The final season of Parks And Recreation begins tonight, and to honor the occasion, let’s take a look back and reflect on the many innovations of Tom Haverford, entrepreneur extraordinaire.
First off, let’s talk about the genius that is DJ Roomba. No, he never actually pitched this as a business idea, but he absolutely should have. Come on, a vacuum cleaner that doubles as a stereo? Everyone in America would want one . Unfortunately, like so many things in Pawnee, DJ Roomba was destroyed by the hapless Jerry Gergich.
In Season 3, Tom tried to make it big with his own scent, Tommy Fresh. Unfortunately, Pawnee’s leading cologne kingpin, Dennis Feinstein, was not a fan, telling him it smelled “like someone spilled Chinese food in a birdcage.” In Tom’s defense, who doesn’t love Chinese Food, and who doesn’t love birds? I swear, if they had looked for the right market, Tommy Fresh could have been huge. Instead, Tom and Ben simply stunk up Feinstein’s car with it, which honestly worked pretty well too.
At the end of the third season, Tom left the Parks Department to start his own promotional company, Entertainment 720, with Jean-Ralphio. As we all know, that failed miserably, with the project going down after a few months. This was mostly because they blew through all their money and never had any clue what they were doing. In fact, they even printed their own money with their faces on it, so they could go to the club. “Free money!” Okay, so Entertainment 720 wasn’t the most brilliant business venture ever, but their parties were legendary, and if someone could have actually funded their extravagance, who knows what might have developed?
But Tom didn’t let one failure get him down. Instead, he came back in Season 5 with Rent-A-Swag, a store in which he rented out his fancy-but-small clothes to kids who needed something to wear for school dances. This idea is probably the most sensible thing Tom ever came up with, and it impressed Ron enough that he ended up funding the store. It became so successful in fact, that it spawned a few imitators.
So, after years of trying and failing, Tom Haverford finally became a successful businessman. Now, the question is how things will work out for him in the final season, which will be set in 2017. My guess? He’ll be on the cover of Forbes Magazine, smilin’ next to Oprah and the Queen.
In the meantime, this supercut from Askmen takes a look back at every glorious idea Tom’s has pitched throughout the show’s run. I really want the talking tissue box to be real. Blow ya nose, playa!
