Greg Pikitis
Encyclopedia
"Greg Pikitis" is the seventh episode of the second season
Parks and Recreation (season 2)
The second season of Parks and Recreation originally aired in the United States on the NBC television network starting September 17, 2009, and ended on May 20, 2010. The season was produced by Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, and series co-creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur...

 of 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...

, and the thirteenth overall episode of the series. 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 October 29, 2009. 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:...

 attempts to catch a suspected teenage vandal in the act of defacing a public statue. Meanwhile, 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:...

 throws a Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...

 party, which turns out to be very boring until 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...

 livens it up.

The episode was written by series co-founder 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...

 and directed by Dean Holland
Dean Holland
Dean Holland is an Emmy Award-winning, American film editor, television director and producer best known for working on Entourage and the NBC comedy shows The Office and Parks and Recreation...

, an editor on the series. "Greg Pikitis" featured a guest performance by stand-up comedian Louis C.K.
Louis C.K.
Louis Szekely , known professionally as Louis C.K., is a stand-up comedian, television and film writer, actor, producer, and director...

 as Dave Sanderson, Leslie's police officer boyfriend. It also featured Cody Klop
Cody Klop
Cody Klop is an American actor. He was born in Orange County, California.-Filmography:*Star Trek *Parks and Recreation "Greg Pikitis" *Shades of Ray Sal, age 12...

 as Greg Pikitis, a teenager whom Leslie considers her nemesis.

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...

, "Greg Pikitis" was seen by 4.96 million household viewers, only a slight drop from the previous week despite direct competition from the 2009 World Series
2009 World Series
The 2009 World Series was the 105th edition of Major League Baseball's championship series. The best-of-seven playoff was contested between the Philadelphia Phillies, champions of the National League and defending World Series champions, and the New York Yankees, champions of the American League...

. The episode received generally positive reviews.

Plot

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:...

 (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...

) visits the Pawnee high school to confront Greg Pikitis (Cody Klop
Cody Klop
Cody Klop is an American actor. He was born in Orange County, California.-Filmography:*Star Trek *Parks and Recreation "Greg Pikitis" *Shades of Ray Sal, age 12...

), a teenager who she describes as her "arch-nemesis". Leslie warns Greg she knows he vandalizes the town's statue of Mayor Percy every Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...

, but that she will be watching him closely and will catch him this year. Greg casually denies having any such plans. At the Pawnee town hall, 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...

) talks excitedly about her upcoming Halloween party. She asks the others not to mention it to 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....

), but she is disappointed to learn Jerry (Jim O'Heir
Jim O'Heir
Jim O'Heir is an American actor. He was active in the Chicago theater during the 1980s and 1990s as part of the theater group White Noise, and appeared in such plays as The Book of Blanche, Stumpy's Gang and Ad-Nauseam with the group...

) has already told him. That night, Leslie watches Greg with the help of her boyfriend, Pawnee police officer Dave Sanderson (Louis C.K.
Louis C.K.
Louis Szekely , known professionally as Louis C.K., is a stand-up comedian, television and film writer, actor, producer, and director...

), while 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...

), who now has a part-time job with the parks department, guards the statue.

Ann's party is off to a boring start and she soon begins to fear it will be a failure altogether. When Tom and his wife Wendy (Jama Williamson
Jama Williamson
Jama Williamson is an American actress. She was active in New York City theater throughout the early 2000s, during which she appeared in such shows as Avery Crozier's Eat the Runt, Hunt Holman's Spanish Girl, A. R. Gurney's Sylvia and Simon Mendes da Costa's Losing Louis...

) arrive, however, Tom spices up the party by turning the living room into a dance floor. The party is soon a big hit, and Ann thanks Tom profusely. Wendy tells 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...

 (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:...

) she knows Ron learned her marriage to Tom was a "green card marriage
Green card marriage
Green card marriage is a neologism that refers to the phenomenon of a marriage of convenience between a legal resident of a country and a person who would be ineligible for residency but for being married to a resident.-Description:...

" to keep her from being deported to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and thanks him for his discretion. She tells him they will soon be able to divorce without raising any suspicions, unaware that Tom is visibly upset about it.

After watching Greg for hours, Leslie and Dave decide to go to Ann's party. They stop at the parks department to get Leslie's costume, only to find the office has been toilet papered
Toilet papering
Toilet papering is the act of covering an object, such as a tree, house, or another structure with toilet paper. This is typically done by throwing numerous toilet paper rolls in such a way that they unroll in mid-air and thus fall on the targeted object in multiple streams...

 and vandalized. Leslie immediately suspects Greg, even though they had been watching him all night. Dave reluctantly agrees to bring Greg in for questioning, but Greg insists he is innocent. Andy comes in and questions Greg, pretending to be an FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

 agent named Burt Macklin, but Greg is so mean to him Andy soon starts crying. Greg's mother eventually arrives and takes him away after threatening to report the trio for holding her son without proof of his guilt.

Later, Andy helps Leslie clean the parks office and, after a few beers, they decide to toilet paper Greg's house. Dave arrives in his police car and tells them he had been called to stop them. When an unfamiliar woman comes out of the house, Leslie thinks she has toilet papered the wrong house. However, the woman reveals she is Greg's actual mother, and that Greg hired a "fake mother" off of Craigslist
Craigslist
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....

 to get him out of trouble. When she realizes Greg is not home, Leslie believes he is vandalizing the mayor statue. They go to the statue and catch Greg in the process; although Leslie wishes to have him "locked up," Dave points out he is still a minor and will likely only receive probation. Later, Leslie wonders how Greg managed to trash the parks department. The episode ends with a flashback showing Greg sneaking into the department disguised as a janitor, hiding in a dumpster until everybody leaves, then vandalizing the office.

Production

"Greg Pikitis" was written by series co-founder 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...

 and directed by Dean Holland, an editor on the series. Both Schur and Holland previously worked on the NBC series, The Office. The episode featured a guest performance by stand-up comedian Louis C.K.
Louis C.K.
Louis Szekely , known professionally as Louis C.K., is a stand-up comedian, television and film writer, actor, producer, and director...

, who reprises his recurring role as Dave Sanderson, Leslie's police officer boyfriend. It also featured Cody Klop as Greg Pikitis himself.

Within a week of the episode's original broadcast, two deleted scenes from "Greg Pikitis" were made available on the official Parks and Recreation website. In the first minute-long clip, Leslie broadcasts an impression of a police officer on Dave's police radio, which gets him into trouble. She also discusses the frequent use of torture by Jack Bauer
Jack Bauer
Jack Bauer is the main protagonist of the American television series 24. His character has worked in various capacities on the show, often as a member of the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit based in Los Angeles, and working with the FBI in Washington, D.C...

, the protagonist of the Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 series 24, while she contemplates torturing Greg Pikitis. In the second 75-second clip, Jerry nearly passes out from dehydration in his over-sized Halloween dragon costume, and Leslie arrives late to the party dressed as a nurse.

Cultural references

For her Halloween party, Ann dressed like Raggedy Ann
Raggedy Ann
Raggedy Ann is a fictional character created by American writer Johnny Gruelle in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and has a triangle nose...

, the rag doll protagonist of a series of children's books written by Johnny Gruelle
Johnny Gruelle
Johnny Gruelle was an American artist, political cartoonist, children's book author and illustrator . He is known as the creator of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy...

. Tom comes to the party dressed as T-Pain
T-Pain
Faheem Rasheed Najm , better known by his stage name T-Pain, is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, and actor, currently signed to Young Money Entertainment. His debut album, Rappa Ternt Sanga, was released in 2005. In 2007, T-Pain released his second studio album Epiphany,...

. Ann has a large amount of Almond Joy
Almond Joy
An Almond Joy is a candy bar manufactured by Hershey's. It consists of a coconut-based center topped with two almonds and enrobed in a layer of milk chocolate...

 chocolate bars at her party. The 1962 song "Monster Mash
Monster Mash
"Monster Mash" is a 1962 novelty song and the best-known song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. The song was released as a single on Gary S. Paxton's Garpax Records label in August 1962 along with a full-length LP called The Original Monster Mash, which contained several other monster-themed tunes...

" by Bobby Pickett is played in the background of the party. Pikitis hires an actress to play his fake mother using Craigslist
Craigslist
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....

. April says that during a previous gay Halloween party, she saw three Jonas Brothers
Jonas Brothers
The Jonas Brothers are an American boy band. The band gained its popularity from the Disney Channel children's television network. From the shore region of New Jersey, the band consists of three brothers: Paul Kevin Jonas II , Joseph Adam Jonas , and Nicholas Jerry Jonas...

 making out with three Robert Pattinson
Robert Pattinson
Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson is an English actor, model, musician, and producer. Born and raised in London, Pattinson started out his career by playing the role of Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...

s. Leslie refers to Greg as "an invisible, adolescent, James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

 super-villian criminal mastermind".

Reception

In its original American broadcast on October 29, 2009, "Greg Pikitis" was seen by 4.96 million household viewers, 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 only a slight drop from the previous week, despite direct competition from game two of the 2009 World Series
2009 World Series
The 2009 World Series was the 105th edition of Major League Baseball's championship series. The best-of-seven playoff was contested between the Philadelphia Phillies, champions of the National League and defending World Series champions, and the New York Yankees, champions of the American League...

 on Fox. "Greg Pikitis" drew a 2.1 rating/5 share among viewers aged between 18 and 49. The episode received generally positive reviews. Many commentators said the awkward exchanges between Ron and Wendy at the Halloween party seemed to be hinting at a possible romance between the two in future episodes. 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 "Greg Pikitis" was "probably the best conceived and most hilarious episode" of Parks and Recreation so far. Fowler said he liked the Leslie and Andy pairing, and he was relieved the show found something "meaty and meaningful" to do with the character. Fowler said Ann's party was less funny, but advanced many of the supporting characters.
Alan Sepinwall of 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...

declared "Greg Pikitis" one of the episodes he would suggest to newcomers seeking to become familiar with Parks and Recreation, calling it "the version of Parks and Recreation that I most enjoy: silly, but also intentionally small in scale". He particularly praised Louis CK and some of the smaller jokes in the episode, like the fact that a gay character's "straight guy" Halloween costume is identical to Mark's regular wardrobe. Steve Heisler 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...

 said the episode "demonstrated how an episode of P&R can work wonders—dial up the conditions that might drive a character insane, as they did to Leslie, and watch them squirm". He also said the episode featured every supporting character well, but that Ann was less funny without a "wacky person to play off of". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine critic James Poniewozik
James Poniewozik
James Poniewozik is an American journalist and television critic. He writes Times Tuned In column and has a blog with the same name.Originally from Monroe, MI, Poniewozik attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, graduating with a BA in English. He subsequently attended the graduate program...

 said it was a "strong episode that hit office and personal sides of the characters equally well". Poniewozik praised Pratt and Louis C.K. in particular, but also said Leslie was pushed "a little too far into the crazy-obsessive end of the spectrum". Not all reviews were positive. Linda Stasi of New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

said the episode was "a big yawn", although she praised the performance of Cody Klop as Greg Pikitis.

During a brainstorming session among the Parks and Recreation writers prior to season four
Parks and Recreation (season 4)
The fourth season of Parks and Recreation originally aired in the United States on the NBC television network, and began on September 22, 2011. Like the previous seasons, it focused on Leslie Knope and her staff at the parks and recreation department of the fictional Indiana town of...

, screenwriter Chelsea Peretti
Chelsea Peretti
Chelsea Peretti is an American comedian and writer based in Los Angeles.-Career:She and brother Jonah Peretti were co-creators of the and of web satire...

 proposed bringing the Greg Pikitis character back for a future episode. To date, however, he has not reappeared in the series.

DVD release

"Greg Pikitis", along with the other 23 second season episodes of Parks and Recreation, was released on a four-disc 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....

 set in the United States on November 30, 2010. The DVD included deleted scenes for each episode.

External links

  • "Greg Pikitis" at the official Parks and Recreation site
  • "Greg Pikitis" at TV.com
    TV.com
    TV.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...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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