Top TV Memes: The Best Meme Formats From 'Parks And Recreation'

Parks and Recreation is a mockumentary-style sitcom about Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), who works for the Parks and Rec. Department of Pawneee, Indiana. Throughout the series, she tries to build a park, runs for office, tries to micromanage drama in the lives of everyone she knows and takes her job a little too seriously at times — leading to numerous personal and political disagreements.

Running for seven seasons, Parks and Recreation has received much critical acclaim while often being compared to its more popular predecessor The Office. While The Office has always maintained God status in the meme world, many of the characters in Parks and Rec are just as quotable as Michael Scott. This show has spawned many meme formats and widely appreciated references. Here are some of the best episodes to find new meme content.

Most Popular Memes: Season 6, Episode 16: "New Slogan"

This episode about Leslie’s creation of a new town slogan is overshadowed by its two side plots, one of which brought us the classic "Afraid to Ask" meme. Here, Chris Pratt’s Andy Dwyer is sharing all of his secrets to Nick Offerman’s Ron Swanson. One of those secrets happens to be, "I don't know who Al Gore is, and at this point, I'm too afraid to ask." This has become a famous image macro that is still recreated in the modern-day.

However, the plot involving Andy and Ron is an underappreciated point in the show for memes. In this episode, Andy discovers Ron has been moonlighting as a seductive saxophone player for years under the name "Duke Silver." Ron, who hates his ex-wives and loves breakfast foods, is perhaps the most memeable character from Parks and Rec already, and the Duke Silver plotline is one of the best perspectives of the character we get, which can lead to far more memes than just "Afraid to Ask."

Most Meme Potential: Season 3, Episode 16: "Lil Sebastian"

In this episode, the parks department throws an elaborate funeral for a horse, complete with on-stage performances and hundreds of candles. Clearly, this horse is unlike any other horse, but we never find out why. In fact, much like turkey hot dogs and Nickelback, there isn’t a reason to like Lil Sebastian at all. Nonetheless, we watch as a solemn eulogy is delivered and the show’s characters mourn the loss of a miniature horse we know nothing about aside from his cataracts, diabetes and fatherhood to over 200 future horse idols.

Lil Sebastian is kind of like the Kardashians. Everybody seems to love him (or love to hate them in the case of the Kardashians), but we don’t know why. He’s famous and followed by crowds of fans wherever he goes, but truthfully he does nothing exciting, contributes nothing to society and lives off adoring fans as if he was the first-ever non-human Instagram influencer. It’s genuinely strange that Pawnee’s most famous celebrity hasn’t lived up to his meme potential yet. Lil Sebastian can represent our confusion at any glorified thing we don’t understand, whether it be feet pics or Citizen Kane.

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