“The Office” Versus “Parks and Recreation”: One is Better Than the Other
In many ways, “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” are very similar, I assume in part due to their shared creators, Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. However, they ARE different. And one has to be better than the other and I’m here to tell you which is the winner – backed by a TON of evidence, of course.
Anyways, this will be fun and completely factual, and not opinionated at all.
Best Main Character
The leads are Michael Scott from “The Office” and Leslie Knope from “Parks and Recreation.”
Over in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the regional manager maintains the most successful Dunder Mifflin branch, despite his lack of management skills and inability to develop friendships with employees who don’t want to be friends. Michael also likes plastic surgery and isn’t competent with a GPS.
In Pawnee, Indiana, the director of parks and recreation works on ambitiously exercising her commitment to government, despite pushback from a town brimming with below-average citizens. Leslie also likes waffles and Joe Biden.
Michael and Leslie are both hilariously bizarre. Their personalities help make the shows work. But, when Michael says farewell to Dunder Mifflin in the seventh season, he took a lot of the personality with him. I’m sorry Michael, but Leslie didn’t say goodbye with two seasons left. A true winner doesn’t leave us hanging like that.
Winner: “Parks and Recreation”
Characters Overall
Of course, main characters can’t carry the whole show. Where would “The Office” be without Jim and Pam, creepy Creed, any of the accountants and Toby the Scranton Strangler (debatable, I know)?
“Parks and Recreation” also hosts a bunch of quirky characters: Ron Swanson, the staunch libertarian, Ann Perkins, Leslie’s best friend, Tom Haverford, an underachieving entrepreneur, and Andy and April, the couple who I never would’ve predicted at the start.
Yet, what crowns the champion in this category is a character that single-handedly drags its show to the podium: Where would “The Office” be without those mustard-colored shirts and metal-framed glasses? That’s right. “The Office” survived without Michael, but it would’ve died without Dwight Schrute.
(Also, Jean-Ralphio Saperstein did not help “Parks and Recreation’s” case. I’m only willing to risk my IQ for so long.)
Winner: “The Office”
Locations
This will be short and sweet. As much as I love trains, warehouses, dinner parties and Chile’s, “Parks and Recreation” takes the cake here.
Sorry Dunder Mifflin, but your employees need to get out more.
Winner: “Parks and Recreation”
Finale Episodes
“Parks and Recreation’s” entire last season fast-forwarded three years into the future and the finale followed suit. It started out in 2017 and then launched to 2022 and then all of a sudden, everyone is living in 2025 and I’m tired. It’s too much fast-forwarding for me, but at the end of the episode, it is HEAVILY implied that Leslie Knope is elected president, so that’s exciting.
“The Office” ends the way it should: Dwight and Angela get married at his beet farm, followed by all the characters meeting up for one last hurrah at Dunder Mifflin.
However, I feel like “The Office” fell a bit short. It seemed that the writers were trying to tie up loose ends too quickly – something about Andy’s disastrous current state of existence and Kelly and Ryan’s baby abandonment moment felt foreign to this fandom.
Thankfully for the folks at Dunder Mifflin, I’ll let it slide, because ultimately, “Parks and Recreation” gave me too much whiplash with all its teleportation.
Winner: “The Office”
Drum roll please …
Overall, “The Office” reigns supreme. Don’t get me wrong, I love the people of Pawnee, but at the end of the day, it’s “The Office” theme song I can remember by heart, not “Parks and Recreation’s.” If you still disagree, I bet you can’t remember it either.
That’s what I thought.
Ultimate Winner: “The Office”
Juliet Bromme is a junior
communication major from
Longwood, Fla.