The cast of Parks and Recreation would “absolutely” reunite for a reboot of the beloved sitcom, co-star Jim O’Heir has told Newsweek.
NBC’s mockumentary-style hit, which aired from 2009 to 2015, was set in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. The show boasted a star-studded cast that included O’Heir, Amy Poehler, Chris Pratt, Aubrey Plaza, Rob Lowe, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Retta, and Adam Scott.
And while the cast reunited for a remote special during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, fans have continued to wait with bated breath for another chance to catch up with the daily lives of the Parks and Recreation Department’s quirky and lovable staff, O’Heir has told Newsweek that he and his co-stars are open to it.
“[Parks showrunner] Mike Schur always said, ‘I would only ever want to do it if there was a story to tell, if there was a reason to do it,’ and during the pandemic, there was because people were trying to raise money for these food banks,” O’Heir said.
“I remember getting that email, and within 45 minutes, he had heard back from all of us. We were all like, ‘Yes, just tell us what’s going to happen.'”
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So will there be another reunion anytime soon? “There are certainly no plans at this point,” said O’Heir, who played Garry “Jerry” Gergich on the show. “But the cast has spoken, and we’ve all said it at different interviews, and each other. We would absolutely come back. If there is a good story to tell, we would be back.”
Noting the huge success some of his co-stars have gone on to enjoy away from the show, the Emmy winner went on: “Even Chris Pratt, who is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, he said he would make it work.”
“We’re all so grateful for what the show did for all of us,” he added.
Does he have any ideas of his own regarding how the story could continue for the Pawnee posse? After a brief pause, he offered: “In the finale, when Leslie [Poehler] and Ben [Scott] are at Jerry’s funeral and they’re looking at the mismarked headstone, we don’t know, but something big has happened. There’s apparently Secret Service around, or something like that.
“Obviously many years earlier, but one of them ran for some big office, and I would love to see the campaign, and I would love to see all of us helping with that campaign, like we had done in the past. Like, all of us coming out of our regular lives, whatever we’re doing. You know, [Ansari’s character Tom Haverford] having his seminars and Ann Perkins [Jones] and Chris [Lowe], they’ve come back from Michigan…
“We haven’t seen each other in years, and we just show up and there we are, and we make it happen again. I think that’d be fun. That would be good two- or three-episode special.”
‘Welcome to Pawnee’
Thanks to having been present for every one of Parks and Recreation‘s 126 episodes, O’Heir has encyclopedic knowledge of the show and its many details. Perhaps fittingly, he has penned Welcome to Pawnee: Stories of Friendship, Waffles, and Parks and Recreation, a book that he describes as a “love letter” to the show.
As well as featuring a host of vignettes about the show behind the scenes, Welcome to Pawnee also serves as part memoir for O’Heir, whose career was greatly boosted when he landed the role of Gergich (including the experience of having none other than Christie Brinkley portray his character’s wife).
In the book, which is available from November 19, there are also stories from a host of the show’s cast members as well as showrunner Schur and co-creator Greg Daniels.
“Actually, it wasn’t my idea—I can’t even take credit for it,” O’Heir told Newsweek of Welcome to Pawnee. “Some book agents out in New York… reached out to my reps, and asked if I would be interested in doing that.”
Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images
Initially, he expressed doubt at the prospect, explaining: “I just have my stories, I have my experiences. Are people going to be interested?”
A few minutes into what was supposed to be a two-hour Q&A session with the agents, they “stopped me and they said, ‘OK, we have a book—we can already tell!'”
“I have such a love for the show, and I have such a love for the cast and the crew and the producers and the writers that it comes out,” he continued. “When I talk about Parks, I just ramble a lot, and I was there for every episode.”
After getting the green light from Poehler, Schur, and Daniels—who branded him the “perfect person” for the job—he spent hours speaking with some of the key players, who told him “stories I’d never heard before.”
“That’s what I what I love most about this book,” O’Heir said. “The fans are going to learn things they never knew. And I know that for a fact—because I never knew them. I learned things writing this book that I had no concept of, and Mike and Greg were just giving me the scoop. Let me know how it all happened.”
“I never experienced anything but love from that cast and crew and the writers and producers,” he went on. “I tell stories about that, and because I’ve been around for so long, I tell other personal stories of other actors I’ve worked with, and what I think are really interesting stories about working with them, like James Spader and Carol Burnett and Dick Van Dyke, and I met Mary Tyler Moore.”
“This is really my love letter to the show,” added Schur, whose extensive resumé includes Malcolm in the Middle, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Better Call Saul. “I am so grateful. It was a life-changer. I was very blessed. Before Parks to have a relatively busy career… but a lot of guest spots. And you know, you do pilots that don’t get picked up, or things that have a short run, or whatever.
“And then a show like Parks comes along, and it just changes the landscape.”
