Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Greg Daniels. I was the showrunner of the Office.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, it's me. That's right, your trusty host Brian
Speaker 1: baum Gartner, and you are listening to the Office Deep Dive.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me once again today. I am
Speaker 1: very pleased to bring you part two of three of
Speaker 1: my conversation with Greg Daniels. Now, think of this as
Speaker 1: the second act of a three act play. If Greg's
Speaker 1: interview were the Lord of the Rings, and it was
Speaker 1: almost as long as that trilogy, then this would be
Speaker 1: the Two Towers, which my producer has instructed me to
Speaker 1: say is definitively the best one. Anyhow, by now many
Speaker 1: of you know that Greg was the creator and showrunner
Speaker 1: of the Office, and what that means is, in addition
Speaker 1: to doing a bunch of other things, the show runner
Speaker 1: is basically the head of the writer's room, which is
Speaker 1: why I wanted to save this part of Greg's interview
Speaker 1: until now. As the official start of our mini Deep
Speaker 1: Dive on the writing of the Office. I'm very excited
Speaker 1: to kick this series off with Greg talking about all
Speaker 1: of his theories on comedy writing, insights into the writer's
Speaker 1: room itself, and how they came up with so many
Speaker 1: great storylines. Also, towards the end of this episode, we
Speaker 1: have a special cameo appearance by Ben Silverman, our executive
Speaker 1: producer and the guy who initially hired Greg to run
Speaker 1: the show. It was so fun to have them together
Speaker 1: in the studio. A little hectic, but fun. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's always fun and educational to listen to Greg. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, let's dive in with Greg Daniels Bubble
Speaker 1: and Squeak. I love it. Bubble and Squeak on Bubble
Speaker 1: and Squeaker cookie every month, left over from the nut before.
Speaker 1: So Mike talked about that, you talked about a writing
Speaker 1: staff and assembling a writing staff, um and and you
Speaker 1: described it as being like X Men, right, that you
Speaker 1: didn't want writers who would could all write the same. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I called it as as a baseball team. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: not that I'm you know, so much more jockey or anything,
Speaker 1: but the idea that you can't get all pictures, you know, somebody,
Speaker 1: the somebody has to be really good with a story,
Speaker 1: somebody has to be really good with jokes. And you know,
Speaker 1: I always I feel like the story people should be
Speaker 1: in charge. And they talk about shows jumping the shark,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times what I think why they
Speaker 1: jumped the shark is because the original writing staff has
Speaker 1: the more senior people being really good at character and
Speaker 1: story and the younger people being good at jokes. And
Speaker 1: then three years in the senior people have left to
Speaker 1: do their own shows. The younger people are now the
Speaker 1: senior people, and it's all gets really jokey. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so I mean that first, that first staff, The first
Speaker 1: person I hired for anything and the whole show was
Speaker 1: b j and U And you hired him to do
Speaker 1: both immediately. Yes, he was a writer performer higher Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Mindy also, and I saw her do her stage
Speaker 1: show Matt and Ben, and then I read her script
Speaker 1: and I would have met with her off either one
Speaker 1: of them, and the two of them was the great
Speaker 1: combo Paul I had worked with on King of the Hill.
Speaker 1: Who else was that first year, Well there was Mike
Speaker 1: obviously Mike. Yeah, Mike had a lot of similar background
Speaker 1: to me, like he was coming off SML and was intellectual, yes,
Speaker 1: with the big brain and a similar haircut. So I
Speaker 1: definitely we definitely vibed right. Some of the writers talked
Speaker 1: about um both from Lee and Mike. This is how
Speaker 1: they summed it up, so you can respond or disagree
Speaker 1: that Lee and Jean were that they were really into
Speaker 1: or they excelled at the cringe comedy factor. Yes, that
Speaker 1: Mike was more optimistic. Yeah, that Mendy was more absurd
Speaker 1: ist and juicy and juicy. Yes, Mendy is very good
Speaker 1: at finding actual conflict and actual romance between people. She
Speaker 1: was like absurdist but but also juicy. Writer. Um, that
Speaker 1: Paul was very very into Michael's worst instincts. Yeah, Paul's
Speaker 1: really psychological, very already and very into psychic psychology and
Speaker 1: Michael's brain. And that Jen Silata was very tied into Pam.
Speaker 1: That I would disagree with. I don't, God, I don't
Speaker 1: feel she was that. I mean I feel like when
Speaker 1: I think about Jen, I think about Michael stories. I
Speaker 1: think about like the Funeral for the Bird and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and she another person super into the psychology
Speaker 1: of Michael Jens. Jen's fascinating. Jen is like child of
Speaker 1: JPL physicists people, very brainy. Like all of her work
Speaker 1: after the Office is like four remally interesting, Like she
Speaker 1: has a screenplay where every scene is from a different
Speaker 1: year of a guy's life and she's now doing this
Speaker 1: animated show about trees, the protagonists or trees. And you
Speaker 1: know she always like set something really difficult for herself,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna do a movie about all the characters
Speaker 1: are rooted in the same spot. Go but guy, I
Speaker 1: guess he was. Well, it's interesting that you both referenced
Speaker 1: the same episode with Michael and the Bird, and from
Speaker 1: your perspective, it was it was Michael's story, and what
Speaker 1: Mike talked about was that it was Pam facilitating this
Speaker 1: for Michael. That ultimately, yeah, an important moment. So it's
Speaker 1: just funny that I remember, like Jen on the white
Speaker 1: I don't know if Mike reference the white board, but
Speaker 1: the board. Well, okay, so so the writer's offices, right,
Speaker 1: we had we were in the building that played as
Speaker 1: their office building, and Michael's office on the second floor
Speaker 1: was one of the writer's offices, and you know, we
Speaker 1: just dressed the one wall that faced the parking lot
Speaker 1: and then there was a trailer in the parking lot
Speaker 1: behind it where we had the table readings and that
Speaker 1: was like sometimes a room that the writers would go
Speaker 1: to when they had to work something out. And that
Speaker 1: episode was a very um tricky episode because Michael did
Speaker 1: not know what the story was. Michael was in complete
Speaker 1: denial that he was really upset that the guy who
Speaker 1: had his job had died, and nobody cared in the
Speaker 1: office like he didn't, but he wasn't aware that that
Speaker 1: was the story, and he fixated on the bird, and
Speaker 1: nobody knew what the story was until Pam figured it out.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's hard to write that it's unusual because
Speaker 1: a lot of times we would use these talking heads
Speaker 1: to announce what the story was. You know, it would
Speaker 1: be like today's diversity day and you know, guys coming
Speaker 1: in to you know whatever, and um so Jen it
Speaker 1: into that trailer and we came in and it looked
Speaker 1: like she was tracking a serial killer. She had like
Speaker 1: all these lines and you know, diagrams on the white board,
Speaker 1: and it was all about in every moment, what is
Speaker 1: Michael think is happening? What is really happening? Subconsciously, it
Speaker 1: was like a very complex story. But that's that's my
Speaker 1: like most classic gen moment to me, right Well, the
Speaker 1: variety I've been told that this wasn't intentional. You were
Speaker 1: looking for the best people, you were looking for specific matches.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that you did was by
Speaker 1: hiring people with such diverse backgrounds, even in acting. Right,
Speaker 1: So on the writers, you were looking for writers with
Speaker 1: different skills. But on the acting side, you know myself
Speaker 1: and Rain essentially we were straight theater guys and I
Speaker 1: was doing mostly drama. And then you had you know,
Speaker 1: Steve and Angela and Oscar who were like improv guys.
Speaker 1: And how did you get so good? That's the part
Speaker 1: I under said. You also used to do something that
Speaker 1: was so useful. I don't know if I've mentioned this
Speaker 1: to you before, but we would have these scenes and
Speaker 1: you need a button, but you said, You've never said
Speaker 1: this to me before, but I thought, go ahead. I'm
Speaker 1: glad that it was good. Like obviously it was intentional,
Speaker 1: but we would get into these scenes and they'd be
Speaker 1: funny scenes and there was no point to edit, and
Speaker 1: we were like, how do we get out of the scene,
Speaker 1: And then we'd be like, Kevin, Kevin has done something. Yep,
Speaker 1: there he is. I'm very proud of that. I'm very
Speaker 1: danged into the wall on his way out. That's the endpoint. Well,
Speaker 1: and that I mean again, that goes to the ensemble
Speaker 1: that was being created. I mean Randall in the beginning, yes,
Speaker 1: but then certainly as we went on and it was
Speaker 1: way more Matt Sown as the camera guy. He I
Speaker 1: would I would look at him and I would give
Speaker 1: him It was like it was like a quarterback, right
Speaker 1: who who gave a nod to the wide receive were
Speaker 1: like the balls coming your way, like and at the
Speaker 1: end of the scene he would whip that camera around
Speaker 1: because I had something that I was gonna do and
Speaker 1: to try to find something. Well, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for saying that. You saved us so often. And it's
Speaker 1: it's great because you wouldn't know, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I wasn't on set all the time, right, I
Speaker 1: mean the twenty eight episodes, you I had to be
Speaker 1: in the editing room ton of time and with the writers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of times I would miss some
Speaker 1: of the fun on set. And then you know, you'd
Speaker 1: be in the in the depths and the with me
Speaker 1: and you know, Dave in some room in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night and please God, please did Brian do anything?
Speaker 1: And you always saved the day. Oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: so awesome. Um, So, how do you feel like diversity
Speaker 1: Day helped created our version of the show. And was
Speaker 1: it important to you at that time that we look
Speaker 1: at issues of social relevance or again, was it just
Speaker 1: because it was funny? Oh well, you know the first season, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of them. We're great topics. And I remember
Speaker 1: saying to everybody after we wrapped the pilot, I was like,
Speaker 1: I had such a great time doing the pilot and
Speaker 1: I was I remember saying to everybody, if this is
Speaker 1: all we get, I'm happy we did a great job.
Speaker 1: And I remember saying that after the first season. You know,
Speaker 1: I said that pretty much every season for a long time.
Speaker 1: It was it was great fun and in the beginning
Speaker 1: it didn't look like we were going to be on
Speaker 1: for very long, so you you know, you took what
Speaker 1: joy you had. Um. But definitely when we got five
Speaker 1: episodes for season one, I know I had the feeling of, well,
Speaker 1: let's make these five count. You know, let's say what
Speaker 1: we can say with this show. In case this is
Speaker 1: all we get, let's you know, do our best. And
Speaker 1: in adapting it, I felt that all the themes of
Speaker 1: the show, how how Michael would put his foot in
Speaker 1: and everything like when you try and bring that to
Speaker 1: amor race relations is the big thing that he would do.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like our our history of slavery and
Speaker 1: race relations and civil rights and everything. It's just more
Speaker 1: present in American culture. I think there's a few interesting differences. Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, in England, for whatever reason, ambition is looked
Speaker 1: at very poorly. Like how Jim was didn't seem too ambitious.
Speaker 1: That was the way they were signaling the English audience
Speaker 1: that he was super likable. But it's different in America,
Speaker 1: and so like I think a lot of times people
Speaker 1: are more like, well, if he doesn't like a job,
Speaker 1: why doesn't he Why does any moved together right now?
Speaker 1: And so interesting. Yeah, so that was something that that
Speaker 1: we had to adjust and stuff. But Diversity Day was
Speaker 1: really big. It was the first time we were like
Speaker 1: on our own, we're not looking at any British scripts.
Speaker 1: And I really wanted to set up the characters properly,
Speaker 1: and since it seemed like of all topics and I
Speaker 1: used this term er story you are I don't know
Speaker 1: where it comes from. It kind of means like the
Speaker 1: root story, like the most representative one, and like for
Speaker 1: me on King of the Hill, it was um Hank's
Speaker 1: unmentionable problem if you if you know that one where
Speaker 1: he's constipated and he has to go in and have
Speaker 1: a It seemed like everything that Hank was the fact
Speaker 1: that people were talking about his constipation would be the
Speaker 1: worst of him, you know, And so the Diversity Day
Speaker 1: was kind of like an attempt to find that that
Speaker 1: super representative story of like how is Michael going to
Speaker 1: step in at the worst. And we worked out a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting things with Diversity Day because I'm the
Speaker 1: first time that it was broken. It was in chronological order,
Speaker 1: and it took place, I believe over a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and then we were like, it doesn't feel right. It
Speaker 1: doesn't feel right, you know, it feels more docu to
Speaker 1: be in one day. So we kind of had this
Speaker 1: flashback aspect to it where we we started the story
Speaker 1: on it's the today's Diversity Day and a guy is
Speaker 1: coming to train us, and then we found out, oh,
Speaker 1: they're training because a couple of days ago you did
Speaker 1: this day. We kind of flashed it back, and then
Speaker 1: with the Pam and Jim of it, I had said
Speaker 1: to b J, here's what I want something like this,
Speaker 1: something like he has a terrible day, and they're in
Speaker 1: this horrible, boring meeting and she falls asleep and her
Speaker 1: head falls on his shoulder and it's this precious memory
Speaker 1: for him. And then she wakes up and it was
Speaker 1: just this little thing, but it turns totally turns his
Speaker 1: day around. I was like, try and find something like that,
Speaker 1: and you know, and when he came back with the outline,
Speaker 1: he used that and he was like, I I tried
Speaker 1: anything better, not Um, you know, and it was sort
Speaker 1: of like something that people had personal you know. It
Speaker 1: just felt very relatable. And that was something I also
Speaker 1: felt was a feature of Seinfeld, was observational stuff, like
Speaker 1: really connecting with people by noticing a moment that everybody's
Speaker 1: had but hasn't been done to death before. And I
Speaker 1: felt like that was a good one, like like somebody
Speaker 1: that you liked who kind of leaned on you or something.
Speaker 1: And Um, and then we had Um Kum Huong was
Speaker 1: our writer's assistant. He was the one who suggested the
Speaker 1: thing with the cards because he had had that happened
Speaker 1: to him and some some training thing and we were like, yep,
Speaker 1: we'll take that. That's great. It was a really great episode.
Speaker 1: I mean, I it's hard to imagine like we did
Speaker 1: two one episodes, but the second one might have been
Speaker 1: the best. You know, well, it's hard to find many
Speaker 1: that are that you could say are better. It's it's
Speaker 1: always amazing to me when people they say one of
Speaker 1: two things. It's like one like, oh I didn't like
Speaker 1: it in the beginning, but then it caught on. It
Speaker 1: was too and then you mentioned diversity down They're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's and that was that was the second one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that because I mean pretty much everything I
Speaker 1: like or have had have worked on has had the
Speaker 1: same sort of trajectory, like certainly was the case with
Speaker 1: Parks and Rack. But um, it's character comedy. And if
Speaker 1: you're going to make the choice to do that Jack
Speaker 1: Benny thing of your money or your life and not
Speaker 1: just have a guy stand there and tell the setup
Speaker 1: in the punch line in the same line, right, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna go with character comedy, you've got to learn
Speaker 1: who the characters are, right, and the audience has to
Speaker 1: figure it out, and that takes some time. So they
Speaker 1: always tend to start slow. They don't start with the
Speaker 1: bang usually, So I wasn't thrown or worried when it
Speaker 1: started slow, right, but there's a difference between season one
Speaker 1: and season two. Well, so that was my next question.
Speaker 1: So I, um, you felt like, to my under standing,
Speaker 1: all of the writers disagreed with you. But after the
Speaker 1: forty year old version and seeing Steve and seeing him
Speaker 1: in a new way and what his sensibility was, that
Speaker 1: you needed to change. Michael, that was a part of
Speaker 1: it for sure. But like you know how I said,
Speaker 1: the the goal with the pilot was could we even
Speaker 1: produce something that looked like The Office? Right? It was
Speaker 1: a production type of deal. So then going into season one,
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, can we right the Office? Can
Speaker 1: we write stories that are like this and are just
Speaker 1: as good but not use the British scripts or anything
Speaker 1: like that, And then I think we achieved that, But
Speaker 1: then we didn't have very good ratings. And Kevin was
Speaker 1: really a fan of the show, and the middle management
Speaker 1: at NBC were fans of the show too, which was
Speaker 1: really funny because I went to like whatever the upfronts,
Speaker 1: the things where they would presented, and all the middle
Speaker 1: management would come and tell me how much they loved it,
Speaker 1: and they would point to the senior management as being
Speaker 1: Michael Scotty like we could say was you know, you
Speaker 1: could tell like they were feeling oppressed by people, not
Speaker 1: Kevin but other people in the in the structure. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it was really hard to get picked up. And Kevin said, Okay, Greg,
Speaker 1: you have to come in and pitch me how you're
Speaker 1: going to change it, because it has to change. You
Speaker 1: can't do the same thing season two as you did
Speaker 1: season one. And I'm not sure exactly where I was.
Speaker 1: I feel like I might have been on vacation or something,
Speaker 1: but I wrote on a Napkim. I tried to come
Speaker 1: up with things that would rehabilitate Michael. And also I
Speaker 1: realized that I had been treating the office like everything
Speaker 1: I had learned on King of the Hill didn't count.
Speaker 1: There was a new show and it was like art
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then I realized, uh no, everything I
Speaker 1: learned on King of the Hill is still valid. And
Speaker 1: the thing with King of the Hill was when that
Speaker 1: show started, Hank wasn't very likable. Like I kind of
Speaker 1: came in and had to rewrite that show a certain
Speaker 1: amount and create situations where Hank would be able to
Speaker 1: be kind of conservative but in a likable way. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the other characters are there too make
Speaker 1: him more likable and appropriate. And so for instance, he
Speaker 1: has his niece there so that he can be very
Speaker 1: boy scouty and you know what I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 1: don't show me the whole you under under things, you know,
Speaker 1: like um, and you know his his dad is way
Speaker 1: over the top horrible, so that he's kind of you go, um, well,
Speaker 1: poor Hank, I mean you know exactly, yeah, he's doing
Speaker 1: his best, you know. So there was like little tricks
Speaker 1: like that to try and kind of normalize and center
Speaker 1: the character right, And so I come back in with
Speaker 1: this napkin, and it had all these beats that I
Speaker 1: felt we could create a show around, like, for instance,
Speaker 1: the idea that Okay, his team, it feels very oppressed
Speaker 1: by him, is always rolling their eyes at him, but
Speaker 1: if an outsider criticized him, they'd back him up. So
Speaker 1: that became the Dundees right where everybody's enjoying making fun
Speaker 1: of Michael's awards show. But when when people who don't
Speaker 1: work there start like heckling him and throwing stuff, they
Speaker 1: kind of rally around him. And one of them was,
Speaker 1: Michael should give somebody really good advice at some point,
Speaker 1: and so that became Booze Crews where he's like handcuffed
Speaker 1: to something and he tells Jim not to give up
Speaker 1: ever and to still go after Pam, And I knew
Speaker 1: people really wanted Jim to do that, so to hear
Speaker 1: Michael kind of turned Jim and make him stay the course.
Speaker 1: You really like Michael. And there's other examples of it, right,
Speaker 1: but like, oh, good at his job, and you realize, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's not a great manager, but he's a really good salesperson.
Speaker 1: You know, he's like everything that makes him a bad manager,
Speaker 1: his caring what other people think and his changeability and
Speaker 1: everything and desperate need to be liked makes him a
Speaker 1: really good salesperson. So it became more like the Peter principal,
Speaker 1: like he'd been promoted past his level of expertise here,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't so bad. And then you know, like
Speaker 1: seeing him with kids, like Halloween, the ending of Halloween,
Speaker 1: to see him desperately want to have a friend at
Speaker 1: work but you can't because you're the boss and you
Speaker 1: have to fire somebody and just be so bummed out
Speaker 1: and then just light up when the kids come trick
Speaker 1: or treating and everything. Yeah, things like that and we
Speaker 1: kind of turned the boat on him, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that was a different show after that. Mike told me
Speaker 1: that there was a lot that basically all the other
Speaker 1: writers disagreed with with you about changing it. The idea being, um,
Speaker 1: you were right, by the way, but the ideas, the idea,
Speaker 1: the idea being like, no, we're doing this will show
Speaker 1: and if we burn into a blaze of glory, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna keep you know that idea and you
Speaker 1: and you said, no, we're doing the same show, but
Speaker 1: we're going to have just a few moments, like you
Speaker 1: mentioned at the end of episodes, or at certain moments
Speaker 1: where we just take him and tweak him a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds right. I mean what I was trying to
Speaker 1: do was intention because if you can have a purity
Speaker 1: of intention, he can do the worst things in the
Speaker 1: world for comedy. But as an audience you sense that
Speaker 1: he didn't do it in order to be cruel or
Speaker 1: to be a jerk. He's trying so like the hardest
Speaker 1: one of all was Scott's Tots and Lee and Jean
Speaker 1: are not the guys you go to for this humanizing
Speaker 1: aspect for one thing, but and you know obviously for comedy, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, and I think Ricky and Stephen put it
Speaker 1: in the bones of the show, right, he does the
Speaker 1: wrong thing. The show knows what the right thing is,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't, and he's always doing the wrong thing,
Speaker 1: and that's like the bones. So it did freak out
Speaker 1: the writers a little bit because they were worried that
Speaker 1: it was gonna be too far away. Um. But with
Speaker 1: Scott's taughts, I was like, okay, Um. From his perspective,
Speaker 1: what he intended was he intended to be successful and
Speaker 1: to be a hero and to be a philanthropist and
Speaker 1: to make a big positive impact in these guys lives.
Speaker 1: That was his intention. It was a good intention, you know,
Speaker 1: it was Yeah, it was a good intention. He didn't
Speaker 1: make it, but as long as you like. To me,
Speaker 1: that was the key of that episode because, like most
Speaker 1: of it was about the intention, and if you could
Speaker 1: get that right, you could get all your jokes, but
Speaker 1: you would still protect the character. And to me, this
Speaker 1: was a very King of the Hill type of thing
Speaker 1: because like in that episode that I mentioned Hanks unmentionable problem.
Speaker 1: You know, it could have been all but jokes the
Speaker 1: whole time. But we played it like a medical drama
Speaker 1: where the real conflict was Peggy saying, why don't you
Speaker 1: open up to me? You're gonna die. I mean, she's
Speaker 1: having dreams that his rest since it's going to kill him,
Speaker 1: and she's gonna be a widow, you know. So we
Speaker 1: we played this sort of realistic drama aspect, and then
Speaker 1: you got all your poop jokes that you wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: but it didn't look like that was the point, so
Speaker 1: you had a little bit more leeway and sort of
Speaker 1: the same thing. I think that you know, it really
Speaker 1: hurt Michael that he wasn't able to be the guy
Speaker 1: he thought he was going to be when he made
Speaker 1: these promises, So you kind of got all your being
Speaker 1: a jerk comedy jokes, but you also were like, it's
Speaker 1: not the worst guy in the world. Yeah. A few
Speaker 1: people talked to you about one of your core ideas,
Speaker 1: which is the idea of truth and beauty. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: was my thing with Randall, the truth and beauty, Truth
Speaker 1: and beauty. Yeah, and what does that What does that
Speaker 1: mean to you? Um? Well, you know to me, that
Speaker 1: was I think that's some romantic poet. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where that came from somebody like John Keats or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I don't even know what he
Speaker 1: meant by it. But the way I used to use
Speaker 1: it with Randall was that's what we're going for in
Speaker 1: the camera, right Let the camera seek out truth. That's
Speaker 1: what it's trying to find. That's the point of a documentary.
Speaker 1: What's the truth? And also not like a cynical negative truth,
Speaker 1: like also where where's the beauty? It's like another principle
Speaker 1: of photography of like a good photograph is, you know,
Speaker 1: a little sprig of weed coming through the cracked concrete
Speaker 1: or whatever, You know what I mean. It's like, where
Speaker 1: gonna do something that's a little bit inspiring, but find
Speaker 1: it in a truthful way out in the real world. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: Mike Sure talked about it, and you told a story
Speaker 1: about a parking lot, an endless parking lot with lines
Speaker 1: and parking spaces, and in one crack there's a little flower,
Speaker 1: a little dandelion. He said that it's funny. I just
Speaker 1: made the same. Yes, I think that that, you know,
Speaker 1: I like the notion of aesthetic, like what do you
Speaker 1: searching for? In art? And the Japanese have interesting aesthetics
Speaker 1: with a cracked pot. Did you mention that to use
Speaker 1: that a lot? So? I think it's called woo. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, but it's the notion of a perfect pot
Speaker 1: is okay, you know, and we in the West probably
Speaker 1: value a perfect pot, but a cracked pot where the
Speaker 1: crack suddenly makes you feel the history of the pot
Speaker 1: and the people who have used it in their family
Speaker 1: and have treasured it and kept it even with the
Speaker 1: crack in it, like it suddenly cracks through you know it,
Speaker 1: suddenly we'll we'll touch you. It's those little details often
Speaker 1: of imperfections that's like a it's just a cool sort
Speaker 1: of philosophy. Yes, yeah, I have so far off topic.
Speaker 1: But a number of years ago, my parents were moving
Speaker 1: out of their house and I went for a week
Speaker 1: and I was like helping them and throwing out all
Speaker 1: of this trash and we go into like the corner
Speaker 1: of the closet in a guest room that no one
Speaker 1: ever slept in, And in the closet there was a
Speaker 1: big piece of paper that was folded up and I
Speaker 1: I unfolded it and it was a Kennedy poster that
Speaker 1: my dad had like handed out or seen or collected
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I remember saying to him, can I
Speaker 1: have this? And he's like, yeah, it's like all torn
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I took it and I framed it
Speaker 1: and I took it to this place and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can you know, do this or that, and I
Speaker 1: was like, no, no, no, the crack has to stay
Speaker 1: there and the wrinkle, the folded marks just as lightly
Speaker 1: as you can matt this on something and enclose it,
Speaker 1: because I want that history of it. I don't know
Speaker 1: that idea. Well, also, like I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't get too psychological, but you know, when you think
Speaker 1: about your dad, right, you're so the relationship that you
Speaker 1: have with your father, the fact how old that they are,
Speaker 1: and just the sense of like passage of time being
Speaker 1: important to that relationship and fragility of it and knowing
Speaker 1: that it may not be around forever, and that I
Speaker 1: can completely see why a tear in your dad's poster
Speaker 1: adds to the emotion of it. Yeah, right, yeah, totally. Um, well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot about writing that isn't necessarily only about
Speaker 1: the office. But you know, like when you have a
Speaker 1: set of principles that you're trying to do for the show. Right,
Speaker 1: if you're going to say, all right, I want to
Speaker 1: be realistic, I want to be relatable. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: I want to be observational. If you're going to follow
Speaker 1: those principles, you're gonna end up commenting on what's around you.
Speaker 1: And this to me goes back a long way. It
Speaker 1: isn't unique to the show necessarily, but like when I
Speaker 1: was on The Simpsons, which is this is you know,
Speaker 1: complete cartoon, but the way that one Simpsons writer one
Speaker 1: respect from another Simpsons writer when I was there, was
Speaker 1: you did something super real. You had a line that
Speaker 1: just found like it just came out of a teenager
Speaker 1: and it was just perfectly you know, real to the situation.
Speaker 1: And somehow, in contrast to the cartoon, nois of it
Speaker 1: that always seemed to be like a cool thing. And
Speaker 1: then when I got to King of the Hell, we
Speaker 1: used to do a lot of research. We would go
Speaker 1: to Texas. I'd take the writers to Texas every season
Speaker 1: and we'd fan out with our report. There's notebooks and
Speaker 1: we you know, we'd try and dig up unique stories
Speaker 1: because I always felt like the shows that I really liked,
Speaker 1: the stories were original, like something had happened to one
Speaker 1: of the writers or you know, they weren't just going like, well,
Speaker 1: what did what did cheers do? Let's do a version
Speaker 1: of that or something. You had to go out and
Speaker 1: do your own work and dig up your own stories. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: Mike Shert told me even multiple years into the run
Speaker 1: of the show, and at this point we're a huge hit.
Speaker 1: When we went to Scranton for the Writer's convention, they
Speaker 1: did the same thing you sent that you said, fan out, go,
Speaker 1: you know, go walk down this street, see what places
Speaker 1: you find, and they found restaurants and yeah, it was cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of them. Of course, like when we've done that.
Speaker 1: When we did the show, the internet was a thing,
Speaker 1: so you could go online and search all the bars
Speaker 1: and you know, Google map or whatever see what they
Speaker 1: look like from the outside. But a lot of that
Speaker 1: happened while we were doing the show. And Phil was
Speaker 1: great that Phil Shay used to go to Scranton and
Speaker 1: have all these deals with different businesses and radio stations,
Speaker 1: and he'd come back with props for the set. They
Speaker 1: were all super authentic. Well, and on that note, going
Speaker 1: back a little bit, but why did you pick Scratton
Speaker 1: in the first place. Yeah, well, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of factors that went into that. So you wanted to
Speaker 1: place that was outside of a city, but they never
Speaker 1: went and in place there was a little faded. And
Speaker 1: I felt the northeast part was kind of important to me,
Speaker 1: like it was an adaptation of an English show and
Speaker 1: something about the north northeast. New England kind of mid
Speaker 1: Atlantic felt more like England in certain ways. And Scratton
Speaker 1: has like a name that's kind of hard to say.
Speaker 1: It's it's a comedy word, it's got a case ound,
Speaker 1: it's a Scranton, you know. But the interesting thing was
Speaker 1: that when you know, when I picked it, I talked
Speaker 1: to of people at Scranton journalists and there's this guy,
Speaker 1: Josh mccauliffe, I worked at the scrant newspaper, and he
Speaker 1: was really skeptical that we were going to be nice
Speaker 1: to Scranton. And I had to say to him, look,
Speaker 1: you know, I did came up the hill. I went
Speaker 1: to Texas. I didn't make fun of them. I understood them.
Speaker 1: I like did the work to figure out what life
Speaker 1: was like for people in Texas. And the point is
Speaker 1: not to do cheap jokes making fun of the environment
Speaker 1: with points to be specific and find a world and
Speaker 1: you'll be okay, don't worry. Right, So it did work
Speaker 1: out nicely. Like I think we got to love Scranton
Speaker 1: by going to visit for that convention and and then
Speaker 1: it was, you know, amazing to come back and go
Speaker 1: to the ball field and everything. And I think it's
Speaker 1: been good for the city. And the other thing is,
Speaker 1: like the city is so much more beautiful then. You
Speaker 1: know our corner of Van Nye that we were shooting
Speaker 1: in next to the Granite Cutter at it like we
Speaker 1: did a little bit of an injustice to how pretty
Speaker 1: the city is, right, A lot of natural beauty, very
Speaker 1: hard to recreate and van Nye. Yes, oh we have
Speaker 1: a special we have a special guest that's coming in. Hi.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for every fun with us. Look
Speaker 1: at you, you're the one that got this awesome. Yes,
Speaker 1: look at this years later. It cool, so cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna come back. All right, Well you're welcome
Speaker 1: to join in. Yeah yeah, Benny, sit down and pull
Speaker 1: that microphone in front of you. Um did you say
Speaker 1: we're rolling? Okay, just make sure that Mike is close
Speaker 1: to you. Greg when, Um, what were your first impressions
Speaker 1: of Ben when met with that. Let me see, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Ben, like I grew up in New York.
Speaker 1: So Ben has the vibe that I recognized that was
Speaker 1: fun for me, Like I could sense that he grew
Speaker 1: up in the same kind of environment of sort of brainy,
Speaker 1: you know, city life, and that was really fun. And
Speaker 1: he's got an enthusiasm like energy that I don't have,
Speaker 1: Like you know, when you're talking about, you know, the
Speaker 1: methodical nature, you could also say maybe plotting how I
Speaker 1: approached stuff. And Ben is like you know, mercury, like
Speaker 1: he zooms in and but also very able to draw
Speaker 1: pieces in from all over the place and make a
Speaker 1: coherent vision. So I remember finding been very cool and
Speaker 1: attractive to hang with, and and Greg was always my
Speaker 1: first choice, so that probably put me in a good
Speaker 1: position for Greg to view me nice. It's always but
Speaker 1: and and the thing when you say that about the
Speaker 1: New York thing, and then we progress to Greg's father
Speaker 1: now plays bridge with my mother's best friends, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty years later, you know, So it's incredible. Also, the
Speaker 1: experience that we both had in connecting on this show
Speaker 1: was like about the architecture of television and the architecture
Speaker 1: of the idea because so much about it was newly conceived.
Speaker 1: But we kept talking about with a shared love of television.
Speaker 1: We were not We were people who love TV, and
Speaker 1: we grew up loving TV, you know, and all of
Speaker 1: those elements drew us. And I think what was incredible
Speaker 1: about Ricky and Stephen in our initial dialogues that we
Speaker 1: had with them is that they also love TV an
Speaker 1: American TV, an American TV in American cinema. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was an interesting thing. Like when I grew up in
Speaker 1: New York on PBS, you get Monty Python or Fawlty
Speaker 1: Towers or something, and you go, oh my god, British
Speaker 1: TV is so great, you know, it's so smart, and
Speaker 1: they would only get our best stuff. They would only
Speaker 1: get like Friends and Seinfeld or whatever. And they grew
Speaker 1: up with the exact same feeling of like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we can never compete. American TV is only the best,
Speaker 1: the best of the best, right And when I was
Speaker 1: expressing at some point to Ricky and Stephen how much
Speaker 1: I was a fan of British TV, they were like
Speaker 1: most of us thinks, you know, because they you know,
Speaker 1: they'd seen like all of the failures or whatever that
Speaker 1: they had been exposed to and they they were big
Speaker 1: fans of of US TV. And I talked also Greg
Speaker 1: when I was talking to Brian about the intellectual rigor
Speaker 1: that you have as a as a person and a writer,
Speaker 1: not just as a man. That's the cool part because
Speaker 1: most of the time you walk into a situation people
Speaker 1: do not want that. No, they want and and you
Speaker 1: surrounded the entire show with that. You know, it was
Speaker 1: an incredible group. Conan used to like so in the
Speaker 1: big very beginning of my career, I was writing Partners
Speaker 1: with Conan O'Brien and he used to say to me,
Speaker 1: when you overthink, you start to stink, because he he
Speaker 1: kind of pegged me as an overthinker, so that that
Speaker 1: would always go through my mind sometimes. But well, but purposeful,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's a much nicer I like the way. Yeah, ye, purposeful.
Speaker 1: I mean that's part of driven life of our conversation
Speaker 1: was that we were creating something that was against network norms,
Speaker 1: that was against how traditional sitcoms were constructed. And the
Speaker 1: reason I say purposeful is because the decisions that you
Speaker 1: made were made specifically to move that forward. Well, you
Speaker 1: also could out defend anyone who wanted to shift where
Speaker 1: we were going. Yeah, I also feel like I was
Speaker 1: you caught me at the exact right time, because I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to add up the number of hours that
Speaker 1: I had in the you know how they talk about
Speaker 1: ten thousand hours, Like I had ten thours before King
Speaker 1: of the Hill, and I probably had another fifteens you know,
Speaker 1: from that show. But I I wasn't exhausted, you know.
Speaker 1: I was like I definitely had a lot of good
Speaker 1: experience and a lot of thoughts about how I would
Speaker 1: do a live action show differently and still enough energy
Speaker 1: to try and hunger to do it because it's so
Speaker 1: different now, but you get kind of placed into a
Speaker 1: framework really quickly, like oh, you're great at animation or
Speaker 1: I was great at reality, you know, like, especially when
Speaker 1: there's only four networks, it's so different now it's it's crazy.
Speaker 1: But also like if you have a particular sense of humor,
Speaker 1: when I started, there really wasn't any room for that
Speaker 1: sense of humor in a half hour. So like I
Speaker 1: I went to Saturday Night Live because late night was
Speaker 1: where you had to do that kind of more niche
Speaker 1: you know, humor, and then cartoons. Okay, well you can
Speaker 1: kind of do it in cartoons. Cartoons are single camera form,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, they seem to have their own thing.
Speaker 1: They weren't like your typical network sitcom. And then we
Speaker 1: had this little crack in in the selling world where
Speaker 1: Cable had come out and HBO was big, and the
Speaker 1: networks were like, well, what should we do? Maybe we
Speaker 1: should be more like Cable? And I don't think we
Speaker 1: would have been able without having had a British show
Speaker 1: to hide behind, right, you wouldn't have survived. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the marketing That was to me hilarious because when
Speaker 1: the show of the way, they try to sell it
Speaker 1: out of the Apprentice. Yeah, so we had, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we've done the first season and the marketing department all
Speaker 1: they knew was Will and Grace. So they took uh
Speaker 1: single lines out of context pop pop pop pop pop, right,
Speaker 1: and that was the the first ad, and out of context.
Speaker 1: None of them played like jokes because of what we
Speaker 1: were talking about, right, We didn't do like set up
Speaker 1: punchline jokes. It was all behavior and context and acting
Speaker 1: and everything, and it was horrifying. You you look at
Speaker 1: these ads and you go, oh my god, we have
Speaker 1: the stupidest and most unfunny show in the world. And
Speaker 1: they were like, yeah, Cod, you guys are going down.
Speaker 1: And I had to say, look, the frame has to
Speaker 1: be different. You gotta blow up one moment and let
Speaker 1: it play. Otherwise we're doomed because it isn't a you know,
Speaker 1: a highlight reel. That's not how the show. I mean
Speaker 1: now it kind of does. Actually, now everybody loves the show.
Speaker 1: You could you could make a great highlight reel out
Speaker 1: of moments because they know the character, because everybody so
Speaker 1: invested in what they're going to do. But when you
Speaker 1: introduced those characters to a broadcast platform, it was very
Speaker 1: They were just like quickly, you know, cut to Michael saying, well,
Speaker 1: they's going to be downsizing, as if it was a
Speaker 1: joke because they got something. Um, Greg, what was the
Speaker 1: decision behind making the incredible casting decision to cast Ben
Speaker 1: as Isaac? I probably asked them, yeah, that's right. Well,
Speaker 1: the point that I was sort of making a joke,
Speaker 1: but that the typical agent Hollywood selling, and that Ben
Speaker 1: and you on the outside sort of an unlikely pair.
Speaker 1: But I will never forget. We did this UM panel
Speaker 1: at the Pailey Festival and we were being idiots, telling
Speaker 1: jokes and making the audience laugh, and then the moderator
Speaker 1: addresses a question to Ben, and Ben goes into at
Speaker 1: the moment, seemed like five to seven minute speech about
Speaker 1: the history of comedy and tracing the office's roots. I mean,
Speaker 1: just incredibly encyclopedia not edge like dissertation on comedy in
Speaker 1: the show. And he stops talking and it's quiet, and
Speaker 1: you turn to the moderator and you go, well, and
Speaker 1: that's why he's my boss. Just like that, like there
Speaker 1: was like I don't know, it was just the moment
Speaker 1: has resonated to me forever. To me, that reminds me
Speaker 1: of Lauren Michael's. Like Lauren has this ability to put
Speaker 1: it all together and make a charismatic vision out of it.
Speaker 1: And part of that, I think with Ben is the overview,
Speaker 1: Like he's seeing the entire business, the history of the business,
Speaker 1: all these different genres inside the business, different types of shows,
Speaker 1: what's next, what's coming down the pike. You know, the
Speaker 1: overview is what most people don't have. And for him
Speaker 1: to be able to put it together, you're kind of like,
Speaker 1: I can't judge if it's real or not, but it's
Speaker 1: so it's so inspiring. It's like, well, it's just so
Speaker 1: hard to get anyone to take any risk that if
Speaker 1: you have and thought through every element of their organizations,
Speaker 1: thinking about what you're trying to accomplish, you end up
Speaker 1: running into a wall. You know, when you look to
Speaker 1: align yourself with collaborators and partners along the journey who
Speaker 1: are willing to have that fight together. However that works
Speaker 1: in partnership, because I look, I don't think I could
Speaker 1: have done I mean, I mean, it was all I
Speaker 1: could do to make the show if I had also
Speaker 1: had to, and all they wanted to defend it, and
Speaker 1: all they wanted to do was not make the show,
Speaker 1: you know. And so that's where you have to be
Speaker 1: able to do that and put that energy in. But
Speaker 1: there's so many times I reflect back and I look
Speaker 1: just how unbelievably wonderful the people were in and around
Speaker 1: the show itself. Well, I had to like roam the
Speaker 1: executive suits. You know, it was so sad because covered
Speaker 1: in in blood and gore from being beaten, you know,
Speaker 1: with all the these business types and he'd come to
Speaker 1: the said and we're you know, making making like I
Speaker 1: wanted to be in. That was the business I thought
Speaker 1: I signed up for, but oh my gosh, it was
Speaker 1: so great to be there. And then all the choices
Speaker 1: you made that we were able to defend and I
Speaker 1: also talked about and even our physical production apparatus that
Speaker 1: you created was transformative for broadcast TV. Like they didn't
Speaker 1: even understand what we were doing in our offices and
Speaker 1: our writer room writers. Yeah, that they were real and
Speaker 1: not really you know, like they were thrown by it all.
Speaker 1: Like we found that we were kicked out of our
Speaker 1: season one situation there. There was not a lot of
Speaker 1: support in the beginning, and I think for them till
Speaker 1: they they didn't keep our sets. Yeah, they didn't wouldn't
Speaker 1: keep it up At the time, I didn't even you
Speaker 1: ever bring that up, but they didn't even They literally like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not going to cover the rent till we make
Speaker 1: this decision. Yeah. So we were out and you know,
Speaker 1: and we used the parking lot and Hot Girl and stuff,
Speaker 1: and we had established what it looked like and everything.
Speaker 1: So we had to find some place where you could
Speaker 1: use the street and everything, and we looked all over
Speaker 1: Van Nuys and the sad part was most of the
Speaker 1: places we looked at I remember, no, they were doing porn. Literally.
Speaker 1: I remember going to one place and and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: this this looks sort of wholesome. What is this? And
Speaker 1: it was there was like a set with a swing
Speaker 1: and a tree and stuff, and and they're like, no
Speaker 1: more porn, more porn. Someone told me this again in
Speaker 1: terms of like creating that reality for the actors, that
Speaker 1: we were going into an office. So there was a
Speaker 1: little room off of set, right behind the accountants where
Speaker 1: you could watch stuff that was being filmed, where you
Speaker 1: had an office, but that you built that out to
Speaker 1: look like an office from the outside, so that the
Speaker 1: idea was that actors when they walked onto a sound
Speaker 1: stage didn't walk onto a sound stage. They walked into
Speaker 1: a carpeted area with walls that was like an office.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that, not wanting the actors to go
Speaker 1: onto a sound stage. I remember that on our original
Speaker 1: set there was a very low, like low hanging lintel
Speaker 1: or whatever, like the doorway was made of concrete or
Speaker 1: something and very low. And I would run from my
Speaker 1: office up to the set to give a note, and
Speaker 1: I'd run back to watch it, and I'd run back
Speaker 1: and forth and everything and I cracked my head on
Speaker 1: that on that low thing. Remember that there was like
Speaker 1: a pass and we put a pad like Greg Daniel's
Speaker 1: memorial forehead pad or something like that, because I kept
Speaker 1: smacking my head on that thing. Yeah, all those smacks
Speaker 1: knocked out any other memory? Why why it was there?
Speaker 1: All right? Well, thankfully it seems that the low hanging
Speaker 1: lintel did not knock out all of Greg's memories of
Speaker 1: the show because we talked about it for like two
Speaker 1: more hours. So I'm going to say the rest for
Speaker 1: when we dive into the later seasons and ultimately the
Speaker 1: end of the show. In the meantime, we will be
Speaker 1: back next week with another interview with one of our
Speaker 1: amazing writers. Truly, as Paul Fie once said, this was
Speaker 1: an all star Hall of Fame writing staff. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy we got to talk to so many of them.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, listeners for listening, which is what
Speaker 1: listeners do. And uh and have a great week. The Office.
Speaker 1: Deep Dive is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner,
Speaker 1: alongside our executive producer Lang Lee. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Tessa Kramer, our associate producer is Emily Carr, and our
Speaker 1: assistant editor is Diego Tapia. My main man in the
Speaker 1: booth is Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak,
Speaker 1: performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode
Speaker 1: was mixed by Seth Olandsky