December 26, 2013

SNL Alec Baldwin - Cocoa Is For Closers

SNL You're A Rat Bastard Charlie Brown


Vulture Oral History of Parks and Rec Cones of Dunshire

In the Parks and Recreation episode “The Cones of Dunshire,” which aired November 21, 2013, Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) finds himself unemployed for one week and he spends the time “cooking up something pretty big” — namely, the obsessively detailed board game that gives the episode its title. “Presenting ... the Cones of Dunshire, a brand-new gaming experience [for] eight to twelve players,” he excitedly tells his interest-feigning wife, Leslie (Amy Poehler), before rattling off ever-nerdier details about his invention, including its goal (“to accumulate cones: Four cones wins, but in order to get a cone you have to build a civilization ... which is where the Spirit Cards come in”), its hyper-specific character types (“two wizards, a maverick, the Arbiter, two warriors, a corporal, and a ledgerman,” the latter of which merely keeps score while wearing a hat that says Ledgerman), and its many quirks (“the thing about the Challenge Play is that it’s basically the game” — here, Ben opens his hand dramatically to reveal disc-shaped game pieces — “in reverse”). To build a prop worthy of Ben’s neurotic intensity, the Parks and Recreation producers turned to Mayfair Games, publishers of the meticulously crafted strategy game The Settlers of Catan. In our quest to add more micro oral histories to our theme week, Vulture spoke with Adam Scott, Parks and Recreation honchos, and the Mayfair Games brain trust to find out how the game was dreamed up, whether the cones are, in fact, a metaphor, and if we’ll ever see Ben’s creation in stores.

Vulture Oral History of Six Feet Under Finale

On August 21, 2005, the HBO drama Six Feet Under concluded with a seven-minute montage of flash-forwards revealing how each of the remaining main characters die. The episode, “Everyone’s Waiting,” was immediately hailed as the most satisfying TV ending ever, something the show’s creator, Alan Ball, still hears all the time. “People say they love it, that it was incredibly moving, that they watched it over and over,” he tells Vulture. “All those things.” As part of our micro oral history week, Ball and the scene’s other key players look back at the finale and discuss the Sia song, the process of aging the actors, and grappling with the meaning of life and death.