Three real KaBOOM! project managers – Melanie Barnes, Jen DeMelo and Kenny Altenburg - worked with set designers to build a playground with the cast. You can see some exclusive, behind-the-scenes photos below including KaBOOM! project managers and TV stars Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones and Paul Scheer.

Real KaBOOM! project managers Jen DeMelo and Kenny Altenburg pose in front of the KaBOOM! PT Cruiser made for the show. (We don't really use those...but I wish we did!)

Paul Scheer as Project Manager "Keef Slertner" leads Amy Poehler as Leslie onto the playground site. (You may recognize Paul from any number of movies and TV shows, including VH1's "Best Week Ever.")


The actors pause between takes on the playground set.


Real KaBOOM! Project Manager Kenny looks on while Amy Poehler and Rashida Jones are shaded between takes.

We'll be live-tweeting during the episode - and you can post your thoughts on our message board.

After a day of outdoor play, kids return home with fine sheens of sweat and dirt – and they love it! In addition to great fun, outdoor play gives children a venue for the physical activity their growing bodies need, as well as the interaction that will help them to develop essential cognitive, social and emotional skills to prepare them for an increasingly hectic and challenging world.  

Unfortunately, our nation’s children are spending progressively more time indoors. Whether that’s due to the lure of television and video games, concerns for child safety, or simply an over-packed schedule, this fact has dire consequences for our children’s future. 

"How does a psychic superhero help us save the princess?" my playmates asked.

When a young boy is acting out the role of a daddy making breakfast, he is limited by all the rules of daddy-ness. Some of those limitations come from his playmates: if he starts acting like a baby (or a policeman or a dinosaur) in the middle of making breakfast, the other children will be sure to steer him back to the eggs and bacon. But even beyond that explicit peer pressure, Vygotsky would say, the child is guided by the basic principles of play. Make-believe isn’t as stimulating and satisfying — it simply isn’t as much fun — if you don’t stick to your role. And when children follow the rules of make-believe and push one another to follow those rules, he said, they develop important habits of self-control.

In one experiment, 4-year-old children were first asked to stand still for as long as they could. They typically did not make it past a minute. But when the kids played a make-believe game in which they were guards at a factory, they were able to stand at attention for more than four minutes. In another experiment, prekindergarten-age children were asked to memorize a list of unrelated words. Then they played “grocery store” and were asked to memorize a similar list of words — this time, though, as a shopping list. In the play situation, on average, the children were able to remember twice as many words.

Research shows that children who engage in socio-dramatic play have better language skills, better social skills, more empathy, less aggression and more self-control than children who do not.

I've been itching to tell you about this, and finally the cat's out of the bag. Coming this October, as part of the Entertainment Industry Foundation's volunteer week (which is part of the I Participate campaign), KaBOOM! will be featured on the NBC show Parks and Recreation, starring Amy Poehler!

The show's producer called KaBOOM!, and the charity's founder, Darell Hammond, and other staff members have helped the show develop the episode, including sending two project managers to work with set designers to build a playground.

[Alison] Risso, [KaBOOM! director of communications,] says the portrayal of a KaBOOM! project manager in the script­ — which the charity reviewed for accuracy­­ — is a tad, shall we say, exaggerated. But, she says, "it's good fun. We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take building playgrounds seriously. If the show can help raise the importance of play, we're all for it."