Jean-Ralphio and Tom's 10 Best Bad Ideas From "Parks and Recreation"

Parks and Recreation's resident cool kids Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) and Jean-Ralphio Saperstein (Ben Schwartz) like to think of themselves as quality businessmen. Over the years, though, all they've been able to do is exhibit a shared knack for coming up with ridiculous, always rejected ideas, but recent episodes have shown things might be changing a bit.

Tom is starting a company called Rent-A-Swag that allows teenagers to rent designer duds so their parents don't have to spend crazy amounts of money on clothes they'll soon outgrow. As for Jean-Ralphio, he dropped out of the project, which makes it seem like an even more legitimately good business idea.

Still, Tom's step forward doesn't mean we should forget all of the terrible ideas he and Jean-Ralphio cooked up in the past. Before you see how Rent-A-Swag does when the show returns for its mid-season premiere tonight at 8:30 p.m. EST on NBC, take a look back at Jean-Ralphio and Tom's 10 Best Bad Ideas From Parks and Recreation. After all, learning from others' mistakes is a big part of life.

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Written by Tanya Ghahremani (@tanyaghahremani)

Mentioned in: "The Fight" (season 3, episode 13)

The issue that plague this idea actually becomes the jumping-off point that Tom's one potentially good idea, Rent-a-Swag. Babies grow quickly, so buying them expensive clothes (tuxedos, for instance) isn't the best idea for someone without disposable income. A baby's first tuxedo will inevitably end up in the donation pile a few months later.

On the other hand, for those who do have a ton of burnable cash, don't be the asshole who dresses their baby in a tuxedo. It's not cute. Your baby doesn't have swag. Unless your baby is Blue Ivy, of course.

Mentioned in: "The Fight" (season 3, episode 13)

Sometimes, exclusivity can be the key to making hot-spots truly hot, but a department store with a guest list is the kind of pretentious that Julia Roberts gave the middle finger to in Pretty Woman. It'd be a shame to take a step backward after that entirely revolutionary step forward.

Mentioned in: "The Fight" (season 3, episode 13)

The unfortunate thing with this idea is that some people with way too much money for their own good would actually go to a nightclub that's only open one hour two times a year, with a cover charge of $5,000. And how do we know that? Five people have already purchased a $2013 plate of pasta that's on the menu at Bice restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. Money well spent, clearly.

That doesn't make the Eclipse idea any less awful, though. Exclusive hot-spots are pretentious enough without the whopping cover charge and the hour-long time limit.

Mentioned in: "The Fight" (season 3, episode 13)

We've got to give it to Tom for trying to be revolutionary, but who looks at their phone and thinks, "Gee, life would be so much better if this smelled like pine trees or strawberries'?" No one, except possibly the teenage girls who bedazzle their phones at mall kiosks. But, keep in mind, teenage girls' parents are the ones buying them those phones. Nice try, Tom.

Mentioned in: "Ben's Parents" (season 5, episode 6)

When Jean-Ralphio pitched this particular idea to Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), the foolish, wannabe mogul didn’t specify what exactly would be printed on said condoms. Though, yes, it's safe to say that anything printed on a condom would be the ultimate mood killer. To Jean-Ralphio's credit, though, it could potentially prevent unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. No female with any standards would want to have sex after taking one look photo-laden rubbers.

Mentioned in: "Ms. Knope Goes to Washington" (season 5, episode 1)

The only way in which glitter-infused laundry detergent would be useful is if someone consistently dressed up as Twilight's Edward Cullen for Halloween. However, no one should ever dress up as Edward Cullen for Halloween, so it renders the whole thing pointless.

Mentioned in: "The Fight" (season 3, episode 13)

Texting on a phone while walking and/or driving is bad enough, so we shudder to think of how many accidents contact lenses that display text messages right in our line of vision would cause. Also, it'd make dodging messages from unwanted people way too difficult. You could never use the excuse that you "just didn't see the text" when they inevitably ask you about it later.

Mentioned in: "Ms. Knope Goes to Washington" (season 5, episode 1)

Similar to how our clothes don't need to be washed in glitter by Sparkle Suds, our intestines don't need to be showered with glitter from Disco Dairy, which is, literally, butter that is infused with glitter. Besides, it's already been done, and, even then, everyone thought it was stupid.

Mentioned in: "The Fight" (season 3, episode 13)

According to Tom, Snake Juice is his "new, high-end Kahlua style liquor," which actually doesn't sound like a terrible idea. Well, at first. Sure, you could always just buy Kahlua, but we're open to new things. What makes Snake Juice one of the worst ideas, however, is what Tom says about it here: "I mixed a bunch of alcohol together, added some sugar and coffee and some other junk and it kind of tastes like Kahlua.”

Despite being a recipe for a coronary, the effects of Snake Juice had on the Parks and Rec gang were amusing. That is, until we witnessed the perpetually stoic Ron Swanson dancing to Flo Rida's “Who Dat Girl." Then things got real scary, really fast. The world has a natural order, and Ron Swanson drunk, laughing, and smiling messes with the balance of things. This is how the apocalypse could start.

Mentioned in: Season 3 and season 4

Entertainment 720, during its short life, was described as “premiere, high-end, all-media conglomerate,” but even founders Tom and Jean-Ralphio would be hard-pressed to tell you what it is exactly.

Rather than being the "one-stop-shop for public relations, marketing, or anything having to do with reaching out to people, communicating effectively, and other desirable abilities," Entertainment 720 just seemed like an excuse for Tom and Jean-Ralphio to throw around cash and look cool while doing it. And look cool they did, albeit in a ridiculous way.

Their methods included, but were not limited to: opening offices in a gigantic converted airplane hanger, hiring basketball players Detlef Schrempf and Roy Hibbard (for 75% of his NBA salary) to shoot hoops in the office all day, paying a few hot female employees $100,000 plus full medical to do nothing but look pretty, buying a money printing machine to print cash with their faces on it, installing a party button, giving away free iPads, buying a $27,000 chair that has a roof, and installing huge TV screens to play a video of a yacht on loop.

Additionally, no detailed financial records were kept. Swag.