Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - New Team Coco Podcast!

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

The Conan podcast universe just got a little bigger with Parks and Recollection, the definitive Parks and Recreation recap podcast hosted by Rob Lowe and Alan Yang—and your pal Conan is here to share a little tid-bit!

Hey there, listeners. Conan O'Brien here, and I wanted to share something fun with you today. It's the first few minutes of Team Coco's newest podcast, Parks and Rec Collection. Yeah, and it is the definitive Parks and Recreation Recap podcast. Do not be fooled by imitations. It's hosted by Alan Yang, who wrote on every season of Parks and Rec, and Rob Lowe, who played the extremely confident Chris Traeger. Each episode goes into the behind-the-scenes details of one of the most beloved shows out there, plus it delves into the process of what it takes to create a sitcom from concept to completion. And if Robin Allam's rapport alone doesn't satiate you, and I don't use that word often, special guests include

Chris Pratt, Ben Schwartz and Fred Armisen, as well as legendary casting director Allison Jones and the mega-talented writer Katie Dippold. Take a listen, and if you like it, subscribe. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Parks and Rec Collection. What's up? What's up? That's my pal right there. That's Alan Yang, ladies and germs. Happy to be here. Happy to talk about the show. Happy to talk to you, Rob. For those of you who don't know the great Alan Yang, Alan Yang wrote on Parks and Recreation from day one, and later we'll get into this was a kind of the inspiration for Chris Traeger. That's a fair assessment of your contribution, wouldn't you say? It's somewhat fair. I would say I was a writer on the show for all 125

episodes, and there are definitely elements of Chris in my personality because we're both very high-energy people and relentlessly positive, hopefully not annoyingly so. The listeners will be the judge of that. We'll see. As everybody comes into this little club we've started, I'm excited to have you guys listening. This is Fasten Your Seatbelts, going to be the ultimate Parks and Recreation experience, and we're just going to spend some time on a show that Alan and I worked on and loved. Yeah, it's also nice to go back and look at a show like, you know, there's no monoculture anymore, man. Not everyone's watching the same shows, but like back when this show was

airing, the office was airing in 30 Rock, people would watch shows on one night. Like Thursday night, people would watch television. Community was on that night too. It was like, can you remember a time? I think the last show like that was Game of Thrones, it just doesn't work. Wait, are you asking me if I can remember a time when TV was good? Is that what you're asking me? It sounds like what you're asking me. I'm not saying it's not good, but it's just a warm, funny, familial show. And it is, you know, every time we see each other again, or people from the cast and other writers,

we do talk about it because it's also this formative experience, right? You're just spending time with these cast members and these writers every day, every day. And the show ran for seven years. So few shows run that long anymore. So we really were like a family. And if you ever watched the show and you felt the tone of the show and the warmth and the sort of, you know, the camaraderie, that was all because the writer's room and the cast were all kind of like that in real life. I hate to disappoint anyone looking for horrible gossip because we just loved each other too much. And I think it came across in the show. So it's going to be really fun to watch these episodes. I haven't seen a lot of them in a long time.

So we're starting from scratch, man. We're starting from the pilot. And it's cool to see them again and see how the show changed over time. Alan, how would you describe my performance in the pilot just getting started? It is powerful, I would say, I think, award worthy. I believe you were nominated for seven Emmys for your performance in the pilot. No, Chris Traeger is not in the pilot. Rob's not in the pilot. He's watching these as a fan. So we're going to talk about the show. I think it's going to be really interesting because Rob is going to, you know, he shows up in season two. Season one is really short. It's six episodes and we're going to burn

through them. Just watch these episodes and talk about how the show changed. And Rob is going to be able to offer his opinion because when he joined the show, the characters had changed a little bit and the show had kind of found a groove. And so it's going to be fun to sort of watch them. Me as someone who's worked on them and Rob as someone who is kind of watching them, if not for the first time, then sort of, well, sometimes for the first time. What about that, Rob? Yep. I mean, well, listen, and we'll get into more of this as we progress. But I watched the pilot last night. I'd never seen it before. And I have so many thoughts for you, sir.

Let's describe the show this way. Parks and Rec is a dead body and we are Quincy. Yeah. We are doing an autopsy on each episode of Parks and Recreation. Yeah. We're really excited to do this podcast and we're going to give you a rundown of what each episode is going to feel like. We're going to kick off each episode of Parks and Rec Collection with a recap of the episode. We're going to discuss just a little summary. Then we're going to tell you about all the juicy details about what happens behind the scenes, the writing process, the casting, the props, all that stuff. Members of our

cast and crew will be stopping by along the way. And then we'll close out each episode with what we like to call the Pawnee Town Hall, where we answer your fan questions. So send them in. And now that you know what the deal is, I think we're ready to kick this off and get going.