Okay, as everybody knows,
The Spirit of Pawnee was defaced again last night.
- What was it this time? - Chocolate pudding.
That's new.
The mural that normally resides here is called The Spirit of Pawnee,
and it's very controversial.
We've had someone throw acid at it,
tomato sauce.
Someone tried to stab it once.
We really need better security here.
We also need... better, less-offensive history.
So the city council has decided it should be changed
to something a little less horrifying.
Now since the murals were made
by government employees back in the 1930s,
we thought it might be fun if each department
submitted the design for a new mural...
And you'll submit your concepts tomorrow afternoon.
All righty, folks? Thank you very much.
Leslie, what's your design gonna be? A tree?
Joe, you work in sewage.
Your department literally specializes in crap.
- You wanna do this? - I told you before.
Crap is a slang term,
and I don't like that term.
But at least we don't specialize in losing... Like you guys.
Sewage, let's roll.
Damn!
How does sewage always get the hottest interns?
- Feygnasse Team -
.:: La Fabrique ::.
Episode 209 The Camel
mpm
lestat78
Guys, this department has the chance
to design something that could be in this building forever.
This could be our legacy.
I thought building a park on lot 48 was gonna be our legacy.
You can have two.
Look at Madonna... Great singer, amazing arms.
Look at O.J. Simpson... Heisman trophy winner, naked gun.
No offense, Leslie, but I'm not an artist.
That's not true. I've seen your fingernails.
I pay someone to do this.
Really?
Shoot. Anyway...
I'm ordering all of you to design a mural.
Only Ron can order the whole department to do something.
- Ron, order them to do this. - Do whatever Leslie says.
And it needs to be breathtaking and moving and historical
and better than every department, and you have one hour.
Designers, make it work.
Tim Gunn.
You, my friend, are ready to go dancing.
Thank you, sir.
All right, next.
Andrew, looking good.
Business is booming.
Hey, Ron, how about you? Need a little dog waxin'?
It's 5 bucks, and you'll cut in front of him.
- What? - Beat it.
This is Ron Swanson we're talking about.
I'm impressed with Andy.
Pulling himself up by his bootstraps.
Reminds me of me.
I got my first job when I was nine. Worked at a sheet metal factory.
In two weeks, I was running the floor.
Child labor laws are ruining this country.
- Do you have a key in your shoe? - No, I have a bunion
that's practically its own toe.
Normally, the pain howls through my loafers like a banshee on the moors,
but... for these past three minutes,
it's been reduced to a faint growl.
That was neat.
We are all finished.
That was great. Thank you, son.
No sweat!
Next!
Shouldn't let your friends cut in line. It's not good business.
You know what else isn't good business?
- That guy's my friend. - Right.
I'm saying...
You shouldn't let your friends cut in line.
Sorry, kyle. Here, give me this.
Next!
So what are you looking for exactly?
I don't know, man.
The spirit of Pawnee. That's all I got.
Here. Just gimme $20 worth of art.
Just something that seems personal that only I could have done.
- Well, tell me about yourself. - No. Just paint.
I have no interest in art. Let me clarify.
I have no interest in non-nude images.
Dude, what the hell kind of art is this?
Looks like a lizard puking up skittles!
I'm an abstract expressionist.
No, you're a con artist, and I'm a guy that's out 20 bucks.
Whatever.
I'm a terrible artist.
But 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.
I know everything about this town and these murals,
and that's why this is a dream come true... Literally.
I have had a dream where I designed a mural.
But then it turned into a nightmare because the mural started talking,
and it came alive, it was whispering, and I couldn't hear what it was saying,
so I leaned in close, and then it ate me.
At one point, Gina Gershon was there.
My piece is truly gonna capture the spirit of Pawnee.
Never understood the term elbow grease.
I guess it's not really grease.
Just hard work.
- Nice shiny shoes you got there. - I was just...
Oh, no... Shoot.
Actually, it looks like I scuffed this one.
Do you need your money back? 'Cause I already spent it.
Really? How did...
Never mind.
I think I'll just take another full polish.
Can I cut in line again?
I feel right at home as a shoeshine.
I have no idea what I'm doing,
but I know I'm doing it really, really well.
Okay, let's get goin' with the spirit of Pawnee.
- Ann, you go first. - Okay.
Since it's the Parks department,
I thought I would design a pretty park.
With, uh, dogs playing. I can't really draw,
so I just cut some stuff out of a magazine.
That looks like something a death row convict would make in art therapy.
Dude, I tried.
And you failed.
It's dogs and people playing in a park.
- It's cute! - It's okay, sweetheart.
You can't make art because you are art.
You're beautiful... But that sucks.
Let's see yours!
Fine. Mine is amazing. It's gonna blow your mind.
Some professional-ass art right here.
- I'm not sure what I'm looking at. - It's abstract, Leslie.
Over here, you got some shapes.
And then you come over to this side...
You know, it's actually kind of interesting.
Each shape is its own thing...
But then when it comes together,
it really gives you a sense of...
completion.
A piece of art caused me to have an emotional reaction.
Is that normal?
So it's the last supper
but with famous people from Indiana.
John Mellancamp, Larry Bird,
Michael Jackson,
David Letterman, Vivica A. Fox.
Okay, so here's where it gets a little dicey,
'cause there's not that many celebrities from Indiana, so... a NASCAR,
my friend Becky, Ron Swanson...
Who's the Jesus?
That would be Greg Kinnear.
- I didn't know he was from Indiana. - Yeah, you know, I read that he was.
Do you think he's the best choice for Jesus?
He was great on ER...
- Greg Kinnear wasn't in ER. - Yeah, he was.
I don't think that he was.
Who am I thinking of?
Okay. Next.
Really good, Jerry.
For my murinal,
I was inspired by the death of my grandma...
You said "murinal".
- No, I didn't. - You said "murinal". I heard it.
- Anyway, she... - Jerry...
Why don't you put that murinal in the men's room
so people can murinate all over it?
Go to the doctor. You might have a murinary tract infection.
- Just wanted to show you my art. - Murinal, murinal, murinal!
Disqualified!
It's pointillism.
And each dot is a photo of a citizen of the town.
No one cares. At all.
So this is a multimedia project.
First...
A bunch of rats made out of garbage.
And...
This is a tv screen.
It'll be like a big flat screen tv,
and it'll play looped video of knee surgeries.
And this is a human-sized hamster wheel that will be next to the mural,
if we can get one, and it'll be spinning,
and there'll be like a fat guy in it all the time
like screaming and like eating raw beef and like bleeding,
and like blood will come out of his mouth and stuff.
And that'll be like right next to...
the mural.
I have one question.
Why?
If you have to ask, you don't get it.
I don't think they really got the assignment.
If we're gonna beatthe others,
we have to choose something that will stand the test of time...
Like the Mona Lisa
or the music of Squeeze.
June 8, 1922.
The Pawnee bread factory burned to the ground.
We lost a lot of good bread that day...
As well as several human lives.
And it also made the whole town smell like toast,
which one resident described as "disturbingly enticing".
But I digress.
The point is, we rebuilt Pawnee
to the wonderful town that it is today.
Why would you want a mural that shows people dying
when you could have shapes that come alive?
Because it's the most famous event in our town's history,
and people love voting for tragedy.
Look at the oscars. This is our holocaust movie.
This is our English Patient.
Sounds like you're exploiting the tragedy.
See? Ann gets it.
Time to vote, everybody.
Cast your votes!
May the best, most tragic project win.
When we started this, we were six different voices
with six ideas for a mural.
And then those six voices came together as a team.
There are no losers today.
But there is one winner.
Us.
The Parks Department.
Tom, the results of the vote, please.
One to one to one to one to one to one.
We all voted for ourselves, didn't we?
Third time, today.
That's a good shoeshine.
What the ****, man?
I don't know what happened.
Frankly.
I emitted a noise.
The noise was involuntary.
Sometimes a sound is just a sound, you know?
We need to whittle these down. Can we all agree on eliminating
- any of these designs? - Ann's blows.
Don't hold back.
It's a giant picture of a park. That's not art.
At least it's not a fat human hamster eating meat.
- You don't work here! - You both have a point.
Ann, yours was a little trite.
And, April, yours was hellish and might make someone vomit.
There's something about those shapes. There's some emotional art right there.
- Any kid could do that. - No kid could do that!
Only god could do that!
What is so great about the shapes?
He likes the shapes, okay? And he's part of the team.
So here, take these scissors and cut out your favorite shapes.
And then we'll put them on a new team mural.
We're gonna make a new design
that takes the best parts of all of our designs.
It's like if you got Michelangelo
and Andy Warhol
and Jackson Pollock and Jim Davis from Garfield
to do one painting.
Imagine how good that painting would be!
I think it's really good.
I'll be right back.
We need you for something.
Can it wait? I am so swamped here.
Ann's in trouble.
We think it might be pills.
- What? - No.
That's a lie.
But this is as important. Look at a piece of art.
God.
What is that?
This is our entry for the mural contest.
We couldn't decide on one design, so we took parts
that we all liked of our designs and then we just kind of...
smooshed it into a thing.
You made a camel.
You've never heard that saying?
A camel is actually a horse designed by a committee,
and what you guys have here
is one ugly camel...
featuring Bill Paxton.
- Greg Kinnear. - Right.
Is Bill Paxton from Indiana?
You have to save us. You have to design something.
- Leslie, I'm not an artist. - Yes, you are.
I've seen you sketch things.
Like poles for stop signs.
That everybody stops and looks at.
By law, they're required to.
Please. You're the only one of us who's got any talent.
I know you'll do something good.
And I really want to win this.
Please? What are you gonna do tonight?
I was gonna go to Arby's and watch Frontline.
Here we go.
So, it is an old man
feeding pigeons in a park.
The spirit of Pawnee, maybe?
- You gotta be kidding me. - How is that better than mine?
It isn't. And that's saying something.
And who's the man? Is he famous?
Is it Martin Landau?
I have no dog in this fight. I'm just saying that this will win.
It's nothing. It's mush!
There's not even one shape in there! Where are the shapes?
I'm not saying this is any good.
I'm saying that this'll win. It's mass appeal. It's like
what motels put up,
and it hangs there for years, and no one ever throws acid at it.
- Who did this? I like it. - Seriously?
Sorry!
It comforts me.
That'll win.
This is...
garbage! We've gotta go back to the shapes.
This is boring. Go back to the garbage.
I would take the shapes over this. Come on!
I wouldn't take them over anything. I'd take Jerry's Murinal over this.
No, guys...
- This is the one. - What?
Sorry. Mark's right.
This is an outrage! He's not in the department.
- Neither is Ann. - But Ann's hot.
And that counts.
Whatever happened to, "we're the parks department.
"Rah, rah, rah. Down with the Sewage Department"?
We spent all day here for no reason!
We have a reason! We're gonna win! That's our reason!
Our designs are not gonna win. Mark's might win!
How great would it be if we won.
You'll feel a lot better, I promise you,
after you win. We're going with this one.
I'll see you at the presentation tomorrow.
That is an order, team. Go, team!
Team dismissed.
Yes, we are a team, but I am the team leader.
So I made a bold decision.
We're playing it safe.
How's life in the Parks De-fart-ment?
Better than life in the Sewage De-fart-ment.
- Which makes more sense. - Whatever!
You are screwed.
Get used to this.
Because it's gonna be hanging on the wall, right outside your door
for the next 100 years!
That was pretty good.
You think they're gonna win?
They went super-patriotic. It's a classic mistake.
It seems crowd-pleasing, but it's a stance.
And there's always someone who'll oppose a stance.
Us...
Old man feeding pigeons... No stance.
Absolutely no point of view whatsoever.
No point of view. Smart.
I haven't been back.
I wish him good luck in his business.
And, yes, I will absolutely go back
to get my shoes shined soon.
I don't frankly see
why this is a topic for discussion.
What's up?
You know the thing?
- The other day? - Other day... Other day...
Yesterday?
I am...
That was...
I'm okay. You know, I'd be okay if we...
If we never mentioned it again.
Never mentioned what?
The moan. The weird moan you made
that was super-weird? Do you not remember that?
I talked about it with the lady who went after for 1/2 hour.
She said she thought it was an animal...
It was just an odd moment.
Let's just not talk about it anymore.
That's what I was trying to say.
But, yeah... Okay.
Good job.
- Miss Knope. - Chief Konner.
What do you got?
Well, we aren't really artists, but we gave it a shot.
It's your basic dogs playing poker,
but, with an everything's-on-fire theme.
This is my nephew over here.
And this is an attractive lady with a hamburger for a head.
Just some stuff we like.
Anyway, we had a lot of fun putting it together.
Good luck!
- Go ahead. - What?
The camel's way more fun.
I want my team back.
And my team made this
hot, crazy camel mess.
So this is what we're gonna submit,
even if it means we lose.
God, I hope we win. But we're definitely gonna lose.
Probably.
And Ann! How Ann gets it done!
Let's go!
What are the shapes?
The shapes are awesome, is what they are.
You can't handle it.
No, I like them.
Forgive me.
Is that Michael Jackson?
- The pride of Indiana. - That's right. So it's relevant.
Who is he carrying?
Jesus Greg Kinnear.
It looks like he's carrying Kinnear into the burning building.
That's because he's moonwalking.
So he...
Should be goin' the other way.
That did not occur to me.
- Sorry. - So there you go.
The spirit of Pawnee.
We didn't win.
But neither did anyone else.
They realized it was gonna cost a ton of money, to hire a muralist.
So they're just gonna restore the old one.
They're changing the title to the diversity express.
Look at that.
- It's not as good as the other one. - I don't know what you mean by good?
Neither do i!
Just do another one!
I have actual assignments that I have to finish for art school.
Shut up and do more art for me.
This one's racist.
It's beautiful.
I've looked at this for five hours, now.
I like the green one and the red circle right here.
I'm tearing up, man.