From comparisons to “The Wire” to nearly losing Nick Offerman to “The Office,” here are the most memorable BTS tidbits from “Welcome to Pawnee.”

Think you know everything there is to know about Parks and Recreation? You don’t know the half. Jerry/Garry Gergich actor Jim O’Heirs new book Welcome to Pawnee: Stories of Friendship, Waffles, and Parks and Recreation is filled to the gills with exciting, revealing, sometimes downright shocking facts about the making of the beloved NBC sitcom.

Participating Amy Poehler as the incurably optimistic deputy director of Pawnee, Indiana’s dysfunctional parks department, Parks and Rec fought his way out of the shadow of the sitcom Goliath in the workplace The office to achieve his own unique comedic sensibility, garner a distinctly loyal fan base and assemble an ensemble of supporting players who have virtually all gone on to stardom.

From Parks The department’s resident hustler Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), to tease intern April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza), to the lovable goof Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt), Leslie’s love interest Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott), and their libertarian leader Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), since the show’s 2015 finale, starring in Parks has won Emmys, Grammys, Golden Globes and Peabodys.

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Welcome to Pawnee contains a mountain of previously unheard behind-the-scenes anecdotes about developing, casting, filming and closing the seven-season series. From the behind-the-scenes story of Plaza and O’Heir’s infamous makeout session on Late Night with Seth Meyersto Parks writers who draw inspiration from The Wire and West wingfor all the cast sliding door moments, below are the 15 juiciest scoops that O’Heir delivers in Welcome to Pawnee.

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1. Parks and Rec was almost one Office spinoff is called Stamford branch

Greg Danielswho created The offices American counterpart, was encouraged to develop a spinoff after Jim (John Krasinski) moved to Stamford in season 3. Stamford branch was the proposed name for the project, and one of the stars brought in to staff The Office in Season 3, Rashida Jonesremained an enduring link between The office and the show that would eventually become Parks and Recreation.

2. Parks‘ creators gave up a spot after the Super Bowl premiere so a pregnant Amy Poehler could film the pilot

NBC clearly believed in Parks and Rec when they gave the show a 13-episode season order and a coveted post-Super Bowl premiere slot before it even started taping. But when Poehler’s due date matched that exact week Parks pilot was set to shoot, Daniels and co-creators Michael Schur made the difficult decision to forego the post-game slot and accept a six-episode order instead. All because, as Schur put it, Parks “doesn’t work unless Amy is at the center of it.”

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3. Aziz Ansari was the first actor based on a skit about castration

Poehler was already a big topic in Parks casting conversation, but Ansari was the first to receive his contract. Daniels saw a sketch the comedian wrote and appeared on the show Human giantwhere he gets slightly more views by simply making silly faces than a desperate YouTuber castrating himself for viral fame. Because the author BJ Novak had been one of the first Office castings, Ansari’s twin acting and writing chops seemed perfect for Parks.

4. Nick Offerman turned down the role of Steve Carell’s rival The office before it is thrown on Parks

Offerman’s name came up as a potential casting choice for one of the other Dunder Mifflin regional managers who Steve CarellMichael Scott would run into – and run into – at a business conference. He was offered the role but turned it down and chose a guest spot on The Wife Megan Mullallys sitcom Will and Grace instead. But Daniels was impressed enough with Offerman to write the actor’s name on a Post-it note and save it for future casting conversations. Lo and behold…

5. Jim O’Heir lost out on the Ron Swanson role because he was having “too much fun”

O’Heir recalls making Schur and Daniels laugh with his “dirty” rendition of the film Parks department head Offerman played with such ferocious gravitas. He left the audition feeling confident, but less than an hour later his agent called to tell O’Heir that he had had “too much fun” in the character, that Schur and Daniels “enjoyed you so much that they couldn’t see past the humor and laugh.”

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6. Retta won the role of Donna over Octavia Spencer and Yvette Nicole Brown by talking about her watch

Correct broke the icy tension that always lingers in the air at an audition with ease. She remembers Schur commenting on her watch, prompting her to rant about the inviteable website where she bought it and how she could fix him an invite of her own. On the strength of a single audition, with only two previous acting credits to her name, she beat out future Oscar winners Octavia Spencer and established comic actress Yvette Nicole Brown for Donna Meagle.

7. The show’s creators initially pitched it as a comedy version of The Wire‘

Greg Levine, script coordinator at Parks and Recrecalls Schur and Daniels being “obsessed” with The Wire at the time of Parks‘ creation. They initially envisioned the sitcom’s comedic content as deriving less from passing situations than a “project that unites everyone.” See how The WireThe creators’ depiction of the inner workings of Baltimore led them to develop the empty pit incapacity in Season 1 and build the series around a local government’s effort to fill it.

8. Parks and Rec was almost the title The pit and Lot 48 to distinguish it from The office

The creative team felt they had struck gold after landing on a depiction of a dangerous pit that provided a shared purpose for a local parks and recreation department. But they were almost carried away, considering both The pit and Lot 48 which titles for fear of Parks and Recreation would tie it too much to other workplace commissions The office.

9. The show was originally conceived as West wing with “much lower stakes”

O’Heir recalls conversations with Daniels in Parksearly days where the show creator said he was watching West wing for character building inspiration. Daniels apparently envisioned a character like Leslie Knope as having the same level of aspiration and self-importance as a high-ranking presidential appointee, even though her actual job was anything but. In other words, West wing but “with much lower stakes.”

10. Rob Lowe won his role by telling a story about “Tom Cruise takes vitamins”

Rob Lowe and Adam Scott joined Parks in season 2, as the main cast member Paul Schneider was being phased out. Lowe was an even bigger star than series leader Poehler and easily passed his audition. Daniels recalls that Lowe shot the wind “approx Tom Cruise taking vitamins” in a way that perfectly evoked Chris Traeger, the type-A bureaucrat he would play for five seasons.

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11. The horse that played Lil’ Sebastian had to be censored because it looked too excited on camera

The beloved Pawnee town mascot, the miniature horse Li’l Sebastian, only appears in the flesh in a single episode. But his impact on Parks is incalculable. O’Heir recalls that Gideon (the horse actor behind Sebastian) while filming the episode “Harvest Festival” had an erection almost all dayleading to the smart post-production choice to censor the animal’s nether regions and prompt Ansari to say something characteristically lewd to his character.

12. Jim O’Heir says Christie Brinkley just joined Parks so her daughter could visit the set and meet the actors

Supermodel Christie Brinkley played the wife of O’Heir’s Jerry/Garry in four episodes of Parks and Rec. But the only reason she joined the show, O’Heir reveals, is because Brinkley’s daughter Sailor was such a fan of the series that she watched her mom guest star as her Trojan horse on set. Brinkley herself was unfamiliar with the show before she got the call from Schur, but became a beloved member of Parks family in due time.

13. Chris Pratt started “breaking s—” to help save the show from being canceled

One of the most striking aspects of Parks revealed in Welcome to Pawnee is the widespread feeling when filming most of the series that each season could be the last. Pratt certainly felt the angst, but heeded the wise, if risky, advice of a friend, who advised the actor to “get in there and start breaking s—” because “people love to see things break.” Pratt turned himself into a human wrecking ball on screen, massively exaggerating Dwyer’s talking points and adding a chaotic element to the series that viewers loved.

14. Jim O’Heir developed a mantra based on The office to get through early Parks anxiety: “Be an Oscar”

O’Heir says he and Retta felt extra anxiety about not being upgraded to the lead role in Parks until Season 5. One way he coped with the stress was by watching their unofficial sister show, The office. O’Heir found a way to be “content to just seep into the background like the Stanleys and Phyllises and Oscars of The office fame,” which eventually landed on the mantra “Be an Oscar,” referring to Oscar Nuñezs accountant role at Dunder Mifflin.

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15. Chris Pratt Says Playing Andy Was “The Easiest Job I’ve Ever Had”

The Guardians of the Galaxy star has had perhaps the biggest career transformation since then Parks was in the air. Once the adorable himbo, Pratt has since become a fierce leading man with abs of steel. Still, he looks back on his Parks days with joy, calling it “the easiest job I’ve ever had” because he lived 20 minutes from the set, took about the same amount of time in the hair and makeup chair, and all he had to do was “make people laugh”.