Speaker 1: My name is Michael Shore. I was a writer for
Speaker 1: the first four point two seasons and a producer on
Speaker 1: the Office. Hi, everybody, Welcome to a new day, and
Speaker 1: a new day brings a new episode of the Office
Speaker 1: Deep Dive with me your host Brian baum Gartner. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to tell you that today I am bringing
Speaker 1: back the incredible Mike Shure for part two of our conversation.
Speaker 1: This is going to be a good one to remind you,
Speaker 1: Mike was one of our original writers and producers on
Speaker 1: the Office. He went on to co create Parks and
Speaker 1: Wreck with Greg Daniels, as well as some other huge
Speaker 1: TV shows of our time like Brooklyn, The Good Place,
Speaker 1: just to name a few. Now, as I mentioned in
Speaker 1: the last episode, which you should definitely check out if
Speaker 1: you haven't already, Mike as a writer, as a producer,
Speaker 1: as an artist, he's had some insane achievements, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into some of those. But more importantly, you're
Speaker 1: going to get to hear about the one thing that
Speaker 1: he always hated, that he described as a quote waking nightmare.
Speaker 1: That's right, his role as mos Shrewd. Now, I was, Oh,
Speaker 1: you have no idea how happy I was to find
Speaker 1: out that my suspicions were correct, that Mike had to
Speaker 1: play Mos as kind of a cruel joke in the
Speaker 1: writer's room, a writer's room joke because they found it
Speaker 1: funny to make him do all of the stupid stuff
Speaker 1: that he had to do. And boy, he had to
Speaker 1: do some really stupid stuff. But I'm glad he did,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad he is back joining us today because
Speaker 1: Mike is a force in the world of TV, and
Speaker 1: more than that, he was a huge and important part
Speaker 1: of the Office family. So please join me in welcoming
Speaker 1: the man who helped create so many of the iconic
Speaker 1: TV personalities we know and love. Mike. Sure, Bubble and Squeak.
Speaker 1: I love it Bubble and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker
Speaker 1: Cookie every month left over from the night before. You
Speaker 1: and I. You may have forgotten this, but you and
Speaker 1: I share an Emmy. We do we do yes for
Speaker 1: the webisodes, for the webisodes. Yes, um, did you ever
Speaker 1: get yours? I don't think I have a actual trophy
Speaker 1: for it now. Well I did, I do, partly or
Speaker 1: all because we were invited to the ceremony and we
Speaker 1: accepted them, and it came home with me. Great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have it. Look it's great. Actually, it's really
Speaker 1: was really fun. I have nothing but fun memories of
Speaker 1: that little crazy day that we spent around you and
Speaker 1: Paul wrote them and it was longer than a day.
Speaker 1: It was three days and three days. It was ten
Speaker 1: episodes over three days. That was like before everyone did
Speaker 1: webisodes all the time and these little extra things like
Speaker 1: that was a really fun like side project that we
Speaker 1: just sort of threw together. They're really funny too, they are, yes,
Speaker 1: And I think Randall's idea was we were able to
Speaker 1: do some things there that we well, we couldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: do that without the full camera crew. I think, yes,
Speaker 1: it was. The premise was it was like a holiday
Speaker 1: or something because we didn't have everyone to be in
Speaker 1: the background. So yeah, that was right. It was. We
Speaker 1: had a lot of backstory for why it was the
Speaker 1: way it was, but um, the accounts significant because um,
Speaker 1: I have an Emmy, congratulate an actual emmy, but you
Speaker 1: also want an Emmy. But we were never paid for it,
Speaker 1: and it led to the writers strike. I've watched a
Speaker 1: video of you yesterday from when we were on strike.
Speaker 1: When you were on strike, Yeah, you guys produced a
Speaker 1: video and you said a number of things in the video. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't remember any of them, but I saw it
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god. And then we
Speaker 1: were joking that you guys were coming up with bits
Speaker 1: as you were walking the picket line and making the video.
Speaker 1: Kind of funny anyway, um, but you said in part
Speaker 1: that you're watching this on the internet, a thing that
Speaker 1: pays us zero dollars. They were put on NBC dot
Speaker 1: com and they so old ads and we won a
Speaker 1: Daytime Emmy and didn't make any money. The writer strike
Speaker 1: was a really big deal. I don't know. Just talk
Speaker 1: to me about that time and what you remember of
Speaker 1: Greg saying no, we're not going to produce material for free.
Speaker 1: There It was a very inspiring moment for me personally,
Speaker 1: because the central issue at the time, this is two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. The central issue at the time was
Speaker 1: jurisdiction over the internet because Netflix hadn't started making original
Speaker 1: shows yet, but people felt like they were going in
Speaker 1: that direction, and NBC and every every network had a
Speaker 1: website and they were starting to like stream in primitive fashion,
Speaker 1: the stream things on the over the internet, and suddenly
Speaker 1: it was like, well, if this is the future. It
Speaker 1: didn't take a genius to think like, well, this is
Speaker 1: the future, Like who cares whether you it's a television
Speaker 1: screen you hang on your wall or sit on a platform,
Speaker 1: or whether it's your computer screen. This is how people
Speaker 1: are consuming the work we do, and we ought to
Speaker 1: get paid for them. So so those episodes were like
Speaker 1: a big part of that because I they were shot
Speaker 1: with the union labor and no one got paid. So
Speaker 1: that was like the you know, it wasn't like because
Speaker 1: of those episodes that the writers could want one strike.
Speaker 1: Those we episodes were an example of the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that we were trying. We were saying, like, if
Speaker 1: this is the way things are going, we gotta do
Speaker 1: something about this, right. So because the companies at the time,
Speaker 1: we're saying like, you know, we don't have enough information.
Speaker 1: Let's just let's just let's just wait three years from now,
Speaker 1: we'll have more information and then we'll know what the
Speaker 1: future of this is. And we were like, no, you're
Speaker 1: you're trying to you're basically trying to grandfather in the
Speaker 1: internet as like a thing that you don't pay for him. So, um,
Speaker 1: we went on strike and it was a huge deal
Speaker 1: and it was very scary. It was like unclear what
Speaker 1: was going on. The communication wasn't sublime. And Greg was like, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna pick out our own show. And the reason
Speaker 1: we're gonna pick out our own show is isn't a
Speaker 1: show of solidarity. Isn't a saying like this is the
Speaker 1: thing we care about the most in the world. And
Speaker 1: we were in that little Chandler studios out in the
Speaker 1: middle of Van Eyes and it was not on a
Speaker 1: major studio lot, and so we all showed up to
Speaker 1: work at six in the morning and we pick it
Speaker 1: at our own show. And we were in the middle
Speaker 1: of season four. We were about to shoot the Dinner
Speaker 1: Party episode, one of the most famous episodes of the
Speaker 1: show of all time, the best read through I think
Speaker 1: we ever had. You remember that read through? That read
Speaker 1: there was was like it was like a rock concert.
Speaker 1: And we had finished that script. That script is ready
Speaker 1: to go, and that script could have been shot. The
Speaker 1: actors could have just executed the script and the directors
Speaker 1: were on strike and the crew wasn't on strike. But
Speaker 1: Steve Carrell said, um no, I'm not. This is the
Speaker 1: way we make this show is collaborative. And there's writers
Speaker 1: on the set and there's producers on the set, and
Speaker 1: we changed things and we work out new little moments
Speaker 1: and pitched new jokes, and I don't think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make the show without the writers. And he didn't shot up,
Speaker 1: and so they shot a couple of scenes from the
Speaker 1: episode that Michael Scott was in, and then there was
Speaker 1: nothing else to do and the show shutdown. And that
Speaker 1: was such a heroic thing. He just stayed home and
Speaker 1: he got calls from a lot of lawyers and a
Speaker 1: lot of studio executives, from really really powerful people saying
Speaker 1: you have to do this, and he was like, no,
Speaker 1: don't watch me. And Greg called him and he was
Speaker 1: home and Greg was like, hey, I know that you've
Speaker 1: been had a lot of pressure coming at you. Are
Speaker 1: you okay? And he was like, yeah, I'm home, I'm
Speaker 1: playing with my kids, and was totally unfazed by it
Speaker 1: and had the attitude of like, this is a collaborative effort,
Speaker 1: this is a thing that we do together. We don't
Speaker 1: do this, this isn't without writers on the set. We
Speaker 1: don't make the same show. And I'm not going to
Speaker 1: make that show fire me basically, was what he was saying,
Speaker 1: he called their bluff and the show shut down and
Speaker 1: writs around strike for four months, and then they gave
Speaker 1: up jurisdiction of the internet. We went back to work
Speaker 1: and then we made the Dinner Party, which is amazing,
Speaker 1: and it was truly the story of what he did
Speaker 1: spread like wildfire. Um, he did not have to do that.
Speaker 1: There were very few people who were in the position
Speaker 1: that he was in, obviously as the star of a
Speaker 1: very popular, successful, gigantic, monolithic hit show. But still he
Speaker 1: didn't have to do that. He could no one would
Speaker 1: have been mad at him. He wasn't on the actor
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, I remember having a huge,
Speaker 1: long conversation with my representation saying like, how can I
Speaker 1: walk past them? How can I cross how can I
Speaker 1: cross the line? And he said that that you know,
Speaker 1: you have no choice. You have to show up, and
Speaker 1: we knew that, and Ed, I remember Ed came out
Speaker 1: and was like hey, guys, and he hung out with us,
Speaker 1: and I remember Ed going, I'm really sorry, but I
Speaker 1: have and we're like, no, no, no, we get it.
Speaker 1: Your union is not on strike here, like you're not.
Speaker 1: We get it. It's fine. No one's bad at you. Like,
Speaker 1: no one had any animosity towards any of the actors
Speaker 1: because you were in breach of contract if you didn't
Speaker 1: show up. Steve was in breach of contract. He just said,
Speaker 1: I don't care fire me. And it's easier for the
Speaker 1: star of the show to do that than it is
Speaker 1: for anyone else. But the story spread like wildfire, and
Speaker 1: Mindy wrote a sign in marker um hung it on
Speaker 1: his trailer that said like Steve Corral American hero or
Speaker 1: something and took a picture of it, and it spread
Speaker 1: very quickly around the town and it was a real
Speaker 1: like wind beneath the wings of the guild at the time.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I mean he you can't sort of overstate
Speaker 1: just what an amazing guy he is and person to
Speaker 1: work with ya, I mean, the person who's number one
Speaker 1: on the call sheet sets the tone of the show
Speaker 1: age He or she just does. It's people take their
Speaker 1: cues from that person. That person kind of says like,
Speaker 1: this is what's allowable behavior, and this is what isn't
Speaker 1: allowable behavior in a in a number of different ways,
Speaker 1: actively and passively. And his presence at the top of
Speaker 1: the call sheet, especially in that early going, but his professionalism,
Speaker 1: his his dedication. He was never late a day in
Speaker 1: his life. He knew all of his lines, and when
Speaker 1: he didn't, he improvised something that was funnier than what
Speaker 1: we had written. Um. I don't know if you know
Speaker 1: this story, but there was a even on successful shows.
Speaker 1: In fact, especially on successful shows, networks are always trying
Speaker 1: to slash budgets, right, Like it's when something's making money.
Speaker 1: It's not like thank God, we're making money, it's how
Speaker 1: do we make more money? And there was a budget
Speaker 1: meeting with NBC and Greg. It must have been after
Speaker 1: season four because Greg and I were developing Parks and
Speaker 1: Wreck and he asked me to come to say, like,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to deal with this kind of crap
Speaker 1: and you should see what it's like. And there was
Speaker 1: a budget terry meeting and they were trying to slash
Speaker 1: the budget and one of the things on the table
Speaker 1: was reducing the size of the cast because at that point,
Speaker 1: how many series regulars were there? Twenty two or something.
Speaker 1: It was a lot by far, the largest cast of
Speaker 1: any show on television. And Greg was like, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's a good idea that people invest in these characters.
Speaker 1: Everyone has a different favorite character, and even a side character,
Speaker 1: a character like you know, Jan or something who was
Speaker 1: not even a series regular, Like if you don't have
Speaker 1: her on the show in a certain number of episodes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like the same show. And they were like, well,
Speaker 1: we have to find the money somewhere, you know, and
Speaker 1: we're only making seven eight million dollars a year on
Speaker 1: this thing. And so we went back and we had
Speaker 1: a meeting with Steve and I can't remember who was there,
Speaker 1: but Greg was like, okay, so here's what happened in
Speaker 1: the meeting, and they want to cut the budget in
Speaker 1: this and that, and they threw out a number of options,
Speaker 1: one of which was reducing the cast, and Steve went no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Like he said no like eight times in a row.
Speaker 1: And Greg was like, well that was my reaction to
Speaker 1: and Steve just went, no, it's not happening. That is
Speaker 1: not happening. We with that is not going to happen,
Speaker 1: Like he just so completely shut it down as even
Speaker 1: he was like, this is the show. These are the
Speaker 1: people on the show. This is how the show will
Speaker 1: be until the end of the show. That's it. That's it,
Speaker 1: And and there were executives in the room, and it
Speaker 1: was like that ended the discussion. It was just over,
Speaker 1: like there was no It was a little bit like
Speaker 1: sue me or fire me. It was like, in so
Speaker 1: many words, he was saying, I won't do the show
Speaker 1: if you do that, like I will walk away, and
Speaker 1: it just shut it down and shut it down forever,
Speaker 1: and no one ever ever came up again, never once.
Speaker 1: So mazing. Yeah, he's just he's just such a mench
Speaker 1: and and his like it wasn't angry, he wasn't pounding
Speaker 1: his fist. He was just saying, no, that's not going
Speaker 1: to happen, that nonstarter. Move on, what's next. And that's
Speaker 1: the way he is he was. It was just this quiet,
Speaker 1: firm leadership that he exhibited all the time in every direction.
Speaker 1: And he there was another time in two the big
Speaker 1: future of TV was product placement. That's where money was
Speaker 1: going to really be made, right, you were gonna Greg
Speaker 1: used to say, like the deal was you have to
Speaker 1: take some medicine when you watch TV in the medicine
Speaker 1: as these ads, but then you get a yummy treat
Speaker 1: and the treat is the show you like, right, And
Speaker 1: product placement was they were going to try to whirld
Speaker 1: of medicine into the the and um Ben was like
Speaker 1: a big proponent of it, and so was it by
Speaker 1: the way everyone else like it was like this is
Speaker 1: the future, Like the futures were going back ironically to
Speaker 1: like the fifties, and it was like the Lucky Strike
Speaker 1: comedy exactly, this is delicious. So we have this big meeting,
Speaker 1: all hands on deck meeting. Um we had done the
Speaker 1: Staples thing, remember the Staples where you had it. You you
Speaker 1: you bore the brunt of it because you had to
Speaker 1: play with that shredder and Staples didn't send me a check. No,
Speaker 1: Well that was that was that was partly. That was
Speaker 1: a big part of Greg's objection to it was like,
Speaker 1: if Brian wants to do a Staples ad, then he
Speaker 1: can go do a Staples ad and they can pay
Speaker 1: him money. But Staples is getting free Brian baum Gardner
Speaker 1: and free Rain Wilson and free whoever by like giving
Speaker 1: NBC money and the show doesn't even really benefit. It's
Speaker 1: this kind of complicated calculus, right, But we had this
Speaker 1: big meeting where we were really being sold on product placement,
Speaker 1: and it was it was getting away from us. It
Speaker 1: was being put to us in a way where it
Speaker 1: was like, you're going to say yes to this. We're
Speaker 1: going to keep telling you to do this until you
Speaker 1: say yes. Talk talk talk talk, talk talk. And then
Speaker 1: Craig went, Steve, what do you think? Which was a
Speaker 1: brilliant idea, and Steve said, you know, I started in commercials,
Speaker 1: and commercials are great when you're a struggling actor and
Speaker 1: you need money and stuff. But what happens in commercials
Speaker 1: is you do a commercial for coke, and you know,
Speaker 1: you do a take where you take a sip of
Speaker 1: coke and you say mmmmm, coke tastes great, and then
Speaker 1: they go, okay, cut, can you rotate the can a
Speaker 1: little more like this and hold it like this? Okay, good,
Speaker 1: Go again and you go coke. I love coke. Coke
Speaker 1: takes right, and they go great, But can you raise
Speaker 1: it up to your lips an inch higher when you
Speaker 1: take the sip? Because you just do that over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. And he said, the idea that
Speaker 1: anyone would have that kind of influencer control over our
Speaker 1: show and the way we make our show, which is
Speaker 1: loose and fun and collaborative, and the operators are diving
Speaker 1: for different things, and the actors get to try different
Speaker 1: things every time. I remember him saying the idea that
Speaker 1: Rain would say something funny and we wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to use it because he wasn't holding the coke can
Speaker 1: at the right angle. I don't think that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: And there was a pause and then it was like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's we'll pick up this discussion, you know, next week
Speaker 1: or something. Never brought it up again. He just like
Speaker 1: he was just the He was the guardian of the show.
Speaker 1: In that way, he and Greg were just they had
Speaker 1: two different versions of the job, but the onset world
Speaker 1: of the show. Steve was the guardian protector of what
Speaker 1: we did and how it was done and who did
Speaker 1: it and no one messed them. It was just like
Speaker 1: he was the final arbiter because he knew, he understood
Speaker 1: so implicitly what made it great and he wasn't interested
Speaker 1: in letting anyone mess it up. What to you makes
Speaker 1: the office the office? Or what does the office mean
Speaker 1: to you? Oh? God, well those are those are even questions?
Speaker 1: What makes the office the office? And what does the
Speaker 1: office mean to me? What? What what does the office
Speaker 1: mean to you? Well? I mean, it's where the Office
Speaker 1: is where I learned how to write. And I mean
Speaker 1: that in exactly as fundamental a way as I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know how to write before I got
Speaker 1: the job, and now I do. And it's because of
Speaker 1: that show, not just Greg's tutelage, but the mechanics of
Speaker 1: the stories that we told and the the obstacles we
Speaker 1: had to overcome. Obstacles are good for comedy, and the
Speaker 1: Office had the basic obstacles of being a network show
Speaker 1: and having to cram a story into twenty two minutes
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, which are great obstacles everyone should
Speaker 1: learn how to write on a network sitcom. But then
Speaker 1: it had all these other artificial obstacles the Greg added
Speaker 1: and the mocumentary style added, and the number of characters
Speaker 1: that in the show. So Greg taught me how to
Speaker 1: actually write, and then the show taught me how to write. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, because any episode you did, you would look
Speaker 1: at it and go like, well, it's like a jigsaw puzzle.
Speaker 1: There are twenty people in the cast, and there's there's
Speaker 1: three stories, and I have twenty one minutes and thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: and how do I put this all together? And you
Speaker 1: learn to be really non precious with your own writing.
Speaker 1: You learn like these things are disposable. They're not poems.
Speaker 1: Greg used to say that the scripts aren't poems, right,
Speaker 1: their architectural blueprints there. They're living documents, and they change,
Speaker 1: and it's okay for them to change, Like you can
Speaker 1: think this is great. There's only a couple of times
Speaker 1: in my life where something didn't really play well and
Speaker 1: I really really odd for it, knowing that it wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna play well. One of them, this is like, this
Speaker 1: is like my own, this is my own like indulgence,
Speaker 1: but I wrote it. I wrote a Dwight has a
Speaker 1: talking head where he says, um, it was always backstory
Speaker 1: that Dwight's and maternal ancestors were maybe Nazis, And so
Speaker 1: we did a talking head where Dwight says, um, my
Speaker 1: maternal grandmother is like a hundred and two and still
Speaker 1: puttering around down in Argentina, And then he says, um,
Speaker 1: I tried to visit her once, but my visa was
Speaker 1: protested by the show of Foundation, and I just I
Speaker 1: it didn't really It got like a moderate laugh because
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably didn't what the show of
Speaker 1: Foundation was. But like I remember fighting really hard for
Speaker 1: that in the edit, like Greg wanted to cut it,
Speaker 1: I think, and I was like, please, please, please, please please.
Speaker 1: But that's the exception that proves the rule. Mostly it
Speaker 1: was like you watch, we watched these cuts together, and
Speaker 1: you see what works and what doesn't work, and you
Speaker 1: just cut everything that doesn't work, like you don't get precious?
Speaker 1: Was the show foundation in there? Yeah? That that aired? Okay, Yes,
Speaker 1: that totally aired, and it makes me laugh every time
Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember that part of it. No,
Speaker 1: it aired, It definitely aired because I was basically like,
Speaker 1: I will never ask you for anything for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life if you leave this in. Was there
Speaker 1: anything that got cut that you wish hadn't. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there was. I don't remember offhand. So in the Job
Speaker 1: I think it was. In the Job we wrote talking
Speaker 1: Hand for Dwight that was I think an entire page long.
Speaker 1: It was insane. It was like, um, a version of
Speaker 1: a much shorter version of it aired, but there was
Speaker 1: a It was about how one of his cousins, I
Speaker 1: think or Moses brother or something was had one leg
Speaker 1: that was shorter than the other one, and when he
Speaker 1: ran to the bus he would have to curve in
Speaker 1: like a long arc because the natural awkward gait of
Speaker 1: one leg being shorter than the other one would cause
Speaker 1: him to run in like a into like a long curve.
Speaker 1: And it was nonsense. I mean it was. It went
Speaker 1: on for so long on Paul and I were just
Speaker 1: in a crazy giggle fit and we wrote like the
Speaker 1: Endless talking Head for Rain and he loved it and
Speaker 1: he like memorized the whole thing and like nailed it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I wish this could air, but
Speaker 1: there's no way to justify it. It's complete. There's nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the story at all, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: Greg Greg also introduced this concept of double duty. Have
Speaker 1: people talking about double duty. Greg's thing was like, look,
Speaker 1: we have such a limited time here, and he said
Speaker 1: the bad sitcoms split there lines. Some are jokes and
Speaker 1: some are are like story, because he said, what happens
Speaker 1: is if you've separated the story and the jokes, you
Speaker 1: cut all the jokes to get the story, and then
Speaker 1: you have nothing but stories. So he was like really
Speaker 1: hard on us of like, you have to make the story.
Speaker 1: Minds funny. They have to do double duty, and if
Speaker 1: they don't, then it's not good enough and you gotta
Speaker 1: do it again, do it again, and do it again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's that was an amazing lesson to learn it
Speaker 1: because it was like, yeah, you don't have time. You
Speaker 1: can't have talking heads that are jokes, except for when
Speaker 1: they were about the show A Foundation. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: they're definitely worse. So that's so funny. Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to get you out of here. You have talked so
Speaker 1: much about Greg and so poetically and articulately. Is there
Speaker 1: anything that you want to say about you leaving with
Speaker 1: Greg to start Parks and Wreck? Yeah? So he was
Speaker 1: actually during the writers strike, we were picketing UM at
Speaker 1: Paramount and he was like, Hey, I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you, and he basically said like the network wants
Speaker 1: me to do a new show, and I want to
Speaker 1: do it with you, which was like, you know, I remember,
Speaker 1: I remember, like what what does this feel like? And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it feels like Mozart told me
Speaker 1: he wants to design a piano with me or something like.
Speaker 1: That's the closest analog I could come. Was like, this
Speaker 1: is the this is it, Like this is the moment
Speaker 1: that my life changes even more than it has already
Speaker 1: and so at the time Ben wanted to do a
Speaker 1: spinoff of the Office for obvious reasons. But I was like,
Speaker 1: is that? What was that? What this is? And he
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know. I told Ben in the
Speaker 1: network that I would do another show with with you
Speaker 1: and if it turned out that the best idea this is,
Speaker 1: It's classic Greig. It's like, if the best idea is
Speaker 1: to do a spinoff of the from the Office, great,
Speaker 1: But if the best idea is something else, then we
Speaker 1: should do something else. Which is such a again like
Speaker 1: Greg also is a man of enormous integrity, creative integrity,
Speaker 1: and personal integrity. But the idea that he wouldn't just
Speaker 1: cash in. He could have cashed in so easily. He
Speaker 1: could have taken every department. He could have taken the
Speaker 1: accountants and spun them into his own show. And he
Speaker 1: could have taken Kelly and spun her into a show.
Speaker 1: And he could have taken Jan and spun that into
Speaker 1: which he could have it. He could be the dick
Speaker 1: Wolf of comedy if he wanted to. But he was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to harm the integrity of the office proper.
Speaker 1: If there's a way to do it that doesn't do that,
Speaker 1: then great, but if not, then we'll do something else.
Speaker 1: And so the strike ends and we go back and
Speaker 1: we make I don't know fifteen or sixteen episodes of
Speaker 1: the show that year. And then he and I started meeting.
Speaker 1: We went to um Norm's diner, and we met for
Speaker 1: breakfast like three times a week, and I pitched him
Speaker 1: I don't know, two hundred and seventy five ideas for
Speaker 1: TV shows, and he and he picked, and he to
Speaker 1: me like it wasn't a one way street. Some of
Speaker 1: them were spin off. Some of them was like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we could do something with the warehouse, you know,
Speaker 1: or maybe a different branch. I mean, he called the show.
Speaker 1: I don't if you've ever heard this story, but the
Speaker 1: reason the show is called the Office cole in an
Speaker 1: American Workplace is because he, thinking a thousand chest moves ahead,
Speaker 1: was like, if this works, you could do the school
Speaker 1: an American workplace and do a show about teachers. You
Speaker 1: could do like, you know, the Team, an American workplace
Speaker 1: about a monor league baseball team. Whatever. So some of
Speaker 1: them were spinoff, some of them weren't. We ended up
Speaker 1: settling on what became Parts and Wreck, which was basically
Speaker 1: like the Office is an investigation of the private sector,
Speaker 1: and we could do it at the same thing with
Speaker 1: the public sector. And then we got really excited about
Speaker 1: like we can invent dunder Mifflin, but an entire town,
Speaker 1: like an entire ecosystem with media outlets and restaurants and
Speaker 1: city hall and local celebrities and all and a history
Speaker 1: and all that stuff and now. So that was what
Speaker 1: set our brands on fire. So I was around for
Speaker 1: the beginning of season five through Weight Loss and a
Speaker 1: couple other episodes, but really mostly what I was doing
Speaker 1: was focusing on Parks and Rack from that time. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I was very nervous because The Office
Speaker 1: is the best job I had ever had in my
Speaker 1: life by a factor of a thousand. But again I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't you don't turn down the chance
Speaker 1: to develop a show with Greg Daniels would be like
Speaker 1: telling Mozart, no thanks, I can find a better piano teacher,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. So it was very scary, but it
Speaker 1: was also I was like, yeah, this is right, this
Speaker 1: is the right move. And obviously I was correct. Right,
Speaker 1: here's a I don't know, this just occurred to me.
Speaker 1: If Greg had not said that to you, would you
Speaker 1: have left the office? No? God, no, No, I would
Speaker 1: have stayed. I mean I don't know if I would
Speaker 1: have stayed the whole time, but I certainly would have stayed.
Speaker 1: I had no plans to leave, like I was happily
Speaker 1: working there. I would have worked there for at least
Speaker 1: another I think my contract was like two more years
Speaker 1: at so yeah. I mean I wasn't looking to leave
Speaker 1: at all, Like, there was no part of me that
Speaker 1: was itching. I mean when he offered me that chance,
Speaker 1: and I sort of did my evaluation of like, is
Speaker 1: there any reason not to do this? The only reason
Speaker 1: not to do it was how much I love working
Speaker 1: on my current job. And like any obvious risks involved
Speaker 1: with starting something new, there is a real scary thing
Speaker 1: in this business of like if you've got a bird
Speaker 1: in the hand, man take like leave in your hands,
Speaker 1: Like what are you doing? But then I was like, well,
Speaker 1: if it blows up, I'll bet he'll hire me. Still
Speaker 1: find some junior writer to kick out of the way.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you my favorite here's my favorite Greg
Speaker 1: story maybe ever And it doesn't even really involve Greg.
Speaker 1: So we're trying to come up with the idea for
Speaker 1: Parks and Wreck, and I got really excited about it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh yeah, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: a comedy West Wing. That's the like, if the stakes
Speaker 1: of the West Wing are Russia and China are going
Speaker 1: to go to war in Kazakhstan, the stakes of this
Speaker 1: show are the boys soccer team and the girls soccer
Speaker 1: team both are trying to use the same soccer field, right,
Speaker 1: And I just saw the whole thing. I saw and
Speaker 1: Greg was the one who came up with the idea
Speaker 1: that there's like a pit that she's trying to fill in.
Speaker 1: And and so we talked and talked and talked about
Speaker 1: like a full day session where we'd like pitch and
Speaker 1: it's usually with ideas for episodes or anything like you know,
Speaker 1: it's good when, like you, it feels like you accidentally
Speaker 1: hit an oil vein, you know, the oil spurt, like
Speaker 1: ideas are just flying. But because he's Greg, he didn't
Speaker 1: commit to it. He was like, Okay, good, we've got that.
Speaker 1: Let's keep let's keep pitching, trying to come up with
Speaker 1: something else. And we talked about a family show, a
Speaker 1: mockumentary about a family, and we talked about I can't
Speaker 1: remember what else, but just day after day after day
Speaker 1: after day, and the whole time, I was like, no,
Speaker 1: we have the idea, we know what it is, we
Speaker 1: know what it is. So Greg used to have people
Speaker 1: over to his house to watch episodes, right were the
Speaker 1: whole cast and all the writers, everybody who come to
Speaker 1: his house. And I saw his wife, Suzanne, and she
Speaker 1: was like, how's it going? And I was like, it's
Speaker 1: going great, you know. And she was like, do you
Speaker 1: know what the ideas yet? And I was like no,
Speaker 1: and she was like, I kind of hope it's that
Speaker 1: government at one And I was like I kind of
Speaker 1: couldn't mask my like anxiety. And I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, me too. And she laughed and was like,
Speaker 1: let me tell you a story. And I said okay,
Speaker 1: and she said, so early on in Gregg's in my marriage,
Speaker 1: we were driving, I think they were driving from Chicago
Speaker 1: to New York and she says, uh, it's ten o'clock
Speaker 1: at night and I'm starving and we're driving through like
Speaker 1: shull Kill, Pennsylvania. And I said, honey, you gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta start, you gotta pull around, starving. I just need
Speaker 1: I need someone to eat and he was like, okay.
Speaker 1: So we pull off the highway and we see I
Speaker 1: was like, there's a dinner. Go to the dinner. So
Speaker 1: we go to the diner. We walk in and the
Speaker 1: waitresses comes over and Greg starts going out, what do
Speaker 1: you guys serve here? Like what is everyone like? What's
Speaker 1: everyone's favorite dish here? And she was like, oh, people,
Speaker 1: we really like the meat loaf and and he goes like, like,
Speaker 1: how do you prepare it? And she doesn't meat loafing
Speaker 1: and whatever, and he's like what else do people like?
Speaker 1: And Suzanne says to him, can we just sit down
Speaker 1: and eat? And he goes, no, I don't want to
Speaker 1: know what kind of food they have, And so he
Speaker 1: asked that hunter more questions and she goes, Honey, I'm
Speaker 1: starving less to see and he goes, Susanne, we may
Speaker 1: never be in Schulkill, Pennsylvania again. This might be the
Speaker 1: only time we're ever here. We have to like eat
Speaker 1: at the best place. We have to like learn everything
Speaker 1: about this place, like get the best dining experience in Scholkill, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: And she said, Then we pulled out and we we
Speaker 1: we left. We didn't sit down. We what drove to
Speaker 1: another restaurant. We went in, he repeated the asked, you know,
Speaker 1: more questions, what do you serve here? What do people like? Whatever?
Speaker 1: And finally they found like the fourth place they went to,
Speaker 1: and maybe they even doubled back and ended up going
Speaker 1: back to the first one. But she tells me this
Speaker 1: story and I'm like staring at her mouth agape, and
Speaker 1: she goes, that's the man I chose to marry, and
Speaker 1: that's the man you've chosen to develop a TV show.
Speaker 1: And it was like I was like, you're right, You're
Speaker 1: totally right, and like the truth is, I'll bet they
Speaker 1: did have the best meat loaf in Scholkill, Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 1: like there's no better TV show that I would have
Speaker 1: created other than the one that we created together, and
Speaker 1: like it's it's just who he is. Yeah, well let's
Speaker 1: let's play that. Uh played number six. I thought it
Speaker 1: was weird when you picked us to make a documentary,
Speaker 1: but all in all, I think an ordinary paper company
Speaker 1: like dunder Mifflin was a great subject for a documentary.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of beauty and ordinary things. Isn't that
Speaker 1: kind of the point. So it's really to me clear
Speaker 1: that's what Greg thought it was all about. Did Lee
Speaker 1: or anyone to talk about truth and beauty? Has that
Speaker 1: phrase come up? Truth and beauty. There were a bunch
Speaker 1: of phrases that were like sort of the mantras early on,
Speaker 1: and Greg's the number one most repeated allem with truth
Speaker 1: and beauty. And he was like, everything that we make
Speaker 1: should be true, should be real, should feel like it's true,
Speaker 1: and it should be the attempt should be to find
Speaker 1: the beauty. And whatever you're doing and the writing and
Speaker 1: the acting and the directing and the set design and
Speaker 1: the costumes and everything, truth and beauty, Truth and beauty.
Speaker 1: And it just got deeply ingrained in us. He gave
Speaker 1: us an analogy for what the show was um in
Speaker 1: the first season, which was, imagine a completely paved parking
Speaker 1: lot in an office park. It's stretching out as far
Speaker 1: as you can see, and you're walking across it, and
Speaker 1: it's a hot day and as you're just in a
Speaker 1: corporate industrial waste land, and then you look down and
Speaker 1: there's a crack in the asphalt and there's a single
Speaker 1: little dandy lion growing through the crack. He's like, that's
Speaker 1: what the show is. It's finding that Dandylion right, finding
Speaker 1: that little tiny glimmer of truth and beauty and happiness
Speaker 1: in aggressively unbeautiful landscape. Greg used to say, I'm really
Speaker 1: I found like like a like a cult member. It's
Speaker 1: we're talking about Greg as much as I am, but
Speaker 1: it's impossible to talk about the show without talking about him.
Speaker 1: The truth and beauty was like, it didn't surprise me
Speaker 1: when that was the end of the show. I remember thinking, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he nailed He like at the very end of the day,
Speaker 1: he sort of laid out his view of what why
Speaker 1: the show mattered for everyone through Pam, which is the
Speaker 1: right character to do it through. You know, Pam believes
Speaker 1: that Michael may have been whatever lead, but that Pam
Speaker 1: was truly the heart of the show. Who said that,
Speaker 1: Jenna Jenna, I think she's probably right. Um. I've had
Speaker 1: this conversation with a bunch of people in the US
Speaker 1: with the with the weird resurgence of the show in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. I've talked to Gentilata and
Speaker 1: Paul and and Lee and Mindy. I think about like
Speaker 1: just when you rewatch it, one of the episodes that
Speaker 1: hit you the hardest. I think that the maybe maybe
Speaker 1: the best episode that we ever did was Pam's art show.
Speaker 1: The ending of that episode is no one comes to
Speaker 1: her art show because no one likes her at that
Speaker 1: moment in the show, and at the end of it,
Speaker 1: Michael shows up and one of the things that she
Speaker 1: drew was the office and he is just like so
Speaker 1: blown away by it, and it's so meaningful that he's
Speaker 1: there for her because no one else showed up, Jim
Speaker 1: didn't show up, nobody showed up and um, and she
Speaker 1: hugs him and then there's a great joke that I
Speaker 1: think they added on the set where she's like, what's
Speaker 1: in your pocket? And he goes chunky and she looks
Speaker 1: at him and he pulls it out and it's an
Speaker 1: actual chunky. But that the moment where he shows up,
Speaker 1: I think is the is maybe the best moment and
Speaker 1: that we ever did, like him showing up at her
Speaker 1: our show and her reaction to it and her hugging him,
Speaker 1: like I think she's right, Like Pam, that is the
Speaker 1: She is the person in those moments who makes Michael
Speaker 1: feel better when the bird dies, and who like he's
Speaker 1: kind of the gatekeeper of everybody's emotional status and stuff
Speaker 1: and yeah, I know, well it's interesting that you bring
Speaker 1: that up because that coupled with that talking head. That's
Speaker 1: the last moment of the show, is Pam picking up
Speaker 1: that drawing and taking it with her. That's right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. And it was very That episode was very
Speaker 1: hard to break. I remember I think Brent wrote it
Speaker 1: Brent Forrester. As we did every episode, we rewrote it
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over again, and like
Speaker 1: that was the that was like a late addition, was
Speaker 1: like that the way out of this. We're always looking
Speaker 1: for the for the off ramp for Michael of like
Speaker 1: how does he get out of his whatever miserable circumstance
Speaker 1: hands he put himself in. And it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: the way out is he goes to Pam's art chow
Speaker 1: and then the idea that she drew the office and
Speaker 1: he takes it back and hangs it up like he's
Speaker 1: It was like that was the emotional solve, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, he should that's where he should
Speaker 1: hang it, right outside his office. It should be the
Speaker 1: thing that he sees every day before he goes to work,
Speaker 1: you know. Is I mean those little those little tiny consistencies,
Speaker 1: that's what's so great about having a show that lasts
Speaker 1: for a long time as you get to do these
Speaker 1: things in season three or whatever that are there and
Speaker 1: that like end up mattering a whole lot in season
Speaker 1: I mean, as a fan, I wrote the episode with
Speaker 1: the teapot and the note and everything, and then it
Speaker 1: was like in season nine when I was watching just
Speaker 1: as a fan and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's coming back, right, and we had I had um
Speaker 1: John write the note himself and I said, don't tell
Speaker 1: anyone what you're writing. Write whatever you want, right, whatever
Speaker 1: you think Jim would write. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: he wrote. I no, I've never seen it, and I
Speaker 1: don't think he ever told anyone. I don't think Jenn
Speaker 1: ever told anyone. Like it's like I think I believe
Speaker 1: it's like a secret shared by the two of essentially
Speaker 1: by the two of them and maybe the props department
Speaker 1: if they steamed it open and looked at Wow, Um,
Speaker 1: what do you think it's legacy is? I mean, it's
Speaker 1: legacy is Uh, it's going to be enormous, I think.
Speaker 1: I mean for a couple of reasons. One is it's
Speaker 1: really good. Two is the cast is incredible. And every time,
Speaker 1: every time someone discovers Jenni Fish or John Krasinski or
Speaker 1: Rain Wilson or you or Angelo or anybody or Craig Robinson,
Speaker 1: they're going to go, like, where did this person start?
Speaker 1: And then they're gonna go back and watch the show.
Speaker 1: But also it just was on. It did that, We
Speaker 1: did two episodes, Like there aren't many shows that do
Speaker 1: that anymore. That era is over, Like there, how many
Speaker 1: more shows are going to even do a hundred in
Speaker 1: this era that we're in a six episode, eight episode,
Speaker 1: ten episodes seasons, even shows that last ten years do
Speaker 1: eight episodes or something. And I think the reason why
Speaker 1: so many people have discovered it and have like really
Speaker 1: sat with it is because it's one of the last shows,
Speaker 1: one of the most recent shows where you feel like
Speaker 1: you can watch a new episode every night. And and
Speaker 1: you know, my son is eleven now. My son was
Speaker 1: was born in season four of the show, and he's
Speaker 1: now eleven, and he just watched every single episode, and
Speaker 1: every kid in his grads watched every single episode. By
Speaker 1: the way, here's another thing Greg did. We used to
Speaker 1: try constantly to like put pop culture references in the show,
Speaker 1: and Greg was like, you know, no no pop culture references. Um,
Speaker 1: this show needs to feel like it could. It's timeless,
Speaker 1: like it could be happening in any moment in time
Speaker 1: from the seventies until like two thousand fifty. And I
Speaker 1: remember thinking at the time, like, all right, you're pretty
Speaker 1: high on yourself there. But they just think that this
Speaker 1: show is gonna matter. And now look it's twenty years
Speaker 1: later and it matters just as much. And my son
Speaker 1: doesn't know that that show isn't on the air. Netflix
Speaker 1: shows and ABC shows and are the same. And it's
Speaker 1: crazy because now you can watch it and it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel dated because there's no references to, you know, things
Speaker 1: that were happening in two let's see. I think it's
Speaker 1: different than that. I respectfully slightly disagree. Interesting because when
Speaker 1: you watch it, which I recently did, it doesn't feel dated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll see when I think it was? Was you guys
Speaker 1: in the writing, we're so specific. The characters were written
Speaker 1: so specifically, and so it almost functions that because you
Speaker 1: don't watch a documentary about the seventies and go that
Speaker 1: feels dated, right, It's just like that's when it happened.
Speaker 1: So now we're watching a documentary about this very specific
Speaker 1: placement at this very specific moment. I I think maybe
Speaker 1: it's both things, right. It's like we didn't call attention
Speaker 1: to when it was happening, and also we were very
Speaker 1: specific about what was happening. And then that way, it
Speaker 1: just feels like it's a moment in time, of place
Speaker 1: in time, wherever you want to put it. So I
Speaker 1: like the in terms of its legacy. To get back
Speaker 1: to that, I keep getting off topic, but I think
Speaker 1: that people settle into the show and watch this show
Speaker 1: because it has this incredible specificity and it has this
Speaker 1: just deep It feels like you're eating the richest dessert
Speaker 1: a tiny bit at a time, and that is a
Speaker 1: really lovely feeling to have. Like, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: different kind of hangout show from other successful hangout shows,
Speaker 1: from Cheers or Friends or the It's a it's a
Speaker 1: hangout show that that feels like the emotional lives of
Speaker 1: the characters are completely wrought and thick and juicy, and
Speaker 1: you can really follow people's psychologies and their lives as
Speaker 1: they grow over the course of nine years. And I
Speaker 1: don't I think a show like that is very rare,
Speaker 1: and I think that people will still be watching this
Speaker 1: show a very long time right now. When was the
Speaker 1: decision made for writers to start acting in the show
Speaker 1: from the before the before the pilot, I mean Greg
Speaker 1: coming from SNL, Greg wanted SNL is very um. The
Speaker 1: membrane between writers and actors is very thin, and all
Speaker 1: the actors write stuff, and a lot of the writers
Speaker 1: are in sketches and stuff. And almost everyone there's a
Speaker 1: writer performer, even if he or she is only on
Speaker 1: staff as a writer or something. And he liked that,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to get rid of the false dichotomy
Speaker 1: of writers and actors. So he hired Mindy specifically because
Speaker 1: she was a performer. She was in a play called
Speaker 1: Mattin Band that she had written in New York. He
Speaker 1: hired b J because BJ was a stand up and
Speaker 1: a writer. He and then like we made Paul against
Speaker 1: his will play Toby in the first season, like we forced.
Speaker 1: He did not want to do it. He hated it,
Speaker 1: he hated acting, but we forced him to do it
Speaker 1: because he was so funny to have him be the
Speaker 1: guy that Michael Scott hates more than anybody. But it
Speaker 1: was that was always the design. I think he wanted
Speaker 1: everybody to to write and perform ideally except for me,
Speaker 1: because he made me a freak. Most famously and most
Speaker 1: annoyingly to me, played the character most shrewd. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: We never talked about most Oh my god. I assumed
Speaker 1: it was gonna be your first question. I I know,
Speaker 1: I have a whole section on it. But you were
Speaker 1: so great? Um, all right, well then just very quickly
Speaker 1: sure you were cast as most I was, and you're
Speaker 1: happy about that. Hated it. I hated every second of it.
Speaker 1: Why did you hate it? Because I was wearing wool
Speaker 1: clothes and had a neck beard and it was always
Speaker 1: really hot, and I didn't The joke was I didn't talk,
Speaker 1: and that's not a funny joke. And it was always
Speaker 1: like I had to get up at four thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning and drive to the middle of nowhere and
Speaker 1: wear wool clothes and it was. And then the joke
Speaker 1: came with the writers because they knew how much I
Speaker 1: hated it. They loved like, what if you're shirtless, what
Speaker 1: if you're on a seesaw, What if you're on a trampoline,
Speaker 1: What if you're running as fast as you can alongside
Speaker 1: a car like a dog I was at Parks and
Speaker 1: wreck and they would call me and they like, we
Speaker 1: need mos And I was like, I have a job,
Speaker 1: I have a life, I have young children, and they
Speaker 1: would just make me do it. They would compete with
Speaker 1: each other to see what was the most humiliating possible
Speaker 1: thing they could have me do. But that that episode
Speaker 1: Paul So, Paul wrote that episode where they were Jim
Speaker 1: and Pam go to Shreot Farms, and he wrote in
Speaker 1: the in the script, it literally says, Mose appears out
Speaker 1: of nowhere and runs along the side of the car
Speaker 1: like a dog. That's what it says. That's I'm a
Speaker 1: human being. And so we did that scene. It was
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty degrees. I was in woolf clothes
Speaker 1: and and old work boots that like didn't fit properly.
Speaker 1: And that sprint is probably a hundred and fifty yards
Speaker 1: down that dirt road from the time I come out
Speaker 1: to the time I had to run all the way
Speaker 1: up into Shrewt Farms. Of course cuts off long before
Speaker 1: I ever get there, of course, but they like, you
Speaker 1: got it, Paul was directing, was like, you gotta run
Speaker 1: all the way there. So I did over and over
Speaker 1: and over again, probably twelve or fourteen takes because Paul
Speaker 1: delighted in it so much. And then later in that episode,
Speaker 1: I'm in Jurassic Park pajamas that don't fit me properly.
Speaker 1: And then Greg pitched the thing where he was like,
Speaker 1: what if there's a loud noise and Pam goes to
Speaker 1: the window and looks at it, and Moses in the
Speaker 1: outhouse with his pants down and the doors flapping clothes.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like it was aggressive. It was
Speaker 1: They knew I never should have been. If I had said, like,
Speaker 1: I love doing this, they never would have put me
Speaker 1: in the show again. But because I hated it so
Speaker 1: much and was so vocal about hating it, well, you
Speaker 1: have confirmed something. Moses a is a fan favorite. You
Speaker 1: hear about people loving most. Okay, let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: What I have always said is I think Moses a
Speaker 1: writer's room joke. Oh, you have now confirmed without a
Speaker 1: doubt that it was literally a writer's room meant to
Speaker 1: torture you, meant specifically to make me miserable. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: was in a coffin. I was like hanging upside down somewhere,
Speaker 1: like there were a bunch of things that we did
Speaker 1: that were then just cut out of the show. I
Speaker 1: was riding a moped over like trying to jump a
Speaker 1: bunch of cars. They made me do that moped thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to drive a moped. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to drive a moped. No one taught me
Speaker 1: how to drive. They were like, just get on and
Speaker 1: just rev the thing, because the point was if I
Speaker 1: wipe out, it'll be really fun now, and then run
Speaker 1: across the roofs of these cars again. If you slip
Speaker 1: and fall and break your pelvis, it'll be really funny.
Speaker 1: Like they was. The subtext was always the worst this goes,
Speaker 1: the funnier it will be when it happens. Well, I
Speaker 1: this was after you left. I mean sort of from
Speaker 1: the beginning, but then more and more Kevin started having
Speaker 1: a lot of physical comedy type stuff. And there would
Speaker 1: be times where I would go to the writer's room
Speaker 1: and say, I don't remember if you were ever there,
Speaker 1: but I would say, you guys are writing for Homer
Speaker 1: Simpson right now, and a cartoon you can force to
Speaker 1: do whatever you'd like him to do. He can do whatever, right,
Speaker 1: but I can't. My body doesn't work that way. No
Speaker 1: one does right, like the most painful. I feel like
Speaker 1: I still have pain from it. Is the most innocuous.
Speaker 1: You would never ever ever know. The office workers have
Speaker 1: to go to the warehouse and move boxes, so they
Speaker 1: decide they're gonna put remember that episode Boiled Down, so
Speaker 1: they could move boxes to get to the troll. And
Speaker 1: everyone thought the big guy falling is really funny. So
Speaker 1: I just kept falling slipping and which means on a
Speaker 1: concrete surface with oil, kneecap on concrete over and it's like, guys,
Speaker 1: I can't keep You've got to like, yeah, there has
Speaker 1: to be some other solution. We had a We had
Speaker 1: a similar thing on Parson Wreck, where Nick Offerman's character
Speaker 1: Ron Swanson was a sort of he was a little
Speaker 1: cartoonish in his abilities to do various things, and we
Speaker 1: wrote this joke where he wanted to get he was
Speaker 1: eating a he got lunch and he was eating as hamburger,
Speaker 1: and and the joke was he wanted to get out
Speaker 1: of the lunch as quickly as possible, so when the script,
Speaker 1: he shoved the entire hamburger into his mouth and ate
Speaker 1: it in one bite. So they Dean Holland was directing
Speaker 1: it and he was like okay action and Nick did
Speaker 1: his best, but then Dean was like, you you really
Speaker 1: need to eat the whole thing in one bite, and
Speaker 1: he was like this is a like a half pound hamburger. Okay,
Speaker 1: Like I maybe the character can do this, but a
Speaker 1: human can't. And yeah, all right, yeah right, sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not your character, right, Okay, I almost wiped out
Speaker 1: super hard on that moped. Like well, first of all,
Speaker 1: the joke was someone pulls up in the car. It
Speaker 1: was the Garden Party episode. Someone pulls up in the
Speaker 1: car night and I'm the valve most of the valet
Speaker 1: and I get in and they're like, just get in
Speaker 1: and tear off down this road, right, And the joke
Speaker 1: at the time is why is most driving so fast
Speaker 1: and so insistent? And so I did, and like I
Speaker 1: tore off down the road and I'm not a stunt driver.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like and suddenly I'm going sixty five
Speaker 1: on a dirt road and on a set and the
Speaker 1: back tires fish tail because it's a dirt road, and
Speaker 1: I like slowed down and was like, oh right, I'm
Speaker 1: not This isn't a no One's gonna like save me
Speaker 1: if I crashed this car, I'll die because I also
Speaker 1: got in and didn't put my seatbelt on because the
Speaker 1: joke was you get in and take off, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, I just I forgot for
Speaker 1: a second that I'm not fictional. I'm like, sure, I'm
Speaker 1: not fictional. I'm a human could suffer consequences. Mine very
Speaker 1: similar to that was I think it was when there's
Speaker 1: the storyline of Dwight telling Holly that that Kevin is slow,
Speaker 1: and there was a scene we did a number of
Speaker 1: different ways. This didn't end up in but where I'm
Speaker 1: driving and she's like you're driving. You have a car,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yeah, I have a car, And at
Speaker 1: one point they were like, okay, so do that, but
Speaker 1: then get out of the car, but leave it running,
Speaker 1: like leave it, leave it like leave it, leave it
Speaker 1: in gear. So like as you step out, the car
Speaker 1: is going to move forward and then we'll have somebody
Speaker 1: else who can jump in and stop it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: did ideas like profound Meanwhile, it's vedas car, right like
Speaker 1: her real car. I uh. That joke that they did
Speaker 1: with Kevin in the later years where he didn't know
Speaker 1: the alphabet elemento. Paul pitshed that in season two and
Speaker 1: we were like, Paul, that's insane, Like you can't say
Speaker 1: that he doesn't know that he's an accountant. He's a
Speaker 1: working accountant. Like he might not be the best accountant,
Speaker 1: he's an accountant. It made Paul laugh so hard. And
Speaker 1: the second that Paul took over the show, that joke aired,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, that's what he got what
Speaker 1: he wanted. Six years later, he told me it was
Speaker 1: his favorite joke that he ever wrote. Yeah, yes, element
Speaker 1: he told me and us that and and tried to
Speaker 1: get it into the show and like season two or
Speaker 1: three or something, and we're like, you know, there's crazy
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I mean, you know, again, this is
Speaker 1: a writer's room joke that no one would ever know.
Speaker 1: But what was Kevin's band going to be? And having
Speaker 1: it be the Police? This sounds like a you thing actually,
Speaker 1: But the idea that I was a drummer lead singer
Speaker 1: of the police, and with the Police, the lyrics and
Speaker 1: the singing is off of the beat of the drums
Speaker 1: because they had like rhythms. You would have to be
Speaker 1: a musical savant to be able to play drums and sing. Well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the Police Originally it was Steve was Steve
Speaker 1: Miller band and they were called the Midnight Tookers. My
Speaker 1: friend scotts Olvery was in a Steve Miller cover band
Speaker 1: in high school called the Midnight Tookers. Scott's a writer,
Speaker 1: and I always thought that was the perfect amount of
Speaker 1: stupid for a cover. But like Midnight Tookers is like, oh,
Speaker 1: what a great and so it's a Steve Miller band.
Speaker 1: And then they didn't give us the rights to the music, yes,
Speaker 1: and so we had to change it. And so I
Speaker 1: think Mindy maybe pitched Scrantnicity Mindy or Paul. But I
Speaker 1: remember being so bummed out that it couldn't be the
Speaker 1: Midnight Pokers, just because I had really had my heart
Speaker 1: set on it. I sang, we did the whole video, right,
Speaker 1: that's right, and we're trying to volume down because it
Speaker 1: was too like jet Airliner or whatever, remember what it was.
Speaker 1: But yes, and maybe it was the Joker. I don't
Speaker 1: know it was, yeah, right, But I'm happy at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I'm happy that it was Scrantnicity. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was a good solution to that stupid problem. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: you've given us so much time. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: so really fun. I like walking down memory Lane. It's fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such a I mean, it's just actually awesome to see.
Speaker 1: I know it's been too long, I know. And congratulations
Speaker 1: on everything, and um, thank you so much, my pleasure,
Speaker 1: wow the things that could have been. Thank you Mike
Speaker 1: for coming back and sharing so much of your story
Speaker 1: with us. It was so great to have you and
Speaker 1: just so great to talk the office with you. And
Speaker 1: thank you all as always for listening week to week
Speaker 1: or day to day. Don't forget to come back next Tuesday,
Speaker 1: same time, same place, for another very special episode, because
Speaker 1: that day, next Tuesday, is the day that we, or
Speaker 1: at least I have been waiting for. It will finally
Speaker 1: be here the launch of our brand spanking new book
Speaker 1: Next Tuesday. Head to Amazon dot Com, Barnes and Noble
Speaker 1: Books a million, wherever you get your books. Basically, go
Speaker 1: the pre order your very own copy of Welcome to
Speaker 1: dunder Mifflin, The Ultimate Oral History of the Office, and
Speaker 1: if you do, you could be reading it one week
Speaker 1: from today. Grab one for yourself, grab one for everyone
Speaker 1: that you know, because when it comes to a gift,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have a hard time getting it in. That's
Speaker 1: what she said. Wait, no, you shouldn't have a hard
Speaker 1: time getting it in time for the holidays or you know,
Speaker 1: any day, because every day is a holiday when you're
Speaker 1: with me. Oh okay, have a great week everyone. The office.
Speaker 1: Deep Dive is hosted and executive produced by me Brian
Speaker 1: bond Gartner, alongside our executive producer Langley. Our senior producer
Speaker 1: is Tessa Kramer. Our producers are Is Hayes and 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 Olandsky.