Interview Parks and Rec' star Aziz Ansari talks Ro

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Of all the shows in NBC's Thursday night comedy-block, [/b]Parks and Rec is definitely the one that features Aziz Ansari in the supporting cast. Ansari's been a presence in the world of comedy for awhile now, having started with MTV's Human Giant, and-- more recently-- having appeared in a number of supporting roles in a few comedies you've almost certainly seen: Observe and Report,AinSoft Blu-ray Ripper, decrypt and rip Blu-ray mo, [/b]Funny People, [/b]Get Him to The Greek.[/b] We sat down with Ansari to ask some really obvious questions about Parks and Rec, the Randy movie, and-- of course-- Ron Swanson's mustache. Read on for the interview, my gentle Examiner readers...
When NBC premiered the first episode of Greg Daniels' and Michael Schur's Parks and Rec,[/b] [/b]more than a few lazy viewers (and even lazier TV critics) wrote the show off as an "Office clone". It's true that Schur and Daniels were both Office vets, and it's true that all of The Office's trademarks appeared to be in place-- the faux-documentary style, the talking head "interviews", the Blu-ray Ripper, and so on. But from the start, Parks and Rec has always been its own beast, and two seasons later you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that would tell you that the show's a copycat. Hell, you might even find a few people who'd tell you that Parks and Rec has become a better comedy than The Office.
That said, Parks and Rec still hasn't achieved Office-sized success. But it did end up on a number of critics' "Best Of" lists at the end of last year. And the series' viewership has increased pretty steadily over the show's past two seasons, enough so that NBC felt confident re-jiggering their Thursday-night lineup to position Parks and Rec directly after The Office. Obviously, the network was hoping that more Office fans would give Parks and Rec another shot,King of Kings (Blu-ray), and so far it seems to be Blu-ray cloner: the show's ratings are higher than they've ever been, and the network just announced that Parks would be getting a third season.