"Parks And Recreation" is saying goodbye with their seventh and final season, and so the show is bringing out the big guns. Werner Herzog has already stopped by, and last night a Ghostbuster made the most of what may be a very, very small appearance, but still is one that you’ll still want to check out.
Bill Murray stepped into play the oft mentioned but never seen Walter Gunderson, mayor of Pawnee, IN. It may seem odd to wait this long to reveal the man everyone is working under at City Hall, but in season three, the show apparently tried to get Arnold Schwarzenegger for the gig. “He was very nice about it, and he really wanted to do it, but it just couldn’t work,” writer/creator Mike Schur told EW. “So at that point we were like, ‘just forget it. It’s cooler to mention the mayor but never see him.’ And around that time, we said internally that the only way that we would ever do it was if we got Bill Murray. I don’t know why —that became the thing. Maybe he was transitioning into being more myth than man at that point.”
Long story short, Murray learned that he was wanted for the role, he showed up, and the rest is history. And perhaps it’s even better that he appears as the late Mayor Gunderson, who shares a quick pre-recorded message at his own funeral. Check it out below.
RIP Mayor Gunderson. #ParksandRec pic.twitter.com/i9nz75zyNp
— Parks and Recreation (@parksandrecnbc) February 18, 2015
