working out.
. This rating was consistent with the previous week even as other NBC
shows, like the new Southland
, saw a drop in ratings. "Boys' Club" received a 2.3 rating/8 share among viewers aged between 18 and 34, and a 2.3 rating/7 share among viewers between 18 and 49.
The episode received positive to fair reviews. Alan Sepinwall, television journalist for The Star-Ledger
, said "Boys' Club" was funnier that previous episode and included scenes with good physical comedy involving Leslie, particularly when she spilled the beer bottles; he also praised Andy's "naked crutch chase". Matt Fowler of IGN
said the episode gave a little more insight into Leslie's "aspirations about wanting to be a woman who succeeds in government, which is a step in the right direction", but Fowler said her constant mistakes and wrong decisions bog down the story. Fowler said the best part of the episode was Andy's subplot, particularly the scene in which he hops down the street naked on his crutches. Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club
gave the episode a B- grade, and said the Amy Poehler character needs to be more fully formed in future episodes. Phipps said most of the show's laughs came from supporting characters Andy, Tom and Ron; he also particularly praised Ron's shutdown of Leslie's hearing and his monologues of the ideal government: "One guy, who sits in a small room at a desk. And the only thing he’s allowed to decide is who to nuke." Jeremy Medina of Entertainment Weekly
liked that the episode included a moral crisis of sorts for Leslie, who he described as "a fully-realized character instead of a caricature".
set in the United States on September 8, 2009. The DVD included cast and crew commentary tracks for each episode, as well as about 30 minutes of deleted scenes. The deleted scenes included on the DVD were originally featured on the official Parks and Recreation website after the episode aired. In one of the scenes, Leslie bought a gift basket and returned it to the business that provided the original one, in an attempt at what she called "ethical restitution". In another scene, Leslie apologized to April for introducing her to alcohol, prompting April to later tell the camera she has had fake IDs in Indiana, North Dakota
and Delaware
since she was 14 years old.
Parks and Recreation (season 1)
The first season of Parks and Recreation originally aired in the United States on the NBC television network between April 9 and May 14, 2009...
of the American comedy television series Parks and Recreation
Parks and Recreation
Parks and Recreation is an American comedy television series on NBC that focuses on Leslie Knope , a mid-level bureaucrat in the parks department of Pawnee, a fictional town in Indiana. Created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, the series debuted on April 9, 2009; it has run for three seasons and...
. It originally aired on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in the United States on April 30, 2009. It was written by Alan Yang and directed by Michael McCullers
Michael McCullers
Michael McCullers is an American comedy film screenwriter.-Biography:A native of Indian Springs Village, Alabama, McCullers is a former writer on Saturday Night Live and is best known for co-writing the script for two Austin Powers movies, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers...
. In the episode, Leslie
Leslie Knope
Leslie Barbara Knope is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. She is portrayed by Amy Poehler. Poehler garnered two Emmy Award nominations for Best Lead Actress in Comedy Series for her role.-Background:...
tries to integrate herself into the local "boys club" by drinking wine from an illegal gift basket, and gets into trouble as she tries to accept responsibility for her supposed mistake. In a B story
Subplot
A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance...
, Andy
Andy Dwyer
Andrew Maxwell "Andy" Dwyer is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. He is Ann Perkins' ex-boyfriend, a talented-if-yet-unsuccessful musician, a shoe-shiner at Pawnee City Hall, and April Ludgate's husband. He is portrayed by Chris Pratt.-Background:At the start of the...
cleans his apartment while Ann
Ann Perkins
Ann Meredith Perkins is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. She is a nurse and best friend of Leslie Knope. She is portrayed by Rashida Jones.-Season one:...
is at work.
The episode included beer and props from Upland Brewing Company
Upland Brewing Company
Upland Brewing Company, founded in 1997, is a brewery in Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana. It is currently the second largest brewery in Indiana and is expected to reach approximately 9,000 barrels of production for 2010.-History:...
, a real-life company based in Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....
, in an attempt to give Pawnee an authentic Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
atmosphere. "Boys' Club" received positive to fair reviews, with some commentators praising the episode for better developing the show's supporting characters.
According to Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
, it was watched by 5.28 million households in its original airing, which was consistent with the previous week. "Boys' Club" and the rest of the first season of Parks and Recreation was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the United States on September 8, 2009.
Plot
The episode opens with LeslieLeslie Knope
Leslie Barbara Knope is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. She is portrayed by Amy Poehler. Poehler garnered two Emmy Award nominations for Best Lead Actress in Comedy Series for her role.-Background:...
(Amy Poehler
Amy Poehler
Amy Meredith Poehler is an American comedian, actress and voice actress. She was a cast member on the NBC television entertainment show Saturday Night Live from 2001 to 2008. In 2004, she starred in the film Mean Girls with Tina Fey, with whom she worked again in Baby Mama in 2008. She is...
) and Tom
Tom Haverford
Thomas Montgomery "Tom" Haverford , born Darwish Sabir Ismael Gani, is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. He is a sarcastic, underachieving government official for the city of Pawnee who is revered for his high levels of swagger and unmatched entrepreneurial skills...
(Aziz Ansari
Aziz Ansari
Aziz Ansari is an American actor, writer, and stand-up comedian. He currently stars as Tom Haverford on the NBC show Parks and Recreation....
) responding to an incident at a park trail, where teenage boys are picking up plastic baggies of dog droppings and throwing them at each other; Leslie tries to stop them but ends up playing along with the boys and admitting it is fun. Later, at the Pawnee town hall, a construction company has sent a gift basket with wine and cheese to the parks department, but Leslie locks it away because they are not allowed to accept gifts over $25. Later, she and the others in the department look at a new social-networking site
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
that April
April Ludgate
April Roberta Ludgate is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. She is an apathetic college student employed by the Pawnee Department of Parks and Recreation as Ron Swanson's assistant. She is married to Andy Dwyer. She is portrayed by Aubrey Plaza...
(Aubrey Plaza) has set up for the pit construction project. The site already has seven friends, including city planner Mark
Mark Brendanawicz
Mark Brendanawicz is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. He is the city planner for Pawnee, Indiana, one of Ann Perkins's ex-boyfriends, and Leslie Knope's colleague. He is portrayed by Paul Schneider...
(Paul Schneider
Paul Schneider (actor)
Paul Andrew Schneider is an American film actor.-Early life and career:Schneider was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. He graduated from the North Carolina School of Arts...
), who Leslie is disappointed to see is friends with many scantily clad young women. Leslie and Ann
Ann Perkins
Ann Meredith Perkins is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. She is a nurse and best friend of Leslie Knope. She is portrayed by Rashida Jones.-Season one:...
(Rashida Jones
Rashida Jones
Rashida Leah Jones is an American film and television actress, comic book author, screenwriter and occasional singer. She played Louisa Fenn on Boston Public and Karen Filippelli on The Office as well as roles in the films I Love You, Man and The Social Network...
) see Mark and other city planners drinking beer in the city hall courtyard. Leslie describes it as the exclusive "boys' club" and proposes the two ladies crash it.
When they come outside, Mark and the others welcome them warmly. Leslie enjoys herself at the party and, when the beer runs out and the party is about to end, she keeps it going by retrieving the wine from the gift basket. The next morning, she feels guilty and, despite her boss Ron
Ron Swanson
Ronald Ulysses "Ron" Swanson is a fictional character played by Nick Offerman in the American comedy television series Parks and Recreation on NBC. Ron is parks department director in the Indiana city of Pawnee and the immediate superior of protagonist Leslie Knope...
's (Nick Offerman
Nick Offerman
Nick Offerman is an American actor best known for his role as Ron Swanson in the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. He is also a skilled woodworker.-Early life and career:...
) assurance that it isn't a "big deal", Leslie issues a public apology to every government official in Pawnee, including a link to the new pit website. Later, however, she learns April has placed a drunken video of herself drinking the rest of the wine on the site, even though she is only 19. Ron tells Leslie an ethics board has called for a disciplinary hearing with Leslie. Leslie apologizes to the board and defends April, accepting responsibility for the video. As the questions from the board continue, Ron angrily defends Leslie, insisting, "Leslie has never broken a rule in her life, to the point that it's annoying." He abruptly ends the meeting and insists they will have to go through him to give Leslie anything more than a slap on the wrist.
Later, Leslie learns she will receive a letter in her file, which disappoints her strongly until Mark tells her he has seven in his file, and that most of the guys have at least one. Mark welcomes Leslie "to the team", which makes her proud. In a B story
Subplot
A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance...
, Ann's normally lazy boyfriend Andy
Andy Dwyer
Andrew Maxwell "Andy" Dwyer is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. He is Ann Perkins' ex-boyfriend, a talented-if-yet-unsuccessful musician, a shoe-shiner at Pawnee City Hall, and April Ludgate's husband. He is portrayed by Chris Pratt.-Background:At the start of the...
(Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt
Christopher Michael "Chris" Pratt is an American actor, best known for his roles as Harold Brighton "Bright" Abbott in the television series Everwood, the recurring character Winchester "Ché" Cook in season 4 of The OC, Andy Dwyer in the television series Parks and Recreation and for portraying...
) decides to surprise her by cleaning up their messy apartment while she is gone. After cleaning it, he bathes himself in a children's pool in the back yard and plays music; an angry neighbor steals his radio, prompting Andy (who has two broken legs) to chase the neighbor naked through the streets on his crutches. Later, Ann arrives home and is pleased with Andy's housework, prompting Andy to tell the documentary crew he expects to get "laid" later.
Production
"Boys' Club" was written by Alan Yang and directed by Michael McCullersMichael McCullers
Michael McCullers is an American comedy film screenwriter.-Biography:A native of Indian Springs Village, Alabama, McCullers is a former writer on Saturday Night Live and is best known for co-writing the script for two Austin Powers movies, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers...
. McCullers co-wrote two of the Austin Powers
Austin Powers (film series)
The Austin Powers series is a series of action-comedy films written by and starring Mike Myers as the title character, directed by Jay Roach and distributed by New Line Cinema...
and directed Poheler in the comedy film Baby Mama
Baby Mama (film)
Baby Mama is a 2008 comedy film from Universal Pictures written and directed by Michael McCullers and starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sigourney Weaver, Greg Kinnear, and Dax Shepard.-Plot:...
. The cold open
Cold open
A cold open in a television program or movie is the technique of jumping directly into a story at the beginning or opening of the show, before the title sequence or opening credits are shown...
scene, with kids throwing bags of dog feces at Leslie, was added to the episode after the rest had already been filmed, and was directed personally by series co-creator Greg Daniels
Greg Daniels
Gregory Martin "Greg" Daniels is an American television comedy writer, producer, and director.-Life and career:...
. The bags were actually filled with mashed potatoes. Daniels said of the opening, "There were a lot of people who felt this was not in good taste, but to me, this was one of the most fun things about the show." The restriction prohibiting Pawnee employees from accepting gifts over $25 was based on real-life municipal regulations the Parks and Recreation producers encountered during their research. The scenes filmed in the town hall outside courtyard were filmed on a studio sound stage, and the ethics board review scene was filmed inside the city hall building of Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Like most episodes of Parks and Recreation, a great deal of the scenes in "Boys' Club" were improvised by the actors. For example, Nick Offerman improvised the line "Put it in an e-mail?", which he said when Leslie told him she had a very long story to tell him. Schur thought the line was "my favorite thing in the show", and they made him say in it every subsequent take during filming. Aziz Ansari also improvised a majority of the scene in which he helped Leslie prepare for her ethics board review. Dean Holland, Parks and Recreation editor, said it was his favorite scene from the entire first season. Amy Poehler improvised the line at the courtyard gathering, after she accidentally spilled several beer bottles, "I feel like I'm already in the boys' club. Look at those bitches cleanin' up after me." Schur said the line helped develop Leslie's character in future episodes because "we realized that Leslie can be a little bit cooler than we had originally thought". The scene with Ron describing his ideal government was written for a different episode, but was moved to "Boys' Club" when the producers decided it fit better there. Schur said it was his favorite moment in the episode. "Boys' Club" ends with Leslie and Mark toasting a beer to each other because Schur said, "It's a running joke in the writer's room that every episode should end with clinking beers."
Photos of Parks and Recreation producers were included among the photos of past city council members on the town hall walls. The photo of Hiscock is the one Leslie said she believes, "No matter what direction I move, he's always staring at my chest. Mark's social networking site featured in "Boys' Club" included the character with a wide range of promiscuous women. The pictures were shot during a photo session during which, according to series co-creator Michael Schur
Michael Schur
Michael Herbert Schur is an American television producer and writer, best known for his work on the NBC comedy series The Office and Parks and Recreation, the latter of which he co-created along with Greg Daniels...
, "We brought in a lot of women and basically said, you're really trashy. You're trashy women, and we're going to take your picture now." During the courtyard party scenes, a brief clip shows Poehler, Jones and Schneider dancing together. The clip was actually the three actors out-of-character playing around between takes, but the Parks producers decided to add it to the episode.
Michael Schur
Michael Schur
Michael Herbert Schur is an American television producer and writer, best known for his work on the NBC comedy series The Office and Parks and Recreation, the latter of which he co-created along with Greg Daniels...
, co-creator of Parks and Recreation, said "Boys' Club" marked an attempt to better develop Andy Dwyer. Schur said, "We definitely wanted to dimensionalize his character and not make him just a one-dimensional douchebag." In the episode, Andy plays a tape of himself singing a song called "Ann", which he wrote as a romantic ballad for her. Chris Pratt actually wrote and performed the song himself for the show, although he said in an interview, "it really wasn't much". Pratt actually appeared on set naked while filming the scene in which he chases Lawrence through the streets without clothes on. Schur said the scene was written because Pratt "loves taking his clothes off". It proved difficult to film the scenes with Pratt bathing in the children's pool because the bubbles disappeared so quickly that multiple takes were required. The scenes with Andy running naked through the streets with his crutches to get his boombox back were inspired by a real-life experience from the set. During filming, an announcement was made that specialty coffees were available for the cast and crew, and Pratt ran quickly after them with the crutches. Greg Daniels added it to "Boys' Club" because he found the experience extremely funny.
In an attempt to lend authenticity to the fictional Pawnee, Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
setting, Parks and Recreation producers contacted the Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....
-based Upland Brewing Company
Upland Brewing Company
Upland Brewing Company, founded in 1997, is a brewery in Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana. It is currently the second largest brewery in Indiana and is expected to reach approximately 9,000 barrels of production for 2010.-History:...
and asked them to provide empty beer bottles and labels for the scene with the characters drinking in the town hall courtyard. The company provided props for their beer brand Dragonfly IPA, and Upland officials said their prominent appearances in the episode generated positive publicity for the company: Scott Johnson, marketing operations manager for the brewing company, said, "As soon as it went off, everyone starts calling me and e-mailing me." They also drink Vernors ginger ale, a soft drink very popular in Indiana. Windell D. Middlebrooks
Windell D. Middlebrooks
Windell D. Middlebrooks is an American film and television actor, and alumnus of Sterling College in Sterling, Kansas. He earned an MFA in acting at the University of California, Irvine in 2004.-Career:...
makes a guest appearance as Brian, one of the men attending the during the courtyard party. Middlebrooks was cast simply based on his work on Miller High Life commercials, in which he steals beer from bars that he deems unworthy of it.
On the day of the episode's original American broadcast on April 30, 2009, the official NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
Parks and Recreation website launched a duplicate of the Sullivan Street Pit social networking site which was featured in the episode, complete with photos of the pit, the list of "friends" from the show and a link to Mark's page and his photos with scantily clad women. The pit page, as well as the regular NBC website, also included the actual video of Aubrey Plaza pretending to drink wine and get drunk, as it was featured on the episode. Schur said for those scenes, "We just gave Aubrey a camera and told her to just drink wine and talk to the camera."
Cultural references
The social networking site developed for the pit project is inspired by sites like MySpaceMySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, which were extremely popular when the episode was first broadcast. Leslie makes a public apology to all female government officials in alphabetical order, starting with Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Rep. Michele Bachmann
Michele Bachmann
Michele Marie Bachmann is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing , a post she has held since 2007. The district includes several of the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities, such as Woodbury, and Blaine as well as Stillwater and St. Cloud.She is currently a...
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (Democrat, Wisconsin) and Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean
Melissa Bean
Melissa Luburich Bean is a former U.S. Representative for the who served from 2005 until 2011. She is a member of the Democratic Party.-Early life, education and career:...
. On her desk, Leslie has framed photos of U.S. Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
and former Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
Justice
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States...
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor is an American jurist who was the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981 until her retirement from the Court in 2006. O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981...
. The apology scene was filmed with the camera on a tripod, something seldom done in the documentary-style series. An online game of Scrabble
Scrabble
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list...
is visible on the computer screen in Ron's office during one scene. It is exactly the same Scrabble game he had been playing with Tom in the previous episode, "The Reporter
The Reporter (Parks and Recreation)
"The Reporter" is the third episode of the first season of the American comedy television series Parks and Recreation. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on April 23, 2009. The episode was written by Daniel J. Goor and directed by Jeffrey Blitz...
". While preparing Leslie for her ethics board review, Tom asks if she has ever fantasized about Ron "covered in Powerade
Powerade
Powerade is a sports drink manufactured and marketed by The Coca-Cola Company. First introduced in 1988, its primary competitor is PepsiCo's Gatorade...
". This is a reference to commercials for the sports drink, in which athletes sweat the multi-colored liquid while working out.
Reception
In its original American broadcast on April 30, 2009, "Boys' Club" was watched by 5.28 million households, according to Nielsen Media ResearchNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
. This rating was consistent with the previous week even as other NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
shows, like the new Southland
Southland (TV series)
Southland is an American drama series created by writer Ann Biderman and produced by Warner Bros. Television. It premiered on NBC on April 9, 2009...
, saw a drop in ratings. "Boys' Club" received a 2.3 rating/8 share among viewers aged between 18 and 34, and a 2.3 rating/7 share among viewers between 18 and 49.
The episode received positive to fair reviews. Alan Sepinwall, television journalist for The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...
, said "Boys' Club" was funnier that previous episode and included scenes with good physical comedy involving Leslie, particularly when she spilled the beer bottles; he also praised Andy's "naked crutch chase". Matt Fowler of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
said the episode gave a little more insight into Leslie's "aspirations about wanting to be a woman who succeeds in government, which is a step in the right direction", but Fowler said her constant mistakes and wrong decisions bog down the story. Fowler said the best part of the episode was Andy's subplot, particularly the scene in which he hops down the street naked on his crutches. Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
gave the episode a B- grade, and said the Amy Poehler character needs to be more fully formed in future episodes. Phipps said most of the show's laughs came from supporting characters Andy, Tom and Ron; he also particularly praised Ron's shutdown of Leslie's hearing and his monologues of the ideal government: "One guy, who sits in a small room at a desk. And the only thing he’s allowed to decide is who to nuke." Jeremy Medina of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
liked that the episode included a moral crisis of sorts for Leslie, who he described as "a fully-realized character instead of a caricature".
DVD release
"Boys' Club", along with the five other first season episodes of Parks and Recreation, was released on a one-disc DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
set in the United States on September 8, 2009. The DVD included cast and crew commentary tracks for each episode, as well as about 30 minutes of deleted scenes. The deleted scenes included on the DVD were originally featured on the official Parks and Recreation website after the episode aired. In one of the scenes, Leslie bought a gift basket and returned it to the business that provided the original one, in an attempt at what she called "ethical restitution". In another scene, Leslie apologized to April for introducing her to alcohol, prompting April to later tell the camera she has had fake IDs in Indiana, North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
and Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
since she was 14 years old.
External links
- "Boys' Club" at the official Parks and Recreation site
- "Boys' Club" at TV.comTV.comTV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...