Speaker 1: I am Ben Silverman, Executive producer of the Office. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to another episode of The Office Deep Dive.
Speaker 1: I am your host Brian Baumgartner. Today I am bringing
Speaker 1: you someone truly special, and I mean special in the
Speaker 1: best of ways. Ben Silverman. He is the person who
Speaker 1: discovered the British version of the show. He approached Ricky
Speaker 1: Gervais and Stephen Merchant about bringing the show to the
Speaker 1: United States. He eventually partnered with Greg Daniels, who he
Speaker 1: chose to adapt it. So Ben's role was crucial. More importantly,
Speaker 1: I think he appeared in season nine as Jim's athlete
Speaker 1: coworker Isaac, So I mean there was that too, um
Speaker 1: all joking aside. Ben brings incredible insights into the business
Speaker 1: side of things, the biz, if you will, and he
Speaker 1: has amazing stories about the fights that we're going on
Speaker 1: with the network behind the scenes, while the rest of
Speaker 1: us were just acting like idiots on set. Anyhow, Ben
Speaker 1: has become such a dear friend to me, and even
Speaker 1: after all of these years, I still learn so much
Speaker 1: every time I talked to him. I am sure that
Speaker 1: you will as well. So here he is Ben Silverman,
Speaker 1: Bubble and Squeak I love it. Bubble and squeakan bubble
Speaker 1: and squeaker cookie every month, left over from the nut before.
Speaker 1: Ye Heyboddy, I don't sound very good. I think you
Speaker 1: sound really sexy. Oh God, listen to you. How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good, great to see you. Let me kiss. How's
Speaker 1: your locks? Just get a little locks and some onion
Speaker 1: and I'm good. I can practically tasting it over here.
Speaker 1: I'll take one more, but then we'll start your volumes
Speaker 1: on the left. Is everyone ready for us in the back? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And the only reason we haven't already begun the interview
Speaker 1: in a casual fashion it's because you were eating a bagel.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. All right, I'm about to start.
Speaker 1: Let me chew it out. I mean, it was fun
Speaker 1: to go back because as well as we know each other,
Speaker 1: there's so much of your like PREMI history, Like I
Speaker 1: think that your life didn't start until you met me,
Speaker 1: but you actually did things before, you know, before I
Speaker 1: came into your life. So you were the youngest division
Speaker 1: head in charge of international packaging at William Morris. That
Speaker 1: makes you, like, what twelve years old at the time,
Speaker 1: I was twenty five years old, and I got named
Speaker 1: into that position and around twenty seven or twenty eight
Speaker 1: and was in London working for William Morris four years
Speaker 1: from I left there in ninety nine to go to
Speaker 1: New York. Okay, so then you're in New York. How
Speaker 1: did you discover the UK version of the Office. I
Speaker 1: was at my friend Henrietta Conrad's house. I was not
Speaker 1: an agent. I had left being an agent where I
Speaker 1: had found everything from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Speaker 1: To Cracker Queer as Folk and had translated them into
Speaker 1: America as the packaging agent. And I left back by
Speaker 1: Barry Diller to start my own company called REVELI and
Speaker 1: I had just begun Revenly and went over to London
Speaker 1: for a work trip and was staying at my friend
Speaker 1: Henrietta Conrad's house, and we were watching television and I
Speaker 1: was literally, I think, flipping the channels and I came
Speaker 1: on to the Office. This is episode one or two
Speaker 1: of the UK season one Office, and I was watching
Speaker 1: at first wondering if it was for comedy or for real,
Speaker 1: then quickly recognized what it was doing, single camera, no
Speaker 1: laugh track, fo documentary with people who felt real. And
Speaker 1: I kept watching and started laughing and it's really hard
Speaker 1: to make me laugh. And I was falling in love
Speaker 1: with it show right in that moment, and then I
Speaker 1: started thinking about it the next day in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I asked Henrietta if she knew Ricky Gervais and
Speaker 1: she said no, but her friend Dan Maser did, and
Speaker 1: we organized and had dinner with Dan that night. Wait, so,
Speaker 1: twenty four hours after you after you see it for
Speaker 1: the first time on television, you're having dinner with someone
Speaker 1: who could get you to Ricky. Yes. And additionally I
Speaker 1: also wanted to be with Dan. I mean, Dan was
Speaker 1: Sasha Baron Cohen's partner, and Lag was on television, was
Speaker 1: here in the UK. But so I'm with Dan Maser.
Speaker 1: Dan is lovely, brilliant and of his own right, and
Speaker 1: I start peppering the questions about the office and he
Speaker 1: gives me Ricky's cell phone number. And so the next
Speaker 1: day I call Ricky around eleven o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: and introduced myself on the phone and say I'd love
Speaker 1: to meet you. Are you in town? He goes, actually, yes,
Speaker 1: come meet me in Soho at the Starbucks this afternoon,
Speaker 1: and I coordinate a meeting and I spent an hour
Speaker 1: with Ricky talking about the Office, and very quickly we
Speaker 1: got along because we both love television, and he truly
Speaker 1: was making me laugh even in those moments over over
Speaker 1: the coffee at the Starbucks. And so he clearly had
Speaker 1: chosen the location though of the Starbucks, because he then
Speaker 1: says to me, Oh, good news, my agent is right
Speaker 1: around the corner. Let's go meet with him. So it
Speaker 1: was almost like he met me confirmed I was okay.
Speaker 1: The conversation was interesting, and then we walked over and
Speaker 1: met with Duncan Hayes, his agent, and then Duncan and
Speaker 1: I began a three month process two secure the rights.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until Duncan help me unlock it all
Speaker 1: that I realized both the BBC and Ricky controlled the rights.
Speaker 1: I needed Ricky and Stephen Merchant to actually get it
Speaker 1: done and agitate to get it done, otherwise it was
Speaker 1: never going to get done. It. So you you deal
Speaker 1: with the BBC, and you deal with Ricky and Stephen.
Speaker 1: You have this partnership in place, and where do you
Speaker 1: go into the United States. I immediately start making phone
Speaker 1: calls and saying, are you aware of the show The Office?
Speaker 1: Do you know what it is? Do you think it
Speaker 1: would interest you? And this is probably now a month
Speaker 1: after or so, and the show has started to gain buzz.
Speaker 1: It's aired its cycle in the UK, it's initial six episodes,
Speaker 1: and so it has an awareness. Now it's a thing,
Speaker 1: not a big thing, but to anyone in England it's
Speaker 1: in the television industry, you're aware. So I'm I'm back
Speaker 1: at the States reaching out to people. One of the
Speaker 1: incredible things about Hollywood, which was a huge advantage for
Speaker 1: me to do well, was that people in Hollywood are
Speaker 1: pretty insular and don't like to travel. They think you
Speaker 1: need a passport to get from Burbank to Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: That is travel. And so many people at this time
Speaker 1: in American television had no clue or connection about anything
Speaker 1: beyond l A. And only one exact at the time
Speaker 1: knew what I was talking about was a guy named
Speaker 1: Nick Grad who worked at f X, and he knew
Speaker 1: what the show was and he loved the show. Kevin
Speaker 1: Riley was running X at the time. I had gone
Speaker 1: to Less Moonvest he passed. I went to gayl Berman,
Speaker 1: she passed. Immediately. Didn't get it. HBO said we'll never
Speaker 1: do a remake. They clearly have altered that thinking, but
Speaker 1: at the time they were like, we won't do a format,
Speaker 1: and Showtime wasn't doing shows like this. I didn't go
Speaker 1: to ABC because I just knew it wasn't ABC. And
Speaker 1: I was starting to tease NBC with it, and Kevin
Speaker 1: then got named the head of NBC and I bring
Speaker 1: it up to him and I say, would you want
Speaker 1: to do it here? And Kevin says absolutely. Little did
Speaker 1: he know he was actually my only buyer by that time,
Speaker 1: he was the only one everyone else of television. Everyone
Speaker 1: else had passed, now are you? And Kevin's like, let's
Speaker 1: do it, like, let's let's make it. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: give you a pilot movement. And then Kevin's boss, though,
Speaker 1: who was very involved in his life, Jeff Zucker, didn't
Speaker 1: really like it that much because it was a single camera,
Speaker 1: no last documentary. I got it like it was a
Speaker 1: hard pill for them to swallow. But I was also like,
Speaker 1: they didn't want the game show back in primetime. When
Speaker 1: I brought Millionaire, everyone thought that was cheesy Daytime. I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: this will change TV. You know, you gotta look at
Speaker 1: it from how to push the genre and push the
Speaker 1: envelope so that you can expand versus you know, always
Speaker 1: play for defense, right, And I was like, this is
Speaker 1: another level and this is potentially transformative of television and
Speaker 1: with that can come great reward. You saw that at
Speaker 1: the time that it could be transformative, Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: you have those moments. At that moment, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like everything was possible, Like I really saw the transformation
Speaker 1: of television before it was happening. Wow. Okay, So you
Speaker 1: get a pilot commitment from Kevin at NBC. So now
Speaker 1: you have to put a creative team together. So where
Speaker 1: do you start looking at that moment? So William Morris
Speaker 1: represented the BBC because I had signed the BBC to
Speaker 1: William Morris of course when I was there, of course
Speaker 1: as an agent before I became a producer, and I
Speaker 1: had done the deal with them, so they were part
Speaker 1: of the package, so to speak. But they didn't really
Speaker 1: have many good writers for the show at that at
Speaker 1: the time. Ari Emmanuel had the good writers. So I
Speaker 1: called him up and they said, Ari, I have the office.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. I will we meet with your guys. But
Speaker 1: when you set me up with your best guys, I
Speaker 1: have to organize for Ricky and Stephen some meetings for
Speaker 1: them to help determine who we're all going to partner
Speaker 1: with and choose. And Ari was like, absolutely, let's do it,
Speaker 1: you know, and he set me up with a number
Speaker 1: of meetings, and I immediately connected with Greg. You know,
Speaker 1: I just felt his genius and his thoughtfulness and real
Speaker 1: rigorous approach. And he also was so anxious about doing it.
Speaker 1: He kept saying to me, well, people love the British one,
Speaker 1: you know what, I can't make it better, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I don't want to be compared to it. And
Speaker 1: I had done a show just had aired while I
Speaker 1: was working on this, called Coupling, which was an adaptation
Speaker 1: of a British show much more in the kind of
Speaker 1: Friends vernacular. It was almost as if Friends had been
Speaker 1: adapted adapted to the UK. Yeah, exactly, And that show
Speaker 1: had been perceived really poorly in America, and Greg was
Speaker 1: worried that was going to happen, and all the comparisons,
Speaker 1: so the halo of Coupling's failure was impinging his ability
Speaker 1: to kind of wrap his arms around the office, and
Speaker 1: the preconceived notion of everyone's saying, why would you adapt
Speaker 1: that it's hallowed ground, etcetera, etcetera. So then I go
Speaker 1: to having to defend wanting to remake this great work.
Speaker 1: And I was explaining to Greg because he was who
Speaker 1: I now really wanted to do it, and he suddenly
Speaker 1: was getting some cold feet based on the concern of
Speaker 1: adapting something so so now like critically beloved. And I said,
Speaker 1: no one in America has seen this one. It's too dark,
Speaker 1: too narrow, and not gonna play to a wide American
Speaker 1: audience unless we do a more optimistic adaptation, informed by
Speaker 1: your vision and your ownership of the world. And there
Speaker 1: are millions of great books that are adapted all the time.
Speaker 1: Do you want to adapt the worst piece of ship?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to adapt a Pulitzer Prize winning novel?
Speaker 1: And the correlation between a da Vinci code and a
Speaker 1: da Vinci code is much higher then not, you know.
Speaker 1: And so having you like explain the history of expanding
Speaker 1: I p that was successful was rather frustrating, and I
Speaker 1: kind of was thrown by today. Now everyone if something's great,
Speaker 1: they want to remake it. You know, it's totally different.
Speaker 1: So I go through all this work, and not only that,
Speaker 1: I then I have Ricky and Stephen come over to
Speaker 1: l A to my office on the universal lot of
Speaker 1: the time in our little bungalows, and I have them
Speaker 1: in the office and we're going through the meetings and
Speaker 1: at the end they they're like, yes, you know, Greg
Speaker 1: Daniels is great. And then from there I then have
Speaker 1: to get NBC to sign off, and Kevin says, has
Speaker 1: Greg done any live action stuff? You know, he's great
Speaker 1: in animation, but who else he got? And I'm kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, he's who we got. He's really good,
Speaker 1: and Ricky and Stephen like, and so Kevin said, okay,
Speaker 1: let's meet and talk and immediately understood and connected with
Speaker 1: Greg on him adapting it. And then within that meeting
Speaker 1: even it immediately turns to casting because that is such
Speaker 1: a key sitting across from the beloved Kevin Um, that
Speaker 1: is such a he to this show's architecture, which also,
Speaker 1: I mean, telling the story just reminds you how many
Speaker 1: millions of elements have to come together to create any
Speaker 1: thing meaningful or successful. Right? So who who Who's discussed
Speaker 1: in that meeting? Me right, it's all about Brian Baumgartner. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, now, So in in the meeting, we're just
Speaker 1: talking about archetypes and whether we cast famous people or
Speaker 1: unknowns to play with the faux documentary. Did you have
Speaker 1: an opinion about keeping the integrity? I just wanted it right,
Speaker 1: but I knew that the characters and who we cast
Speaker 1: had to be real and not too pretty. And that
Speaker 1: was another leap of faith from the broadcast network, because
Speaker 1: everything at the time was friends, right, everybody looked a
Speaker 1: certain way. It was not just friends. It was friends
Speaker 1: and bay Watch. It was like it was friends and
Speaker 1: it was friends and bathing suits. That was like, that
Speaker 1: was the landscape of TV be in that moment and
Speaker 1: heading on a town where spiral of beauty and superficiality
Speaker 1: at that time, and so talking about those actors, we
Speaker 1: immediately brought on Alison Jones to be our casting partner.
Speaker 1: We loved what she had done. And Judd Apatao and
Speaker 1: his world and model was kind of the one other
Speaker 1: framework we were looking at as we were building out
Speaker 1: the show, and the actors he was casting and the
Speaker 1: stories he was writing and the comedy he was creating
Speaker 1: had a similar energy and feel and a sense of discovery.
Speaker 1: The other thing that we talked about with Kevin and
Speaker 1: that Greg agreed with me on is one of the
Speaker 1: things that television used to do incredibly well and still
Speaker 1: does do, but less people give it the opportunity to
Speaker 1: is create stars. It's a place you have someone in
Speaker 1: your living room or in your bedroom, and you're watching
Speaker 1: and connecting with them every week, and you can fall
Speaker 1: in love with them and in a way you want
Speaker 1: to have discovered them. It's not just a movie idol
Speaker 1: coming into your kitchen. There's like this sense of ownership.
Speaker 1: I see it when I walk around with you. Obviously
Speaker 1: your characters beloved, Brian, but you know, the way people
Speaker 1: treat a television star who's kind of grown up with
Speaker 1: them is so familial, totally and natural. So that was
Speaker 1: part of what also was the pitch to the office,
Speaker 1: like we can create those stars here, right because it's
Speaker 1: it is different than, you know, than film stars, because
Speaker 1: people are watching you in their bedrooms. They're watching you,
Speaker 1: they're they're not high on a huge billboard. Absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: what do you remember about the casting? So so we
Speaker 1: brought on Alison Jones and we opened up in our bungalow,
Speaker 1: turned our conference room into a casting room, and we
Speaker 1: began that process. Our immediate shortlist for the actor lad
Speaker 1: and lobby by him was Bob oden Kirk to play
Speaker 1: the Michael Scott character. And we were into him for it.
Speaker 1: It was a real thing, but we weren't fully there.
Speaker 1: And then we started casting. We and we found started
Speaker 1: collecting talent. Krasinski. We found it on a tape out
Speaker 1: of New York. I think he had literally just graduated
Speaker 1: Brown and characters like yours and your arrival into the show,
Speaker 1: and Fullness and Leslie and you know, all these wonderful
Speaker 1: character actors, Craig Robinson, you know, just all these brilliant people.
Speaker 1: And obviously there's Jenna Fisher. Jenna had such a accessible
Speaker 1: sweetness and sadness to her. And I think of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how old she was at
Speaker 1: the time or John, but they felt like children, you know,
Speaker 1: they felt like kids. I was a kid, but they
Speaker 1: were younger than me. I mean I was only thirty
Speaker 1: at the time and they must have been twenty, you know,
Speaker 1: so it was like, really you really felt all this
Speaker 1: innocence and warmth and life coming through them. And then
Speaker 1: obviously we all grew up together. Okay, so we we
Speaker 1: still don't have We still don't have Michael Scott. I
Speaker 1: am panicking and I get a call from Stacy Snyder,
Speaker 1: who was head of Universal Pictures at the time. And
Speaker 1: Stacy calls me up on the lot and says, Ben,
Speaker 1: I love the Office and she always would talk to
Speaker 1: me about it. It's so brilliant, it's so awesome. And
Speaker 1: she said that she absolutely loved it. And she had
Speaker 1: an idea for me. What about Steve Carrell four the lead?
Speaker 1: And she said, have you seen Bruce Almighty? Watch him
Speaker 1: be the anchor in and do this fifteen minute thing
Speaker 1: during the show. It is the most brilliant comedic tour
Speaker 1: diforce I've seen. And we're developing a movie for him,
Speaker 1: forty year old virgin and I think he's going to
Speaker 1: be a major star. I had seen Bruce Almighty, it
Speaker 1: was great. I knew exactly what she was talking about.
Speaker 1: So I start to educate Greg and Greg goes, yes,
Speaker 1: I know Steve Carell. He's on TV, he's got he's
Speaker 1: got a series Come to Papa, which he was like
Speaker 1: the fourth lead of a short lived NBC sitcom. And
Speaker 1: I call Kevin Riley and I'm like, you've got this
Speaker 1: guy in your show, But he has to be our guy,
Speaker 1: and he goes, you didn't hear from me, but I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm to Papa will come back. But I
Speaker 1: can't tell anyone. So he told you that at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he basically let me know, but no one else kind
Speaker 1: of knew. It was only like Kevin and I who knew.
Speaker 1: And it was very stressful, unbelievable. So how did you
Speaker 1: decide on Ken Kappas? So Ken forget who recommended him
Speaker 1: to us, But he had done the Bernie Bernie Mac
Speaker 1: show and in the Middle. He had a good reputation
Speaker 1: and Malcolm in the Middle had a lot of the
Speaker 1: energy stylistically we were going forward, but I still was
Speaker 1: worried that we didn't have enough of the reality show
Speaker 1: architecture and how we were going to produce it. And
Speaker 1: so I introduced Greg to Randall Einhorn because Randall he
Speaker 1: had come out of Mark Burnett's camp, and I had
Speaker 1: hired him for other shows or worked with him on
Speaker 1: on other reality shows, and I knew we needed somebody
Speaker 1: from that world stylistically to shoot in that way, but
Speaker 1: also so that we wouldn't set everything up as slowly
Speaker 1: as traditional scripted comedy was produced, and Randal ended up
Speaker 1: staying with us for five years. Five years, but he
Speaker 1: helped four jar style and it was an essential element.
Speaker 1: So putting together Greg Daniels, can co office, Randoline Horn,
Speaker 1: getting bad cast together, and now we got to shoot
Speaker 1: a pilot. How much of the pilot were you around?
Speaker 1: I was around for the whole pilot, right. What do
Speaker 1: you any anything specifically you remember about the shooting of
Speaker 1: that Once the team was a ssembled, I remember finding
Speaker 1: elements of it really funny and believing wholeheartedly in the cast.
Speaker 1: I think the storyline we chose ended up being not
Speaker 1: necessarily the best one to set it up. All I remember, Visavi.
Speaker 1: The decision to go with the underlying pilot script is
Speaker 1: we had spent so much time with Ricky and Stephen,
Speaker 1: and had studied with them in the UK at the
Speaker 1: Groucho Club for two days. Because I remember us going
Speaker 1: over and and spending time with them as they downloaded
Speaker 1: this about all things British Office. We not only fell
Speaker 1: in love with them, we fell in love with the
Speaker 1: British show. So I think we thought it's brilliant. Let's
Speaker 1: stick with that brilliance, and that was our initial feeling
Speaker 1: was to respect the underlying almost too much and not
Speaker 1: allow our ability to breathe the air into it we
Speaker 1: needed to do for the amount con adaptation maybe, but
Speaker 1: I think ultimately every pilot has its problems, right because
Speaker 1: you're trying to set up so much. But what that
Speaker 1: pilot did was set up that a documentary crew is
Speaker 1: coming in to film the employees at this paper company,
Speaker 1: and ultimately, in order to start there and to end
Speaker 1: where we did with the documentary coming out and everybody
Speaker 1: seeing themselves on camera having been followed for nine years,
Speaker 1: it had to start there. Now. How it was written
Speaker 1: or if it, you know, directly translated from from the
Speaker 1: British version, I don't know, but don't you think that's important.
Speaker 1: I like a set up. I think cinematically most movies
Speaker 1: you get the bill to get to the finale. In
Speaker 1: television there's always a debate do you enter a series
Speaker 1: midswing or do you started off with a inception story?
Speaker 1: And so I agree with you in that setup, but
Speaker 1: I feel like we could have open in a little
Speaker 1: bit more of what is specific to Scranton in America
Speaker 1: and to those characters. If you end up discovering what
Speaker 1: the actors enjoy play too, and become as you know
Speaker 1: them over nine years and two d plus episodes, and
Speaker 1: so the writing becomes easier and better, and the performances
Speaker 1: become more in tune and character based, and that takes time,
Speaker 1: and it's part of what's great about the new wave
Speaker 1: of television is the straight two series and putting them
Speaker 1: all out so that they have a chance to breathe
Speaker 1: and be discovered. At that time, you didn't have that luxury.
Speaker 1: This was a day and time when the heads of
Speaker 1: the networks read the ratings at like four in the
Speaker 1: morning of what happened the night before, and I had
Speaker 1: a phone number in my phone as an actor, and
Speaker 1: I would give the weekly reports on Friday morning at
Speaker 1: like eight am. I would be in the makeup trailer
Speaker 1: going okay, four point seven last night, guys, And that
Speaker 1: put this blah blah blah exactly exactly that process, and
Speaker 1: that was reactive programming. Decisions were definitely fear invoking. And
Speaker 1: then we launched the show. When we finally got a
Speaker 1: series picked up off the pilot, it was for five
Speaker 1: more episodes. It's crazy what we got a six episode
Speaker 1: run that didn't happen that is total We're only doing
Speaker 1: this because you're torturing us to do it. That is
Speaker 1: not we We wholeheartedly believe in your show. But they
Speaker 1: then put us on after the Apprentice, which was very strange.
Speaker 1: At the time. We aired later than normal because they
Speaker 1: thought the Apprentice, set in a workplace environment, was like
Speaker 1: the right match for the show. Did you agree. I
Speaker 1: like that the Apprentice had a larger circulation of audience,
Speaker 1: and The Apprentice, actually, like all of NBC shows, had
Speaker 1: a slightly higher concentration of urban dwelling fans. It was
Speaker 1: always the history of NBC versus like the history of CBS,
Speaker 1: which had been traditionally a little more role, which is
Speaker 1: probably why you got Dukes of Hazzard on one and
Speaker 1: Hell Street Blues on the other, which only reinforced it.
Speaker 1: But I kind of thought The Apprentice maybe was a
Speaker 1: good leading because there wasn't a lot else on the
Speaker 1: network to draw from. So we launched out of that
Speaker 1: and we did well in the beginning, but then we
Speaker 1: started to go down every week for the whole six
Speaker 1: episode run. Okay, so going back a little bit, but
Speaker 1: we shoot the pilot. You know, what was going on
Speaker 1: behind the scenes from your perspective and dealing with a
Speaker 1: network to try to get a pick up for the show. Well,
Speaker 1: I I was doing everything I could to get it
Speaker 1: picked up, and I was begging, borrowing, and stealing and
Speaker 1: literally walking the hallways of NBC cajoling any executive there
Speaker 1: to support the show. And I'm getting resistance. I'm getting
Speaker 1: it's a small show, it's a quirky show, attested horribly,
Speaker 1: and I'm able to get some creative help. I work
Speaker 1: with a guy named Bill Carter who's at the New
Speaker 1: York Times, and Bill and I had grown to know
Speaker 1: each other and he had featured me in a couple
Speaker 1: other spots, and he was a fan of the office
Speaker 1: and was aware very early on that I was working
Speaker 1: on it, and I was personally excited about it, and
Speaker 1: I knew he liked it, and so he became somebody
Speaker 1: inside the press corps who was willing to champion it.
Speaker 1: And that became a valuable asset for us as we
Speaker 1: went about trying to get this quirky comedy, this unique
Speaker 1: peace picked up. So how did you find out that
Speaker 1: NBC was going to order more show? So I get
Speaker 1: an invitation from my friend David Bennie off the co
Speaker 1: creator Game of Thrones George Martin and Dan Ice, and
Speaker 1: he has written Troy, the Brad Pitt starring film Eric Bannah.
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt and Troy is going to premiere at the
Speaker 1: can Film Festival, and would I want to be his
Speaker 1: guest because his wife, now Amanda Pete girlfriend I believe
Speaker 1: at the time maybe you have girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 1: is unable to attend with him. And I immediately say,
Speaker 1: of course, and I am so excited about it. And
Speaker 1: then he adds another element, which is and then from
Speaker 1: there we're going to go to the premier in Tokyo,
Speaker 1: where I've never been. After we pick up Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: in Amsterdam where he's shooting one of the first Oceans movies.
Speaker 1: So we're on this giant plane with Eric Banna and
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt and Wolfgang Peterson and Dave and I are
Speaker 1: just like watching Brad sleep like we're not even you know,
Speaker 1: just like looking to breathe. You know, we're totally movie
Speaker 1: star stupid ide And I remember we land in Siberia.
Speaker 1: You cannot make this up. Land in Siberia. I remember
Speaker 1: getting off the plane and just a layover up to
Speaker 1: get gas because it's such a long trip from Amsterdam
Speaker 1: to Tokyo. And as we get off, I'm literally looking
Speaker 1: at a guy with a collection a cough in a
Speaker 1: in a fur hat and a red star on it.
Speaker 1: And in Mother's Siberia and my phone works, and I'm
Speaker 1: checking in and I'm looking down and I have like
Speaker 1: a bazillion messages and I reached them and they say
Speaker 1: we will pick up the show, but we're only picking
Speaker 1: up five more. Wow. And we got our five episodes
Speaker 1: pick up on top of the one episode we'd already
Speaker 1: made for you know, probably the lowest price in the
Speaker 1: in that time, in the history of modern TV. That's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: One other thing you spoke earlier about you felt the
Speaker 1: show was transformative, you know, to share with you my
Speaker 1: experience of shooting the second episode we ever did, Diversity Day,
Speaker 1: and being in that room and saying, if America gives
Speaker 1: this show a chance, we could do something really special. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now we You're absolutely right in Diversity Day is still
Speaker 1: one of my favorite episodes of TV. Let alone in
Speaker 1: the office and is so funny and dangerous and different
Speaker 1: in real and in a non PC way. It was
Speaker 1: just laugh out loud funny. It was undeniable exactly. And
Speaker 1: that's you know, all of the sort of issue episodes
Speaker 1: where we tackle healthcare in a culture of no gay
Speaker 1: marriage and don't ask, don't tell, we do gay witch
Speaker 1: hunt Like I'm just so incredibly proud of that legacy
Speaker 1: for our show. Oh absolutely. And the smartest guy in
Speaker 1: the office ran the house. And I always loved that
Speaker 1: dynamic of Darryl and Michael because you knew Darryl should
Speaker 1: be running that office if he wanted to. And it
Speaker 1: was so important to me to have that in the
Speaker 1: show because that's America. And I feel like the show,
Speaker 1: through comedy, really pushed all of that around. And I
Speaker 1: have cared super deeply about all of that my entire
Speaker 1: life as the son of a gay woman and grandson
Speaker 1: of a civil rights activist and union organizer, specifically the
Speaker 1: Pullman Porters Union. A Philip Randolph and my grandfather, Max
Speaker 1: Nelson built up the Pullman Porters Union, the first black
Speaker 1: labor union in it in America, and we looked at
Speaker 1: Archie Bunker as the parallel, and we're informed by Archie
Speaker 1: Bunker's bad behavior and all of the family and what
Speaker 1: it did to open up doors for people like George
Speaker 1: Jefferson in television land and that meat had relationship and
Speaker 1: everything that was within that we were now doing in
Speaker 1: the workplace. That's amazing. So we've talked about the pilot.
Speaker 1: We finished season one, we finished a whopping six episodes,
Speaker 1: and then we wait for the upfront. What did you
Speaker 1: think about our chances to be picked up? I was
Speaker 1: incredibly hopeful and obviously passionate about the prospects of the show,
Speaker 1: but it was still not by any means a sure thing.
Speaker 1: And if anything, there was a sense among the senior
Speaker 1: management and a lot of the more tradition sationalists that
Speaker 1: jeff no, but just in general like it's it was
Speaker 1: more institutional rejection, like because there were people in the
Speaker 1: marketing department, the promo department, like they didn't understand it.
Speaker 1: How do we market it? How do we promo it?
Speaker 1: How do we sell is it? Is it a documentary?
Speaker 1: Is it a reality show? And no one was a star.
Speaker 1: There was no star at that point, so there were
Speaker 1: a lot of challenges to its second season happening. And
Speaker 1: were you having to fight, like were you going into
Speaker 1: NBC and and fighting to get that second season or
Speaker 1: was it more you were just waiting to see what happened.
Speaker 1: There was a beyond fight. And I do remember going
Speaker 1: into Jeff's office with the nod Day brothers, who we're
Speaker 1: going to be making the nine eleven documentary, and I
Speaker 1: used that meeting to also push for the office. And
Speaker 1: I remember in the Nowadays can tell You we had
Speaker 1: a good meeting, and then I brought up that they
Speaker 1: had to pick up the show, like it had to happen.
Speaker 1: It was too good. They please pick up the second season.
Speaker 1: You have to do this, and from that I was
Speaker 1: thrown out of his office. But I remember being called
Speaker 1: and I looked down on my phone and I get
Speaker 1: a phone call and says, we will pick up not
Speaker 1: twenty two episodes for next season. We're only picking up
Speaker 1: six and you have to make it for half the price.
Speaker 1: And I needed everyone to take less money on these episodes.
Speaker 1: And so I remember my first call was to Ricky
Speaker 1: and Stephen because I thought they would say fuck you,
Speaker 1: like I you know, we like. But I was like,
Speaker 1: we have a chance to do this, and everyone said yes. Wow.
Speaker 1: Now when did you make the deal with Apple to
Speaker 1: get the show on iTunes? The Apple It was made
Speaker 1: by NBC right at the beginning of Apple with Eddie
Speaker 1: Q and the team and Apple, and they came to
Speaker 1: us about it and we just said, yes, please. Well,
Speaker 1: we didn't expect would be that Apple would then educate
Speaker 1: a whole new audience but also market to us. They
Speaker 1: got behind the show. They kind of treated it as
Speaker 1: their own and they also then began rolling out later
Speaker 1: their own stores, and we were the poster set. For music,
Speaker 1: it was YouTube, and for entertainment video it was The Office.
Speaker 1: I remember walking into Apple stores and seeing the Office
Speaker 1: on billboards before really we were a big hit and
Speaker 1: and going like, wow, this is awesome. Apple treated us
Speaker 1: better than our network and maybe better than we deserved
Speaker 1: at that moment, but they saw something in the show too.
Speaker 1: Apple totally embraced the show and they loved it, and
Speaker 1: Eddie Q loved the show. You know, they actually liked
Speaker 1: the show, and we did a trade out with Apple.
Speaker 1: We did a whole episode, the Christmas episode, which is
Speaker 1: one of the great episodes of the Office and one
Speaker 1: of my favorite favorite episodes, and the trading of the
Speaker 1: iPod it was incredible and that was a huge thing
Speaker 1: for them, and they didn't pay for it, but it
Speaker 1: was like the connectivity, and then they ended up giving
Speaker 1: us all the computers and kind of investing in the
Speaker 1: show as well as an advertiser and supporter. And then
Speaker 1: they did the iTunes thing, so they were always leaning
Speaker 1: in and so it really had that fun give and take.
Speaker 1: So then the end of season two, moving into season three,
Speaker 1: we're nominated for a slew of Emmy's and when the
Speaker 1: Best Comedy Emmy, what what did that? What did that
Speaker 1: mean for you and your feelings about what the show
Speaker 1: could be from the from the beginning, it was the greatest.
Speaker 1: It truly was, and the Emmys at that time were
Speaker 1: even bigger than they are now. And it was just
Speaker 1: an amazing, amazing night. It was a celebration for all
Speaker 1: of us and everyone involved. We were so joyous, we
Speaker 1: were so young, we were so happy, and it was
Speaker 1: a dream come true on every level. I remember holding
Speaker 1: that trophy on that stage and I don't think I
Speaker 1: let go of it for the entire night. And now
Speaker 1: I would think, oh, it's not it's so material in
Speaker 1: a way, but at the time it just was so
Speaker 1: we made it, Like mom, we made it. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: The business model of TV you talked about because you
Speaker 1: believed in the show, doing the show for less and
Speaker 1: trying to find a way. How did that change? How
Speaker 1: did the business change? Once the show became successful, it
Speaker 1: became a darling of the network and important, and through
Speaker 1: that not beyond important. It was still not at the
Speaker 1: level of other hits in the history of broadcast comedy.
Speaker 1: Its ratings were good, but they wasn't the number one
Speaker 1: show on TV ever, But there was really nothing they
Speaker 1: wouldn't do to support it. And Universal also was building
Speaker 1: a relationship on the movie side with Krell and other
Speaker 1: actors in the series, and they worked with us to
Speaker 1: accommodate everyone's schedules, their desires to make movies and how
Speaker 1: that would impact budget and where they would find the
Speaker 1: money for the show. But the show in and of
Speaker 1: itself never spiraled out of control costwise. It was a
Speaker 1: very contained show in its invention. We were never going
Speaker 1: to blow up a building. What we did do is
Speaker 1: we opened up our storytelling and we started to do
Speaker 1: We started to exit the building a lot more. Right,
Speaker 1: What was the logic behind doing the hour long episodes?
Speaker 1: Why were we doing those? Well? The show had a
Speaker 1: cinematic story telling feel, if not look, which was based on,
Speaker 1: you know, a real narrative satisfaction in every episode, and
Speaker 1: within that we could use more time to tell more story.
Speaker 1: And we also had so many characters who could be
Speaker 1: utilized across that length of time. But I think the
Speaker 1: main reason was we were the number one show in
Speaker 1: the network, and if they could have had nineteen hours
Speaker 1: of it, they would have had nineteen hours of it,
Speaker 1: let alone one hour of it. And clearly the show
Speaker 1: uniquely was both drama and comedy. It was part soap opera,
Speaker 1: you know, workplace soap opera with all these characters, part
Speaker 1: drama with the emotional depth, and then obvious celerity and comedy.
Speaker 1: So in May of two thousand seven, year named co
Speaker 1: chairman of NBC, Why why did you take that job?
Speaker 1: I thought it would be a fantasy to run a
Speaker 1: network as it had been five years earlier when my mentor,
Speaker 1: Brandon Tartakoff had had the job, and I really did
Speaker 1: see where the business was going, and believe I knew
Speaker 1: how to turn this ship for the future, because it
Speaker 1: was obvious to me that the future was coming hard
Speaker 1: and fast, and technology was going to enable an absolute
Speaker 1: transformation of how people consumed content. And I was eager
Speaker 1: to lead that transformation. I was rudely awakened to the
Speaker 1: reality that no one wanted to change the status quo
Speaker 1: because have been working so well for so many of
Speaker 1: the people who were part of it, And there was
Speaker 1: real fear in the decisions I was making. What do
Speaker 1: you mean you'll go straight to series and an idea?
Speaker 1: How could you shoot something overseas? How could you do
Speaker 1: a game show here? How could you do shows that
Speaker 1: are multiple days in a row. What was particularly challenging
Speaker 1: was having to disconnect from the Office, my beloved show
Speaker 1: and The Biggest Loser, my other creation on the network
Speaker 1: at the time, and not be able to connect in
Speaker 1: this as deeply as I wanted because of a perceived
Speaker 1: conflict of interest. And I kept saying, those are the
Speaker 1: only reasons I got hired, along with Ugly Betty and Tutors,
Speaker 1: and how I was able to bring them in and
Speaker 1: grow the two biggest nights on the air by far.
Speaker 1: We're from the two projects that I had on the network.
Speaker 1: Being chairman of NBC. Was that a dream of yours
Speaker 1: from your childhood? Yeah? I always had wanted to run
Speaker 1: NBC specifically, it was a network I had grown up
Speaker 1: watching I love Cheers, Hill Street, Blues st Elsewhere. I
Speaker 1: love the idea of Dirty Rock. I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: I would have to basically just service the corporate part
Speaker 1: of it, because that was the only way that we
Speaker 1: could keep it moving without real pressure, and it took
Speaker 1: me away from the part I love, which was the
Speaker 1: creative part. But we I was still able to green
Speaker 1: light parks and recreation and community and all these wonderful shows,
Speaker 1: and do as good at work as I could, and
Speaker 1: break down walls like make deals with windows with direct TV,
Speaker 1: and do the straight to series and bring an advertise,
Speaker 1: do everything needed to keep it profitable and running, but
Speaker 1: without the momentum of being able to choose all my
Speaker 1: own content because the strike happened, so I couldn't get
Speaker 1: any development going, which was such a bummer because that's
Speaker 1: the only fun part of running that job. And so
Speaker 1: then you're in that job and not even able to
Speaker 1: do anything truly creatively lead. Everything has to be kind
Speaker 1: of engineered, and so it takes a lot of the
Speaker 1: fun way and all of that together, plus the entrenchment
Speaker 1: at the time of the rest of the system. I
Speaker 1: learned in that moment it's not always best to be
Speaker 1: first at doing something. You might want to wait for
Speaker 1: someone else to do it, and then you can do
Speaker 1: it second and learn or have the constituents or the
Speaker 1: entrenched be a little more tenderized for the moment. Right,
Speaker 1: Um Parks and Rock You Green Let in April two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. Now, it was this show from Greg and
Speaker 1: Mike Sure was originally planned to be a spin off, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: we were talking about having Amy Poehler and potentially her
Speaker 1: husband at the time will our Net be seeded into
Speaker 1: the show to do a family like spinoff, and then
Speaker 1: Mike Shure came up with the dig out of that,
Speaker 1: which was set in that world of small town politics.
Speaker 1: And I had made an overall deal with Amy Poehler,
Speaker 1: who I was pursuing to be part of the office originally,
Speaker 1: but then she leaned in and went into that and
Speaker 1: Greg helped realize it and partner with it with Mike
Speaker 1: got it. Were you concerned about Greg that he was
Speaker 1: going to be too split? Were you concerned about that?
Speaker 1: I felt like Greg had built a bench on the
Speaker 1: office that included people like Mike Sure who wanted to
Speaker 1: go create their own shows and to keep connected to
Speaker 1: that and at the time running the network to keep
Speaker 1: those talented people connected to the network. It was really
Speaker 1: good and valuable. And I wish we could have converted
Speaker 1: the Office like Dick Wolfe converted Law and Order and
Speaker 1: been the whole night of comedy, because I do think
Speaker 1: the Office is like a universe of characters and style
Speaker 1: choices that can map out many more narratives. Right, did
Speaker 1: you have anything specifically to do with Jen Silata and
Speaker 1: Paul Lieberstein, Paul and Jen and everyone that we had hired,
Speaker 1: But Greg had then really nurtured and mentored on the job.
Speaker 1: Even though they were accomplished as they arrived, they were
Speaker 1: trained by Greg in Gregg's methodology and process. And our editors,
Speaker 1: who were such an important part of that show, also
Speaker 1: brought a lot of dexterity, and you know, became directors
Speaker 1: of episodes, and cameraman became directors, and actors became directors,
Speaker 1: and writers became actors, and so you had this great
Speaker 1: matrix of people who knew how to do each other's
Speaker 1: jobs and support each other. And to keep the talented
Speaker 1: people connected to you, you have to either promote them
Speaker 1: or give them more responsibility, or they go do something else,
Speaker 1: or maybe they'll go do something else with you if
Speaker 1: it makes sense. So that's all part of it, right.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like anything changed with Paul and Jen
Speaker 1: leading the show or did you feel like it kept operating?
Speaker 1: You know, with Greg's everything about the show changed when
Speaker 1: Steve Correll left the show. When Steve left, that was
Speaker 1: the seismic shift in its progression. And I think the
Speaker 1: early energy of the show was just so fresh and
Speaker 1: ridiculous that it has to me some of the highest
Speaker 1: comedic hurdles and delivery and funny because then you learn
Speaker 1: to actually know these characters are going to go as
Speaker 1: far as they went in the beginning UM, and then
Speaker 1: it becomes more soap opera and familial, but something different,
Speaker 1: And I think Jen and Paul loved the characters and
Speaker 1: knew that. I feel like with UM Steve's departure though,
Speaker 1: there was just less son in the room. When did
Speaker 1: you find out he was leaving? I was shocked that
Speaker 1: they couldn't work it out. And when I the story
Speaker 1: of how the network went about its process with him
Speaker 1: after the fact, it made me so depressed how they
Speaker 1: had kind of blown something that they could have saved.
Speaker 1: And I think in that moment. Also, Greg not being
Speaker 1: there to drive that also meant that we would lose Steve. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: did you have any doubt that the show could go
Speaker 1: forward without him? I knew the show could continue. I
Speaker 1: think it didn't own its best stride and lost steam.
Speaker 1: But had we used it to force even further reinvention
Speaker 1: or different casting choices, I don't think we did anyone
Speaker 1: a favor by bringing in James Spader. Neither James nor
Speaker 1: the show. Um. And he's so talented and clearly had
Speaker 1: the blacklist one second later, but that feels custom made
Speaker 1: for him. You know, the way he played that character
Speaker 1: on our show didn't breathe as well and didn't work
Speaker 1: as well in our format. Right, What did getting to
Speaker 1: hundred episodes signify to you? It was validating to reach
Speaker 1: that milestone, but when you're in youth, you don't think
Speaker 1: of things that way. It's interesting to reflect on that
Speaker 1: number today and appreciated as an accomplishment, But I'm very
Speaker 1: much today and tomorrow, And so while I was in it,
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about it's hundredth episode. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about its next, the next hundred more. You left NBC
Speaker 1: shortly after that in the summer of two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: What was the context of you leaving? I just knew
Speaker 1: I didn't want to remain at NBC anymore. It wasn't
Speaker 1: my cup of tea to use our our britts expression.
Speaker 1: I didn't enjoy being part of a organization was just
Speaker 1: purely focused financially at that time, and needing to get
Speaker 1: so much money out of our part of the business
Speaker 1: to support other parts of the business like ge capital.
Speaker 1: We also, when I was running NBC had come into
Speaker 1: the greatest recession of our lives. And that recession, you know,
Speaker 1: cause General Electric to panic and freeze and caused every
Speaker 1: advertiser to stop spending and caused us to not get
Speaker 1: to make as many episodes of shows and other projects
Speaker 1: at the time. Also, so I was starting to think, Oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, how much is out of my control in
Speaker 1: this job at NBC with five zillion employees and General
Speaker 1: Electric and all of these elements attacking and driving me
Speaker 1: crazy into daily places. And then the top grass just
Speaker 1: wants you to, you know, save as much money as possible,
Speaker 1: and the writers are striking and a war with you,
Speaker 1: and none of it is in your control or where
Speaker 1: your choices and so I knew I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it anymore. And so I remember quitting and being
Speaker 1: just so excited to quit and uh and telling Jeff Sucker,
Speaker 1: I just don't have a stomach ache when I'm in here.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to be here, you know,
Speaker 1: And I said, I'll help you manage it, but you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta. I can't be here anymore. And
Speaker 1: I've delivered you a lot. Right um season nine, did
Speaker 1: you think that it was time for the office to end?
Speaker 1: I felt like people were losing some steam and there
Speaker 1: was a little bit of the first time a little
Speaker 1: friction that was this season eight or season not like
Speaker 1: the lead up the lead up to season nine, and
Speaker 1: I think there was just like a collective kind of
Speaker 1: lack of focus and so it all just kind of
Speaker 1: it didn't there's no friction point. It just kind of
Speaker 1: was starting to not have the momentum that it had previously.
Speaker 1: And then the way to almost reignite that moment and
Speaker 1: was around its coming to an end, and that was
Speaker 1: like a way to reinvent and re light it because
Speaker 1: it gave everybody purpose. Well my understanding, Greg essentially confirmed
Speaker 1: this that the documentary is revealed and we see the
Speaker 1: characters responding to that um that from there there was
Speaker 1: there was no way to go back. Yes, we broke
Speaker 1: the wall, and he had planned to break the wall,
Speaker 1: and then he had planned to finally blow the wall
Speaker 1: up and pull back, and that projection became the inevitable result. Right.
Speaker 1: Do you remember being on set the last day? I
Speaker 1: remember being on set at the end and just thinking,
Speaker 1: why wasn't I on set more? What an idiot to
Speaker 1: have not been here and present, to have enjoyed this
Speaker 1: ride and instead to pursue unfulfilled dreams of network domination
Speaker 1: and ambition. I could have been here a part of
Speaker 1: the greatest comedy in history, but the coolest people around,
Speaker 1: and I'm like an absentee landlord coming to visit. What
Speaker 1: are you most proud of? I'm so proud of the
Speaker 1: show's natural diversity and it's success with so many different groups,
Speaker 1: and its ability to tell stories that kind of celebrated
Speaker 1: the true America, which is what we see in real workplaces,
Speaker 1: which is everyone represented. And I love that about the
Speaker 1: show that it did in the truthful, honest way through comedy,
Speaker 1: and that made me so happy about it. And I
Speaker 1: always returned to the fact, as wistful as I am
Speaker 1: talking about the soap opera of the show, it was
Speaker 1: so fucking funny. The Office is genuinely laugh out loud funny,
Speaker 1: and it is immediate, serious, high pitched comedy. It is
Speaker 1: a lot of people sitting on an airplane giggling at
Speaker 1: the same time, watching their own monitors. Why do you think,
Speaker 1: why is The Office right now, five years plus after
Speaker 1: we've shot our last shot, Why is it the most
Speaker 1: watch show on television right now? I think that The
Speaker 1: Office is so textured and deep, has so many characters
Speaker 1: who appealed to so many different people because those characters
Speaker 1: represent so many different people, and it literally had a
Speaker 1: larger ensemble. There were more actors and more characters for
Speaker 1: people to connect with. But it also meant there was
Speaker 1: more depth of story and more stories that could be
Speaker 1: told because you had a richer ensemble to service and
Speaker 1: who could service the show. And I think that people
Speaker 1: kind of you know, understand that that world so well
Speaker 1: that it makes them really connect to it and they're
Speaker 1: living it in their own way, and through this they
Speaker 1: can find escape and comedy and joy. There's something anachronistic too,
Speaker 1: a warmer time, and I missed that time. And it
Speaker 1: must be one of the reasons our show is so
Speaker 1: resonant with the new generation, because they are in search
Speaker 1: of this kind of family and this kind of warmth
Speaker 1: and truth in a world that's just filled with bad
Speaker 1: noise and bad news. But the main reason is because
Speaker 1: of its quality. And you have to have now seen
Speaker 1: it or watched or discovered it because someone is going
Speaker 1: to bring it up, mention it, wear a T shirt,
Speaker 1: send you a gift, and you have to now be
Speaker 1: part of it. You can no longer hide well. Everybody
Speaker 1: who worked on it owes you tremendous thanks. You're the
Speaker 1: person respond posible for bringing this to the United States,
Speaker 1: and basically everybody who was involved with it owes you
Speaker 1: so much for that. What are you thankful for? The
Speaker 1: Office is the greatest gift, and I am so happy
Speaker 1: I was one of its principles and architects and got
Speaker 1: to work with such fine people, but got to connect
Speaker 1: with a permanent piece of culture. And I'm excited that
Speaker 1: I have something I can share with my son and
Speaker 1: daughter without even knowing where they end up. I know
Speaker 1: they're going to like that show, and it brings me
Speaker 1: great joy and brings me some calm to know that
Speaker 1: that has been entered into the book. Awesome, there you go.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks Buddy, love you great work. God you
Speaker 1: got me all right, Bud, love you so much. I
Speaker 1: thank you. There you have it. The man, the myth,
Speaker 1: the legend, Ben Silverman, Ben, what can I say? I
Speaker 1: appreciate you so much. I cannot even imagine how different
Speaker 1: my life would be if you had not taken that
Speaker 1: trip to London, flipped onto the Office and stalked Ricky
Speaker 1: Gervais to a Starbucks all those years ago. So thank you,
Speaker 1: and speaking of all of those years ago, Tomorrow is
Speaker 1: a very special anniversary for the Office. It's the Office
Speaker 1: is sweet sixteen, Yes sixteen, glorious years since our very
Speaker 1: first episode premiere. So as an anniversary gift to you,
Speaker 1: our listeners, we have we have a special episode with
Speaker 1: some exciting guests and much much more. So come on
Speaker 1: back tomorrow and listen to our sweet sixteen anniversary episode.
Speaker 1: As always, thank you for joining me and have a
Speaker 1: great day. The Office. Deep Dive is hosted and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Lang
Speaker 1: Lee Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer, our associate producer
Speaker 1: is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia.
Speaker 1: My main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our
Speaker 1: theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend
Speaker 1: Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by Seth o'landski