Crazy Ira and the Douche, 93.7

We get a full look into a Pawnee media blitz

The rise of independent creators is all anyone can talk about in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Twenty-Five. Joe Rogan swayed the election by having Trump on his podcast! Legacy media is a dying institution! TikTok’s banned for 14 whole hours and we’re losing our shit!

Admittedly, my job at Substack keeps me closer to this than most. Talking to and thinking about and supporting independent creators is what I do all day long. So it was fun to see the world I’m entrenched in represented in P&R. One of the things I loved about season 3, episode 5, is that we get to see Pawnee’s answer to both legacy media and independent creators.

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Leslie, Ben, and Tom decide to launch a “media blitz” about the upcoming Harvest Festival, making appearances on all of the local radio shows and news stations. But things fall apart when the journalists start pressing Ben about his background as the 18-year-old mayor who bankrupted his town. Ben totally falls apart. He loses his shit, multiple times. The citizens of Pawnee start questioning how he can be trusted with their town finances. Things aren’t looking hot.

Leslie’s only answer is trial by fire. Ultimately, Ben has to get past the public grilling and be able to talk about his past without losing his mind on Perd Hapley’s show (“who hasn’t had gay thoughts?”). He finally manages it on Joan’s show, despite being labeled a “human disaster.”

I absolutely love witnessing the robust ecosystem of Pawnee Media. It’s so complex and — as a politician — Leslie’s always cautiously navigating her relationship with the press. We revisit some familiar faces in legacy media in this episode: Perd Hapley, with his monotone, MSNBC News-style brief; Shawna Malwae-Tweep’s coverage as a local beat reporter for the Pawnee Journal; and Joan Callamezzo’s reign of terror on Pawnee Today, a daytime talk show a la The Drew Berrymore Show (but less physically effusive. Can’t imagine Joan Callamezzo stroking Kathryn Hahn’s leg. Maybe Tom’s though).

But two new bombshells enter the villa in this episode: “Crazy Ira and the Douche.” Which I think is Pawnee’s answer to … Joe Rogan?

Leslie and Ben’s first stop on the media blitz is to “Crazy Ira and the Douche,” a radio show hosted by guest Nick Kroll and some other guy I don’t recognize. I always assumed Crazy Ira and the Douche was a podcast, not a radio show, and didn’t know the truth until my rewatch. But podcasts weren’t yet mainstream in 2011, when this episode was released, so this is the closest we get. Crazy Ira and the Douche spend their time making juvenile “your mom” jokes, have replaced their laugh track with a recording of a woman moaning, and talk in these deeply bro voices (if you’ve ever heard Nick Kroll speak, close your eyes and you’ll hear it).

These are Tom’s people, so he fits right in. He knows their slogans by heart. Leslie also plays along well. Girl knows how to keep a crowd happy, even if said crowd might not fully be supportive of things like, let’s say, equal rights for everyone. Ben on the other hand ….

The persona of the deeply bro podcaster is now well-known. Joe Rogan maybe helped to sway what was arguably the biggest election in history. SNL just this week spoofed on the bro-podcast trope with a sketch called “Medcast,” where One Medical tries to trick young men into going to the doctor by telling them it’s a podcast. The room is complete with neon lights, the host has an awful little goatee situation going, and they all “just vibe.” The bro-ey podcasters feel like such a modern phenomenon that it’s easy to forget their longevity. Crazy Ira and the Douche were doing it before it was cool!

What I also love about this episode is that Crazy Ira and the Douche effectively break news about Ben’s stint as a child mayor. As Crazy Ira leads Ben onto the show, he says “so this guy, Ben, I’m looking him up on Altavista.” (side note: what the hell is Altavista?? Is this like Bing??) “He’s from some hick-town — Partridge, Minnesota, and when he’s 18, he’s elected mayor … and then blows the whole budget on an ice-skating rink. City goes bankrupt.”

The rest of the episode sees Ben and Leslie trying to clean up a mess initially started by Crazy Ira and the Douche. These two idiots with microphones beat legacy reporters Perd Hapley, Shawna Malwae-Tweep, and Joan Callamezzo to the punch! On this dinky little radio show. In between moan and fart noises.

Independent journalists — here on Substack! — are breaking more and more stories historically captured by more traditional reporters. They’re doing it as scrappily as possible, and subscribers are trusting them more for it. Way more than they trust places like WaPo or The Times. I guess, in our P&R world, people be trusting Crazy Ira and the Douche.

Maybe Crazy Ira and the Douche were onto something. Maybe Leslie, in her future Presidential race, reaches across the aisle to young male voters by rekindling her early media relationships with these guys. Lowkey I wonder how they would have done on Substack ….

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Other important things that happen in this episode:

APRIL AND ANDY!!!! It almost killed me to not write this post about the two of them. Andy, learning that April might move to Indianapolis to work for Chris, volunteers to do all of the things she hates for a month to get her to maybe stay. This leads to him getting arrested and April gets a wise ole talking to from Ron, who advises her to “reel him in or cut him loose.” April finally gives in and kisses him at the end of the episode. And dot dot dot

See you next week + in the comments! We have some exciting new Park It news next week …. stay tuned.