Rob Lowe: “It seemed like a good fit” When Parks and Recreation Was Created as a Comedy Version of Another Hit Series I Starred In

When Parks and Recreation hit the screens, the mockumentary comedy did not find immediate success among the audience. Despite targeting the sitcom crowds, the series found itself falling on the radar of a much larger viewership as it took off on the back of the success of other sitcoms like The Office.

Parks and Recreation [Credit: NBC]

Despite being originally created as a spin-off of the Steve Carell series, Parks and Recreation was anything but a poor copy of the former. With a pre-fame Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, and SNL legend Amy Poehler at the helm, the NBC comedy stood a class apart once it found steady ground with the audience.

Parks and Recreation began as The Office spin-off

Parks and Recreation [Credit: NBC]

After the widely renowned success of The Office as created by Greg Daniels and writer Michael Schur, the duo went on to focus on other sitcoms modeled in the style of a mockumentary. Soon after, Parks and Recreation was created as an extension of the Steve Carell sitcom with hints of satire in the midst.

However, whereas The Office simply focused on situational and dysfunctional comedy at its core, Parks and Recreation made itself up to be a semi-political satire mockumentary that concentrates on the everyday lives of bureaucrats and their tiresome dealings with red-tapism at every level of the government.

Despite sounding too monotonous to be regarded as a proper sitcom, Parks and Recreation was nothing if not off-beat, quirky, eccentric, and every bit as unconditionally funny as its predecessor. Its low-key, hyper-realistic tone often put the audience at odds with just how stylistically similar the series was to The Office.

When it came to the structure and theme of the show, however, Parks and Rec did not borrow all of its elements from The Office. Rather, it was a widely acclaimed NBC political drama that inspired the sitcom’s narrative style.

The unusual origin story of Parks and Recreation

Rob Lowe as Chris Traeger in Parks and Recreation [Credit: NBC]

Despite having a contentious time behind the scenes of Parks and Rec, Rob Lowe‘s role in the mockumentary was hilariously memorable, especially on account of his previous experience with another series, The West Wing. The White House drama created by Aaron Sorkin featured a tense serial drama that had the cast wrapped in political issues throughout its seven-season arc.

Although not the first go-to idea for Parks and Recreation, The West Wing was also used as a model for its socio-political satire. Incidentally, Rob Lowe had already served a term under The West Wing as presidential adviser Sam Seaborn.

As such, when the time came for him to take up his role as City Manager in Parks and Rec, Lowe was more than happy to follow in the footsteps already laid down by his earlier role in The West Wing. Moreover, the producers of the series had a clear idea in their mind about the direction that they wanted to take with the mockumentary.

In a 2010 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lowe revealed:

While the series may seem like a clear replication of the guiding principle that went behind creating The Office, in hindsight, the political allegory and the dysfunctional management do seem to take place in an alternate universe featuring an extreme comedic tangent of The West Wing.

Parks and Recreation is streaming on Peacock.