Pull up a seat and Park It!
Welcome to the hottest new Parks & Rec rewatch in town
The first time I knew I loved funny women, I was in the Richmond airport and had just picked up a copy of Bossypants from the local Hudson News. I had a long flight back to SF after winter break home from college and needed something to kill the six-plus hours ahead of me. Prior to this, my exposure to comedians was the same as your average teenager. Kristen Wiig’s Gilly videos circulated in all of my middle school classrooms, I had seen Marcel the Shell with Shoes on so many times I could recite it word for word (thanks Jenny Slate), and I once got chewed out by my mom for watching R-rated Bridesmaids at a birthday sleepover when I was thirteen.
But, early in college, I was struggling a bit with my English major. I couldn’t really bring myself to care about Charles Dickens or Shakespeare or Jane Austen (total blasphemy in the literature world, let me tell ya), but I was surrounded by these brilliant classmates who seemed to have already read every book on the syllabus and had all of these incredible, profound, insightful, nuanced ideas about subtext and themes in the work and how this is indicative of the broader time period. All I wanted to do was read, but I was starting to learn that I had a bit of “the gift of the gab" — I could basically chat with anyone and loved to keep it all lighthearted and fun. It sometimes felt like I was living a double life: spending my nights reading all of this dark, serious literature and my days in this more lighthearted, gabby mood. I wanted to merge my two lives together.
I never expected Tina Fey’s Bossypants to be my ticket in. I absolutely devoured it in a few hours on that plane ride, and then splurged on plane WiFi (big spend on my college budget) to spend the rest of my time in the air researching basically everything Tina Fey had ever done. This led me to Amy Poehler, who led me to Maya Rudolph, who led me to Kristen Wiig, who led me to Mindy Kaling, who led me to Busy Phillips, to Phoebe Robinson and Taylor Tomlinson and Issa Rae and Ali Wong and Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball and Quinta Brunson.
It totally pivoted my life at school. I spent my next few years cramming my schedule with English classes that focused on modern, multimedia studies: Literature in the Age of Obama, where I got to write an essay about the musical girl group of SNL (the stars of the legendary Back Home Ballers). A class about sitcoms, where my homework consisted of watching four episodes of sitcoms per week for discussion. Several personal essay workshops, which taught me broadly about the history of the memoir and personal writing. And all of this culminated in my year-long, 76-page college honors thesis about memoirs of these comedians.
It was the best thing I ever did. Literally, a third of my course load for a year was to basically become an expert on everything about women in comedy. I spent time with all types of comedy to really get a grasp — I’ll always lose my mind at Will Ferrell in “more cowbell” and now listen to SmartLess every single week, no matter the guest. But really…I mostly care about the silly silly women!
As I’m in the middle of this wordy backstory, I’m realizing I haven’t introduced myself yet. This is very much a Me Move, for anyone new here. I basically tend to just dive in and start talking way too fast.
So hi – I’m Bailey! I live in San Francisco and work on the writer partnerships team at Substack. I took a brief little pivot into the weird world of “expert networks” (read: cold calling) for a while after college, but now I spend all day, every day talking to seriously cool writers and reading basically everything I can get my hands on. Dream job alert.
Here’s me as a liiiiiittle nugget to make sure I capture the sympathy vote, if nothing else:
I’ve been wanting an outlet to write about funny women for a long time, but a few thing recently happened that made me settle on this project:
A few of my friends just started a Parks and Rec rewatch, so I found myself revisiting some of the show’s early seasons unexpectedly. I’ve seen Parks and Rec straight through probably five times, but I always tend to linger on the later seasons and miss some of the lovable shit show that is seasons one and two.
I recently saw Tina Fey and Amy Poehler live for the first time on their Restless Leg tour (see the attached contraband photo I took before they came onstage, as well as their poster I now have hanging on my wall). I went by myself to the Masonic on a Friday night and sat dead center in the balcony. When the lights dimmed, an opening montage started playing on the screen. It was a highlight reel of all of Tina and Amy’s best comedic moments over their 30-year friendship, together and apart. It ended by replicating the opening credits of the Golden Globes, and then Tina and Amy walked out on stage in floor length, sparkling ball gowns, waving like Queen Clarisse teaches Mia in Princess Diaries. I was so excited and so overwhelmed I instantly teared up a bit and had to quickly wipe away any trace of this before the middle school girl sitting next to me with her mom noticed. The show reminded me why I love these women so much — Tina and Amy, but the women in comedy more broadly. They’re certainly not perfect people, but they seriously crack me up.
So here we are! Finally having (almost) arrived at my description of this Substack, Park It, after that incredibly-helpful-and-not-at-all-verbose backstory. The goal here is to take you on a Parks and Rec journey with me as I rewatch every episode, one by one. Yes, this has been done before in podcast format, and even by stars of the shows themselves (Parks and Recollection is a work of art). But here’s what I can offer subscribers that makes this project infinitely more interesting:
Spoilers (but totally your fault at this point if you haven’t watched the show)
A reason to rewatch this total masterpiece of sitcom art rather than starting Succession or Love Island or whatever other shows have been on your watchlist for ages. Sometimes it’s hard to justify why the hell you’re going to spend another weeknight rewatching the same ole thing. Let me justify!
As little soapbox preaching as I can muster about why these women are awesome
Lots and lots of gib gab, mostly in the form of very verbose stories about me that leave you thinking “I’m having fun, but how is this relevant?” or “is this story over yet?”
Similarly wordy digressions into all of the truly random facts I know about this genre and tangents into questionably relevant reflections on women in comedy more broadly. You’ll leave with a really strong trivia secret weapon to impress your friends
It’ll be free for now while I figure out my little rhythm and start posting once a week, but down the line I’ll let you hit that little “upgrade to paid” button if you want. I promise I’ll buy you a beer the next time I see you (knowing me, I’ll do this anyway, but now my bank account won’t look so brutal).
Let’s give it a whirl!
PS — If you’re getting this email and you’re like wait who is Bailey and why the hell am I hearing from her, you probably subscribed to my last Substack at some point or another. I just made your life easy and moved you on over here!!! I don’t make the rules ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
you are a beautiful tropical fish and i so excited for this!!
Wow I cannot wait