For a while in the 1970s, our town was run by a freaky cult, and every few years the remaining members predict that the world’s gonna end, and they have an all-night vigil in the park. It’s super annoying. Turns out when you think the world’s ending, you don’t aim so carefully in the port-a-potties. |
| — Leslie Knope |
Founded by office supply salesman Lou Prozotovich, the cult of Reasonabilism briefly took over the town of Pawnee, Indiana during the 1970s, leading to a succession of town mottoes reading “Pawnee: Engage with Zorp”, “Pawnee: Zorp is Dead, Long Live Zorp” and then “Pawnee: It’s Safe to Be Here Now”. Zorp is the 28-foot-tall extraterrestrial lizard deity worshipped by the Reasonabilists, on the expectation that he will eventually return and destroy the world, an event eagerly anticipated by the cultists (who are known locally as Zorpies).
In the Parks and Recreation episode “The End of the World”, the Reasonabilists have determined the date upon which Zorp will, in fact, return and destroy the world at sunrise and so apply to reserve a spot in a local park for an all-night vigil. Parks Supervisor Leslie Knope – who, like most non-Reasonabilist Pawneeans, regards what remains of the cult with a kind of bemused if somewhat wary tolerance – is happy to oblige, and the scene is set both for the Reasonabilist’s apocalyptic ceremonies (which involve chanting, playing flutes and eating s’mores) and for some of the regular characters to take stock of their own lives as if the world actually was coming to an end.
And it really is a beautiful night.