S2E19: Jerry's face is the symbol of failure
When is there too much butt in jokes?
This week on Park It, it’s time for the Jerry episode!
Up to this point in the show, Jerry has been largely a background character. The majority of what we know about him is that he’s the office buffoon and the butt of any and all coworker jokes. Even positive, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly Leslie pokes fun at Jerry. He’s had a few breakthrough funny moments, like the moment in an early season 2 episode where Mark reveals some dirt on Jerry’s adopted mother and Jerry responds with “….I didn’t know I was adopted.” Gold.
Overall though, we have worlds left to learn about Jerry. We haven’t yet met his wife Gayle, or his 3 beautiful daughters. We don’t know that his legal name is Garry, although he’ll later be called both Terry and Larry (I actually despise this bit and am dreading the point in the show where we start flopping names, just so you know). We haven’t yet been graced with the information that Jerry has a massive penis. So far, the most we know about Jerry outside of work is that he has a timeshare in Muncie, Indiana, his favorite spot to vacation.
But mainly, Jerry really just is the constant butt of the joke.
This episode amplifies that even further. Leslie hosts a drawing in the office to see who has to go refill the park’s hummingbird features, and Jerry is chosen for this job (after we see everyone submits his name into the bowl instead of theirs).
Leslie gets a call from Ann at the hospital later that day. She’s taking care of Jerry, who’s been “mugged” in the park by a group of teenagers. Leslie being Leslie launches an entire campaign to improve park safety, where she starts to rub elbows with the local park ranger Carl, played by Andy Samberg.
Quick digression. Unfortunately, Carl and I have a lot in common. For example:
We both shout instead of speaking. I call it my “built-in megaphone.” People in Substack HQ can hear me on calls from the entire other side of the office. Sorry, team.
It’s impossible for Carl to keep his feet on the ground when he sits in the chair in Leslie’s office. This one’s also me. Ask my friend Mikaela, who calls me out on this constantly. Driving, in an Uber, sitting on the couch, at the movie theater, in my desk chair at work…you name it, I have both feet elevated.
Carl has a lot of energy. When Carl takes Leslie, Tom, and Jerry to the park, he says “when I was kid my parents used to make me hang out in the backyard a lot and just run around till I got tired.” Same. My only signal was just to come home when it was dark, otherwise no indoor time in the summer (except lunch). Rural Virginia man!
This campaign is successful enough that Leslie gets a new safety budget approved by the mayor, but at the press conference, Jerry drops a bomb: he wasn’t mugged. He dropped his breakfast burrito in the creek near the hummingbird feeders and dislocated his shoulder trying to retrieve it. He was too embarrassed to tell anyone because “can you imagine what Tom would have said?” Please reference:
The gang goes back to making fun of Jerry by the end of the episode, when April hands him a cup of coffee and he immediately spills it all over himself. Classic Jerry.
As I’ve mentioned, Jerry’s whole schtick is that he’s the butt of the joke. He’s the office punching bag. He’s — quite honestly — the victim of some office bullying. The writers and Jim O’Heir (Jerry) himself always justify this by saying something along the lines of “Jerry can take it. We thought it was hilarious to have this incredibly positive office and show have one person they just rip on. And Jerry’s really just killing time till he can retire with full pension and benefits in 2 years.”
I was listening to the Parks and Recollection pod today, where Jim O’Heir is a guest to discuss this episode. He says that yes, the rest of the Parks department rags on Jerry, but they’re always in his corner when it really matters. He IS one of them, even though they love to beat him down.
Which — great. I get it. I fucking love a lot of the Jerry humor. For instance: when he pronounces words incorrectly, like in the episode “The Camel” when he says “murinal” instead of “mural.” I love the fact that he fell into the creek chasing a breakfast burrito. If it were Taco Bell, I’d probably do the same! Humor that tears down someone who can seemingly take it can definitely be hilarious. And we all know how much I love falling videos. His big ole splash into the creek had me cackling.
But this week’s episode got me thinking a lot about the concept of being the “butt of the joke,” and where the line actually falls between what’s funny versus what’s just mean and lazy.
I actually don’t know the answer, nor does anyone, I think. This is partially because I can’t quite figure out my own personal taste for this. When do I prefer butt of the joke humor and when is it too much for me?
What I will say is that Jerry jokes are by no means my favorite part of P&R. I think, at their heart, Jerry jokes are actually the laziest parts of the script in any given episode. They rely on mean clichés of physical comedy, and some of them quite frankly didn’t age well. Take for example: fart jokes. There’s a scene in this episode where Jerry, giving a presentation, both rips his pants and lets out a massive fart in front of the entire department. They can’t laugh, because they’ve resolved to be nice to him, but the dead silence and the looks on their faces when this happens are 100x funnier to me than the fart joke. The way the writers so perfectly nail each and every character in this scene is what makes me laugh, not the fact that Jerry ripped a big one.
There’s also a lot of Jerry-based humor that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it in 2024 as it did in 2010. The late 2000s / early 2010s was the Judd Apatow-era of broey comedies like 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Step Brothers had come out a few years prior. Superbad was released in 2007. Comedy where friends just ragged on each other for an hour and a half was very much the norm (it’s also important for me to say I absolutely love all of these movies, and I love Judd Apatow. But it was a different time!). Now, we now have much more nuanced definitions of bullying in all its forms. We definitely didn’t know the line in media between what was funny and what was mean, or how to write people making fun of their friends without them fully tearing them down. I actually think that Only Murders in the Building does this well. It’s so easy to shit on any of the main 3 characters, but they ALWAYS remind each other that they have their backs.
We also absolutely didn’t have the same concept of workplace harassment as we do now. The entirety of Michael’s character in The Office is the only necessary example for this. That show would neeeeever fly now.
And while I hate to be killing the Jerry buzz in any capacity, there’s no denying that in 2024, we understand a lot of the Jerry humor for what it is: workplace bullying.
In a sentence I never thought I’d write, it is Mark Brendenawicz who calls this out. Leslie approaches him to ask for advice about what to do with the new budget allocated for park safety. Leslie, of course, feels guilty keeping it under “false pretenses.” Mark says:
“I actually think that you have a bigger problem than the money. There is someone in your department who is willing to lie about being mugged because he’s afraid of his coworkers.”
Like yeah, Mark, I hate to admit you’re right! But this guy was more comfortable saying he got mugged by teenagers than the truth of how he dislocated his shoulder. Because he was nervous of how Tom would react.
I totally agree with Jim O’Heir and the writers that the Parks department has Jerry’s back when it really matter down the line, but at this point in the show, I’m not confident in that at all. Even in this episode, they can barely last a day without ragging on him again. I don’t yet trust that these guys actually like Jerry. ACTUALLY, I found myself agreeing with Mark (shivers). I think that our love for Jerry hasn’t yet reached the point in the show where I’m totally okay with shitting-on-Jerry humor, if I really zoom out and think about it.
I’ll still absolutely laugh. I laughed so many times watching this episode, and I know for a fact I laughed the first time I ever watched it. It’s just that it feels a little … mean.
I’ve been thinking a lot of where that line is when someone’s the butt of the joke. One of my working theories is that this humor is okay if the other person very much knows they can count on you and you love them a whole lot. In other words, if you’re so comfortable in your dynamic that a joke like this is okay and won’t change anything, that works. I think if a running bit like this is built on a positive foundation, it’s absolutely hilarious. A lot of my friends and I have dynamics like this, where we don’t let each other off the hook for anything. I have a smart assy sense of humor, so little quips like this where you’re just constantly ribbing someone are second nature. But at the end of the day, I very much trust that my friends know it’s all in jest and from a place of deep comfort in our friendship.
The writers want us to believe that this is true for Jerry. In sitcoms where we only get 22 minutes per episode, it of course takes time to build trust in the dynamics between characters to a point that we know they love Jerry. But we WILL get there. Nevertheless, we persist.
And —a certain element of this very much boils down to personal preference for your comedy. Hey: some people really love fart jokes. But not I, good sir!
I think I’m rambling a bit this week. But I’m really curious to know what everyone here thinks about where the line is in butt of joke humor. Where is it crossed, where is it okay, where is it just plain stupid and lazy? Lmk:
Quote of the episode: “You might not be so confident once you’ve walked a mile in my size sevens.”
Catch you all next week. Ta ta for now!
Brendanowicz for the win!
Can confirm you cannot keep your feet on the ground! Great post!