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Leslie Knope

Leslie Barbara Knope

"One person's annoying is another's inspiring and heroic."

Played By: Amy Poehler

"It is my dream to build a park that I one day visit with my White House staff on my birthday. And they say, 'President Knope, this park is awesome. Now we understand why you're the first female president of the United States.'"

Leslie is the deputy director of the Parks and Recreation Department in Pawnee, Indiana. An inversion of the Obstructive Bureaucrat, Leslie is a cheerful bureaucrat full of can-do spirit. This makes her The Pollyanna in an occupation where almost everyone else is cynical and jaded to one degree or another. She is also a Determinator.

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• The Ace: When it comes to being a civil servant, Leslie is virtually unmatched. Her hyper-competence at organizing, leading and working on large scale and complicated projects on extremely short notice is more or less the only thing that allows anything to be accomplished at all in Pawnee. At one point Leslie has to take time off and the entire rest of the department is unable to pick up her slack. Outside of her profession, while much less flawless, she is still generally a smart, charismatic and capable person.
• Aesop Amnesia: No matter how often Leslie realizes she needs to stop being a control freak, she's back to making the same mistakes in the next episode.
• Afraid of Needles: To the point of making a Precision F-Strike against Ann.
• All-Loving Hero: Edging closer to this trope as her Determinator qualities make her more and more effective.
• Ambition Is Evil: Defied. Leslie is extremely ambitious (just read the above quotation), but she is also very moral. In some episodes, she is presented with an immoral way to achieve one of her goals and considers using it, but ultimately she ends up feeling guilty and doesn't go through with it.
• Animal Motifs: It's never pointed out, but Leslie has a number of owl-themed knick-knacks around her office.
• Badass Bureaucrat: Not immediately obvious, but her ability to consistently go up against impossible odds and succeed almost every time is jaw-dropping. The primary reason Ron respects her despite their conflicting worldviews is her absolute refusal to compromise her ideals regardless of how much adversity she faces.
• Bad Liar: Honest to a fault, Leslie's rare attempts at subterfuge invariably fall flat. In many cases, she ends up ratting herself out.
• Beleaguered Bureaucrat:
  • This becomes especially apparent in "Christmas Scandal", where it's shown that her duties are so numerous that the combined efforts of all six of her coworkers can't get the job done.
  • Her over-extension is given attention again in "Sweet Sixteen", where Ron states that she's been pulling 100 hours a week trying to give equal attention to her job and her city council campaign. Throughout the episode, she keeps making minor blunders due to neglecting something from either side of her professional life. At the end of the episode, she decides to reduce her time at her day job to ten hours per week.
• Berserk Button:
  • Do not feed J.J.'s waffles to your dog around Leslie.
  • Do not remind her she was born in Eagleton
  • Do not question why Li'l Sebastian is awesome.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her overall positive and cheerful demeanor, she is not a pushover and she can get extremely angry when people push her too far. When this happens it usually falls upon Ron or Ann to calm her down.
  Ron: Leslie, what do we do when we get this angry?
  Leslie: [deep sigh] We count backward from a thousand by sevens and think of warm brownies.
• Big Eater: When it comes to waffles, whipped cream, sugar, or all of the above, Leslie's essentially a bottomless pit.
• Big Good: It takes her a few seasons to grow into it, but towards the end of the series, even the more cynical of her friends and coworkers tend to regard Leslie as a powerful force for positive change in the world.
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head:
  • She'll resort to childish insults like this when she's really frustrated.
  • She subverts it rather nicely in "Meet 'n' Greet":
    Leslie: I don't like to throw around the word "butthead", because it loses its impact when you say "butthead" too much. But I can say without hesitation that Tom is being a real dick.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She's very good at her job, and probably should have Ron's. On the other hand, she is also an extremely eccentric Woman Child.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Leslie's entire time on the city council is characterized by merciless public and media attention on her specifically, despite nearly all of her fellow city councilors being either obviously corrupt, senile, or in a years-long rolling sex scandal. This is ascribed to both the leeway men in office are given that is often denied to women, and that Leslie is at odds with Pawnee's biggest industry, Sweetums.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • It can mostly be chalked up to Early-Installment Weirdness, but first season Leslie was something of a Pointy-Haired Boss in the vein of Michael Scott. In Season 2, she became much less obnoxious, and more of a hyper-competent, upbeat Pollyanna.
  • In a deleted scene from "Park Safety", she mentions her dislike of miniature horses, calling them "weird". This obviously predates the introduction of Lil' Sebastian in Season 3.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She is a bit... quirky, to say the least.
• Cool Big Sis: To Andy and April. She seems to view April as a surrogate little sister, and frequently encourages her and tries to keep her out of trouble (and continually overestimates how innocent April actually is), and she helps Andy get his life back on track after finding out he was living in the pit. April makes fun of her but eventually softens up enough to admit she does love Leslie, while Andy openly thinks Leslie is awesome and acknowledges that he owes her a lot.
• The Cutie: She expresses her love of cute things in a variety of ways. One episode's plot was based around her officiating the marriage of two penguins because "it was cute".
• Determinator: If there's something that needs doing, Leslie will find a way to do it, no matter what.
  • Best exemplified by her masterful oration of her speech intended to attract sponsors for the Harvest Festival in "Flu Season". All while she was near delirious with the flu, and quickly reverted to sickness-induced delirium during a short Q&A session.
  • This is Leslie's great weakness as well as her strength. In many episodes the conflict can be summarized as 'Leslie's friends have to convince her that she can't change a situation she considers unacceptable.' Of course, she is so hypercompetent that she frequently finds ways to improve the situation anyway. Summarized nicely in "Smallest Park" when Ann interrupts Leslie's complaints about how unfair it is to call her a steamroller:
    Ann: You're a steamroller! You're a massive, enormous, runaway steamroller with no brakes and a cement brick on the gas pedal!
• Distaff Counterpart: Back in the first season, she might as well have been "Michael Scott in a skirt", but she became more her own character later on. Unlike Michael Scott, she is not only good at her job but totally deserved to have been promoted into it.
• Does Not Like Spam: Hates salad with a passion. Or other disgusting things.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: While government work is often thankless, Leslie often laments that Pawnee never appreciates the work she does to improve their lives, instead often treating her with scorn or derision.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Probably the sweetest case of this trope ever. Not since Gomez Addams will you find someone on television so turned on by their spouse's attractiveness. In particular, Leslie has an obsession with Ben's butt.
• Emotional Regression: Leslie becomes proportionately more irrational the more estranged she is from her emotional anchors, Ann and Ron. Nowhere is this more apparent than when Ann moves away in Season 6, and Leslie backslides almost to her Season 1 self before snapping out of it.
• Expository Hairstyle Change:
  • Wears a small, very tight French braid in her hair curving around the top of her head in "Jerry's Painting", apparently because she takes very well to being compared to a Greek goddess.
  • She gains another new hairstyle later on to emphasize the Time Skip, but she quickly reverts to her original hairdo a few episodes into Season 7.
• Fangirl:
  • When it comes to Harry Potter. She made her best friend Ann watch all eight movies even though Ann doesn't like Harry Potter.
  • She's also a huge fangirl for Joe Biden and most prominent American women in politics, to the point of covering the walls of her office with their pictures. She's also a type of geek rarely portrayed in the media, the government-policy wonk.
  • She's also a fangirl of Jennifer Aniston, believing that she deserves to find romantic happiness and having a "Team Aniston" patch sewn on one of her blazers. And naturally, in connection to that, she's also a huge fan of Friends.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Selfishness. Although Leslie's best quality is that she'll always do what she thinks is right and help others, she has to be reminded that not everyone shares her personal views and just because she can help someone, it doesn't mean she should. Leslie will try her best to help people but she often ignores what that person really wants her to do for them. "Smallest Park" focuses on this flaw, as Leslie ignores Ben's insistence that they put some distance between them to deal with their break-up better, much to Ben's annoyance. Ann has to call her out on it.
    Ann: You're a steamroller! You're a massive, enormous, runaway steamroller with no brakes and a cement brick on the gas pedal! [...] You do what you want, you ignore what other people want, and you hear only what you want to hear!
  • Her idealistic view of Pawnee. Despite it being clear that Pawnee is a Wretched Hive run by corrupt corporations, bigots, and Insufferable imbeciles, Leslie refuses to stop viewing the town with rose-tinted glasses and accept that most of the townspeople dislike her and won't accept the policies she wants to push through. It takes Jen Barkley to make Leslie finally see that she's wasting her time trying to enact change through the town's government and that she needs to seek higher office so she can do it at a level where she's not impeded by Pawnee's corrupt politics.
• Foil: To Michael Scott. Both are endearingly kooky, Innocently Insensitive, and deceptively clever managers who essentially act as an In-Universe Manic Pixie Dream Girl/Guy to their colleagues, shoving a spotlight onto whatever topic is currently being focused on, and also have varying levels of Attention Whore traits (Michael obviously more so than Leslie). However, that's where their similarities end; Michael is a brunette Jerk with a Heart of Gold with No Social Skills who has been promoted far past his original position of competence, while Leslie is a blonde Nice Girl who's surprisingly good at being a Guile Hero and who serves (ostensibly, as she's Ron's inferior for the first few seasons) as her department's Hypercompetent Sidekick. Furthermore, both can be incredibly arrogant, but this manifests in different ways, with Michael ultimately being an Extreme Doormat who is obsessed with gaining the admiration of his peers, while Leslie is a "steamroller" who often shoves past the opinions of others and ultimately learns the need to take others' outlooks into account.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The Gleeful to Ron's Grumpy. Leslie is incredibly enthusiastic and outgoing, while Ron is reserved and usually in a surly mood.
• Glurge Addict: Mildly. She really likes cute things, but not to an annoying degree.
  Leslie: Scientifically, hummingbirds are the world's cutest animals. I mean, they're so small, they have tiny beaks and they only eat sugar water. I mean, what beats that? Come on. Baby monkeys in diapers? Yeah... they do. Baby monkeys in diapers are the cutest.
• Genki Girl: Endlessly upbeat and cheerful, to the point that it tires people like Ron and April out.
• Go-Getter Girl: Has the ambitious, driven personality down pat.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Despite her very ambitious nature, Leslie is extremely nice and many of her goals are motivated by caring for her friends and the citizens of Pawnee.
• Happily Married: To Ben after Season 5. They're loving and supportive of one another and never get jealous of the other's accomplishments.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Leslie and Ann are best friends and are always supporting each other. Leslie constantly comments on Ann's attractiveness and sometimes speaks to her in a flirtatious way. They're also occasionally mistaken for a lesbian couple.
  Rachel Lerpiss: Are you a couple?
  Leslie Knope: No. Tragically, we are both heterosexual.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Leslie can and will accomplish great things in the name of Pawnee, but the townspeople rarely give her the acknowledgment or recognition she deserves, and criticize her more often than not.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: A rare example of the lead character fitting this trope. This suits her boss just fine.
• The Idealist: She rarely considers consequences and realistic probability before jumping into action.
• Immigrant Patriotism: During her campaign, Leslie is stunned to learn that she was actually born in Eagleton, not Pawnee, partly because she hates Eagleton and partly because most of the voters hate Eagleton. As she thinks about it further, though, she realizes that it's the choice to continue living in and trying to improve Pawnee that really matters, and manages to communicate that to the voters. (Also, you know, the reason she was born in Eagleton was that although her parents lived in Pawnee, Pawnee's hospital was overrun with raccoons at the time, and Eagleton's hospital was the only one nearby that was in a reasonably good state.)
• Innocently Insensitive: Many times, she is so passionate about projects and helping her friends that she ignores other people's feelings or desires such as when she plans out April's entire parks career path even though the latter has decided she wants to try something else.
• Ironic Name: "Knope" is the perfect name for an Obstructive Bureaucrat... except that Leslie is as far from an Obstructive Bureaucrat as you can get.
• Irony: Leslie knows everything about everyone, including the notoriously private Ron Swanson. Despite this, she's among the last to learn his secret identity, Duke Silver. Adding further irony is the fact that the more oblivious Tom and Andy are among the first to know, while April was likely the first of all of them to learn and didn't care enough to bring it up.
• Jerkass Ball: Related to her Immigrant Patriotism above, she tends to act like a jerk when it comes to dealing with Eagleton, even if the Eagletonians she's dealing with are actually nice people like Wreston St. James the park architect.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": To Michelle Obama, among others.
• Mad Libs Catchphrase:
  Leslie: It's every girl's dream to [something incredibly wonky, obscure and/or over-specific]!
  Leslie: Ann, you [insert strangely condescending comment that compliments her beauty but points out her naïveté]!
• My Way or the Highway: As Ann points out in "Smallest Park", Leslie is a "steamroller" who always does what she wants and refuses to hear any and all criticism of her actions because she's always convinced that she's right and everyone else needs to follow her lead. Many times it leads to disaster.
• Nice Girl: Despite her faults, Leslie is overall a very kindhearted person who constantly does nice things for her friends and goes out of her way to help others. Ron puts it best when he says, "Leslie has a lot of qualities I find horrifying, but the worst one by far is how thoughtful she can be." This very trope is also one of the reasons why she is so successful and accomplishes so much. Time and again, it is shown that everyone who knows her is willing to do anything to help her out, because she is always so kind. The Chief of Police will happily agree to assign his officers to work extra shifts for the Harvest Festival (describing Leslie as someone who uses favors to help others), airport baggage handlers will cheerfully destroy a bag containing embarrassing footage of Leslie being interviewed while drunk, businesses will stay open late or open early or even open on days when they're supposed to be closed, Ron will commit assault and battery without a second thought on anyone who insults her, Tom will stay up all night making a genuinely touching and heartfelt campaign film for her, etc. Hell, even Ken Hotate, who usually just sees dollar signs when he looks at a white person, will always have Leslie's back, although he can't resist some good-natured teasing of her while he's at it. The great thing is, most of the time these things are done without Leslie asking, people just do it because they care about her.
• Number Two: Officially, she is this to Ron, but she actually does all the work.
• Odd Friendship: She's probably Ron's closest friend, despite being his total opposite.
• Oblivious to Love: Initially, regarding Ben's interest in her.
• Official Couple: With Ben in Season 3.
• The Paragon: Leslie lives to help other people, and is incredibly kind and caring. Her influence also encourages the other characters to be better — Ron becomes more willing to let people into his life, April becomes more driven, Tom becomes more mature, Ben loosens up a bit, and Ann learns to stand up for herself. Hell, she's so nice that some people in Pawnee will bend or outright break the rules to help her out and do the right thing.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Ron. She knows more about Ron than anyone, at least before Diane came along.
• Plucky Girl: The absolute poster girl for the trope. She expects the best and always goes the extra mile.
• The Pollyanna: Relentlessly positive, sunny, and full of can-do spirit.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: She appears to be under the impression that Game of Thrones is a Space Opera.
• Pungeon Master: Most definitely this. Notable examples include her topsoil brochure "Mulch Ado About Nothing" and the rules she instated at the Farmer's Market (like "Peas be kind to others" and "In case of fire, romaine calm"). In her words, she hates vegetables but is really good at vegetable puns.
• Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Leslie is a competent golfer and hunter, and she almost always dresses in a masculine manner, but considering that appearing to be 'too feminine' is a concern for women in the real world for business and politics, this is very much a Justified Trope.
• Running Gag:
  • She has a ghastly dating record of meeting the most awful guys and being put in the most embarrassing situations by past partners. She often brings it up as a joke.
  • Leslie also has a severe hatred of libraries.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Energetic girl to Ben's savvy guy.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • She zigzags this, when she finds out that Andy and April are going to get married, stating that while she wants them to be together forever, she is worried that them getting married after being together for a month and tries to stop the wedding. The attempt fails, but Andy and April stay together for the rest of the series and beyond.
  • In the finale when she sees her daughter Sonia and Ann's son Oliver getting close, she gets very excited at the thought of them falling in love together.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She ends up married to the kind and intelligent Ben.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: While the Parks Department has a bitter rivalry with the Public Library, Leslie seems to despise them the most.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Downplayed. She's not full of herself, but she's convinced that her municipal government job is much more important than it really is. She also has no doubt that she will one day be president of the United States. In a flash-forward to 2048, she and Ben are depicted as having a Secret Service detail, implying that she apparently did indeed become President (although the episode does leave the possibility open it's Ben). She definitely became Governor of Indiana—and apparently, the first female one too (she's apparently elected in 2020—IN elects in the same year as the President—and the only somewhat likely circumstance in which Indiana's governor is a woman before then is if the winner of the 2016 race dies, resigns, or is removed before 2020 (both major parties nominated women for Lieutenant Governor).
• Sweet Tooth: She puts sugar on pasta.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Time after time, Leslie will encounter situations where the problem at hand could be easily solved if she just broke the laws that she so values.
• Trademark Favorite Food: She piles whipped cream onto everything (during "Pie-mary", Ben specifically gets her two canisters of whipped cream: one to put on the pies, one to spray directly into her mouth). She also loves Belgian waffles, specifically the ones from JJ's Diner.
• Weirdness Magnet: Somewhat. She's seldom had a 'normal' date — something extremely outlandish happens, or the date himself is outlandish. Incidents include a blazing dress, an Ambien overdose, a date sticking his hand in her mouth as she slept, and an MRI.^note The latter was from a guest character played by Will Arnett, to whom Amy Poehler was married at the time. As far as we've seen, Dave and Ben are the only men she's dated without some kind of off-putting quirk or glaring character flaw.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Happens whenever she tries to do an accent or an imitation.
• White Guilt: Shows occasional signs of this, especially when dealing with Ken Hotate, the local Native American leader, who likes to invoke Everything Is Racist cheerfully to provoke this reaction and get his way. She largely outgrows it in later interactions with him, especially when they team up against genuinely nasty characters.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Much to Ron's endless annoyance, and failed attempts to beat it out of her. It does get tested, but she largely remains an optimistic person.
• Womanchild: Leslie is cheerful, hyperactive, and a little naïve. Not to mention her fondness for candy and dislike of vegetables (though she did happily eat the cucumber rose garnish Chris made because it was cute). She is competent, however — indeed, very competent.
  Ann: [in a deleted scene] Leslie is incredible. She has the energy of a ten-year-old. And the same taste in snacks.
• Workaholic: In "Camping", Ron has to lock her in a hotel room with nothing to do so she can actually get some much-needed rest because she's overworking herself so hard. The next morning, she excitedly says that she slept seven hours, which is about twice as long as she normally does. Hell, in "Citizen Knope" she attempts to steal some work from the office to do at home during her paid suspension.

Ann Perkins

Ann Meredith Perkins

"I'm putting myself out there, meeting some new people, having some casual fun, and it is... awkward."

Played By: Rashida Jones

"The Parks Department has done so much for me that if I can help them out in any way, I will. Oh, God. Maybe I should just give them all free flu shots."

Leslie's Heterosexual Life Partner. They first meet in the pilot episode, when Ann attended a town hall meeting to bring an abandoned construction pit to the government's attention. For the first three seasons, Ann was a nurse at the local hospital, making it somewhat baffling that she seemed to spend so much time with the other characters at City Hall. Eventually, she was given a part-time job at City Hall to solve this problem. She is generally a Straight Woman.

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• Ambiguously Brown: Obviously applies to any character played by Rashida Jones, who is black and Jewish. Semi-frequently lampshaded by Leslie.
  Leslie: I've said this to you before and I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you're thoughtful and you're brilliant. And your ambiguous ethnic blend perfectly represents the dream of the American melting pot.
• Amicable Exes: Due to their mutual friendship with Leslie, and him finding love with April, Ann and Andy form a healthy friendship sometime after breaking up. Likewise, she and Chris shared this relationship as well, before getting back together for good.
• Back for the Finale: She and Chris leave Pawnee in Season 6 to start their family, but both of them return in "One Last Ride" with their son Oliver and a daughter they've named after Leslie.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Ann's very nice, but she has her limits. Best exemplified in the episode "Flu Season" when April's in the hospital, and is being an Annoying Patient to the extreme. Ann manages to be professional and polite the whole time, until...
  Ann: (looking at her watch) Three... two... one. Aaaand my shift's over. (turns around to face April and takes a deep breath) WHAT THE [BLEEP] IS YOUR PROBLEM?!
• Big Eater: She apparently once consumed an entire cheesecake at Leslie's request, commenting only that it was delicious and that she would have eaten ten if asked.
• The Bore: Her lack of any interesting hobbies or quirks, especially in comparison to Leslie, is frequently played for laughs, to the point of becoming a quirk in and of itself.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: She notably fails when she attempts to be funny, often saying an awkward joke and then immediately regretting it and kicking herself under her breath.
  Leslie: Oh Ann, you're too beautiful to be funny. It's not your fault. You've never had to compensate for anything.
• Deuteragonist: In the first two seasons, her dynamic with Leslie and relationship struggles brought her to the forefront of an episode's plot almost as much as Leslie.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Colors a few locks of her hair bright red in an attempt to impress Chris in "Camping".
• Extreme Doormat: Definitely has elements of this. She's very passive compared to Leslie and is always pulled into Leslie's plans. Also, due to the Florence Nightingale Effect and Weakness Turns Her On, she's very inclined to allow boyfriends to take advantage of her.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Their shared ambition to fill the Lot 48 pit quickly turns Leslie and her into the best of friends.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Ann is clearly shown to be attracted to vulnerable and sickly men. She waited on Andy hand and foot when his legs broke, coddles him and protects him like a child, and kisses him when he ends up in the hospital again. She was also incredibly threatened and uncomfortable by Chris being almost completely perfect until he got a nasty case of the flu, which made her ecstatic.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Leslie. They're the best of friends and absolutely love each other, with Leslie even lamenting how "tragic" it is that they're both straight.
  Rachel Lerpiss: Are you a couple?
  Leslie Knope: No. Tragically, we are both heterosexual.
• Hospital Hottie: She's a nurse, and comments about her attractiveness are frequently bandied about by Leslie and Tom. Not that she actually spends much time working there (at least on-screen).
• Mistaken for Gay: As a Running Gag, she and Leslie are repeatedly mistaken for a lesbian couple.
• Mixed Ancestry Is Attractive: Her ethnic ambiguity is frequently praised by Leslie ("Nobody can match your ethnic hybrid energy."), who also suggests this will be passed down positively in any children she has.
  Leslie: But you are so brilliant and kind and stupid hot, you're definitely going to find a wonderful guy who loves you and respects you and fills your home with multiethnic genius babies.
• Nice Girl: She's generally a friendly, amiable sort of person who wants to help people and sincerely loves her friends. She's also one of the few people to be consistently nice to Jerry than the others.
• Official Couple: After going through a Relationship Revolving Door, she and Chris become this in Season 6.
• One-Hour Work Week: Her nursing job. The show is a Work Com, it's just not dedicated to her work. Occasionally we see her at her work, usually whenever a main character ends up in the hospital. Ann getting a part-time job at the city's health department as of the end of Season 3 is most likely an attempt to avert this trope. Possibly justified: since this is a Mockumentary, we can assume it is all done off-screen and has been edited out.
• Only Sane Woman: She is the only member of the (initial) cast lacking any clear quirk that would really get them fired from their profession. Or just any serious quirks, unlike the other Only Sane Man Ben (who, despite generally being refreshingly reasonable compared to the rest, is still a dorky nerd with a Complexity Addiction).
• Put on a Bus: In mid-Season 6, when she and Chris move to Michigan to raise their family.
• Really Gets Around: She finally learns how to put her looks to good use in Season 3, and is shown with at least one new paramour every episode of that season.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The calm, practical blue to Leslie's energetic, eccentric red.
• Shipper on Deck: Ann really, really wants Leslie and Ben to get together (and even sneaks an Al Green song onto their road trip mix, which is designed to be as un-sexy as possible).
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man:
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: A mild case. Being so beautiful, she's never been dumped before. When Chris breaks up with her, his positive personality and strange wording plus her inexperience make her not realize it until a week later and she is blindsided by it. As Leslie put it in an earlier episode:
  Leslie: Ann, I always forget you're so pretty you're not used to rejection!
• Straight Man: Primarily acts as Leslie's comic foil, but will occasionally react with confusion or exasperation to the rest of the cast as well.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Maybe "best buds" is a bit of a stretch, but eventually, she and April become friends (though April won't admit it), though they still snark at each other constantly.
• Weakness Turns Her On: As indicated by her finding Chris more attractive when she was caring for him than when he was a perfect human specimen. This also explains her relationship with Andy and why it didn't work out with Mark. But even she has her limits, as exemplified by Tom.
• What Does She See in Him?:
  • This was the crux of her relationship with Andy in Season 1, who at that point was such a lazy Jerkass that he intentionally delayed getting his cast removed for two weeks just to have her keep waiting on him.
  • Ann goes through as many lame, unattractive boyfriends as attractive ones in season three. Leslie has to call her out on it in "The Fight" when her current guy happens to be The Douche.

Tom Haverford

Thomas Montgomery Haverford né Darwish Sabir Ismael Gani

"My gravestone's gonna be a 60-inch touchscreen with a hologram of four me's singing 'End of the Road' by Boyz II Men."

Played By: Aziz Ansari

"I had to call in a few favors, but if you don't call in favors to look at women in bikinis and assign them numerical grades, what the hell do you call in favors for?"

Tom is Leslie's immediate subordinate in charge of scheduling park activities and an aspiring media mogul. Networking, hot women, expensive suits, hot women, slacking off, and hot women are just a few of his favorite things. As of the end of Season 6, he runs an Italian restaurant, Tom's Bistro.

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• Always Second Best: He has a sort of inferiority complex for Ron, which comes to a boiling point in "Go Big or Go Home".
• Ambitious, but Lazy: Epitomises Tom Haverford, who constantly has big dreams of expanding out from his mid-level local government post and breaking into the glamorous and highly paid worlds of media marketing, celebrity culture, and high-end style. However, despite possessing some legitimate talent and expertise in networking, PR, event planning, and style, Tom is at heart a lazy guy who prefers to goof off and focuses most of his efforts on finding ways to do the least work whilst still receiving the most credit. Thus his early business ventures and attempts fail (sometimes quite spectacularly i.e. his Entertainment 720 see's him blowing millions on flashy and pointless expenses, whilst only figuring out what the company actually could do right before they go bankrupt) due to his attempts at taking shortcuts, prioritising the exciting parts over the essential or getting distracted and simply not bothering to put the actual work in. His arc throughout the series sees him slowly outgrowing these tendencies and working towards becoming a successful businessman, though it's not till near the end he fully succeeds in moving past his inherited instincts to slack off.
• Aside Glance: While Ben is more associated with the classic "snarky/confused" face to camera, Tom has his own "happy/excited" version.
• Beta Couple: With his former ex, Lucy, in Season 7. While it's not confirmed, it's implied they get married in the future after he proposed the episode before.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: After the Entertainment 720 arc, he evolves into this. He's still immature, superficial and goofy, but when it comes to marketing, style, PR, and advertising techniques, he knows what he's talking about.
• Butt-Monkey: Defaults into this after Garry's retirement, before revealing to Ron that he was the "Jerry" at his old job before moving to Pawnee and reinventing himself.
• Camp Straight: Despite his Handsome Lech personality, he invests in a gay bar, wears pink shirts, and drinks stereotypical 'girly' drinks. Leslie lampshades this in "Pawnee Zoo":
  Leslie: Okay, so I know you're not gay.
  Tom: No, I'm not.
  Leslie: But you're very effeminate.
  Tom: What?
  Leslie: Well, you're wearing a shirt with a coiled snake on it.
• Can't Hold His Liquor:
  • Tom is a lightweight (literally he's short, giving him less body mass for the alcohol to be distributed over) which is a point of contrast between him and the much larger Ron, who can hold his liquor excellently.
    Detlef Schrempf: He had two beers. Light beers.
  • Oddly, in what may be an Out-of-Character Moment, he isn't shown to be terribly intoxicated by his invention Snakejuice, which has terrible aftereffects for the rest of the cast (especially Ron). Though he still ends up drunk.
• Casanova Wannabe: Sometimes to the point of real pathos.
• Character Development: Over the seasons, he becomes more mature, confident, and self-reliant.
• Characterization Marches On: Season 1 Tom is far more straitlaced, with only a few of the quirks he'd have later on, with most of the humor around him being focused on his South Asian heritage and being Leslie's Number Two. Season 2 added in the love of style, ramped up the perverted aspects and gave him far more screen time with other characters.
• Cerebus Retcon: In "Jerry's Retirement", his reveal that he was the 'Jerry' of his previous office casts a darker, more pathetic light on his bullying of Garry. Given that Tom bullied Garry more than anyone else, this reveal implies he picked on Garry so much because he was desperate to keep Garry at the bottom of the office totem pole lest the antagonism is directed to him, and after previously being bullied so much himself, jumped at the chance to be the bully for a change. This becomes clear when Garry retires and, while everyone is cautious about becoming the "new Jerry", Tom goes to such careful extents to avoid it he just ends up making himself become the "new Jerry". He goes through great lengths to try and find someone else to be the "Jerry" (first Andy, then an intern), but this just makes him look more pathetic and desperate.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Is actually the one to tell Ben they should make sure a drunken Joan Callamezzo gets safely home from lunch with them.
• Citizenship Marriage: His first wife Wendy. Despite him being brown-skinned and her being white, she was the one who needed the green card. She's Canadian.
• The Dandy: He has a full-sized room for a closet and explicitly states that he wears pink for the sake of "peacocking".
• Deadpan Snarker: With a much greater emphasis on 'snarker'; there is little 'deadpan' about Tom.
• Easily Forgiven: Especially in earlier seasons, no matter what Tom would do, he would always get off with a slap on the wrist at most. The worst offender would have to be what he does in "Hunting Trip." Unlike his other antics, which are mostly harmless, if hurtful, here, Tom is extremely reckless with loaded firearms: he goes on a hunting trip without a license, accidentally shoots Ron in the back of the head because he didn't bother checking his field of fire, and then, in an attempt distract everyone from the question of who shot Ron, opens fire on someone else and almost kills them. Then he lets Leslie take the fall for him. He gets off with Ron calling him a moron a couple of times when he could have killed someone, and should have gotten a hefty fine at least, and probably jail time.
• Hypocrite: In "Jerry's Retirement," Tom spins a sympathetic story about how before he moved to the Parks and Rec. department, he was the "Jerry" of his old office, which is why he reinvented himself. The only problem is, instead of making him more sympathetic, it only makes his treatment of Garry, which is by far the cruelest, that much more horrible because he should know how it feels to be on the receiving end.
• Hypocritical Humor: Despite his obsession with being trendy and stylish, he is repeatedly shown to be woefully out of touch with what is actually trendy and stylish.
• Informed Attribute: His good-heartedness. He has shown lots of selfish and unethical behavior throughout the series, with very little improvement, and his efforts to fix the damage always seem a bit self-serving. He does get better when his Character Development kicks in.
• It's All About Me: Has a big, big problem with this. It's on full display in "Meet 'N' Greet", where he turns an event for Leslie to get to know local business owners into an investment pitch for his company Entertainment 720. While he did it because E720 was bankrupt and he was desperate for funds, it also wasn't particularly out of character.
• Insecure Love Interest: His relationship with Ann ended up being brief as he felt she was out of his league, leading him to obnoxiously broadcast it to everyone until she inevitably got sick of it and broke up with him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As Leslie puts it, "Tom Haverford is a selfish, sleazy, self-promoting, good-hearted, secretly kind and wonderful tiny, little person."
• Lovable Coward: He's more of a wimp than a coward (Ron once equated hurting Tom with hurting a defenseless child), but the lovable part holds true both ways.
• Manchild: Seems to have the mentality of a fifteen-year-old boy.
• Mock Millionaire: Comes up often but particularly emphasized during the Entertainment 720 arc, when he and Jean-Ralphio carelessly spent money on buying excessive props and hiring attractive women as surplus employees while not doing any actual work or generating revenue for their company.
• Naturalized Name: His birth name is Darwish Sabir Ismael Gani, but he changed it since he thought "brown people with funny-sounding Muslim names" didn't have a chance in politics. He admits this reason is Hilarious in Hindsight after Barack Obama.invoked
• The Nicknamer: Does this frequently, at least in the earlier seasons, particularly to Ron.
• Odd Friendship: Andy and Ben are both about as far from him personality-wise as possible, each for very different reasons, but he hangs out with both of them a lot. A later episode even shows that he considers them more of his true friends than the almost identical Jean-Ralphio.
• Pet the Dog: After Leslie tears up the Venezuelans' check in "Sister City", Tom secretly takes all the tips he earned making himself the Venezuelans' errand boy and donates it all toward the park fund.
• Preppy Name: Somewhat subverted. His full legal name is Thomas Montgomery Haverford, but A: he usually just goes by Tom, and B: it's not even his actual birth name.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Indian variation. At one point, Tom mentions having carefully cultivated a Jay-Z vibe and once dressed up as the rapper T-Pain for Halloween. He's also fond of using the slang term "boo" to refer to a significant other.
• Popularity Polynomial: In-Universe: Finds himself the victim of this compared to Ben in the episode "Prom". His taste in music is out of touch with high school students, while Ben just played classic rock.
• Schemer: He's always involved in some plan or invention to get fabulously wealthy, but none of them works, until the bistro, which lasts for several years until it goes under. Then he writes a massively successful self-help book by drawing on his past experiences.
• Self-Deprecation: Will not deny that he rides others' coattails.
  Tom: Behind every successful man is me: smiling and taking partial credit.
• Serious Business: You will never acquire his thinking PJs. Or his YouTube blazer. Non-negotiable.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Full force. He thinks of himself as a suave and sophisticated Renaissance Man but the things he considers cool and stylish are actually a lot more niche than he realizes.
• Spear Counterpart: As a young, South Asian-American with a large ego and an obsession with celebrity culture, Tom is a more sympathetic male version of Kelly Kapoor.
• Stylistic Suck: Personified in-universe. Tom luxuriates in all things flashy and tackily unsophisticated (VIP areas, brightly coloured cocktails, stretch limousines, ludicrous gadgetry, Paul Walker movies) yet has no idea how ghastly his taste-level actually is.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Tom gets ready to shoot a crow in "Hunting Trip"
  Tom: Look, some kinda bird! Let's kill it! [shouts] You talkin' to me, bitch?!
• Took a Level in Badass: After his failure with Entertainment 720, he successfully manages to run a small suit-rental business before being bought out by a competitor. After returning to work in the City Government, he creates the position of Business Liaison to help bring outside businesses to Pawnee, impressing Ron and Leslie. It's particularly noticeable in "Flouride", where he successfully used his own talent for marketing to beat Councilman Jamm at his own game.
• Took a Level in Kindness: It takes a while and isn't always obvious, but he becomes way nicer as time goes on.

Ron Swanson

Ronald Ulysses Swanson

"I was born ready. I'm Ron [bleep]ing Swanson."

Played By: Nick Offerman

"I'd wish you the best of luck, but I believe luck is a concept created by the weak to explain their failures."

Leslie's manly, mustachioed, unapologetic libertarian boss who, engaged in a continuous attempt to sabotage the Pawnee government, secretly (or not-so-secretly) tries to stop anything from getting done. Leslie does his job for him, allowing him to devote his time to being a Memetic Badass.

---

• Acquired Poison Immunity: His family has their own brand of moonshine, which legally can only be used to strip the varnish off speedboats, and some select uses on the Swanson farm. This and his greasy diet are the only plausible reasons why he can knock back so much alcohol yet never get hung over. (Tom's Snakejuice only got him drunk due to its higher-than-normal alcohol content, but he suffered no ill effects the morning after.)
• Acrofatic: Downplayed—Ron isn't fat, but he does have a stocky build. Nevertheless, he is still rather agile and athletic.
• Affluent Ascetic: Ron owns so much gold that the five percent he plans to leave to each of his kids is considered a lot of money. His spending habits are quite modest, and he builds as many of his possessions as he can.
• All Amazons Want Hercules: When handsome, cheerful, politically correct, environmentally-aware Chris Traeger tries to hit on Andy's vegetarian Women's Studies professor, she rejects him in favor of the gruff, mustachioed, carnivorous Ron. The fact that Ron was Nice to the Waiter and Chris was not probably contributed.
  • While she considers him just a friend first and foremost, Leslie admits to having had an Erotic Dream about Ron once.
• AM/FM Characterization: One of his favorite songs is "Buddy" by Willie Nelson.
• Amazon Chaser: Ron has a clearly defined type. He mentions several times that he prefers "strong, independent women," and he's got the dating history to back it up. This is Deconstructed in that it's been a problem for him in the past. His tastes lead him to marry two different ex-wives who both took great glee in completely dominating every facet of his life and personality. In the end it's Reconstructed when Ron finds lasting happiness with the tough and no-nonsense but still fundamentally good-hearted Diane, who can put the fear of God into Tammy 2 with a simple Death Glare... and who fittingly enough is played by Lucy Lawless; Xena, the Warrior Princess.
• Anti-Education Mama: Whilst espousing the virtues of a college education, Ron admits that his father was actually against him going to college believing it was a waste of time, to the point that despite Ron being accepted when it came time to go, his father instead dropping him off at the metal factory and drove off leaving him there. Ron was forced to hitchhike his way to college.
• Authority in Name Only: While he is still well-respected by his subordinates and will occasionally exert his absolute authority when he strongly disagrees with something, for all intents and purposes, Leslie is the real head of the Parks Department, with Ron simply kicking back and leaving everything to her most of the time. He only really gets involved if Leslie violates a city rule or if Ron vehemently disagree's with her opinion on something.
• Baritone of Strength: He has the deepest voice of anyone in the cast, and one of the central aspects of his character is how incredibly badass he is, while also giving words of wisdom with his low assertive voice. To put it into perspective, every onscreen fight he's been involved in has ended in a single punch.
• Beneath the Mask: Secretly cares a great deal about his coworkers, though would never admit it and shows it in usually indirect ways.
• Benevolent Boss: He's the government-hating director of the Parks Department and leaves 99% of the work to Leslie, but he's actually a much better manager than he lets on. He is very astute to how the department is run and where his coworkers' strengths lie and how to work around their weaknesses. He secretly cares about them all a great deal, though would never admit to it. Arguably best shown in "The Bubble" where Ron convinces Chris to lay off with all the office changes by listing how it's affecting workplace productivity. Ron would love nothing more than seeing government work come to a screeching halt and collapse, but convinces Chris to undo the changes he made upon seeing how miserable his friends are.
• Beta Couple: With Diane as of Season 5.
• Big Eater: Especially in regards to red meat and breakfast meals; all other foodstuffs are treated with suspicion or outright derision. The only thing that interests him in a strip club is the breakfast buffet. He says that if he does not have at least three breakfast meals a day, he acts like a tired whiny child. He has an enormous picture of bacon and eggs framed in his office.
  Ron: Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have... Wait, wait. I worry what you just heard was, "Give me a lot of bacon and eggs." What I said was, "Give me all the bacon and eggs you have." Do you understand?
  • He can eat a party platter meant to feed 12 people in four minutes.
  • He also holds a number of records around Pawnee for eating large amounts of food very quickly.
    Ron: Why is everyone else so bad at eating?
  • He tends to shy away from "ethnic food", but greatly enjoyed eating from a burrito place when Andy mentions the "Meat Tornado", which has apparently killed someone in the past. Ron thought of it as "revolutionary", and was effusive in his gratitude for Andy introducing him to "an entirely new meat delivery system".
  • Despite having a horrendous diet and a literal gag reaction whenever forced to eat any form of fruit or vegetable he is actually quite healthy for a man who should have more cholesterol in his veins than blood, something with Ann notes as being highly unusual.
    Ron: [annoyed] What's cholesterol?
  • In the last season Jeremy Jamm tried to adopt Ron's eating habits; after a few weeks it was clearly killing him.
• Birthday Hater: He hates birthdays so much that he has gone to great lengths to keep anyone from finding out his own, including having it redacted from all government documents. Needless to say, he is not pleased when Leslie discovers his:
  Ron: I don't like loud noises. And people making a fuss. And I especially don't like people celebrating because they know a piece of private information about me. Plus the whole thing is a scam — birthdays were invented by Hallmark to sell cards.
• Breakout Character: He's by far the most popular character among fans, and some TV critics have called him the best sitcom character since Cosmo Kramer. Starting from the third season, his Men Are Tough characteristics are amplified, such as his love for Meat and food.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Played With. As shown by the excellent handling of his own business; "Very Good Building Company", Ron is an extremely competent entrepreneur and manager, and it was only his hatred of government that kept him from doing anything in the Parks Department. Outside of the department he can be downright workaholic and has happily been in steady employment since childhood and rewards and encourages ambition and hard work in others; his apathy in the Parks and Rec office is just intentional sabotage based on his principles.
• Cannot Spit It Out: A platonic version. He can't just tell his friends that he cares about and cherishes them deeply. Then there was the very short time when he was infuriated by people telling him to just say that he loves Diane, with whom he had been dating for quite some time.
• Character Catchphrase: "Bully for you", and "Please and thank you".
• Character Development: While he initially starts as a no-nonsense libertarian who couldn’t care less about his co-workers, over time he comes to see them as more than just acquaintances. This is what causes the incident known as Morning Star. When Leslie moves on and begins taking some of Ron's coworkers with her and when the rest left, he suddenly realized one day he didn't know anyone in his office space. While he is hesitant to admit, he came to view his co-workers as another fond constant in his life and eventually came to view them as friends. Which he doesn't deny when Leslie calls them such. Ron was even willing to work with the Federal government if it meant working with his old crew again.
  • Ron possesses a strong distaste for fruits and vegetables, and will not indulge in eating what he considers food that his food eats. When he has to eat a banana to get his potassium up, he looks at a picture of his girlfriend and her children to motivate him to do so.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • While we get very little of Ron's personality in Season 1 (his begrudging respect for Leslie is ever present-however), early Ron Swanson doesn't share Season 2-onwards Ron's Manly Man aspects. Even his costume-based characterization is absent. Season 1 Ron wears a suit instead of rugby shirts and flannels and keeps his hair in a more office-friendly coif. Him exclusively wearing his Season 2 getup and haircut for years is explicitly noted in season seven (Leslie's notes that the exact outfit Ron is wearing in front of her at that moment in time is the same as in her first ever interview at Parks.).
  • While Ron made his distaste for government known from the first episode, there are some moments in the show's first two seasons where he seemingly took his job a little more seriously. His debut scene in the pilot episode is him leading a government meeting (about another government meeting, no less), to absolutely no comedic effect. He also tells Leslie that he has not gone to inspect the pit on Lot 48 "yet," rather than "at all" (which he would be more likely to flat-out state in later episodes). Even in "94 Meetings," which takes place late into Season 2, he insists on ensuring that all of the meetings April mistakenly scheduled for him end up taking place (albeit in a very convoluted way).
• Comically Missing the Point: The reason his favorite book is Moby-Dick?
  Ron: No frou-frou symbolism. Just a good, simple tale about a man who hates an animal.
• The Comically Serious: He rarely cracks actual jokes, as most of the humor that comes from Ron stems from the situations he's put in and the interactions he has with the other characters.
• Crazy-Prepared: Keeps a survival backpack hidden in a ventilation grate down the hall. Also keeps a small supply of ground chuck in his desk drawer, and a large packet of bacon above the ceiling tiles of his office.
  • Ron retrieves the bag after his first ex-wife shows up. It's labeled, indicating that Ron prepared it specifically to escape from Tammy One.
  • All that gold he has buried? Quite a lot of it is fake gold just in case someone manages to figure out where the stashes are all hidden.
  • A deleted scene from "Ron and Leslie" reveals he had a secret stash of whiskey in the wall of his original office that he made on the first day he'd gotten the job just in case he ever got trapped there somehow.
  • Another deleted scene reveals that he had bacon caches in 37 other places in the office, including inside the photocopier and underneath Tom, because of an anticipated worldwide bacon shortage, or as Ron describes it, "total [bleep] global [bleep]."
• Deadpan Snarker: He is often sarcastic toward his coworkers and people in general, it is actually one of the many things he has in common with April.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Defied. Despite his overt masculinity, Ron has faced emotional, mental, and sexual abuse from both of his ex wives, including getting with much older Tammy 1 while he was underage (Not only was she his Sunday School teacher, she was a candy-striper on the ward where he was born.) These aspects of his character are explored in much depth and are never played for laughs, with his friends fiercely defending him from both whenever necessary.
• Drink-Based Characterization: He drinks Lagavulin 16, neat^note he acquiesced to adding ice once, while sick, in the name of hydration, which other characters find too strong to swallow. This reinforces his characterization as someone who's tough, direct, and has discerning tastes.
• The Engineer: Builds lots of things himself. Including a crib that he tested by hitting with his car. The grill is loose, the chrome molding is bent, and the right headlight is missing as a result.
• Everyone Has Standards: He tries reasoning with a local dealership for a fleet of vans, but the Newports had bought them out, and the dealer fully intends to take the money, and rip up the existing contract. Ron later tells them that while his word is sacred, and he never lies for anyone else, the dealer was being such an asshole that he lied on the behalf of Donna when she rear-ended the dealer, and claimed that Donna was the one who was rear-ended instead.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Inverted. While he doesn't hate them, after his relationship with Tammy One, he only dates dark-haired women because she ruined blondes for him.
• Extreme Doormat: Becomes this when around his first wife, Tammy 1. Leslie even calls him "neutered Ron Swanson"
• Family Man: Gradually grows into this when he marries Diane and becomes the father to her daughters, and eventually when his son John is born.
• Family Theme Naming: Ron, his brothers (Don, Lon, and Vaughn), and his son (John) all have first names that rhyme with "on".
• A Father to His Men: Despite being taciturn, grumpy, stingy, and insistent that people solve their own problems, he nevertheless often offers to help his friends when they need it, and often in very generous ways, such as giving Andy a scholarship, loaning money for Tom's business, and helping Leslie in many ways through out the series.
• Flanderization: His Manly Man traits ramp up as the series continues as the writers begin to embrace his badassery. He also goes from someone who greatly values his privacy to being almost completely disconnected from human society.
• Foil: His disdain for government work and cynical view of social and political systems directly clashes with Leslie's more ambitious and naively idealistic endeavors.
  • His Manly Man tendencies contrast strongly with Tom's Camp Straight personality.
• Friend to All Children: For all his gruffness he gets along surprisingly well with kids. He typically doesn't interact with them, but forms a friendship with the young Lauren Burkiss when they talk about government. When Ron meets Diane's daughters for the first them, they immediately adore him and get excited when they get to spend time with him. Initially he's annoyed, but warms up to the girls quickly.
  • Spending time with and acting as a father for Andy, who himself has a very childish personality, probably mellowed him out.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The Grumpy to Leslie's Gleeful. Leslie is incredibly enthusiastic and outgoing, while Ron is reserved and usually in a surly mood.
• Good Parents:
  • Ron, despite his gruffness and personality, fiercely loves his stepdaughters Zoey and Ivy, and his son Jon.
  • Considering he's also the Parental Substitute for Andy and April, he also counts as this towards them.
• Good Stepmother: A gender-inverted version, but Ron genuinely does love Diane's daughters and even indulges in their interests despite him clearly not enjoying it, but stick through it for their sake. As the series goes on, Zoey and Ivy even refer to him as their father.
• Happily Married: To Diane as of the beginning of Season 6 after three miserable marriages to Tammy 1 and Tammy 2 (twice).
• Has a Type: In his own words, Ron is attracted to "Strong, self-sufficient women at the top of their fields". As such, the majority of his romantic interests are women in positions of authority with forceful personalities. While this has caused a large degree of unhappiness, he eventually finds love with the forceful, forthright, but fundamentally good-hearted Diane, who is willing to accept his quirks while still putting him in place when needed.
  • This tendency briefly leads to Diane believing that the similarly forceful Leslie is a threat to their relationship, as she fears she may never reach the same level of intimacy with him.
• Hates Being Touched: As shown by his tendency to awkwardly just stand there whenever someone (usually Andy) hugs him. Ron really dislikes hugs.
• Hates Small Talk: You're at best going to get a curt dismissal and at worst a Death Glare if you attempt to instigate pointless small talk with him.
• Healing Factor: Specifically, his hair. No matter what happens to Ron's hair, it always grows back by the next couple of episodes, especially his mustache. At one point, he accidentally burnt his facial hair and eyebrows off and then ran off to hide in the woods when finding out his first ex-wife was coming, and three weeks later when Leslie comes looking for him, he's sprouted a massive mountain-man beard that would take a lesser mortal years to grow.
• Henpecked Husband: Around Tammy One, he becomes a complete pushover who needs permission to even go to the bathroom. She's conditioned him so thoroughly that the transformation from alpha male to milquetoast is reflexive when he's in her presence.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Ron moonlights as jazz saxophonist "Duke Silver" and plays in clubs outside Pawnee. He's really good in general with woodwind instruments and is very good at crafting flutes and recorders (which he then sells to a loony doomsday cult because they always play them at their end-of-the-world vigils).
  • He secretly loves artichokes and plums.
  • Ron is shown to absolutely LOVE solving scavenger hunt puzzles, and becomes uncharacteristically giddy at the prospect of completing them.
  • Even though he is as stereotypically masculine as humanly possible, Ron is also a supporter of women's rights who attends a shocking number of WNBA games, according to Leslie.
  • Is a very prominent father-figure for April and Andy, who often go to him for advice and although Ron would never openly admit it, he does care for them deeply. Ron is also the beloved stepfather to Diane's daughters, Zoey and Ivy, and even changes his lifestyle to make sure he's prominent within their lives, and includes both of them in his will. Heck, with convincing from Ben, Ron gives them 5% of his fortune which is implied to have set the girls up for their entire life.
  • Despite his hatred of it, when the governmental work needs to get done, he steps up considerably. In the Season 2 episode "Christmas Scandal", he takes over most of Leslie's duties for the day and shows surprising competence at it.
  • Despite being a fiscal conservative, he's remarkably liberal in other senses, choosing to judge others by their character rather than their demographics.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • "When I buried gold in my backyard, I promised myself I would not be miserly with it."
  • Ron's a libertarian who believes in freedom from undue influence and that everyone should have the ability to run their lives however they want. However, he also possesses a very forceful, imposing personality which can frequently lead him towards trying to dominate everyone around him and get them to run their lives the way he thinks they should be run, inadvertently or otherwise.
  • Ron's love of alcohol is frequently mentioned, saying "There's no wrong way to consume alcohol" and telling Ann he consumes one shelf a week. However, he is also on record as saying, with contempt, that "clear alcohols are for rich women on diets". He's also condescending and critical towards former director Michael Tansley for smoking pot, even handwaving one of Michael's sentences with "Sorry, I don't speak to hippies".
• I Choose to Stay: Ron turns down the job of Deputy City Manager to stay as Parks and Recreation Director, despite his desire to slash budgets, because he's grown fond of his co-workers
• Iconic Outfit: Red shirt and black pants after he's had sex. According to Tom, the same as Tiger Woods wears when he feels invincible.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With April, though he fulfills a more fatherly role to her and she happens to be one of the few people who he enjoys spending time with.
  • With Lauren Burkiss, a nine-year old. He compliments her open-mindedness about government and tells her he enjoyed talking with her, as well as calling her "much smarter" than most people who work in the local government. That is huge praise coming from Ron.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He may act like he hates all his coworkers, the government, and human society in general, but he's shown on more than one occasion that if any of them is seriously hurting or in trouble, he'll be there for them.
• Kavorka Man: Not considered especially attractive, but still manages to attract many women with his gruff personality, and that's without counting Duke Silver's fanbase of swooning middle-aged ladies. When he drops by the local gay bar to find one of the clues Leslie left for Ben's gift, many of the patrons are clearly checking him out. Ron definitely does have the looks of a "Bear".
• Laborious Laziness: He can go to incredible lengths to avoid doing his job. In fact, he took a government job in the first place so he could make sure nothing meaningful ever gets done.
  Ron: I'd work all night if it meant nothing got done.
• Like a Son to Me:
  • He regards April as similar to a daughter, and she is closer to him than to either of her actual parents.
  • Although he would never admit it, it's clear he also views Andy as being this.
  • Despite his dislike for some of his tastes, has this relationship with Tom, as well.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: Exaggerated Trope and Played for Laughs. Has two ex-wives and a mother named Tammy.
• Likes Older Women: Both of his ex-wives are distinctly older than him.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Hanging around Tammy One turns him into a complete wuss. Tammy Two turns him into a raging sex fiend.
• Made of Iron: In "Hunting Trip", he takes a shotgun blast to the back of the head, and spends the rest of the episode more angry than debilitated. He also survived getting hit by a school bus when he was seven years old.
• Manly Facial Hair: Not only is the man himself manly bar none with the strength and toughness that comes with it (by sitcom standards, of course), the mustache itself is badass enough to come back to full form within mere days of being singed or trimmed off. When he loses the mustache, it shows how henpecked he is due to Tammy 1 domineering him.
• Manly Man: An interesting version of this. Ron is gruff, loves working with his hands, eats a lot of meat, drinks a lot of whiskey, and is a strong fighter. But this doesn't translate into racism, sexism, or homophobia like other examples might. Combined with his distrust of the government and big business, Ron could be considered the true libertarian ideal if he wasn't a parody of such beliefs.
• Manly Tears: He's cried very few times in his life. The first time was when a bus ran into him as a child. The second was when he first learned of Li'l Sebastian's death. He very nearly cries a third time in "Citizen Knope" in reaction to Leslie's Christmas gift — remote-controlled closing doors for his office. He comes close to crying once again in "London, Part 2" after reading Robert Burns' "O were my Love yon Lilack fair" during his time in Scotland, and he nearly gets very emotional when he tells Leslie that her friendship means a lot to him as he is about to walk her down the aisle. Finally, his eyes can be seen welling up in "Leslie and Ron" as he recounts what happened to estrange him from Leslie (as well as in the flashback, following April's departure from the department).
• Meat Versus Veggies: The meat eater to Chris's veggie eater.
• Meaningful Name: "Ron" is a name with roots in Hebrew and Old Norse meaning "mountain of strength". This is perfectly befitting Ron Swanson's Manly Man personality.
• Mentor Archetype: He essentially mentors the entire cast to varying degrees, most obviously Andy, April, and Leslie.
• Modern Major General: He's a man of many talents, but local government bureaucracy is certainly not among them.
• Morality Pet: Andy has slowly been softening him up. He is also noticeably close with April, whom he regards akin to a daughter and is genuinely distraught when she leaves the department.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Downplayed given that Ron doesn't express his emotions openly, but after April accidentally schedules 93 meetings for him in one day, he yells at her, which results in her quitting. Ron refuses to admit fault until Andy points out she just made an honest mistake, to which Ron realizes he took his anger out on her unfairly and goes to apologize (in his own way) and asks her to come back. She accepts.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: It's no coincidence that he strongly resembles Former President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt as both are burly mustachioed men who love the outdoors and they both like to say 'bully', which was an archaic word for 'good' that was commonly used in Roosevelt's time.
• Not So Above It All: Ron has a goofier, nicer side, just like everyone else. And he loves Li'l Sebastian quite possibly more than anyone.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: He acts as one on purpose in a (thanks to Leslie's hyper-competence) questionably effective attempt to make the government as useless as possible.
• Odd Friendship: Ron has this with the entire Parks Department, as well as other people within the government.
  • With Leslie. Leslie is perky, optimistic, pro-government, and very personable and touchy-feely. Ron is none of those things. Despite this, Leslie is probably Ron's best friend, whether he admits it or not.
  • In Season 4, he starts to develop more of a friendship with Ann Perkins, helping her learn home repair, asking for her help with a public health project, and getting her advice on dealing with Chris' meditation.
  • Him and Chris, despite being almost total opposites personality wise, share mutual respect for each other. Chris respects Ron's libertarianism beliefs despite being City Manager and doesn't have an issue with how the Department is run, while Ron builds Chris a crib for his upcoming child with Ann after seeing how stressed it was making him.
  • With Donna. Ron is tough, gruff, and brutally honest to a fault, while Donna is sassy, hedonistic, and absorbed, but the two have a genuine respect for each other and often at times are on the same wavelength. Most notably, when Ron believes that Donna's ex Joe (who was described as "her Tammy"), Ron is immediately suspicious and protective of her.
  • In Season 7, Ron actually becomes good friends with Typhoon, a flamboyantly effeminate hairdresser. They bond over a shared hatred of Eurotrash and faddish bicycles (though it's implied that Ron just finds it easy to talk to his barbers). In the finale, Ron is the best man at Typhoon and Craig's wedding.
• One-Man Army: Nothing can keep him down.
• Only Sane Man: He doesn't get involved in his coworkers' hijinks.
• Papa Wolf: While initially unconcerned with Gryzzl's datamining (considering it rather silly to voluntarily give them your personal information and then complain that they have your personal information), the moment his son's privacy (an toddler obviously not using the service) becomes an issue, he goes on the offensive.
  • In the Season 6 finale at the Pawnee/Eagleton unity concert, he stands protectively in front of his daughters when he realizes Tammy II is in the area.
• Parental Substitute: To April and Andy, although April's parents are still around — especially Andy. He helps put Andy through college, offers advice to the young couple, and is their go-to guy (aside from Ben) when they need an "adult's advice". When Ron is unsure of his parenting skills, spending the day with Andy (including taking him to the dentist) is what reassures him.
• Patriotic Fervor:
  • Of course. Here's what he thinks of Canada. Ron especially hates anything resembling Commie Land.
  • He does, however, actually come to like the Inner Hebrides of Scotland after Leslie sends him there to visit the Lagavulin distillery. He later buys the distillery (or a controlling interest in it, anyway)..
• Perpetual Frowner: Even when he's being nice, he's still quite stern. The only thing that makes him smile is the collapse of the Pawnee government.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Leslie, to the point that Diane worries that Ron's so close to Leslie that there'll never be room for another woman in his life, despite Leslie and Ron having no romantic attraction whatsoever.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: "Is Star Wars the one with the little wizard boy?"
• Prefers Proper Names: Ron almost exclusively refers to Andy Dwyer as "Andrew". This corresponds to his refusal to be silly and informal, but also lends a fatherly tone to his interactions with Andy. He also occasionally refers to Ben and Chris as Benjamin and Christopher.
• Professional Slacker: He lets Leslie run the department, which she is only too happy to do. Ron, as a fierce super-libertarian, is actually ideologically opposed to the government accomplishing things; the one time he is seen actually working with enthusiasm is when the city needs ideas on how to slash its budget.
• Real Men Eat Meat: To the point that he thinks fish are acceptable to catch, but not to eat since "fish meat is practically a vegetable". Although he does consider shrimp his third-favorite food.
  • Ron is also the inventor of the "Turf and Turf" — a 16-ounce T-bone steak lightly garnished with a 24-ounce Porterhouse.
  • In one episode, he is seen eating a deep-fried turkey leg wrapped in bacon and guess what's it called? The Swanson.
  • In another, his response to being offered vegan bacon was to pick it up and immediately put it in the garbage. Followed by requesting another, which he also throws away, and then a third. When questioned why he keeps asking for them if he's only going to throw them away, he responds that it's to save anyone else from eating them.
• Real Men Have Short Hair: Ron believes that the only acceptable hairstyles a man or boy can wear are high and tight, crew cuts, and buzz cuts. When put in charge of a boy's basketball team, he makes them follow the "Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness" and gives all the boys short-length haircuts.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Like the rest of Pawnee, he adores Li'l Sebastian.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: An imposing gentleman who is the head of the Parks Department (though in reality leaves 99% of the work to Leslie), but when push comes to shove he sticks up for his coworkers. He's very astute as to where his friends succeed and how to work around their weaknesses when things need to get done. In "Li" he sternly warns Leslie and Ben about their secret relationship that while he isn't against it, he won't be able to help them if it comes out.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Subverted. He tries to pull this while throwing a barbecue in a public park and planning to actually slaughter a pig as part of it, arguing that he is allowed to do this because he is in charge of the Park and Recs department. Unfortunately for his plan, slaughtering and serving a pig also fell under the jurisdiction of other departments such as Health, so he actually didn't make the rules in this case. Notable for being one of the few times he actually tried to exercise his government authority as well, and it turns out to be authority he didn't really have.
• Secretly Wealthy: Apparently owns a massive amount of gold and cash. So much so that, according to his attorney, the 5% he plans to leave to his step-daughters and biological son is considered a huge inheritance.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The manly man to Chris' sensitive guy... and basically every other male character in the series (even the not particularly feminine Andy looks less like a man and even more like a little boy when next to Ron).
  Ron: I like Andy. I am working in an office all day surrounded by women. And that includes the men.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • He denies it, but in Seasons 2 and 3, he clearly wants April and Andy to get together, to the point of being the one that tells April to stop leading Andy on. (He's quick to assure us that he doesn't care whether they get together, though.)
  • It's also implied that he's this for Donna and Joe, after seeing Joe's true colors and advising Donna not to mistake drama for happiness.
  • When he uncovers that Leslie and Ben were secretly seeing each other, he doesn't disapprove of it (though does issue a warning he can't protect them if it comes out) and is more than willing to help out at their wedding.
• Sliding Scale of Libertarianism and Authoritarianism: Ron's political philosophy falls quite far on the libertarian side. He has explicitly referred to himself as a libertarian a number of times and sees no value in government-run institutions to the point of wanting everything privatized. Unfortunately for him, Leslie always has ambitious plans to expand the Parks Department. Hilarity Ensues. Of course he also easily changes attitude when people don't comply with his personal philosophies. At a barbecue, he leaves when people complain that he didn't even prepare beverages for children.
• So Proud of You: Non-verbally. He mentions that when he feels people are getting too "chummy" with him, he calls them by the wrong name to enforce he doesn't care about them. April compliments his attitude and then refers to him as "Lester". Ron can't help but break a smile.
• Starter Villain: He was initially the Big Bad of Season 7, until he and Leslie reconciled in "Leslie & Ron". After that, Gryzzl itself is the Big Bad.
• Strawman Political: Ron's libertarian views are extreme, to say the least, and are generally used to make him seem unreasonable. That said, it's played with to some extent as he does occasionally make good points in his arguments with Leslie (whose political views are diametrically opposed to his), sometimes acknowledges when he's taking things too far, and is portrayed as having an admirably genuine devotion to his principles.
• Stout Strength: For one thing, he took Jamm down with only one punch to the mouth.
• Sweet Tooth: In an aversion of Real Men Hate Sugar, Ron loves sweets. He enjoys Paunch Burger's sugary sodas, candy from Sweetums, and, when Chris brings a vegetable loaf instead of a cake to April and Andy's party as requested, he's furious.
  Ron: [referring to the vegetable loaf] So not only does this thing exist, but now you have deprived everyone of cake!
• Team Dad: Begrudgingly. Ron is undeniably a paternal figure to the rest of the office and often acts stern and uninvolved. April and Andy noticeably benefit from his influence, and he becomes a prominent role model for them, though he would fiercely deny such a statement.
• Technophobia: Downplayed. This trait usually just manifests itself as a mildly backward streak and when Tom gives him an iPod with all of his jazz records installed onto it, Ron loves it without complaint, and exclaims that "it's an excellent rectangle". On the other hand, he's not happy when technology clashes with his way of life, as best shown when his first reaction when typing in his address into Google Earth is to throw his computer away in a fit of rage (which has more to do with his privacy being violated, rather than a hatred for computers).
• Theme Naming: He and his brothers all have names that rhyme: Ron, Don, Lon, Vaughn. He continued the theme with his son: John.
  • Coincidentally, he has an uncle named Vaughn as well. His mother and both his ex-wives are named Tammy.
• 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: In "Hunting Trip", one of the characters (Tom) shoots him in the head, but he gets better.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Red meat (especially steaks and burgers), breakfast food, and Scotch whiskey. His love of breakfast food is the major thing he and Leslie have in common.
  Ron: Why do people ever eat anything besides breakfast food?
  Leslie: People are idiots, Ron.
• Tsundere: Clearly towards Diane in Season 5. He lets it slip that he loves her to Ann, and when she and Diane's daughters begin to tease him for it, he storms off with a yell of "I LOVE NO ONE!"
• Wham Line: In "Leslie and Ron", Ron reveals just how miserable time away from his friends made him.
  Ron: I was going to ask you for a job. [Beat] In the federal government.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: He intends to leave the bulk of his money to the person or animal that kills him.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: His disdain for functioning government is such that when he's once awarded Employee of the Month, he immediate seizes the plaque, cuts it into firewood, burns it all to ash, carries the ashes to another state^note Illinois, the poor bastards, buries it, covers up any sign he was there, and drives away without a word.

April Ludgate

April Roberta Ludgate

"[Cats and dogs] should be rewarded for not being people. I hate people."

Played By: Aubrey Plaza

"No, I didn't win, but at least I didn't make any new friendships."

April is The Snark Knight. Originally, she was an apathetic college intern who constantly slacked off and seemed like she would rather be anywhere else. In the second season, she was hired as Ron's assistant specifically to stonewall anyone wishing to meet with him. Near the end of the fourth season, it's revealed that, while she generally hates people, April loves animals and realizes that this might be her calling. In Season 5, the incompetent Animal Control Department is absorbed by the Parks Department and April is appointed the director of the new sub-department.

---

• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She's a snarky brunette who rarely emotes, except occasionally, mostly around Andy.
• Ambiguously Bi: She expresses interest in going to a strip club in "Tom's Divorce" and finds Garry's painting of the topless centaur that resembles Leslie to be hot.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Her music taste really only consists of German death reggae, Halloween sound effects from the 1960s, and Bette Midler.
• Ascended Extra: In season 1, April's relevant to the plot all of twice and even then tangentially, even though Aubrey Plaza got regular-cast credit from the beginning. Mid-Season 2 onwards, she becomes one of the most focused-on characters in the main cast.
• Aside Glance: Due to the format, all the characters do it from time to time, but the aside glance appears to be April's primary form of communication. Subverted earlier in the show, in that whenever April has been especially obnoxious to somebody else, she will sometimes give a resentful Aside Glance to show that she knows the camera has caught her obnoxiousness, and she isn't happy about it. Later in the show's run, when she becomes less cynical, less apathetic and less self-conscious, she gives fewer Aside Glances.
• Babies Ever After: After some resistance, she and Andy eventually have a son named Jack in the Distant Finale, with another on the way.
• Beta Couple: With Andy after they become a couple. She is the youngest, most cynical, and apathetic of the main female characters and is ironically the first of them to get married.
• Better with Non-Human Company: Starts up a pet adoption to avoid having to fill in for Leslie at government meetings.
  April: I think I may have found a project I'd actually enjoy doing. Helping these cats and dogs. They should be rewarded for not being people. I hate people.
• Be Yourself: In Season 5 she gets put into the public spotlight more and more as a representative for the parks department. At first she imitates Leslie as a way to get through her presentations since Leslie has always been good at that sort of thing and it helps her deal with her nerves, but April realizes that Leslie's methods don't work for her and simply starts acting like herself. While this gets complaints for excessive rudeness, she is much more successful than she ever was imitating Leslie.
• Breakout Character: Started off as mostly a Living Prop in the first season before the increased focus on her plotlines drove her to become the most popular female character of the series.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: She is actually rather smart, but would prefer not to bother with things like responsibility and hard work.
  April: I don't want to do things. I want to not do things.
• The Bully: At her worst, she often insults and embarrasses other people for fun. With the arguable exception of Tom, she's easily the biggest one towards Jerry and, unlike Tom, she doesn't have any reason for doing so aside from amusing herself.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Half the problems she and Andy had getting together during their Will They or Won't They? courtship were caused by her unwillingness to just tell him how she felt. She resorted to hints and subterfuge (such as attempting Operation: Jealousy) rather than telling him that she liked him. If she was angry with him she would get passive aggressive instead of telling him she was angry and why.
• Character Development:
  • In the second season, she becomes progressively nicer and more open the more she hangs out with Andy. It culminates in "Galentine's Day", where, after getting fed up with her gay boyfriends being jerks, she asks, "God, why does everything we do have to be cloaked in, like, 15 layers of irony?"
  • Her character arc starts in earnest in Season 4 and continues into Season 5 as she realizes that she can't be a complete jerk to everyone and attempts earnestly to forge a career. Besides that, April becomes more outgoing and eccentric as the show goes on, most prominently after marrying Andy. Lampshaded in "Miss Ludgate-Dwyer Goes to Washington".
    April: (to Leslie) When I started working for you, I was aimless and just thought everything was stupid and lame. You turned me into someone with goals and ambition. Which is the reason why I'm even thinking about what I really want.
• Creepy Monotone: Her tone of voice barely ever wavers from a steady monotone, suiting her Emotionless Girl personality, as well as helping with her generally creepy aura.
• The Cynic: Starts off as the most cynical character in the show. However she eventually grows to be more encouraging and optimistic occasionally towards those she cares about at least.
• Dare to Be Badass: She encourages Andy to pursue his dreams.
• Deadpan Snarker: Easily the best example on the show. April can be counted on to respond to things with dripping sarcasm.
• Death Glare: Easily the best example on the show, too. When she can't be bothered to snark, she'll usually just glare.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: April starts to open up in Season 2, mostly thanks to Andy's influence.
• Dismotivation: She and Ron get along well.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Roberta.
• Embarrassing Nick Name: Her parents call her "Zuzu".
• Emotionless Girl: Getting her to express any emotion besides scathing sarcasm is quite rare.
• Fag Hag: Until midway into Season 2, she constantly hangs out with her "gay boyfriend" and his boyfriend. She breaks up with him because it turns out that Derek and Ben are actually rather mean, despite initial impressions to the contrary.
  April: Derek is gay but he's straight for me, but he's gay for Ben and Ben's really gay for Derek. And I hate Ben.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Married Andy after dating a month.
• Friend to All Living Things: In sharp contrast with her general hatred towards humans, April loves animals, particularly her and Andy's pet dog Champion. Managing an animal adoption show while Leslie was busy elsewhere was the first time she didn't utterly hate government work, and many of her later story arcs also revolve around animals.
• The Gadfly: More like gadhornet; Loves messing with people in various ways, such as tricking her doppelgänger into breaking into Dwayne Wade's house or putting question mark stickers on stop signs.
• Growing Up Sucks: Firmly believes so, as demonstrated in "Jerry's Painting". Andy manages to convince her by the end that they can be responsible adults while still staying true to themselves.
• Happily Married: To Andy. For a given definition of 'happy' in her case, anyway.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: She may talk tough and keep up a snarky exterior, but most of April's Emotionless Girl persona is really just a front to avoid openly demonstrating her emotions around others. Dating Andy and learning to embrace her career cracks that façade more and more, and by Season 6 it's almost entirely gone.
• Hipster: Of course, with her snarky attitude. Her favorite band is Neutral Milk Hotel, and aside from that, she only listens to German Death Reggae or Halloween sound effects records from the 1950s. (And Bette Midler, obviously.)
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: April's a pretty big jerk, she enjoys mocking Garry, openly dislikes Ann, has little respect for the rules, and claims to hate everyone and everything. However she does have a softer side, particularly towards Ron, Andy, and later Leslie. As the show goes on, the "jerk" aspect fades — though she's always pretty creepy and abrasive, and even then she only ever uses it to destroy anything she genuinely despises, instead of just everybody around her.
• Large Ham: Whenever she acts in-show, like when she adopts her "Janet Snakehole" character.
• The Matchmaker: Though not a very good one. April is the one who pairs up Tom and Ann, much to her regret as they annoy her later with their relationship problems. She also tries to set up Chris, still sad from breaking up with Garry's daughter Millicent, with Andy's Women's Studies professor. Said professor ends up sleeping with Ron instead.
• Morality Pet: Andy becomes one for her in Season 2. Notably, her time with him leads her to reject her two gay boyfriends due to being annoyed by how artificial their hipster ways were, plus their unpleasant attitude towards Andy.
• Nightmare Fetishist: To an incredible degree. Examples include being happy at having fake blood splattered all over her, wanting to live in a house that used to house the insane, her childhood dream job being working as funeral prepper, and being more interested in the horrible and disgusting effects pregnancy would have on her body than actually having a child. Donna even calls her "Satan's niece." When Andy went in for his police exam, she made him a good luck charm: she found a dead rabbit at the side of the road, cut off its feet, and stuffed it before giving it to him. Andy loved it.
• Odd Friendship: She becomes quite close with Leslie despite them having completely opposite personalities. Her no-nonsense attitude gets on the good side of Donna as well, to the point of being Donna's maid of honor at her wedding. Her initial friendship with Andy in Season 2 could also count, however, after they get married, they become more of the Odd Couple.
• Opposites Attract: With peppy, dorky jock and rock singer Andy.
• Pet the Dog: As befitting her being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, April is capable of acts of true kindness here and there.
  • Her relationship with Andy starts as this; she befriends the goofball while he's having general life troubles, and finds spending time with him more enjoyable than with her mean gay boyfriend and his boyfriend. Realizing how they much prefer to Kick the Dog while Andy's influence makes her want to Pet it, she ends up choosing Andy.
  • Literally in Season 3 when she and Andy adopt a three-legged dog named Champion. She adores him, states he's one of the few things she cares about, and eventually admits that helping homeless animals get adopted is one of the few things that could get her passionate about a boring, administrative job.
  • In "Meet and Greet", after seeing how uncomfortable and disgusted Garry is over his daughter Millicent getting hot and heavy with Chris during the Halloween party, April swipes Chris' car keys so he won't be able to take Millicent back to his place to have sex with her.
  • After Leslie and Ben's argument in "The Treaty", she goes to console Leslie and encourages her to talk to Ben.
  • Guilty over successfully wishing misfortune upon Chris in "Bowling for Votes", she offers to take him to the movies with her and Andy with the tickets she won in the donation phone pool.
  • In Season 4, she sets Ann up with Tom because she genuinely thinks Tom makes her happy. She even tries to keep it a secret from Leslie because she knows about Ann's probable embarrassment.
  • Attempts to set Chris up with Andy's college professor. Though it's partially to get Chris off their backs, it was April who approached Chris first and invited him to dinner with them.
  • In Season 6, when she believes Garry to be very ill, she tries hard to be nice to him, to the point of actually reaching into his shirt and scratching his back for him.
• Pitbull Dates Puppy: April is snarky, mischievous, and claims to hate everyone, while Andy is goofy, upbeat and full of energy.
• Professional Slacker: It's the whole reason Ron hired her.
  Ron: I don't care that you text all day and sleep at your desk. In fact, I encourage it.
• Put on a Bus: The possibility is toyed with in Season 3, when Chris offers to take her back to Indianapolis with him to be his assistant. It was also teased in Season 6 with her vet school arc but ultimately averted when she backed out of going after getting a gut feeling.
• Sarcastic Confession: In her words: "The truth is stupid. I only tell the truth when it makes me sound like I'm lying."
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Reveals to Ron that she's aware of his double life as Duke Silver, as her mother has all of his albums and she recognized him the second they met.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: April, being played by Aubrey Plaza, always looks pretty, but usually gives the impression that she doesn't fuss much about her personal appearance. As her character development goes on and she becomes more involved with her work, she starts looking a lot more polished.
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Similar to Ann's One-Hour Work Week, April is a college student, but this isn't mentioned very often and she never seems to have to be in class, which implies that whatever college she's attending is close enough for her to be at the office so often during the day. In the tie-in book Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, April says she only takes one course a semester at Pawnee Community College.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Dumps her cynical, moody boyfriend (and his boyfriend) because she likes the good-natured Andy.
• Spicy Latina:
  • She acknowledges the trope while she normally inverts it with extreme prejudice — she's the only major Latina character, but is the most asocial and emotionless.
    April: (utterly deadpan) My mom's Puerto Rican. That's why I'm so lively and colorful.
  • When she's drunk, however, she makes those normally associated with the trope seem downright... stoic.
• The Stoic: Played by Aubrey Plaza? That's pretty much a given (unless she's drunk).
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: April's cold, aloof and sometimes quite callous and anti-social. However she also has a sweeter side, which she occasionally shows to those she cares about.
• Teen Hater: During the prom in the eponymous Season 6 episode, April explicitly tells Andy that she hates teenagers as an excuse to go home since she's embarrassed being in a high school building, while Andy still wants to dance.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: She has a tendency to blurt out her feelings: "I'm bored!" or "I'm cranky!" Her facial expression barely changes, however.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Starting from around season 3, but especially in season 4, April becomes a kinder, more considerate person to those she considers friends. But she's still a Troll and a Nightmare Fetishist.
  • Season 4 has her even list off the things she cares about (Andy, her dog Champion, Leslie, and the animal shelter), which the old April wouldn't have. She also starts giving relationship advice to Tom, Ann, and in season 5, Ron. She even admits (very begrudgingly) that she cares for Ann when saying goodbye to her in "Ann and Chris".
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Do not embarrass Andy, hurt Andy's feelings, or be anything other than nice to Andy when she's around. Is usually more bark than bite but she's clearly furious when it happens so the potential is there. And if you are a woman, do not show any romantic interest in Andy whatsoever. He belongs to April.
• Vocal Evolution: Her voice is softer and less expressive in the first two seasons than it is in later episodes.
• When She Smiles: Especially in the early seasons; her few smiles are really pretty. After she loosens up a bit they start to become far more frequent and directed at people other than her Morality Pet Andy.
• Why Did It Have to Be Spiders?: She has that arachnocornucopia thing.
• Womanchild: Starts out as a college student, but continues acting like a moody high schooler well into her twenties.
• Yaoi Fangirl:
  April: I passed up a gay Halloween party to be here. Do you know how much fun gay Halloween parties are? Last year I saw three Jonas Brothers make out with three Robert Pattinsons. It was amazing.

Andy Dwyer

Andrew Maxwell Dwyer

"I have no idea what I'm doing but I know I'm doing it really, really well."

Played By: Chris Pratt

"There's an old saying in show business: 'The show must go wrong'. Everything always goes wrong, and you just have to deal with it."

Andy was introduced as Ann's idiotic musician boyfriend in the first season and originally intended as a temporary character. He was retained in the second season after Ann broke up with him and landed a job as a shoe-shiner at City Hall. He had a Will They or Won't They? relationship with April in the second season. In the third season, he and April married after having dated for less than a month, much to Leslie's horror. Since then, their marriage has proved surprisingly stable. At the start of Season 4, Andy leaves his shoe-shiner job and joins the Parks Department.

---

• Acrofatic: While he's a bit on the heftier side, he's still pretty athletic.
• Age-Gap Romance: Downplayed as the age gap between them is much less than is usual for the trope, and none of the other characters seem to take issue with it, but Andy is initially rather uncomfortable with the eight-and-a-half-year age difference between him and April. He gets over it.
• Amicable Exes: Due to their mutual friendship with Leslie and both moving on to more suitable partners, Ann and Andy form a healthy friendship sometime after breaking up.
• Amusing Injuries: Andy gets hurt. A lot. And it is almost always hilarious.
• Animal Motif: A fairly subtle one, but Andy behaves a lot like a big, dumb dog. He's friendly, a little slow to pick up on things, and has somewhat unrefined manners. He even dries himself by shaking. When his legs were still broken, he even bathed himself outside in a kiddie pool and specifically mentioned that he got the idea from seeing his parents wash their dog.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: He has a strong case of this. He almost always misses important information because he gets distracted by things like a bird flying past.
• Author Catchphrase: He mentions that he uses the lines 'spread your wings and fly' and 'you deserve to be a champion' in all of his songs. The first lyric at least can actually be heard in the studio versions of most of his songs.
• Babies Ever After: With April in the Distant Finale.
• Beta Couple: With April after they become a couple.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Arguably one of the most well-meaning characters on the show, but has his limits.
  • When Jeremy Jamm starts insulting Leslie at her wedding, Andy immediately stands up with Chris to defend her and shooting a cold glare at Jamm.
  • After seeing Ben ridiculed by Dennis Feinstein and hearing Dennis talk nonchalantly about hunting Tom and killing drugged up foxes, Andy bluntly calls him a dick after Dennis insults his friends one too many times.
• Brainless Beauty: He's an adorkable and cute guy, and is as dumb as a brick.
  Donna: Andy, ya fine but ya simple.
• Breakout Character: He started out as the least important character on the show, being the boyfriend of someone not even in the Parks Department and wasn't planned to stay around after the first season, but he gradually became one of the most beloved characters in the series.
• Buffy Speak: Largely due to stupidity and not really knowing any technical terms.
• Captain Obvious: Because he's often Late to the Punchline, he'll usually restate something everyone always figured out.
• Character Development: Started off as a Lazy Bum jerkass in Season 1 to a becoming a lot more responsible and considerate in Season 2, with his evolution continuing on from there.
• Characterization Marches On: His entire character becomes entirely different after Season 1, where he goes from a Jerkass who is taking advantage of Ann to a lovable idiot who is among the nicest characters on the show.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Mostly in Season 4 and after, comes with being The Ditz. It's not normal for someone to dedicate a whole episode's investigation just to find who threw the pie at Garry in "Bus Tour". That's just one of many examples.
• Crazy Jealous Guy:
  • He is jealous of both Mark and Eduardo when trying to win back Ann and April, respectively. Fortunately, the latter was merely an attempt at Operation: Jealousy.
  • He somehow becomes jealous of and furious at Chris based on a purely hypothetical scenario where Chris ends up with April after Andy seemingly dies... a scenario which Andy himself came up with.
• The Ditz: Andy has a tendency to completely misinterpret things or not realize how exactly things work. Of course, he also has his moments of being a Genius Ditz.
  Andy: Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the thing up here and it says that you might have... Network Connectivity Problems.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm:
  • Due to being a Manchild.
    April: I'll go too.
    Tom: Really? 'Cause an hour ago you told me you'd rather watch a sex tape of your grandparents.
    April: Shut up! I don't have anything else to do. Do you want help or not?
    Tom: All right, see you guys later. [Leaves]
    Andy: I think that it's really, really sweet that your grandparents still make love.
  • In another episode, Andy and Tom are escorted to the archiving room by the extremely old Ethel Beavers. As soon as she leaves, Tom jokingly tells Andy to remind him to ask her where she was when Lincoln got shot. Andy makes sure to write it down.
  • This becomes rather ironic when he gets together with April, who is absolutely the most sarcastic and snarky character on the show.
• Fake Guest Star: In the first season, Chris Pratt was credited as a guest star despite appearing in every episode. They did shuffle back and forth on putting him in the opening titles during the first season, but nevertheless he was consistently referred to as a guest star. From the second season onward, he was credited as a normal regular.
• Feigning Intelligence: Andy has tried to sound smart on several occasions, and failed spectacularly every time. And, somehow, simultaneously Obfuscating Stupidity. For all of his idiocy, there are occasional hints that he's actually much more intelligent than he seems at first glance.
• Formerly Fat: In the sixth and seventh seasons, he slims down quite a lot, owing it to having cut down on beer consumption. In real life, it was because Chris Pratt had toned up for Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).
• Friend to All Children: He gets along great with young kids, due in part to him being an overgrown kid himself. Because of this, Andy finds his calling as a children's entertainer and is remarkably good at it.
• Genius Ditz: He's got a pretty sharp memory and can do well when he applies himself. He memorized tons of complicated information for his women's studies final, and was also the first applicant ever to get a 100 on the written part of the Police Academy exam, but completely failed the personality test. And despite the often silly or simplistic lyrical content of his songs, he's also a talented musician. He also gets so bored he starts to think about existentialism after Chris gives him a job as a City Hall security guard.
• Global Ignorance:
  • In the same episode, he says Venezuela is both "across the pond" and a city in Mexico.
  • He thinks that the states that form the Four Corners are Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon.
• Happily Married: To April after the third season. Despite having rushed into it on an impulse decision, it's a very stable union, with them being mutually supportive of one another.
• Idiot Hero: And how. The man can't do his own laundry, can't talk about tampons without giggling, thought that Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon were the same place, is completely Sarcasm-Blind and your grandkids will have had grandkids before he catches up to the main plot. Thankfully he's an All-Loving Hero and is often useful in other ways…
• Jerkass: He's a Lazy Bum who constantly takes Ann for granted in Season 1. When she finally breaks up with him, Andy starts to get his act together and becomes one of the nicest characters in the show.
• Like a Son to Me: Ron is generally at his most fatherly when interacting with him. To a lesser extent, Chris and Garry as well.
• Literal-Minded: Leslie commissions him to write a song for Li'l Sebastian's funeral that's "five thousand times better than 'Candle in the Wind'". Andy writes a song titled "Five Thousand Candles in the Wind".
• Lost in Character: He ends up buying into his own hypothetical scenario where Chris ends up with April after his death to the point of angrily yelling at Chris for betraying him.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Andy tends to try to downplay serious injuries. Other times he completely forgets about them, such as when he broke his thumb while on the way to visit the doctor's office to get his concussion checked.
• Manchild: He's extremely immature and childlike, acting like a hyperactive, easily excitable kid most of the time.
• The Matchmaker: Pushes for both Ron and Tom to get together with Diane and Lucy, respectively, and makes genuine efforts to bring both couples closer.
• Morality Pet: The only person April is consistently kind to, at least before she Took a Level in Kindness. He also brings out a softer side of Ron, who treats him like a surrogate son. (Not that Ron would ever admit it, of course.)
• Nice Guy: While his stupidity can still lead to awkward situations at times, Andy overall becomes a very likable and well-meaning person after his Character Development, and is generally friendly to everyone except Garry and Kyle.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Shows shades of this at times. When hanging out with April pre-relationship, and practicing a Spit Take, it's obvious that he knows what he is doing when "doing it wrong" with a simple Eyebrow Waggle to the camera.
• Oblivious to Love: Towards the end of Season 2, it becomes clear that this is at least partially an act due to the age difference between him and April making Andy a bit uncomfortable.
• Odd Friendship: He spends a lot of time with Ben and Tom in later seasons. He's also quite close to Ron, bonding over their love of sports and food.
• Opposites Attract: With April. She's a dark grouch and he's a sunny optimist. They balance each other out that way.
• Parental Substitute: Ron is a straight example, while Leslie is a mix of this and a Cool Big Sis to him.
• Put on a Bus: Due to Chris Pratt landing the starring role in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Andy is given a temporary job in London that keeps him away from Pawnee in the first part of Season 6.
• The Rival: During season 2 he forms with Mark over Ann, even though Ann makes it clear she is done with Andy.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • In Season 5, Andy does more to get Ron and Diane together than either Ron or Diane.
  • In "Jerry's Painting", he can also tell immediately that Ben likes Leslie and states his approval for them to get together.
• Smarter Than You Look: He isn't the brightest person in Pawnee, but does possess some decent problem-solving skills and emotional intelligence that others do not. He just lacks common sense.
  • He quickly catches on to April's plot to make him less upset at her in "Road Trip". He also quickly realizes that Ron and Diane have excellent chemistry and refuses to accept that Ron isn't interested in her...going so far as to set them up himself.
  • He actually got a 100% on the personality exam for the Police Academy, which had never been done before and impressed even the senior officers.
  • He is a genuinely talented musician, able to play the guitar and write songs himself.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • In the first part of Season 2, Andy keeps trying to win Ann's affections back, and even lives in a ravine near Ann's house to 'protect' her.
  • To a lesser extent in the first few episodes of Season 3, when he tries to redeem himself in April's eyes after admitting to having kissed Ann in the second season finale.
• Stout Strength: He's a bit chubby, but also very strong.
• Too Dumb to Fool: April's attempts at Operation: Jealousy both fail because he's too dumb or naïve to be tricked. And in "Jerry's Retirement", Tom's attempts to make Andy the new Butt-Monkey of the department fail because Andy is completely immune to shame and embarrassment.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: While never particularly bright, he was originally more lazy and immature than stupid, and seemed a reasonably functional adult who just got way too co-dependent on Ann and was having trouble landing on his feet. Season 2's "Freddy Spaghetti" has Andy himself point out to Leslie that his band's songs like "Sex Hair" are clearly inappropriate for children, while in Season 6's "Farmer's Market" Andy is so oblivious to it that, when told to change the lyrics to that song to make it kid friendly, he initially modifies it to "Sex Bears".
• Took a Level in Kindness: His evolution into a more likable person during the second season. There was some of this in the first season too, particularly in one episode where he goes out of the way to clean the house (and himself!) as a surprise for Ann while impaired by his leg casts.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: In Season 2, April develops a crush on Andy, who at the time is trying to win back his ex-girlfriend Ann and is unaware of April's feelings throughout most of the season. However, he eventually catches on and begins to reciprocate her affection despite having been previously weirded out by their eight-year age difference. In the season finale, Andy asks April out, but she turns him down because she believes he still has feelings for Ann. Ann, meanwhile, is going through a romantic mess of her own and, in a moment of confusion, kisses Andy. Andy breaks his arm, causing April to realize that life is short and to agree to go out with Andy. Andy ruins his chances when he decides to tell her about his kiss with Ann. In the third season premiere, April returns from vacation with a new boyfriend, and Andy spends the next few episodes trying to win her back. He eventually succeeds, and despite a few more minor bumps in the road, they are married within 3 episodes of coming together.
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: While everyone cycles through different positions over the years, Andy easily does so the most, likely due to never really being part of the Parks department. He starts off as an unemployed musician, then gets a part-time job shining shoes. He eventually leaves that to become Leslie's assistant, and also became City Hall's part-time weekend security guard. He applies for the Police Academy, but fails, and instead ends up becoming Ben's assistant at the Sweetums Foundation, doing well enough to manage a foreign deal on his own. After returning to Pawnee and leaving Sweetums, he hangs around the Parks Department for a bit seemingly in some assistant position, then joins the part-time Pawnee-Eagleton merger think-tank that then organizes the Unity Concert. During this, his music career takes off in an unusual way when he ends up becoming a successful kid's music performer and entertainer and eventually ends up leading a popular kid's show.

Ben Wyatt

Benjamin Wyatt

"Okay, nerd culture is mainstream now, so when you use the word 'nerd' derogatorily, that means that you're the one that's out of the zeitgeist."

Played By: Adam Scott

"Well, you have to be able to make decisions like this, Leslie. You have to be harsh, you know. No one's going to elect you to do anything if you don't show that you're a responsible grown-up."

A state auditor who comes to Pawnee with Chris to evaluate the town's funds at the end of the second season, and becomes assistant city manager in turn. Promoted to series regular in the third season. He is blunt and cynical but has a Freudian Excuse.

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• Ambiguously Bi: When going off on a talk show host, he can be heard saying, "Everyone has gay thoughts!" He also wrote Star Trek slash at one point.
• Aside Glance: Ben is the king of this.
• Badass Bureaucrat: Ben is incredibly good and efficient at his job. He's managed to save six towns (including Pawnee) from bankruptcy. Upon taking on a new job in Pawnee, he takes to it like a duck to water. Other accountants in the series call him brilliant and he potentially ends up president of the United States. He's so good, even Leslie considers him "a genius." The fact they're both so competent and good at their jobs is one of the reasons they work so well together.
• Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: Served this role in his initial appearance, wherein his cynicism and designation by Chris as the Bearer of Bad News made Leslie consider him the 'bad guy'. This very quickly changes though.
• Bearer of Bad News: Chris often forces him into this position. In Season 6, it's revealed that Ben actually loved getting to play this role whilst working with Chris.
• Berserk Button: Any mention of him as a mayor when he was 18 years old is bound to set him off.
• Breakout Character: Steadily became the Deuteragonist due to overwhelmingly positive feedback for his character.
• Brutal Honesty: Ben is a master of delivering frank but accurate assessments of the current situation. He admits that it's what he loves most about his job.
• The Comically Serious: Generally always deadpan when faced with his co-workers' antics, though he does have a breaking point. Also indeed comparably serious to the rest of the Team (sans Ron) who are either pranksters, goofy, weird, childish or flippant.
• Complexity Addiction: In regard to boardgame development. Ben favors intricate rules and playstyles that give the Cones of Dunshire an incredibly steep learning curve. The sequel is supposed to be punishing toward new players.
• Contrasting Replacement Character: To Mark, who was initially placed in the role of Leslie's love interest, presented as a playboy type who was relaxed and cynical about government. At the end of season two he was written out and Ben was added who then took on that role, him being a neurotic, dorky geek who could be a hard-ass but deeply believed in government and had high ambitions like Leslie.
• The Cynic: Though he gets better, thanks to Leslie and Pawnee in general.
• Deadpan Snarker: While subtler than other examples on this show, he definitely has his moments, though most of the time he is more 'deadpan' than 'snarky'.
  Leslie: Well, but Chris said you just had to tinker with things.
  Ben: Yeah, he said that because that sounds a lot better than "we're going to gut it with a machete".
• Deuteragonist: Very quickly begins to share the center stage with Leslie, to the point of practically being the co-lead in later seasons.
• Extreme Doormat: Although he's capable and authoritative in a professional setting, it's revealed he's easily walked over in his personal life. He struggles to confront April and Andy about issues when rooming with them and a big milestone for him and Leslie is her realizing she can't just steamroll him and his feelings.
  Ben: My family is very non-confrontational. My parents' method of problem-solving is to kind of keep everything bottled up and just subtly hint at what's bothering them.
• Face Palm: Ben's typical reaction to Pawnee, its citizens, and his own personal disasters.
• Famed In-Story: Ben is somewhat well-known nationally because he was elected mayor of his hometown at 18 and it became a popular news story. Leslie had heard about his story before she met him and only didn't realize who he was because he was known as "Benji" Wyatt at the time.
• Happily Married: To Leslie as of mid-Season 5. They are very much into each other and extremely supportive of the other's dreams and ambitions, with no jealousy or resentment to get in the way.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Puts a facade up when acting as state auditor and he has to be ruthless in order to make budget cuts and play bad cop to Chris' good cop. Years of being hated everywhere he goes also seems to have made him more brusque and closed off. However, it's quickly revealed that he's a lot sweeter than he appears and develops into one of the nicest characters on the show. He also softens up a lot socially thanks to Leslie and making friends with the rest of the Parks Department.
• Iconic Sequel Character: One of the main characters who wasn't introduced until the end of season 2.
• Improbable Age: Was elected mayor of his hometown town at 18. A caller to the Crazy Ira and the Douche radio show lampshades this in the most offensively unintelligent way possible:
  Caller: Seems like eighteen is pretty young for a mayor. What were you, like, twelve?
• In-Series Nickname: Ben accumulates a lot of these in his short time in the series ("Mean Ben", "Turd Boy", "Human Disaster", "Calzone Boy", "Nerd", etc). In fandom, "Human Disaster" especially has grown to almost memetic proportions.
• I Resemble That Remark!: A Running Gag with him is Tom will make some kind of geeky insult about Ben and Ben responding with an even geekier answer. For example, Tom insults Ben by saying that Ben wants to take a Hobbit-themed tour of New Zealand, and Ben responds that he did not care for Peter Jackson's adaptation.
• The Lancer: Both Leslie's closest ally and immediate foil following his introduction.
• My Greatest Failure: Bankrupting his hometown of Partridge when he was 18. It's why he's so cynical in the present day, as he still carries a lot of guilt and shame over it and admits to Leslie that he works as a state auditor to make up for his past mistakes. Although Leslie eventually helps him move on, Season 5 establishes the Partridge citizens aren't so forgiving and the media brings it up to drag his name through the mud on several occasions.
• Not So Above It All: He seems like the level-headed straight man of the cast, but he has plenty of quirks of his own. His love of calzones, punishingly-intricate board games, stop motion, and general nerd culture, to name a few.
• Nerds Are Sexy: Leslie especially believes this, who is so completely turned on by her husbands good looks, and proudly proclaims how sexy she finds him to anyone who will listen.
  Leslie: So Ben's will be running my campaign, because he's a super genius, and he's got a tight, compact, little body like an Italian sports-car.
• Nerds Speak Klingon: He speaks Dothraki.
• Nice Guy: Once you get past the Brutal Honesty and pessimism, Ben is easily one of the nicest and most reliable characters on the show, not to mention being the Only Sane Man most of the time. Notably, he's also one of the few, if not the only character, to have never made fun of Garry^note though he is the most troubled and confused by the Ugly Guy, Hot Wife nature of Garry and Gayle, to the point of admitting it keeps him up at night trying to understand it. Even other "nice" characters like Chris, Andy, and Leslie can't say that. Though even he never refers to Garry by his real name.
• No Social Skills: Initially he's pretty awkward, tactless and doesn't try to make friends because he moves around so much. Leslie and the rest of the Parks department help him get more comfortable.
• Not So Stoic: When some wise guy pushes his Berserk Button.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Ben seems to have a supreme talent for forming these with other men. Tom, Andy and Chris couldn't be more dissimilar to him, but over time his friendships with each of them begin to border on Heterosexual Life-Partners levels of closeness.
  • He also 'came out' that Garry is his friend and the others shouldn't be so mean to him.
• Official Couple: With Leslie.
• Old Shame: In-Universe: Bankrupting his hometown during his stint as teen mayor when he built an expensive winter sports center. When Crazy Ira and the Douche bring it up in "Media Blitz", it absolutely ruins his composure.
• One-Steve Limit: Is an aversion. Ben was previously the name of April's boyfriend's boyfriend.
• Only Sane Employee: He's about on par with Leslie in terms of hypercompetency at his job, but is both more grounded and less obsessive than she is.
• Only Sane Man: The most normal and rational character on the show, as well as one of the most serious. Despite this, he's a shining example of how the straight man can be just as funny and interesting as their wackier associates.
• Opposites Attract: Subverted with Leslie, as after their rocky first impression they're actually shown to have incredibly similar qualities and the Ship Tease ultimately results in a seasons-spanning romance arc and marriage.
• Persona Non Grata: "Partridge" shows that his eponymous hometown still holds a very intense grudge over the Ice Town debacle. His sister runs as soon as a crowdmember points her out as a relative, and Leslie and Ben even get chased out of a local park when a ranger recognizes him.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: In Season 3, along with Chris.
• Proud to Be a Geek: Loves geeky pop culture and has no shame over it.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Chris' Red. Later Blue to Leslie's Red as well.
• The Reliable One: To almost every character — he's Leslie's biggest supporter in her career, Chris' right-hand man, Tom's go-to guy for business advice (even if Tom doesn't take it all the time) and kicks Andy and April into high gear to become more responsible while living with them.
• Resigned in Disgrace: Ben decides to resign when he and Leslie begin dating, which is against workplace rules because he's technically her boss. Everyone knows it's entirely consensual and neither were abusing their position, but it still triggers an investigation — which in turn reveals that they did bribe an electrician to keep his mouth shut, which looks very bad. They agree to just concede that they did screw up, and Leslie throws herself at the mercy of the council... only to get a slap on the wrist and two weeks paid suspension. She then finds out Ben took complete blame in his own hearing, and resigned. It then becomes a Running Gag in the next episode that Ben keeps specifically saying he "resigned in disgrace," and Leslie wishes he'd just say "quit."
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Savvy guy to Leslie's energetic girl. Leslie is a hyperactive do-gooder; Ben is her straightforward, down-to-earth love interest.
• The Scapegoat: The debacle that was "Ice Town" caused him to be this for his hometown of Partridge, even though being voted into office at 18 years old and most likely having to have his ideas approved by the city council means the blame wasn't his alone. Continues into the present day, as Partridge's politicians still bring him up to deflect from their own failings. The current mayor even wastes time and money throwing a big fake key-to-the-city ceremony, something that would not be a practical use of city funds, just to boost poll numbers by bashing Ben.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: In a sleepy Midwestern town, his suits definitely stand out.
• Silent Snarker: Ben is a master at getting sarcastic confusion and disdain across with just his facial expressions.
• The Stoic: He is usually the calm and sensible guy, compared to the other employees. He rarely laughs, cries or loses his temper.
• Straight Man: He is easily one of the most sensible characters on the show.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For Mark. He doesn't have the same job, but he acts as a Straight Man to the rest of the cast and a foil/possible love interest to Leslie in a similar way. By the end of the third season, however, Ben is definitely his own character. Also, according to creator Michael Schur, even though Ben was brought in with the idea that he might be a love interest/foil for Leslie, he was hesitant to label Ben that, reasoning that they hadn't shot a single scene with the two of them yet, and implying that, like Andy/April, there needed to be chemistry for it to work.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Calzones, which earns him no end of derision from everyone he knows. Although he is temporarily disillusioned from beloved calzones after he incurs a devastating case of food poisoning in "Ann's Decision"; it proves not to last for long. He is also in denial about it as every time he does have a calzone, he calls it something else and won't listen to people when they insist to him that it is just a calzone.
• True Love is Exceptional: Chris comments that in the past, Ben has exclusively dated only tall brunettes, while the love of his life ends up being the short blonde Leslie.
• Uptight Loves Wild: An arguably more Downplayed example than most. He's a stuffy, cynical, rational, rule-abiding state auditor and he falls for the energetic, incredibly optimistic, quirky, impulsive, and occasional rule-bending Parks director Leslie. They are eventually married and he loosens up considerably over the course of the series because of both her and Pawnee's influence. Funnily enough, in one of his very earliest interactions with Leslie, he inverts this: she is pissed at him for cutting the budget, but rather than confront her, he invites her for a beer even though it's 10:30 AM, and is frank with her about why he does what he does, which is the first moment where she starts to think he's more than just an Obstructive Bureaucrat.
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: Introduced as a state auditor, he helps Leslie organize a fair to raise money for the town, then stays on as Chris' Deputy City Manager. He leaves in disgrace (his words) when his relationship with Leslie goes public, and becomes Leslie's campaign manager for her city council campaign. He then takes up a job offer from Jen Barkley managing a senator's campaign, but returns to Pawnee and ends up becoming a manager for the Sweetums' Charity Foundation until he's fired when Leslie speaks out against the company. He then takes over as City Manager when Chris leaves, and after the Time Skip, begins a bid to run for Congress. He's then offered a chance to run for governor, and in the Distant Finale, either he or Leslie is seemingly President/Vice President. And this is without all the times he takes the same accounting firm job only to leave immediately, in-between all those jobs; after Andy, he probably changes jobs the most, though he at least generally keeps it within the same general field of managerial/bureaucratic positions.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He's afraid of cops. Naturally, he's in utter hell in "Dave Returns", as he has to interact with a lot of them and
• Workaholic: While not to the same extent as Leslie, he gets weird when he's left idle for too long.

Chris Traeger

Christopher Traeger

"I was born with a blood disorder and my parents were told I had three weeks to live. And here I still am. Some 2,000 odd weeks later and I have enjoyed every one of them."

Played By: Rob Lowe

"I take care of my body above all else; diet, exercise, supplements, positive thinking. Scientists believe that the first human being who will live a hundred and fifty years has already been born. I believe I am that human being."

Ben's partner, opposite, and Heterosexual Life Partner. He is cheerful and optimistic, but, in an effort to be liked, he always forces Ben to be the messenger for any bad news. Chris is also a health nut. In Season 3 the mayor of Pawnee asks him to fill in for the city manager who's recovering from a heart attack, but he ends up holding the official title for many years after proving his competence for government work and leadership.

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• The Ace: Attractive, physically impressive, and a respected government employee. Donna even calls him the Bionic Man.
• And Starring: Rob Lowe gets the "and" credit in the opening titles of the show.
• Back for the Finale: He, Ann, and their son Oliver return in "One Last Ride" after their absence for the rest of the season.
• Benevolent Boss: While an easygoing person as a whole, he's an incredibly competent government worker and takes his position very seriously. He's asked to temporarily fill in the City Manager position after the previous one is incapacitated by a heart attack because of his role in resolving the Pawnee budget crisis before taking the position permanently and openly admits that he refuses to play favorites in the government, but still endears himself to everyone regardless. He also makes the time to spend time with the Parks Department and listen to their problems if the need arises, but he isn't above reminding them of his authority when things absolutely need to get done.

  [To Ron after he gets frustrated at the Parks BBQ]
  Chris: The point of the barbeque was to thank the department. It was an employee appreciation barbeque. Ron, I gave you the chance to become assistant city manager, and you chose to stay here. Which is fine, but if you're going to lead the department, you're occasionally going to have to lead the department. And I say that as one of your closest colleagues, and dearest friends. Beat But also as your boss.

• Beware the Nice Ones: There is a considerable amount of steel and determination underneath the peppy niceness:
  • In "The Trial Of Leslie Knope", Chris is beyond pissed to find out that Leslie and Ben have been secretly dating, and immediately launches an investigation. While he cares deeply for both of them (and, privately was a Shipper on Deck otherwise), he doesn't half-ass the investigation or trial to see if they did anything unethical.
    • During said trial, when Tammy Two is about to testify against Leslie, Chris makes it perfectly clear that he isn't going to abide by her lying under oath and she will be harshly punished if she tries. Tammy Two immediately recants her statements and leaves in a hurry.
  • When Jamm interrupted Leslie and Ben's wedding, he and Andy looked equally furious when Jamm insulted Leslie, both of them jumping to their feet simultaneously. The only reason why he didn't join Andy in beating the shit out of Jamm was because Ron beat them to it.
  • A more minor example, but when he and Ron walk into the Parks Department after instructing them to find a solution for the water fountain problem and find the department goofing around, Chris is less than pleased and can only muster genuine disappointment and a bitter "I think we can all agree that this department needs a little leadership".
• Birds of a Feather: When he was dating Garry's oldest daughter Millicent.
• Breakout Character: He was originally only intended to appear in the last two episodes of Season 2 and the first six episodes of Season 3. However, after the positive critical reception of the character, Rob Lowe signed a multi-year contract and became a main cast member for several seasons.
• Broken Ace: He's a hypochondriac, is shown to be unable to cope with the idea of being unhappy and his ultra-positivity often makes him unintentionally a jerk to others (i.e. his behavior toward Ann and Garry, as well as designating Ben the Bearer of Bad News).
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite his relentless optimism, his emotional troubles, and his many eccentricities, he is consistently shown to be a clear-eyed, cunning and capable administrator. He does make a handful of bad decisions right after becoming city manager, but if Ron is to be believed, this is par for the course every time the position changes hands, and Chris is insightful enough to know that rolling over on all of his decisions will undermine his credibility.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • One of his strategies for making Ben seem like the bad guy instead of him involves variations of this. Turns into a Subverted Catchphrase when he tries to use it and Ben isn't in the room.
    [Character complains about X]
    Chris: Well, that's terrible! Is there anything we can do about that, Ben?
    Ben: Uh, no.
    Chris: Damn! [Hastens off the scene]
  • He tends to address characters by their full names (and pointing at them), particularly characters he likes, particularly Ann, to the point where "Ann Perkins!" becomes a catchphrase. He does it to Leslie as well, but less so.
  • He frequently uses the word "literally" (pronounced as litch-rally) in hyperbole, punctuating it for emphasis. "That is. Literally. The best news I've heard all day."
  • "I would like an X. I would like it to be Y. And I would like it to be Z." After he orders a drink this way at a restaurant, Ann riffs on it for her own drink order: "I would like some white wine. I would like it to be cold. And I would like it with one ice cube."
• Characterization Marches On: In an early appearance, Chris is given the job of providing cake for April and Andy's fancy party. Instead he makes a vegetable loaf, on the grounds that it's healthier, thereby almost making Ron burst a blood vessel. Later, when Ron takes the job of organising the employee appreciation barbecue and ruins it with his BBQ purism and childish insistence on doing it the way he wants it, Chris is the one who gently points out to him the next day that the point of the barbecue was to thank the employees by giving them a good time (not, as Ron was doing, keep them waiting hours while the food cooks, and only offering beer to drink at a party attended by children.)
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: He has to help everyone he meets if they have a problem. Even if he has no idea what the problem is, he jumps straight in and tries to help them in any way he can. This eventually drives Ann to a breaking point during her pregnancy, wherein he learns that the best advice is just to sometimes say, "That sucks" and let her complain.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The worst moment of this is probably when he breaks up with Ann through a feng shui metaphor so vague that she doesn't actually realize she's been dumped for a week.
• Chosen Conception Partner: When Ann goes looking for a sperm donor to father her child, she eventually chooses Chris. But after they get back together, they wind up making a baby the old-fashioned way.
• Even the Guys Want Him:
  • Andy states that Chris is the guy he would pick if "[he] had to pick a dude". Chris is rather flattered by this.
  • Jean Ralphio also acknowledges how handsome Chris is and seems open to the idea of a threesome with him and Ann. Again, Chris is flattered.
• Fitness Nut: Health-obsessed to an extreme, he considers a 10k run a "light" exercise, takes insane amounts of vitamins, and eats very carefully. This likely stems from the fact that he was a sickly baby who wasn't supposed to survive his early years.
• Full-Name Basis: He greets everyone by pointing at them and saying their name.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: It's part of his usual greeting, but it's also what he does when he meets someone for the first time. It can be off-putting.
  Ron: Hello, gents! Ron Swanson. [Reaches for a handshake)]
  Chris: [Point] Ron... Swanson.
  [Beat]
  Ron: Okay.
• Good Is Not Soft: Chris is a morally upstanding, friendly, and incredibly nice man who will lay down the law like no one's business. He takes his job seriously and forces everyone to stick to the rules he sets down, even Ben, his best friend. (Though he makes it clear he doesn't enjoy enforcing the "no office relationships" rule on Ben and Leslie, and would love to be doing anything else — but he can't play favorites.)
• Granola Guy: Due to his health nut tendencies.
• Hidden Depths: Chris rarely "poisons his body with dark alcohol", but considers Lagavulin to be excellent.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Revealed to be this in "Dave Returns". He doesn't know the words for "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", either.
• Hypochondria: An extension of being born with a blood disease.
• Iconic Sequel Character: One of the main characters who wasn't introduced until the end of season 2.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: His pink shower cap (from a breast cancer awareness triathlon), and he even has a leg razor. Chris sees none of this as anything to be ashamed of. He also doesn't see kissing Ron on his birthday as anything strange.
• The Matchmaker: He expresses a fondness for this in "Jerry’s Painting" and endeavors to set Ben up with someone. Played for irony given his new rules are actually keeping Ben from the one person he's actually interested in.
• Meat Versus Veggies: The veggie eater to Ron's meat eater.
• Moment Killer: In "Road Trip" where (1) Ben confesses to Leslie at dinner; Leslie leaves for a moment to consult Ann and steels herself to go back and kiss Ben only to find that Chris has appeared and has seated himself at their table, and (2) Ben and Leslie get increasingly cute while watching TV together on the couch in Chris' hotel room and Chris keeps interrupting with his frequent bathroom trips.
• Mr. Fanservice: He is regularly described as being superhumanly attractive by other characters, and constantly wears tight-fitting clothing or goes shirtless.
• Nice Guy: While his overly cheerful personality sometimes leads to unintentional Jerkass moments, Chris is overall a very well-meaning man who implements a health initiative out of a genuine desire to improve the health of the citizens of Pawnee. He is also friendly and polite to almost everyone. An excellent example of his niceness occurs during Ben's bachelor party when he finds out none of the other guys got to have their own bachelor parties for various reasons. His response? He gives everyone the perfect bachelor party they never got to have.
• No Social Skills: An odd case. While he's incredibly outgoing and charismatic, he manages to be so outgoing and charismatic that it wraps around to making everything he says come off as stilted and strange. He basically operates on a level beyond the average person socially.
• Odd Friendship: With Ron. Chris and Ron are almost complete opposites personality wise. However, the two are perfectly capable to find common ground and do not tolerate insubordination from people lightly. Ron is often annoyed by Chris's vegetarian lifestyle and relentless optimism, but admires his honesty and dedication to his health. Chris can be annoyed with Ron's libertarian beliefs, but does respect him as a person and will listen to Ron on matters he knwos he doesn't have enough expertise about.
• Official Couple: With Ann as of Season 6.
• Older Than They Look: He's forty-four. The most common in-universe estimate is twenty-five.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. In "The Set-Up" before he was introduced, Ann set Leslie up with a colleague named Chris (see Leslie's profile — he's the guy who gave her the MRI).
• Parody Sue: His extreme physical perfection and relentless positivity is often played for humor, in that most people can't really relate to him.
• The Pollyanna:
  • So positive, he scares off Orin, the creepy and morbid Goth at April and Andy's wedding. When he was born with a deadly, rare blood disease, the doctors told his parents he would only live for a few months. That's why he is so positive!
  • Deconstructed towards seasons 3 and 4. When it becomes inevitable for him to feel bad things, his constant positive attitude becomes a problem because he is just not ready mentally to deal with that properly.
• Principles Zealot: He will not budge on or bend the rules, even if he would personally like to. He hates the fact that he has to investigate Ben and Leslie's relationship in "The Trial of Leslie Knope" and genuinely wants them to get off scot-free, but he refuses to half-ass the investigation and does it to the best of his ability.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: In season 3, along with Ben.
• Pure Is Not Good: His exceedingly healthy body, which he compares to a finely-tuned microchip, is more than once played as a weakness. When he catches the flu, it hits him like a truck.
  Chris: Stop... pooping...
• Put on a Bus: He was first put on for a brief time in Season 3 when he went back to Indianapolis but then came back after the Harvest Festival. He and Ann then leave together in the middle of Season 6 to start their family.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He becomes this, pointing out to Ron after the debacle of the family barbecue that the point of the barbecue was to thank the employees for their hard work (the implication being that Ron's determination to show off his meat-cooking skills, and his hissy fit when everyone kept complaining that it was taking too long, were inappropriate). He was also appointed as acting City Manager for Pawnee during the financial crisis, and it was a position he held for longer than expected.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Ben's Blue.
• Sarcasm-Blind:
  Chris: It is exactly because of that lewd photo that I am here. [...] If I could go back in time and cut your eyeballs out, I would.
  April: Wow, that is so sweet.
  Chris: Thank you.

Although in a later episode he seems to understand that Ann is using sarcasm, but not that it's meant as a jab at him.

• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The sensitive guy to Ron's manly man.
• Sickly Child Grew Up Strong: Chris is obsessed with exercise and healthy living, and is inhumanly good shape as a result. This is in part because he had a rare disease as a newborn that he wasn't expected to survive.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Does this periodically, usually with his trademark happy smile.
• Stepford Smiler: Type A.
  Chris: If I keep my body moving and my mind occupied at all times, I will avoid falling into a bottomless pit of despair.
  • In "The Trial of Leslie Knope", he's so anxious and depressed about Leslie's trial that he loads up on herbal remedies in a way that is creepily reminiscent of a drug addict. Leslie notes he looks like he's radiating pure joy, but that's because he's trying to stay his upbeat self.
  • Other episodes show that he has crippling issues about his mortality that he barely manages to cover up. It's really the only reason he's such a health nut. He begins spiraling into depression when his break-up with Millicent and Ann's (apparent) moving on with Tom makes him wonder if he'll just end up alone.
• Straw Vegetarian: While he does eat meat, his health nut tendencies are usually focused on getting away from red meat and he's treated the same as a Straw Vegetarian. On multiple occasions, he's shown thinking various plants are reasonable alternatives to meat. Most telling is when he wanted to remove hamburgers from the commissary. He bet Ron he could make a turkey burger better than a hamburger. When they had the cook-off, Chris slaved over his burgers with the finest ingredients. Ron slapped ground beef on a grill. Ron won in a landslide because beef is just better. Even Chris was 100 percent convinced.
• Terrified of Germs: During flu season:
  Chris: (increasingly frantic) I have to get out of here. I have 2.8 percent body fat. My body's like a microchip. A grain of sand could destroy it. My body's a microchip. (leaves)
• Too Much Information: Chris has a habit of being very direct and honest with people. This sometimes results in him saying things that would probably be better left unsaid, like telling female colleagues when they've done something he finds arousing. For example, while dating Milly, Chris insisted on including Garry in his courtship out of respect for him as her father. This includes telling Garry whenever Milly slept over at Chris' house.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: When Chris first appears in Season 2, he quickly falls for Ann, who had just broken up with Mark (and had lingering feelings toward her other ex-boyfriend Andy) and is not interested. After pursuing her for some time, she eventually reciprocates and they date for a while in Season 3. When they break up, Ann spends the next several episodes trying to get over Chris while he has already moved on. Later on, around the middle of Season 4, Chris begins to have feelings for Ann again and spends the rest of the season depressed over her on-and-off relationship with Tom. Then in Season 5, Chris starts dating news reporter Shauna Malwae-Tweep and Ann (who has broken up with Tom for good by that point) becomes jealous.
• Weaksauce Weakness: He's built his body to perfection. Unfortunately, that also means that his body is sensitive to things that most people aren't too worried about. He gets hit hard by the flu, and he has to constantly replenish electrolytes. And his body's tolerances are so tight that he has to go to the bathroom twelve times a night.
• Villain Ball:
  • Unfortunately picks it up by his own principles in "The Trial of Leslie Knope". He refuses to back down on his own rule of "no office relationships" to investigate and punish Leslie and Ben to the full extent of his ability. However, he also fully admits to not enjoying having to do this, is noticeably stressed out by it, and is openly happy it didn't uncover anything worse.
  • He also holds his own witnesses to the same standards, even if they are willing to perjure themselves to win him the case. In the case of Tammy 2, he reminds her that she will be under oath and that if she lies, he will find out, have her charged, and then fire her. She quickly recants that she has evidence that will prove Leslie and Ben did things that were unethical and leaves the courthouse immediately.

Garry "Jerry" Gergich

Garry "Jerry/Larry/Terry" Gergich "Gengurch"

"I told them my real name was Garry, and they said, 'Who cares?'. What a fun bunch of guys."

Played By: Jim O'Heir

"Well, you know it's like I always say, 'It ain't government work if you don't have to do it twice.'"

An older Butt-Monkey who has worked in the Parks Department since the 1970s. He's picked on by everyone, particularly "mean" characters like Tom and April, but also by "nice" characters like Leslie. He is regarded as a boring, out-of-touch loser, but actually seems to have his personal life squared away better than anyone else.

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• 10-Minute Retirement: Retires at the end of the fifth season, but is brought back part-time of the end of the same episode. He returns to the Parks Department full-time in the sixth season. And just when he's set to retire again towards the end of season 7, he is appointed the interim mayor of Pawnee, is elected to the post, and remains mayor until his death at the age of 100. Jerry/Larry/Terry/Garry just can't get a break, can he?
• Accidental Misnaming: "The Trial of Leslie Knope" reveals his name is actually Garry.
  Garry: On my first day here, the old director, he called me "Jerry" and I just didn't think I should correct him.
• Alliterative Name: His real name, Garry Gergich. Not that anyone ever gets his name right.
• Beneath the Mask: Later episodes have shown that it's actually difficult to maintain his upbeat attitude at the office in light of all the abuse he takes, which may lead to some of his clumsiness.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: His wife certainly must think so. In "I'm Leslie Knope", Dr. Harris reveals in a talking head that Garry has the biggest penis he has ever seen in all his years of being in the medical profession. In a deleted scene from season 5, Tom mentions Boogie Nights and Garry tells the gang that Gayle always said that he reminds her of the main character. Garry looks nothing like Mark Wahlberg, but his wife does know him a little bit more intimately than we do.
• Boss's Unfavorite Employee: Garry is the Parks Department's resident Butt-Monkey, with everyone except Ben always ragging on him. Even hyper-kind do-gooders Leslie (who outranks everyone except the apathetic Ron) and Chris (who outranks everyone) put him down constantly.
• Butt-Monkey: He gets yelled at and demeaned by everyone in the office, to the point where he's this show's version of Toby. Inverted when he's with his family and he inexplicably morphs into The Ace.
• Character Catchphrase: "Oh jeez..." whenever someone yells at him for doing something wrong. Which happens all the time.
• Characterization Marches On: Unlike his portrayal from season 2 onwards, in his first on-screen interaction with Leslie, she is the one who does something stupid (eating a non-edible plant), while Garry keeps a calm Reasonable Authority Figure demeanor.
• The Chew Toy: The show never misses an opportunity to put him down.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Not in any traditional sense, but when Leslie finally sees Garry's home life, it's very clear that he's a completely different person around his family and even though they can be completely over-the-top with how sickeningly sweet they are, he's probably the most content and self-assured person in the entire series. Contrasted with how he's shown around his co-workers throughout most of the series, this is a pretty huge contrast.
• Deceptive Legacy: When Mark accuses Garry of hiding how his adopted mother was arrested for drug possession, Garry reveals he never knew he was adopted.
• Doting Parent: He has three daughters, all of whom he dotes on. In turn, they positively adore him.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the abuse he took from his coworkers, his dependability finally gets recognized, when Ben suggests he serve as the interim Mayor. He becomes so beloved by the whole of Pawnee for his role, he remains the mayor through write-in votes until his death at the age of 100.
• Extreme Doormat: He's a bit weak-willed and takes the abuse without a word of protest. However, it really doesn't get to him much.
• Flanderization: Thanks to Early-Installment Weirdness, Garry in Season 1 is depicted as competent and responsible enough to lead a group of kids on a field trip in plant identification; it's Leslie who's so incompetent that without waiting for Garry's say-so, she eats a weed which makes her tongue swell up. By Season 6, Garry can't even bend over without trashing a room.
• Formerly Fit: He used to be slimmer and trimmer in his younger years (much like Chris) before gaining weight due to a combination of age and sympathy for Gayle's three pregnancies.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: He's kind and caring to all of his coworkers, and is always invited to major events in their lives, but everyone treats him like crap, unless it's something serious, like the time he had a heart attack in which even Tom, his biggest tormenter, turned his cruelty into concern (although he still really wanted the doctor to just say "fart attack").
• Gag Penis: According to Dr. Harris, Garry has one of these. The biggest the doctor's ever seen, in fact.
• Gasshole: Has been this at times, and it always happens at the worst possible moments. Especially when he has a heart attack (Ann explains that flatulence is a common side effect of heart attacks), but since Tom is present, it of course becomes Black Comedy.
• Good Parents: He is adored by his three daughters. When Chris proposes a rather old-fashioned idea of courting his daughter Millicent in order to seek Garry's approval, Garry immediately shuts this down by saying his daughter is a grown woman who can make her own decisions.
• Go Out with a Smile: Dies peacefully on his 100th birthday, happily holding hands with Gayle and surrounded by his large and beautiful family.
• Happily Married: To his wife Gayle. Ben even says that Gayle and Garry are the most stable marriage he knows.
• Hidden Depths: He's a very good and impossibly fast artist. In "The Camel", he's the only member of the Parks Department (other than Tom, who simply purchased his from an art student) to produce a decent entry for the mural replacement — a pointillism photo collage of City Hall composed of pictures of Pawnee residents. However, a slip of the tongue causes everyone to just write it off as crap.
  • Though clumsy around the office, his reaction time and reflexes are amazing at home. He's also shown to be a highly talented pianist.
  • In one gag Garry reveals he enjoys tinkering in his garage, and is so good at it he inadvertently creates what he believes to be a source of clean, renewable energy - something some of the world's top scientists have been trying - and failing - to achieve for decades. While his invention is immediately dismissed thanks to an ill-timed sneeze - and shortly thereafter destroyed thanks to another - the fact remains that this mild-mannered butt monkey has the intelligence to develop technology that could make him a billionaire, earn him a Nobel prize, and comfortably place him as not just one of the smartest people in the cast, but one of the most brilliant minds in human history.
• I Have Many Names: He's actually named Garry Gergich, but on his first day on the job, the department director mistakenly called him "Jerry" and he didn't have the nerve to correct him, so it stuck until his retirement. When he returned to the Department a few months later, April declared his real name was Larry Gengurch after he requested they started using his real name instead of Jerry. At some point during the Time Skip in "Moving Up," the office began calling him Terry instead; on the Johnny Karate Super Awesome Musical Explosion Show, he also plays Mailman Barry. At the very end of the series, everyone starts calling him by his real name. Noted when the guys burnt their initials into a "Buddy Box" for Chris as a going-away present.
  Chris: [confused] Who's GJLGG?
  Garry: Garry Jerry Larry Gergich Gengurch.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Before Gayle's first pregnancy, Garry supposedly had a similar figure to Chris, but he put on sympathy-weight he couldn’t shake off. Chris wasn’t thrilled to hear this.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: He actually dresses in completely unremarkable business casual the majority of the time, it's just that he has no interest whatsoever in what's trendy. Tom naturally picks on him endlessly for this.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: The reason he keeps coming out of retirement; he just really likes doing tedious paperwork nobody else can stand. When he gets his Notary Public License, he's giddy about it for months. He mentions taking a vacation to Muncie, Indiana, which is basically the municipal equivalent of Ridiculously Average Guy. He and his wife have a timeshare there.
• Kavorka Man: Sort of. His wife is absolutely stunning and completely adores him, despite him being old, overweight and unattractive, but otherwise, all other women are just as openly disgusted by him as men are. He's even the one person who Mona Lisa Saperstein wouldn't have sex with, giving him a "hard pass", though Garry just gives a big smile at that.
• The Klutz: At the office and in public, but not in his home. His favorite ice cream place always scoops him a second cone for when he drops the first one. At home this is completely Inverted.
• Malicious Misnaming:
  • At the start of the sixth season, April effectively changes his name to "Larry Gengurch." He's been known exclusively as "Larry" ever since. Even NBC's website for the show now recognizes him as Larry Gengurch!
  • During the Time Skip at the end of "Moving Up", people began calling him "Terry" due to there being another Larry. In Season 7, he uses that name until Donna uses "Garry" on his banquet placecard, at which point everyone starts calling him that.
  • In the series finale, even his headstone winds up getting his name wrong.
• Nice Guy: Despite being constantly dumped on by his coworkers and by the universe in general, Garry doesn't have a mean-spirited bone in his body. The only exception is Kyle, whom even Garry can't help but be a jerk to.
• Oblivious Adoption: Had no idea he was adopted until Mark looked up his background and mentioned that his adoptive mother had been arrested for marijuana possession. Garry just said he didn't know he was adopted.
• Odd Friendship: With Donna. They know each other well enough to win Tom's "Know Your Boo" game show attempt, and she cares about him enough to make sure that at her wedding, he'll be known by his real name, Garry. She makes fun of him like everyone else, but in her case it comes off as light-hearted ribbing most of the time and recognizes when the others go too far.
• Older Than They Look/Younger Than They Look: Oddly combined in that Garry is supposed to be sixty-four as of the fourth season (the episode "Sweet Sixteen" discusses his Leap Day birthday), and of course has a lot of Informed Flaw in terms of his appearance, but when that episode aired, Jim O'Heir was only fifty. In fact, he's eight years younger than Christie Brinkley, who was cast as Garry's wife.
• Phrase Catcher: "Dammit, Jerry!"
• Promotion to Opening Titles: Along with Donna, after Chris and Ann left.
• The Scapegoat: Everything is always Garry's fault, whether it actually is or not.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • In "Jerry's Painting", he tells Leslie that allowing the painting to be destroyed is something he would do, and that he didn't expect her to give in.
  • A comedic example in "The Bubble": Chris says he believes Garry is capable of so much more. Garry's immediate reply is a flat "I'm not."
• Shrinking Violet: Doesn't confront anyone over anything, including saying his name right. This is why Ron feels Garry does best in his menial position.
  Ron: Jerry can only function when no one's looking. You shine a light on him and he shrinks up faster than an Eskimo's scrotum.
• Technologically Blind Elders: His way of getting to his Yahoo email is to go on Altavista and type "please take me to Yahoo.com" and has no clue what bookmarks are.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Gets three pretty significant ones in season 7:
  • In "Donna & Joe" Donna labels Garry's dining place with his real name, thereby ensuring his co-workers will now address him by that name, albeit in a mocking way. He's thrilled about this development.
  • And then in "Two Funerals" Ben appoints Garry Interim Mayor of Pawnee after the incumbent Mayor dies two months before his term is up, complete with a completely over-the-top inauguration ceremony, where Garry is carried to a hot-air balloon by a Roman legion and then flies away.
  • In "One Last Ride", Garry is then elected mayor of Pawnee for real, and then proceeds to fill the office for the rest of his life, adored by his large family and loved by the people of Pawnee. Even his death is unbelievably heartwarming: He dies peacefully in his sleep, holding the hand of his beloved Gayle (who looks AMAZING).
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: He doesn't have Leslie's motivation, Ron's hands-on skills, or Tom's charisma. Basically, all he's good for in the office is mindless busywork like collating, taking phone calls, licking envelopes, and filing papers. That said, he's really good at it. Donna even becomes hypnotized by him licking and sealing envelopes for hours on end without getting bored or tired. He's almost Zen about it. When Ben needs to get copies of April's resume typed up and sent to dozens of prospective employers, he knew there was only one man for the job.
  Ben: Get me Garry Gergich!
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Garry is the only person Mona-Lisa Saperstein showed no interest in sleeping with.
• True Love is Exceptional: Played for Laughs when he reveals that his utterly gorgeous wife Gayle actually didn't physically appeal to him at first.
  Garry: I met Gayle right here at Sherm's [ice cream shop]. She was slim, blonde hair, big breasts, long legs. Ugh, not my type at all.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: His three girls are stunners, despite him not being portrayed as particularly good-looking. When Chris meets his daughter Millicent, he congratulates Garry.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: His wife Gayle is played by Christie Brinkley◊, and is considered an absolute beauty in-universe. After he first meets her, it becomes a Running Gag for Ben to wonder how they got together. The reaction of the other characters is something of a joke on Garry's Butt-Monkey status. That said, Garry is a quintessential Nice Guy and devoted Family Man — and also a talented artist, far more confident when he's away from the office, and he casually mentions that he looked a lot like Chris in his younger years. It's also revealed that he's remarkably well-endowed.

Donna Meagle

Donna Meagle

"I'm live-tweeting this dumbass conversation."

Played By: Retta

"We're not big on hospitality. The Meagles are a cold people."

A Sassy Black Woman who is the office manager for the Parks Department. Donna has expensive tastes and apparently comes from a wealthy family (R&B singer Ginuwine is her cousin, as revealed in "Sweet Sixteen"). Her most prized possession is her Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV, which you better not mess with if you know what's good for you. She Really Gets Around and has had a variety of weird sexual exploits, which we mostly hear about in Noodle Incident format. She eventually settles down and gets married in the final season.

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• Aerith and Bob: Her brothers LeVondrias and George.
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: While to a lesser extent than Ron, Donna comes from a wealthy family and has enough disposable income to drop tens of thousands of dollars on shares at the Snakehole Lounge, owns a luxury car, and is paying for a mortgage on a condo in Seattle. However, it is played around with a bit, as part of the reason she likes Pawnee is that it allows her to live comfortably on a smaller budget while still taking care of her other expenses, and in Season 6, she earns her real estate license, just after Pawnee absorbs Eagleton but prior to the property boom which occurs during the time skip, even being drafted to broker Gryzzl's attempts to purchase a parcel of land which eventually sell for $125 million dollars.
• Ascended Extra: While she's been present in the show from the very beginning, she doesn't get much actual focus or character development until season 3, and no actual story arc (her relationship with Joe) until season 6.
• Berserk Button: Do not touch her Mercedes.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Donna is the most rotund character (next to Garry) and it doesn't do any harm to her ability to attract men, as she regularly hints at an active and very varied sex life. Andy's "codename" for her in "Bus Tour" is "It Happened Once In a Dream".
• Black and Nerdy: Donna is a fan of Marvel movies, Game of Thrones, and fantasy novels. In one episode, she weaponizes her knowledge of Star Wars and midichlorians to expose a reporter from The Pawnee Sun who'd hacked Leslie's emails.
  Donna: I love any book about vampires, werewolves, monsters, zombies, sorcerers, beasties, or time-traveling romances. [picks up a copy of Twilight] And if I had an hour alone with Robert Pattinson, he would forget all about Skinny Legs McGee, I'll tell you that much.
• Character Development: Her relationships with members of the main cast grow deeper as the show goes on, particularly after Chris and Ann leave and Donna is given a bit more focus.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • She is little more than a Living Prop in Season 1, barely ever interacting with her coworkers. Her appearance and calm demeanor also make her look older than she does from Season 2 onward.
  • Deleted scenes from two Season 2 episodes have someone asking Donna how she could afford her Mercedes, followed by a talking head of Donna saying she's in way over her head. It's only from the episode "Woman of the Year" onward that she is established as being very well-off financially.
• Cool Car: She's very proud of her 2006-2011 W164 Mercedes M-Class SUV, which she has named "Michael Fassbender".
• Deadpan Snarker: Donna is always on hand to sarcastically comment on hijinks and roll her eyes.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: She tells Ron that her ex-boyfriend Joe is her "Tammy", which Ron takes to mean that Joe is an abusive Bitch in Sheep's Clothing until he realizes that he's actually a genuinely nice guy; Donna tells Ron that she meant that she changes when he's around him (i.e., becomes more introverted as he is), and didn't consider that as Ron might not appreciate comparing her loving if slightly boring relationship with his two abusive relationships. Ron calls out Donna's insensitivity, which convinces her to give Joe a second chance, leading to Donna and Joe eventually getting married in Season 7 after the three-year time skip.
• Dude Magnet: Men flock to her even when she is not on the prowl, from the whole Venezuelan delegation to Colts linebacker Robert Mathis.
• Dysfunctional Family: Comes from the passive-aggressive grudge holder variety. Donna lists off several examples - the last few Meagle family Pictionary tournaments all ended at the hospital and apparently, no more than 3 Meagles are allowed on an international plane together. Donna is herself estranged from her younger brother LeVondrias due to an incident involving microwaved popcorn and he was not invited to her wedding. Until April brought him anyway.
• Ethical Slut: Heavily implied to sleep around a lot, but is no less valuable to the team for it.
• The Fashionista: She has exceptional fashion sense and loves to wear stylish outfits. On "Treat Yo' Self Day," Donna purchases numerous ensembles and accessories, all of them expensive and flattering. Her fashion sense is one of the many reasons that she and Tom get along so well.
• Happily Married: After spending much of her time on the series as a free bachelorette, she ultimately settles down with Joe in the final season.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Although she looks like an average office worker, Donna is very cultured, well-traveled, sophisticated, and a trained opera singer, as is Retta.
  • Subverted for laughs in the episode "The Camel." Leslie assumes that Donna has a secret artistic streak because of her beautiful and elaborate manicures. Donna is quick to correct Leslie: she gets her nails done professionally.
  • In "Correspondents' Lunch," Leslie learns that a reporter from The Pawnee Sun has hacked her email account and is using the messages to undermine her. Donna is the one who comes up with a trap to expose the hacker by sending a fake email referencing midichlorians, a fictional substance for Star Wars, creating an Engineered Public Confession in front of the entire press corps.
• History with Celebrity: R&B singer Ginuwine is her cousin. In "Moving Up" she pushes him to perform at the Unity Concert by threatening to spill embarrassing childhood stories.
• I Call It "Vera": One episode reveals that she has named her Mercedes "Michael Fassbender" because "they're both German and they're both sexy as hell".
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Not jerky to the same extent as April, but she does come across as aloof and selfish. However, when she sees that someone needs help or the group is acting mean (usually to Garry), she'll immediately do the right thing.
• Odd Friendship: With Garry/Jerry/Larry/Terry. They know each other well enough to win Tom's Newlywed Game-style game show idea against the married April and Andy, and she cares about him enough to make sure that at her wedding, he'll be known by his real name, Garry. She also develops one with April in the later seasons, to the point of appointing April as her Maid of Honor.
• Pet the Dog: She brings Ben to her annual "Treat Yo' Self" day with Tom, when she sees him eating soup by himself on a park bench. She also insists on bringing Garry to "Jerry Dinner" against April, Andy and Tom's protests, and at her wedding, she marks Jerry's spot on the table with his actual name Garry.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: A decidedly adult version of this, Donna is frequently seen on her phone during office hours and plots about her are often about social media (e.g., live-tweeting a Death Canoe movie in "Halloween Surprise" and her account being the subject of a political witch-hunt in "Gin It Up!").
• Promotion to Opening Titles: Along with Garry, after Chris and Ann left.
• Really Gets Around: Until she settles down with Joe.
• Sassy Black Woman: A black woman who is sarcastic, flamboyant, and easily annoyed.
• Secretly Wealthy: It's never made clear exactly how rich she is (until the last season when she gets much richer through real estate), but she definitely has a lot more money than anyone else in the main cast save Ron. Her spending habits are similar to Tom's, but while he's explicitly crippled with debt from it she has cash on hand to drop 15 grand on club shares with no notice.
• Sherlock Scan: She's actually pretty observant, as she could tell Ann was pregnant just from knowing her mannerisms, even accurately figuring out how far along she is. Then she asks Chris when he changed his underwear.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: After some resistance due to a difference in lifestyle, she gets together with Joe, an almost inhumanly-nice music teacher.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: A one sided example with Jerry. While she teases him like everyone else, it's leans more towards light-hearted ribbing in her case and she's generally the one who recognizes when the others go too far. He's also on the receiving end of several of her Pet the Dog moments.
• Watch the Paint Job: Her precious Mercedes is constantly in danger because of her coworkers.

Mark Brendanawicz

Mark Brendanawicz

"Recently I have been thinking about maybe leaving this job, but I felt like I needed a sign. And then Ann broke up with me the week I was going to propose, the government got shut down and yesterday one of those pigeons took a [bleep] on me. And I was indoors, so..."

Played By: Paul Schneider

"I hit rock bottom that night. I mean I literally fell to the bottom of a pit and hit a rock. I remember laying there thinking, 'There’s probably a good reason why I'm down here.' And then I remember thinking, 'I need morphine.'"

A city planner. Straight Man caught in a Love Triangle between Leslie and Ann. He started off the series as a Handsome Lech, but this was quickly dropped and he spent most of his time on the show being a Ladykiller in Love. He was Put on a Bus when he joins a private company at the end of Season 2.

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• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Non-villainous example. Some years prior to the first season, Mark and Leslie slept together once. This was a very important event in Leslie's life and she imagines their working relationship has been filled with Unresolved Sexual Tension since. Mark sleeps with so many women that he barely even remembers it.
• The Casanova: In the first season. He later dropped this when he and Ann began dating in the second season, and actually was a faithful boyfriend.
• Character Development: In the second season, he began a steady relationship with Ann and stayed faithful to her. On their first Valentine's Day together, he (admittedly) gives her every clichéd Valentine's Day gift he can think of because it's the first time he's been able to give someone such a gift. In the first episode of Season 2, Ann notes that his personality seems to have shifted overnight after he suffered a head injury at the end of Season 1. Mark himself describes the incident as one that made him rethink his life a little.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Despite his prominence early on, Mark was never seen, heard from, or mentioned again after he was Put on a Bus at the end of Season 2, to the point of almost seeming like an Un-person in the eyes of the writers. Ironically enough, Michael Schur himself even promised that Mark would return every once in a while, but those plans never came to fruition and Paul Schneider was never contacted about making any reappearances. It's especially notable in the episodes "Halloween Surprise" (where he is the only ex-boyfriend of Ann's to not be referenced when she assembles her "ex-boyfriend boxes") and "Pawnee Commons" (where the park plans he drew up for Lot 48 at the end of Season 2 are completely forgotten about). The only remnants of his existence in the final season are the replacement mural drawing he made in "The Camel" of a man feeding birds and the name of the construction company he was leaving the Pawnee government for being mentioned in passing. He's also notably one of the few characters to not make a cameo appearance in the seventh and final season, doesn't appear in any flashback clips, and isn't in the 2020 Reunion Show either.
• Deadpan Snarker: Would often make sarcastic remarks about those around him, especially Tom.
• The Generic Guy: For two seasons, he stood in the middle of a cast of more interesting characters and acted sane. Obviously, a Straight Man is supposed to do that, but unlike other characters who have fulfilled this role on the show (such as Ben), Mark lacked any quirks that allowed the character to take part in the shenanigans. It's lampshaded when Ann admits that she just didn't feel their relationship had the right "spark" when explaining why she's breaking up with him and her relationship with Andy may have been unhealthy but at least was interesting.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Pre Character Development, while fairly sleazy and sarcastic, he often felt genuinely guilty whenever he hurt somebody.
• Ladykiller in Love: How his Character Development happened — he was something of a lothario in Season 1, but settles into a relationship with Ann in Season 2.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Hit on Ann before she actually broke up with Andy, and then fell into the Pit behind Ann's house later that night, just as Andy had done to inaugurate the series.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In "Practice Date", he eagerly joins in with a game in which the department go dig up dirt on one another, but accidentally reveals to Garry that he was adopted. At this point, he feels he's gone too far and backs out entirely.
• Perma-Stubble: He doesn't grow out a beard.
• Put on a Bus: At the end of Season 2, Ann breaks up with him and he leaves the government to work for a construction company after Pawnee is declared bankrupt.
  • Long Bus Trip: Even though Pawnee is a fairly small town where it would've been easy to run into him again, he never makes another appearance. The writers did plan to have Mark reappear once in a while as a Drop-In Character, but couldn't really figure out how to work him back in and Paul Schneider had no desire to return to the show again, leading to this.
• Romantic False Lead: He was this for both Leslie and Ann.
  • Mark and Leslie had hooked up some years before the start of the series, and Leslie still harbored a big crush on him while he actually forgot about that night when it gets brought up. They almost rekindled it in the first season finale but Leslie backed out of it because they were both drunk, and she ultimately moves on from it in the second season, first through a brief relationship with a police officer named Dave, then briefly goes out with Ann's lawyer friend Justin, and ultimately gets together officially with Ben.
  • In the case of Ann, Mark was the second serious boyfriend she had in her life after she left Andy, and although she appreciated Mark's stability and maturity, she ultimately broke it off with him after realizing the relationship just wasn't exciting her or keeping her interested. After various ups and downs, she officially gets together with Chris.

Craig Middlebrooks

Craig Middlebrooks

"SOMEBODY FOLLOW ME, I'M DISTRAUGHT!"

Played By: Billy Eichner

"I have a medical condition, all right! It's called caring too much! And it's incurable!"

The Camp Gay former office manager of the Eagleton Parks Department who transfers to the Pawnee department when the two towns merged. Has No Indoor Voice and prone to Comical Overreacting.

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• Ambiguously Gay: For his first season on the show. He acts incredibly camp, and has stereotypically gay interests and mannerisms, but never shows interest in men until the seventh season.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's prone to overreacting to everything, acts campy and his intensity manages to even unnerve Leslie for a bit. However, he's also very competent at his job, eventually taking over Ron's position in the Parks Department.
• Camp Gay: Confirmed to be at least interested in men in Season 7, getting married to Typhoon in the Distant Finale.
• Comical Overreacting: He will do this over anything.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Even when he's not in stressful situations, he's still easily set off. In the final season, he learns to get a better handle on it thanks to going through some therapy.
• Happily Married: Ties the knot with Typhoon in the series finale and a flash-forward shows them growing old together.
• It's All About Me: He reacts to the news of Leslie's pregnancy by ranting about how every time he accomplishes something, someone else always upstages him, like when his cousin died on the opening night of his one-man show.
• No Indoor Voice: Craig has a seeming inability to use an indoor voice.
  • After the Time Skip between Seasons 6 and 7, he's learned to control it. His therapist (Dr. Richard Nygard) advised him to "take a deep breath and say three great things about being alive" whenever he feels the need to yell.
• Sixth Ranger: He's the only member of the Eagleton crew to become a full-fledged member of the combined Eagleton and Pawnee Parks Department. Eventually, he even takes over as director.

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