Joe Biden Lands Cameo on ‘Parks and Recreation’
Leslie Knope is finally meeting the man of her dreams. Well, half the man. No, not Ben Wyatt – Vice President Joe Biden, who will guest star in the November 15th episode of NBC’s Parks and Recreation, Entertainment Weekly reports. Knope – a city councilwoman in fictional Pawnee, Indiana, played by Amy Poehler – once described her perfect man as needing “to have the brains of George Clooney and the body of Joe Biden.”
In the show, Leslie’s fiancé Ben (Adam Scott) arranges a meeting at the White House with Biden as a surprise engagement present. The vice president will appear at the beginning of the episode, in a scene that is less than a minute long (and was written in a way that would work regardless of who won Tuesday’s election).
Once Parks and Rec decided to film an episode in Washington D.C., landing a cameo from the vice president was easier than you’d think, executive producer Michael Schur said. “His staff really loves the show, and he apparently had watched the show with his family and his family liked it,” Schur said.
Although Biden’s cameo came in July, the show had kept the vice president’s appearance under wraps to not run afoul of Federal Election Commission rules that could have considered the spot a campaign contribution and required them to give equal time to the eventual Republican vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, who hadn’t been chosen at the time.
Apparently Biden had fun, too. “My whole family loves Parks and Recreation and I had a great time filming that scene,” he said in a comment a staff member e-mailed to The New York Times. “It was a real honor that in my sitcom debut I got to meet someone like Leslie Knope, who believes so deeply in public service. She’s an example for men and women across the country that there’s no higher calling than helping other people. On a personal note, I’ll never figure out how Leslie Knope got my home phone number, but that really just shows how committed she is.”