![]() ![]() The Jerry-slandering hasn't been limited to the residents of Pawnee. Ron, at one point, describes Jerry as both a schlemiel and a schlimazel- meaning that “he is both the person who spills the soup and the person upon whom the soup is spilled.” Haha? Sort of? “ Dammit, Jerry!” runs like a refrain through Parks' seven seasons, reminding us that the world consists of cool and uncool people, and there are dire consequences for occupying the wrong category. There’s the time Jerry has a heart attack (an event proceeded by a string of Gergichian flatulence)-which is also the time Tom, rather than expressing concern for his coworker, bemoans people's failure to make a joke about a “fart attack.” Jerry's idea of a dream vacation is his time-share in Muncie. There’s the time Leslie, pointing to a poster she’s mocked up of her colleague, declares that “ Jerry’s face is the symbol of failure.” There's the time Andy, in extreme slow motion, smashes a pie into Jerry's face. There’s the jar Jerry's coworkers put money into every time he does something mockable-funds they use, in a tradition known as “the Jerry Dinner,” to finance a nice meal that purposely does not include its namesake. Who has been on the receiving end of more outright, unexplained cruelty than any character from any TV comedy in recent memory. Parks and Rec is often compared to Friday Night Lights, and it is, like NBC’s other series about passionate underdogs, bursting with the mix of hilarity and humanity we tend to shorthand as “heart.” Parks, at its gooey caramel core, is, as my colleague Sophie Gilbert summed it up, “about people trying to do good in the world.”īut then, awkwardly … there’s Jerry. Which may be why he has the unenviable distinction of being an ongoing victim of mockery on a show otherwise known for its niceness. Jerry-wearer of plaid, taker of naps, frequenter of a dinosaur-themed restaurant named Jurassic Fork-has a way of angering people by virtue of his very blandness. Such sentiments seem, in one way, fitting. A recent Deadspin ranking of the show’s regulars placed Jerry at #20, which is above Ben Wyatt but below a lecherous councilman, a well-endowed miniature horse, and “that one homeless-looking biker dude who shows up at every town hall.” Buzzfeed was more passionate about it, angrily declaring that “Parks And Recreation’s Jerry Gergich Is the Most Annoying Person Ever.” As Parks and Recreation ends its seven-season run, that tells you a lot of what you need to know about Jerry Gergich, who is one of the show's greatest characters and who is also, on the surface, one of its least interesting. So here is a guy who found it preferable to be misnamed than to make a fuss.
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