The Hilarious Douche Detail You Might Have Missed In Parks And Recreation

"Parks and Recreation" has a reputation for having some of the most memorable side characters of any sitcom out there. A few great examples include Bobby Newport (Paul Rudd), a wealthy city council candidate and glorified man-child, or fan-favorite supporting player Jen Barkley (Kathryn Hahn), who manages to steal the spotlight with her unabashed cockiness and blunt manner of speaking. Even relatively minor recurring characters like Ron Dunn, a free-spirited vegan played by the legendary Sam Elliott, always seem to make a major impact whenever they're on screen. 

For a further example, consider the character of Pawnee's resident shock-jock radio host Howard Tuttleman (Nick Kroll), better known by his nickname The Douche. Despite the fact that he is introduced as a ridiculously crass moron with a penchant for toilet humor, The Douche quickly became an established character who often appears when the Parks and Recreation department needs to reach out to the media. He even became a fleeting love interest for Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), who genuinely considers him as a potential sperm donor when she is attempting to get pregnant. 

Indeed, even somebody as wildly absurd as The Douche becomes a fully fleshed out part of the "Parks and Recreation" world by the end of the series — to the point where the showrunners even included a small detail about his car that most fans might never have noticed.

We see The Douche's car exactly one time in all of "Parks and Recreation" –- during the Season 5 episode "Ann's Decision," when Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) confronts The Douche in a parking garage and reveals that Ann Perkins is considering him as a sperm donor. During one shot, we get a good look at The Douche's license plate, which simply reads: "8008IES."

The idiotic license plate is about par for the course as far as The Douche is concerned, though perhaps the funniest part of this little detail is that Leslie herself doesn't even make any reference to it. The license plate is simply there, completely unmentioned, as though it isn't a surprise to anyone that the Douche would go through all the effort to get a custom plate with such a childish message on it. The fact that the showrunners decided to only include this minor detail for a single establishing shot is funny in and of itself; the license plate is borderline unnoticeable unless you're looking down around the characters' ankles.

It's always nice to find a small detail like this that may have slipped past upon first watching, and in this case, the showrunners' attention to detail definitely paid off with one of the funniest hidden jokes in the whole series.