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. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: The Office Deep Dive. I am your host Brian Baumgartner.
Speaker 1: Today I am thrilled to present to you or introduced
Speaker 1: to you, Mr Mike Sure. Mike was one of the
Speaker 1: original writers that was hired by Greg Daniels for the Office,
Speaker 1: and as some of you may know, Mike has had
Speaker 1: an incredible career since then. At the beginning of season five,
Speaker 1: Mike left to create Parks and Wreck with Greg, and
Speaker 1: then after that he went on to create and produce
Speaker 1: some of the greatest comedies of the last decade, like Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: Master of None and The Good Place with one of
Speaker 1: my favorites, Ted Danson. And although that is very impressive,
Speaker 1: by far, his greatest singular professional achievement was his portrayal
Speaker 1: of Mose Shrewd. That's right, Mike played Mose. Now Mos
Speaker 1: did not, as we all know, have a lot to say,
Speaker 1: but Mike, Mike is one of the best talkers that
Speaker 1: I know. He is an amazing storyteller. It's like his
Speaker 1: entire brain, it just it just thinks in stories. I
Speaker 1: don't know how else to put it. He is a genius,
Speaker 1: and he is a genius. But truly, I could listen
Speaker 1: to Mike all day. I know that you're going to
Speaker 1: feel the same way. Plus, this episode is the beginning
Speaker 1: of another mini deep dive into the writer's Room, which
Speaker 1: you will hear much more about next week. When I
Speaker 1: talked to Greg Daniels, So pull up a chair, put
Speaker 1: up your feet unless you're driving, and enjoy my conversation
Speaker 1: with Mike Schure, Bubble and Squeak. I love it Bubble
Speaker 1: and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker cooking at every month,
Speaker 1: left over from the night before. Um are we just starting?
Speaker 1: Are they really just chatting? Yeah? I mean everything is
Speaker 1: being recorded. Um uh, what were you doing before you
Speaker 1: join the writing staff? I was at s n L
Speaker 1: from oh four. My then girlfriend now wife had moved
Speaker 1: out here in two thousand two and we were dating
Speaker 1: long distance, and it was like, all right, well one
Speaker 1: of us has to move and it made more sense
Speaker 1: for me to leave SNL, where I had been for
Speaker 1: six years and come out to l A. So I
Speaker 1: told Lauren I was leaving sn L at the end
Speaker 1: of the year, and had a year to kind of prepare,
Speaker 1: wrote wrote spec scripts and came out here and had
Speaker 1: meetings and everything, and had I had a million meetings,
Speaker 1: and Gregg's was the most interesting by far, like for
Speaker 1: so many reasons. First of all, because Greg's an interesting person,
Speaker 1: and because I loved the British Office, and that that
Speaker 1: meeting was like two two or two and a half hours.
Speaker 1: Lee Eisenberg told me about he was going in to
Speaker 1: meet and his agents said, just so you know, Greg
Speaker 1: does really long meetings, and so Lee said, he left
Speaker 1: and was like, that was a really long meeting. It
Speaker 1: went well, but it was like, yeah, but he does
Speaker 1: really long meetings. I was talking to Aubrey Plaza the
Speaker 1: other day and she was reminding me of this thing
Speaker 1: I've forgotten, which was so after season four, Greg and
Speaker 1: I started developing Parks and Wreck together, and Alison Jones
Speaker 1: called me and said, I just met with the weirdest
Speaker 1: woman I've ever met with. She's like twenty three and
Speaker 1: she's here from uc B and I I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's a part for her, but you should meet her.
Speaker 1: And when Allison Jones tells you to meet someone, you
Speaker 1: you meet them immediately and so I was like, yeah, however,
Speaker 1: come over right now. So she came over and I
Speaker 1: went and told Greg who was We were at the
Speaker 1: office offices, and I said this, Allison sending this actress
Speaker 1: to meet us for the new show, and he was like, okay, great.
Speaker 1: So Aubrey came over and I said, Hi, nice to
Speaker 1: meet you. Greg. Daniel is going to join us in
Speaker 1: a second, and she was like okay, cool. And we
Speaker 1: talked for like fifteen or twenty minutes, and then Greg
Speaker 1: came in and then like ten minutes of the meeting,
Speaker 1: he just got up and left without saying a word,
Speaker 1: and Aubrey looked around, like what's happening, and I just
Speaker 1: I was used to it, so I just kept talking.
Speaker 1: And then like half an hour later Greg came back
Speaker 1: and just sat down with no explanation of where he
Speaker 1: had gone, and then talked for another like fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: and then just without a word, in the middle of
Speaker 1: a sentence, got up and left again. And it was like,
Speaker 1: this is what happens with Daniels is meetings are not
Speaker 1: normal meetings. Like one way or another, something weird is
Speaker 1: going to happen. Someone was telling us about Alison Jones
Speaker 1: about being in casting meeting at Ben Silverman's old bungalow.
Speaker 1: They're all sitting around a conference table and they're talking
Speaker 1: about casting for the pilot and suddenly Greg gets up
Speaker 1: and jumps out the window and they all are like what.
Speaker 1: And apparently Nancy Perkins in her like Boston outfit was
Speaker 1: accent was like I've heard of producers wanting to jump
Speaker 1: out and thankfully was on the first floor. But he uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he had left a sweater in his car, right,
Speaker 1: and that was the most efficient way to get just
Speaker 1: like he liked his terminator brain like analyzed the layout
Speaker 1: of the building. It was like, oh, the quickest route. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so that was your That was the first time you've
Speaker 1: met Greg? Yes, I I knew who he was obviously
Speaker 1: and h but I never met him before the meeting,
Speaker 1: And um, we had a shocking amount in common, like
Speaker 1: we both we were we both into Harvard, wrote for
Speaker 1: the Lampoon and both wrote a us an l met
Speaker 1: our girlfriends and then later wives. There later when my
Speaker 1: son was born he had red hair and Greg's son
Speaker 1: has red hair. There was it was like it's a
Speaker 1: very weird series of things. But um, yeah, I've never
Speaker 1: met him before. Um, there was a moment um we
Speaker 1: were in the old and those days the offices were
Speaker 1: in down in Culver City, and there was a there
Speaker 1: was a moment where we were deep in the weeds
Speaker 1: on the episode that I think became Hot Girl, the
Speaker 1: Amy Adams episode, and we were pitching and pitching and
Speaker 1: pitching different ideas and whatever, and I was I had
Speaker 1: a notebook and I was like jotting things down, and uh,
Speaker 1: suddenly he said, Greg said, okay, well, let's hang on
Speaker 1: for a second, Like what makes a good story, right, Um,
Speaker 1: here's what you need for a good story. And he
Speaker 1: started talking about, you know, basic building blocks of storytelling, motivation, steaks,
Speaker 1: twists and turns, escalation, stuff like that. And he was
Speaker 1: sort of like almost just thinking out loud, right like
Speaker 1: this is what so we can't break this story? Why
Speaker 1: is that? But he was doing it in such a
Speaker 1: sort of professorial and thorough way that I realized like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is just a class. I'm in a class now.
Speaker 1: And I remember turning the page in my notebook and
Speaker 1: starting to take notes like I was in college, just
Speaker 1: writing as fast as I could, like writing as if
Speaker 1: he were a professor in a biochemistry class. This was
Speaker 1: having subconsciously, you were no, No, No, I knew. I
Speaker 1: saw what was happening, like this is this is the
Speaker 1: theory of this world. And I just took notes for
Speaker 1: like forty five minutes, like I was in college, and
Speaker 1: this is not a joke. There are I still have them,
Speaker 1: and I still go back and look at them, like
Speaker 1: to this day. That's now, that was two thousand four,
Speaker 1: that was probably August of two thousand four, and I
Speaker 1: still there are still moments where I'm like, why doesn't
Speaker 1: this makes end? And I'll go back and look at
Speaker 1: what he wrote, what he said that day off the
Speaker 1: top of his head, and oh, you're right, You're right,
Speaker 1: that's what's missing. Um, like maybe a day later, No,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, much earlier. And it's like the first day
Speaker 1: of work, and you know, I went to pitching, pitching pitching,
Speaker 1: and I said like, oh, I had an episode idea
Speaker 1: where there's like a stray dog in the parking lot
Speaker 1: and that the office kind of like adopts the dog
Speaker 1: as like an office pet. And Greg, I've really excited,
Speaker 1: and he was like, oh, oh, okay, I hadn't I
Speaker 1: had a similar idea, had a similar idea. That's a
Speaker 1: good sign. And he brought out a spiral notebook and
Speaker 1: he flipped through it, flip flip flip, page after page
Speaker 1: of like serial killer level writing, like margin to margin,
Speaker 1: you know, things underlined and whatever, and he goes a
Speaker 1: flip flop. Okay, yeah, here, just okay. So here was
Speaker 1: my idea. So there's a three dog in the office
Speaker 1: park and they adopted and then they all they're all
Speaker 1: caring for it. And I thought that Dwight could have
Speaker 1: this relationship to the dog, and my would be really
Speaker 1: sad because his dog didn't seem to like him. And
Speaker 1: then Jim and Pam would kind of take over care
Speaker 1: of the dog and they would feed the dog, and
Speaker 1: then at night there was a question of who would
Speaker 1: take the dog home, and Pam would take it home
Speaker 1: one night, and Jim would take it home another night,
Speaker 1: and the dog would sort of become almost like a
Speaker 1: surrogate domestic animal for Jim and Pam, and then Roy
Speaker 1: would come in and Roy would bond with the dog,
Speaker 1: and then the dog would go home. And he laid
Speaker 1: out like an entire story from beginning to end, where
Speaker 1: this plot device of a dog just related to every
Speaker 1: single character in the office, and he got to the
Speaker 1: end of his like eight minute long pitch and there
Speaker 1: was a beat, and I remember going, well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like we should do your version. That's it
Speaker 1: seems like you maybe thought this out. But the amazing
Speaker 1: thing to me about stories like that, of which there
Speaker 1: are many, is we never did that episode like that.
Speaker 1: Like he had episode after episode broken out and thought
Speaker 1: through just as background, just as like Grist for the
Speaker 1: mill of like how he could understand breakdown at a
Speaker 1: molecular level and understand the characters and their relationships. We
Speaker 1: never did they We never even pitched that out. Like
Speaker 1: he had so many ideas like that that never got used.
Speaker 1: And when you sort of go back and analyze what
Speaker 1: made the show work, to me, I always go back
Speaker 1: to that, because it's like he knew everything about every
Speaker 1: character before we started doing anything, and so as a result,
Speaker 1: there was this incredible lived in field to that office,
Speaker 1: this richness and this like this kind of layered feeling
Speaker 1: of like these people have always been here and they've
Speaker 1: had three dimensional lives before the cameras ever started rolling,
Speaker 1: and that that's just such a rare thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: usually you're scrambling like crazy right early going of a
Speaker 1: show to try to figure out who everybody isn't Greg
Speaker 1: already knew, yes, And it ties into why Kappus was
Speaker 1: such a great choice for that too. So you have
Speaker 1: that lived in quality and quapus with this genius idea
Speaker 1: of having us do the thirty minutes of busy work.
Speaker 1: We were all there, ready to go seven am, and
Speaker 1: he's like, you guys, just start working, make phone calls,
Speaker 1: pretend to hand each other documents, and I'm on the
Speaker 1: adding machine and you know, just little moments. He essentially
Speaker 1: eliminated the artificial membrane between this is reality and this
Speaker 1: is fiction. He made it a fluid thing. And to
Speaker 1: your credit and the other actors in the show, we
Speaker 1: did a thing on that show for years where it
Speaker 1: was like, even if you're in the deep background, you've
Speaker 1: got to beat your desk and it's a pain, right.
Speaker 1: It's like actors, you guys could have all been in
Speaker 1: your trailers, like playing video games or calling your children
Speaker 1: or whatever. But like the value of it feeling real
Speaker 1: like that, I mean, these things are so delicate, right,
Speaker 1: because like it's it's asking a tremendous amount of the
Speaker 1: actors to sit at your desk for as long as
Speaker 1: you did, and all of these things that you would
Speaker 1: think of as sort of like a little theatery and
Speaker 1: a little actory and a little kind of like we're
Speaker 1: gonna be in character and we're going to kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little embarrassing. It's a little like,
Speaker 1: come on, what are we doing it? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's a little like, but if there's a
Speaker 1: theory behind it, if it's not just like let's explore
Speaker 1: the nature of drama or whatever, you see the benefit
Speaker 1: of it. And the benefit of it was from the
Speaker 1: minute they shot the first frame, it felt like everyone
Speaker 1: was really working in that place. Nothing about it felt fake.
Speaker 1: I mean down to the fact that, like the set
Speaker 1: design was almost exactly the actual offices that the writers
Speaker 1: worked in in Culver City, Like they just recreated that.
Speaker 1: And so when we were writing in that first season,
Speaker 1: Greg would say, like, go, everyone, spend like half an
Speaker 1: hour and just like mill around the set. We later
Speaker 1: recreated it, but like that was the set where we
Speaker 1: were working, and so we would sit at different desks
Speaker 1: and you would sort of go like, oh, like from
Speaker 1: Pam's desk, she can't quite see Angela. That's interesting, like
Speaker 1: and then you would say, like here's Creed and Creates
Speaker 1: got his back to the door, so like he never
Speaker 1: knows who's coming into He's always going to be surprised
Speaker 1: anytime anyone goes whatever. These tiny observations that you think
Speaker 1: of as like is this really anything, But then it
Speaker 1: is because because the whole show was about these tiny
Speaker 1: little observations and tiny moments, and when you've actually lived
Speaker 1: inside them as an actor or writer, they become more
Speaker 1: meaningful and you understand them at a deeper level. You know,
Speaker 1: when we went to Scranton for the Office Festival that year,
Speaker 1: whatever year that was, even then it was what was
Speaker 1: the season was that for? I think that was for
Speaker 1: the convention. Yeah, it was like season four. But even
Speaker 1: then Greg was like everyone go out, fan out do research,
Speaker 1: and Lee and Gene and I drove around with Jason Kestler,
Speaker 1: a writer's assistant, and like took pictures and like broke
Speaker 1: down the names of restaurants and there was a condo
Speaker 1: development and I took a bunch of pictures and I
Speaker 1: was like, I think this is Michael's condo. Was hadn't
Speaker 1: been in season two, but I was like, this is
Speaker 1: the condo development, and like, so I took different angles
Speaker 1: of like what it looked like down the road and stuff,
Speaker 1: and we handed them to Gallenberg and Michael Gallenberg as
Speaker 1: the production designer, and like we were still that intent
Speaker 1: at that point in like making sure we got it right,
Speaker 1: even if it even if no one never if the
Speaker 1: ideal is even if you've never been to Scranton and
Speaker 1: you never go to Scranton, you should still feel like
Speaker 1: you've been to Scranton. Like that's how that's how intense
Speaker 1: it was. So the first season we make the first
Speaker 1: season and other than the pilot, none of the stories
Speaker 1: are related to the to the British show. But people
Speaker 1: still are like, boo, we know we were right. This
Speaker 1: was bad, bad idea, and they into this day you'll
Speaker 1: find people who say, like they stuck to the British
Speaker 1: scripts for the first season, which we didn't, but no
Speaker 1: one remembers that. I remember the pilot was roughly the
Speaker 1: British pilot. Yeah, I know, it's uh. I felt from
Speaker 1: the moment of diversity Day that what we were attempting
Speaker 1: to do was something really special. Yeah, And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: if people give this a chance. Yeah, I know. It's
Speaker 1: so funny, right because like the history of television has
Speaker 1: the same story repeated over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: and that story is the pilot aired and it was
Speaker 1: the lowest rated pilot in the history of LAHLA. It's
Speaker 1: true of Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld has a letter has like
Speaker 1: the ratings for the testing. I think Cheers was the
Speaker 1: lowest rated pilot that NBC had ever aired to that point.
Speaker 1: The office was like a disaster in the early going.
Speaker 1: Another thing, by the way, another thing Greg did that
Speaker 1: it's amazing that I don't know if he has ever
Speaker 1: talked about. He told NBC when they tested the show.
Speaker 1: He was like, this is going to test terribly and
Speaker 1: you have to ignore it. He was like that it's
Speaker 1: it's a mockumentary that people aren't used to it. It's
Speaker 1: washed out color and fluorescent lighting. The boss is unlikable.
Speaker 1: It's going to test terribly and you have to ignore it.
Speaker 1: And then it tested terribly and they didn't quite ignore it,
Speaker 1: but he had primed them to look at the results
Speaker 1: in a different way. And it's very gutty thing to
Speaker 1: do to pre tell the network that the thing they've
Speaker 1: spent millions of dollars on is going to bomb? Well.
Speaker 1: Kevin Riley told the story that there are rooms. There
Speaker 1: are different rooms as they're being tested, and they go
Speaker 1: in and they examine and it's like bad, we think
Speaker 1: it's bad. We think bad bad. And he got to
Speaker 1: the last room, which he said, we're all the interns
Speaker 1: and assistance and they were like this is awesome. And
Speaker 1: he was like, okay, okay, now we've got something here.
Speaker 1: And he basically took the people who didn't really count,
Speaker 1: but he was like, yeah, this is going to catch on.
Speaker 1: And I don't know Kevin, if Kevin ever had this thought,
Speaker 1: but my thought was always that we were not fairly
Speaker 1: being represented because as my Space was happening, social media
Speaker 1: was beginning to happen, and you were hearing about these
Speaker 1: fanatical fans some of the online forums, and you realized
Speaker 1: how many college kids were watching. Well, college kids don't
Speaker 1: have Nielsen Box. They're not weighing in on the fact
Speaker 1: that they're watching in their dorms or and so for me,
Speaker 1: it was always like, yeah, but they got to know
Speaker 1: that more people are consumed. I'm not sure they did well.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, that's the thing is like, of course,
Speaker 1: like that the rating systems are so much better now,
Speaker 1: but they're still even now, they're crude and like in
Speaker 1: two thousand four, forget it like that, you know, there
Speaker 1: was no way for anyone to to know or to
Speaker 1: judge how many people are actually watching anything. It was
Speaker 1: a really rough measurement. And and just like it's some
Speaker 1: so retroactively grateful that they didn't cancel the show because
Speaker 1: it's clear. I mean, look now, just now, it's it's
Speaker 1: like the most popular show on Netflix today. Um Lee
Speaker 1: told me about there were a couple of exercises that
Speaker 1: Greg would do in the writer's room, and he mentioned
Speaker 1: to me about the He called it unlikely duos, basically
Speaker 1: taking he would he wrote everyone's name down on cards,
Speaker 1: and then he grabbed two at random and would send
Speaker 1: us off and go go break some you know, uh
Speaker 1: Stanley Creed stories, you know, go break some whatever. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and we did that very frequently. He did that once
Speaker 1: a week. I always thought there was a little bit
Speaker 1: it would It seemed to be something he did when
Speaker 1: he was getting annoyed by us and our generale confidence.
Speaker 1: But also it didn't feel like busy work. It felt
Speaker 1: like Oh, it's interesting, Like, yeah, right, what happens if
Speaker 1: Creed and Stanley or in the story or whatever. Um Creed,
Speaker 1: who was one inch away from just being written off
Speaker 1: the show? I know, how did you decide who was
Speaker 1: gonna be gone? Devon or Creed? So um my, this
Speaker 1: is my memory of this, and Greg would remember maybe
Speaker 1: more accurately. But we broke the episode where it was
Speaker 1: Halloween someone was getting fired, right, and it was like,
Speaker 1: all right, it's either Devon or Creed because those are
Speaker 1: the two people that hadn't talked yet. And the original
Speaker 1: idea was it was Creed. Then we broke the episode,
Speaker 1: and the Greg sort of brilliant investigation of Michael Scott's
Speaker 1: psychology was instead of ripping the bandit off and doing
Speaker 1: a responsible management thing, he tries to fire someone and
Speaker 1: then gets talked out of it and then fires the
Speaker 1: other person. And it was a coin flip. It was
Speaker 1: honestly like Creed or Devon, who knows? And then he
Speaker 1: was like, well, I don't even know if there was
Speaker 1: a reason, but he switched it so that he fires
Speaker 1: Creed and then Creed talks him out of it. And
Speaker 1: I was on set with fig shooting the episode where
Speaker 1: Michael buys a condo, and Fig was going to direct
Speaker 1: that Halloween episode. So the episode that Greg wrote, which
Speaker 1: is wonderful, hasn't it? Probably a six page scene more.
Speaker 1: Michaels like, I'm sorry, I have to let you go,
Speaker 1: and Creed talks him out of it, and we read
Speaker 1: it on that We were at the location for Michael's
Speaker 1: condo and we read the script and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so funny. And I went
Speaker 1: to feed it. I was like, did you read this?
Speaker 1: It's so funny. He goes like, yeah, it is really funny.
Speaker 1: Can Creed act? It's like, I have no idea. I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever heard him talk, but like, let's
Speaker 1: roll the dice and then you know, he's amazing. So
Speaker 1: it was, but it was literally in my memory at
Speaker 1: one point it was Heat fires Creed and another point
Speaker 1: it was he fires Deevan, and it just ended up
Speaker 1: the way it ended up. But I don't think there
Speaker 1: was any reason for it. I think it was. I
Speaker 1: think it was a crazy I think maybe Greg liked
Speaker 1: the real story, which we all knew by then. The
Speaker 1: Creed was the actual Creed Bratton. It would have been
Speaker 1: in the grassroots and anything. So maybe that had some
Speaker 1: effect or something, but yeah, it was random chance. That's
Speaker 1: so crazy. Um. Going back to the unlikely duos thing
Speaker 1: for a second, I was talking to Kate Flannery about
Speaker 1: Christmas party and Meredith flashing Michael, but then also having
Speaker 1: this tender moment with him after he runs over her
Speaker 1: with his car. I don't think those came from unlikely duos.
Speaker 1: Although Michael hits someone with his car was an early pitch.
Speaker 1: I don't remember you bushed it, but that that card
Speaker 1: was up on the on the board for a while
Speaker 1: before we did it. But the thing where Meredith flashes
Speaker 1: him was nothing more than like the premise of that episode,
Speaker 1: which I wrote, was Michael has an image in his
Speaker 1: head of what a good party is, and a good
Speaker 1: party is like a playboy mansion, and he says that
Speaker 1: in the episode. He's like, it's playboy mansion. It's people
Speaker 1: with heads, lamb shades on their heads. He has a
Speaker 1: very very old timey, like like late seventies, early eighties
Speaker 1: kind of idea of what like a crazy party. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's it's people being drunk and and lambshades
Speaker 1: on heads and stuff. Like that. And so he does
Speaker 1: a bad job for a while of being a good
Speaker 1: boss and throwing a good party because he throws a
Speaker 1: hissy fit when people don't like his gift enough, and
Speaker 1: then it gets stolen in the you know whatever, and
Speaker 1: he gets an oven mit from Phyllis, which he doesn't like. Uh.
Speaker 1: But then he becomes a good boss because he goes
Speaker 1: out and he buys a ton of vodka and he
Speaker 1: comes back and he's like, you know what, everybody cut
Speaker 1: loose and it's kind of a good, kind of a
Speaker 1: good move. It's not it's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: blunt instrument, but it kind of works and the party
Speaker 1: ends up fun. And so Greg was like, well, he
Speaker 1: should get a little reward, not in the sense of
Speaker 1: like a sexual reward, but in the sense of, like
Speaker 1: he should get what he wants, which is a crazy party.
Speaker 1: And the first thing that the genius of the breaking
Speaker 1: of that story, which I don't take credit for it,
Speaker 1: was they were all group efforts as a general rule,
Speaker 1: But he first tries to manufacture his own reward, which
Speaker 1: is he puts a lampshade on his own head and
Speaker 1: runs out. It's like, look, it happened, right, and then
Speaker 1: Packer shows up and that's like kind of a reward.
Speaker 1: But then like the end of it of Meredith flashing
Speaker 1: him is like he actually got his dream. He got
Speaker 1: his dream of like a crazy office party, and like,
Speaker 1: even though it's not appropriate for the office and it's
Speaker 1: not you know, he doesn't actually feel good about that.
Speaker 1: You can see it in his face. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this shouldn't be happening, but he can't resist taking a
Speaker 1: picture of it because it's like this is evidence that
Speaker 1: I did my job and through a great party. It
Speaker 1: is strangely one of my all time favorite singular moments,
Speaker 1: Meredith flashing yes, because I feel like it is so perfect.
Speaker 1: And that episode that was just such a huge episode
Speaker 1: for the ensemble. Yeah, you know, everybody, everybody really meant
Speaker 1: something to do, and the show sort of was beginning
Speaker 1: to take off. At that time. We were McDougald, which
Speaker 1: was pleasurable yet interesting experience, and uh, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. There was just something about the way that
Speaker 1: played that told everything about Michael. And yeah, and but
Speaker 1: you're right though, the key to that was the secret
Speaker 1: Santa White Elephant, Dirty Christmas, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: and the thing meant everyone when I when we were
Speaker 1: when I was a sign that episode. The first thing
Speaker 1: I did is I went home and made a list
Speaker 1: of who got who. I did a real draw. We
Speaker 1: knew certain things. We knew that Jim had to have Pam,
Speaker 1: and we knew that Michael had to have Ryan. But
Speaker 1: then I put everyone else's name in and I just
Speaker 1: did a random draw, and Kevin got Kevin. And that's
Speaker 1: where that came from. Yes, And when I and when
Speaker 1: that happened, I was like, oh my god, that's perfect,
Speaker 1: Like he just buys himself a gift, doesn't tell anyone
Speaker 1: advised himself a footpath. But yeah, I did. I So
Speaker 1: I did a real draw and I had it mapped out,
Speaker 1: and I when I was writing the script, I printed
Speaker 1: it out and hung it next to my computer because
Speaker 1: it got so confusing of like, wait, who has whom?
Speaker 1: And there's a bunch of stuff in the deleted scenes
Speaker 1: where you see the other gifts that people like, you know,
Speaker 1: like in the episode, Oscar got Creed and get some
Speaker 1: like a crummy key chain, and Creed got Jim and
Speaker 1: gave him some old shirts that were lying around. But
Speaker 1: then like every everybody had like there's a George Saunders book.
Speaker 1: Toby bought someone a book of George Saunders short stories
Speaker 1: because that book could come out. Civil War Land and
Speaker 1: Bad Decline, one of my favorite books had come out,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm just gonna get this in
Speaker 1: the show because I want to so like you can
Speaker 1: actually map out who everyone who everyone had, and who
Speaker 1: what they got for each other person. That's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I never knew that, Kevin Kevin, it was your random drawing.
Speaker 1: Kevin got Kevin, Kevin got Kevin yep. So Lee talked
Speaker 1: about this. I was talking to him about if there
Speaker 1: were specific strengths because the episodes were different, were there
Speaker 1: ways that either interested people or they were better at
Speaker 1: And what he said was that he felt like he
Speaker 1: and Jean were much more in the sort of cringe
Speaker 1: comedy um, which you know, if you look at Dinner Party,
Speaker 1: that certainly fits that bill. And what they said about
Speaker 1: you was that you were much more optimistic. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like that's true? Yeah? I do. Um. I feel
Speaker 1: like my sweet spot on the show was, well, Christmas
Speaker 1: Party is pretty optimistic episode. But like the episode Branch
Speaker 1: closing that I wrote, I love that story because Jan
Speaker 1: walks in on the first page of the episode and says,
Speaker 1: we're shutting a branch down and it Michael has a
Speaker 1: complete collapse and then he says, no, I'm not letting
Speaker 1: this happen. I'm gonna do something about this, and he
Speaker 1: and Dwight head off and they go to David Wallace's
Speaker 1: house in Connecticut and just like, I'm going to confront
Speaker 1: him and I'm gonna make him see that this is
Speaker 1: not the right decision. It is utterly ineffectual. Wallace never
Speaker 1: shows up. They just end up sitting there and are
Speaker 1: miserable and completely unbeknownst to them, through a variety of
Speaker 1: other machinesians, the branch ends up getting saved. But there's
Speaker 1: a scene in the end where Michael and Dwight are
Speaker 1: sitting in the car and that all hope is lost,
Speaker 1: and Michael says, okay, top three favorite moments ever at
Speaker 1: the office and Dwight says, like, you know, my first
Speaker 1: day when you sprayed me with the fire extinguisher and
Speaker 1: when yeah, I got sick and you came into the
Speaker 1: m R. I you know, I got a concussion or whatever,
Speaker 1: And then dwighte says, what about you? What are your
Speaker 1: favorite moments, and Michael says all of them, every single one,
Speaker 1: and then Dwight says, well, what about when Jan showed
Speaker 1: up and said the branch was closing and he's like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, But that I remember just thinking like this,
Speaker 1: and that scene wasn't in the outline, and I remember
Speaker 1: writing that scene and thinking like that that this is
Speaker 1: like I locked into that idea. And I think it's
Speaker 1: just because it was like a moment of humanity between
Speaker 1: the two of them, where like the office is very
Speaker 1: mean full, it's all Michael has, and him being able
Speaker 1: to just sort of express in a sincere and human
Speaker 1: way what he loved about the place, like that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I really felt like that that was my
Speaker 1: jam um. But yeah, I mean those guys, like Greg's
Speaker 1: theory was that writing staff should be like The X Men,
Speaker 1: where he's like, if you have all people who are
Speaker 1: the same and have the same like comedic power, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have one awesome thing about the show. But if
Speaker 1: you have if everybody has his or her own comedic power,
Speaker 1: then you get everything. And so yeah, I think Lee
Speaker 1: and James were really into the like super I mean,
Speaker 1: those guys are so funny like Scott's Todds was an
Speaker 1: episode they pitched very early on that Greg was like,
Speaker 1: we're never doing this, and then long after I left,
Speaker 1: I was watching him like, oh, I guess Greg gave in.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they love that. Jen Silata was Her superpower
Speaker 1: is just this incredible connection to Pam Um. She's also hilarious,
Speaker 1: but like she was like the beating heart of the show.
Speaker 1: I would say, not just through Pam, through all the characters,
Speaker 1: but like the episode where the bird dies and Michael
Speaker 1: has the funeral for the bird, that was Jen from
Speaker 1: beginning to end, and we kept like tinkering and tinkering
Speaker 1: and tinkering, and she eventually was like, I think I
Speaker 1: just understand this and I just want to write it,
Speaker 1: and we were like great, and then it's amazing. And
Speaker 1: the part of it that she really locked into was Pam,
Speaker 1: Pam understanding what Michael was going through and giving the
Speaker 1: eulogy and trying to make Michael feel better by talking
Speaker 1: about this dead bird. It's a really complicated emotional moment,
Speaker 1: but Jen just like understood it at some fundamental level.
Speaker 1: And you know, Paul was really into Michael's when Michael
Speaker 1: was at his absolute worst, Like Paul was super into
Speaker 1: the the Michael's worst instincts, right, Mindy was Mindy's superpower
Speaker 1: was always, um, the super absurd ist stuff. They really like,
Speaker 1: crazy flights of fancy, you know, famously in the episode
Speaker 1: where Michael burns his foot on the George Foreman grow
Speaker 1: when my Chael burns his foot. I mean again, every
Speaker 1: episode that everybody wrote was always rewritten a tremendous amount.
Speaker 1: But I will say that that first monologue Michael has
Speaker 1: where he's explained to the camera how he burned his foot,
Speaker 1: I don't think we changed a word of it. Like
Speaker 1: Mindy turned in her script and that speech was in there,
Speaker 1: and it was really long, and it's really complicated and
Speaker 1: it has it's a crazy roller coaster, and I don't
Speaker 1: think we change a single word because she just like
Speaker 1: she would lock into just the the super absurdist stuff
Speaker 1: presented very straightforwardly, like yeah, I mean everyone everybody had
Speaker 1: something they were good at. That stuff was incredible. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: you talked about yourself and Michael and his love of
Speaker 1: the office. Was there an early idea that he would
Speaker 1: eventually find love and that would take him away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's always an idea in every TV show, right,
Speaker 1: if anyone is single in a TV show, there's a
Speaker 1: lingering question of like does that person find life partner?
Speaker 1: But it was also very important for the show that
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen for a long time. And then after
Speaker 1: and and as I was leaving to go develop parksn
Speaker 1: Wreck with Greg, we met with Amy Ryan and that
Speaker 1: so that was the beginning of season five and that
Speaker 1: was like, that was the first time it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're shifting into a different gear with this guy. Like,
Speaker 1: who knows how long this show will last, but we're
Speaker 1: it feels like we're at some kind of midpoint here
Speaker 1: and we've done it. At that point, we've done almost
Speaker 1: a hundred episodes, and it was like, okay, it's time,
Speaker 1: Like it's time to create a character for Michael Scott
Speaker 1: who's like a viable love interest. And Jen was a
Speaker 1: big part of that because she was like, oh, she
Speaker 1: should be as big a dork as he is, Like
Speaker 1: that's the way to do this right. It's not aspirational
Speaker 1: in the sense of like she's a really put together,
Speaker 1: like you know, sophisticate, who's gonna who Michael has to
Speaker 1: change for the thing that links them is like she's
Speaker 1: a dork and she does dorky voices, and she does
Speaker 1: lame videos and like dances, and she's a female version
Speaker 1: of Michael Scott, which is perfect. And all of that
Speaker 1: stuff then came after I was gone, But Jen and
Speaker 1: Paul and I at least and I think maybe um
Speaker 1: Greg met her later, But Jen and Paul and I
Speaker 1: think we're in the initial meeting we had with her
Speaker 1: where we basically geeked out about the wire for like
Speaker 1: for like an hour. UM. But she's a lovely person
Speaker 1: and had it was like, oh, yeah, right, this is
Speaker 1: gonna work. This is Michael's girlfriend, right, you said earlier,
Speaker 1: um in you know, in a slightly dismissive way, like
Speaker 1: every television show you have a single guy and then
Speaker 1: eventually they're but you know, what's so crazy? And maybe
Speaker 1: I'm alone here, But I don't think I am. I
Speaker 1: never thought about that. For Michael. It wasn't like it
Speaker 1: was the fact that he wanted it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it was not. It was never a high stakes thing.
Speaker 1: I think there was Jim and Pam, you know, there
Speaker 1: was some other stuff going on, and that the assumption
Speaker 1: watching was whatever whoever he gets is going to be
Speaker 1: a disaster, right, Like, it's just not it doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, and I don't I'm not invested in that.
Speaker 1: And I think it's not until very very later when
Speaker 1: he calls her it's actually she's not even there on
Speaker 1: the phone. It's when he has herpes yes and yes
Speaker 1: and says you're wrong. Um. So Greg again had a
Speaker 1: lot of theories and um they were all correct. And
Speaker 1: one of the things he said, he pinpointed for us
Speaker 1: very early on, what makes this what makes the British
Speaker 1: show so good? Right? And part of it is a
Speaker 1: once in a generation performance from Ricky Gervais, and some
Speaker 1: of it is um other incredible actors and and just wonderful,
Speaker 1: like a wonderful premise in the sense of like a
Speaker 1: mockumentary comedy show was a great idea, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But he broke it down even further and he said,
Speaker 1: almost every show in history has had a formula, and
Speaker 1: the formula is the center of the show is a
Speaker 1: will they won't they? Sam and Diane romance, and often
Speaker 1: the corner is a wacky boss, and occasionally the wacky
Speaker 1: boss comes in does something wacky and funny and gets
Speaker 1: big lass and then leaves, and very simply, the British
Speaker 1: Office inverted it. The Wacky Boss is the main part
Speaker 1: of the show and shoved into the corner is this
Speaker 1: will they won't they? Romance? And what that does two things.
Speaker 1: Number one, it makes the Wacky Boss into a viable
Speaker 1: character worthy of introspection and layering and dimension in a
Speaker 1: way that the Wacky Boss is not. Traditionally, no one
Speaker 1: usually cares about what's going on in the Wacky bosses
Speaker 1: emotional life. And it also means that when you shove
Speaker 1: the romance into the corners and it becomes this very delicate,
Speaker 1: gossamer spider web of glances and and tiny little moments
Speaker 1: in the getting someone a candy bar from the vending
Speaker 1: machine becomes an enormous emotional moment. Right then you have changed.
Speaker 1: You fundamentally changed the way audiences relate to romance, which
Speaker 1: is they're like, they're like on the edge of their seat,
Speaker 1: Like I only got eight seconds of the romance this week.
Speaker 1: I want more. So I want to ask you about
Speaker 1: another big episode you wrote, the Job where Jim finally
Speaker 1: asks Pam out to dinner. Was there a fight about that.
Speaker 1: Finally there was a big fight about the end of
Speaker 1: season two because that was not there was no fight
Speaker 1: there that was like it was that was like a
Speaker 1: crazy intense time. The ends of seasons were always like
Speaker 1: we were so behind, and but Greg and Paul and
Speaker 1: I broke that episode together and we're going to write
Speaker 1: it together. Greg was going to write the first half
Speaker 1: and Paul and I were going to split the second half.
Speaker 1: And then Greg was like, I don't have time, you
Speaker 1: guys write it. And also then Paul was like acting
Speaker 1: a lot, and it was like, all right, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll do it. But Paul and I ended
Speaker 1: up writing it. But Greg really was was like, here's
Speaker 1: what this story is, and it was like it was
Speaker 1: very complicated. There going for a job and Karen was
Speaker 1: going for the job, and Jim had to leave Karen
Speaker 1: and and go back and whatever. And so Paul and
Speaker 1: I wrote it and on the script on the read
Speaker 1: through it said written by Greg Daniels and Paul. They
Speaker 1: were seen him make sure and after the read through,
Speaker 1: which went really well, Greg was like, I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: credited on this. I didn't write this, and I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: you did. Like you broke the story, Like we were
Speaker 1: sitting in that room with you and you laid out
Speaker 1: the beats of the story. Also, you you could take
Speaker 1: writing credit on every one of these episodes if you legally,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to. But he was like, no, I don't.
Speaker 1: I you guys wrote this and I should step back,
Speaker 1: which was an insane thing to do because we knew
Speaker 1: it was going to be a huge deal. Paul and
Speaker 1: I end up winning a Writer's Guild Award for it,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking like, this should just be Greg
Speaker 1: Like I like, he was such a model of show
Speaker 1: runnerdom to me, just in the in the thoughtfulness with
Speaker 1: which he did everything. Um, it's crazy that he's not
Speaker 1: credited on the episode. Anyway, there was no fight over that.
Speaker 1: That story was really clean. We changed very little of it.
Speaker 1: Everything sort of unfolded very naturally. And then that take
Speaker 1: that Jenna did. In my memory, it could be wrong,
Speaker 1: I think that's the first take we did. No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: it was a second take we did because there was
Speaker 1: an amazing camera thing. It's really subtle. This is why
Speaker 1: like Randall was so great. Um, she's doing talking head
Speaker 1: and then Jim Knock just knocks and walks right in right,
Speaker 1: and the camera swings over to him and he says,
Speaker 1: are you free for dinner? And and she says yes,
Speaker 1: and he goes great. Then it said date, and he
Speaker 1: walks out and then the camera swings back to her
Speaker 1: and she says, I'm sorry. She's smiling and about to
Speaker 1: cry and says, I'm sorry, what was the question? And
Speaker 1: so the first take it was wonderful and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's perfect, that's great. And then the second take camera
Speaker 1: swings over to Jim. He says great, said date, And
Speaker 1: when the camera swings back, it pushed in and it's
Speaker 1: just it mimics the exact thing that the audience did,
Speaker 1: which is it leaned forward. It just the camera just
Speaker 1: leaned full word because it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like And the thing that's been talked about a lot
Speaker 1: when people talk about the show is how the cameras
Speaker 1: are characters. But a key moments like that, the operators
Speaker 1: and the directors were so good at being like, the
Speaker 1: camera should lean forward the way the audience is leaning
Speaker 1: forward at that moment, and that take is just I
Speaker 1: It's my favorite bit of acting Jena every did on
Speaker 1: the show. I think it's absolutely perfect. Randall talked about
Speaker 1: in terms of the documentary style. He said, everything that
Speaker 1: makes it harder makes it better. And what he was
Speaker 1: talking about was that he was insistent upon having to
Speaker 1: work to get the shot. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's also
Speaker 1: um um, that's also set design, that's everything like that.
Speaker 1: And we would often move stuff into the frame right,
Speaker 1: like we would drag plants the plant plants. But I
Speaker 1: remember some episode I was on the set for somebody
Speaker 1: wanted to do something where there was a conversation at
Speaker 1: the desk and then the person walked off and then
Speaker 1: it sort of jumped to the other side of the
Speaker 1: him near the hallway leading to the into the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and they're like, all right, we wanted the cameras are
Speaker 1: here and here, and then we jumped to this shot
Speaker 1: over here, and Randall was like, I don't think it's possible.
Speaker 1: The camera operator would have to get all the way
Speaker 1: into the annex where Toby sits in order for that
Speaker 1: to happen, and we're like, han. He was like, well,
Speaker 1: let me try it, and so we took a he
Speaker 1: loaded a camera onto his back, onto his shoulder, and
Speaker 1: they rehearsed the scene and then Randall ran down the stairs,
Speaker 1: ran through the parking lot, and ran up the stairs
Speaker 1: with a gigantic camera on his shoulder to see if
Speaker 1: he could get set up in the annex to shoot
Speaker 1: into the kitchen from the other side in time. And
Speaker 1: he was like a second late, but he was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna say that that's possible. And it
Speaker 1: was like again, it's going back to this thing I
Speaker 1: was saying earlier. We're like all of this stuff that
Speaker 1: like is it real? Could it really happen? Like does
Speaker 1: everyone have to be in character at their seats for
Speaker 1: half an hour before we roll? Like it's a little
Speaker 1: bit actory and a little bit like whoa, We're like
Speaker 1: this enter this fictional realm, and like it's a little embarrassing.
Speaker 1: It's a little method, right, and and that stuff is
Speaker 1: a little bit like you roll your eyes a little bit,
Speaker 1: but look at the result, and it isn't that unless
Speaker 1: you have people like Randall and Matt who are like,
Speaker 1: well wait a second, what's the reality of this, Like
Speaker 1: if there's two cameras, which we pretty much established that
Speaker 1: this documentary cru has two cameras. I mean, I remember
Speaker 1: Jeff Blitz coming who was a documentary filmmaker and him directing.
Speaker 1: I was talking to him about the theory of the
Speaker 1: show and this kind of standard pattern that we would
Speaker 1: go through directors, and I was saying, like, you have
Speaker 1: to set up your shots as if they could really
Speaker 1: be captured. And he was like, well, based on the show,
Speaker 1: these are the most talented documentary camera operators of all time,
Speaker 1: because I seem to get everything. And I was like,
Speaker 1: yes they are. They're very talented cameary filmmakers, but you
Speaker 1: have to make sure you get everything or that everything
Speaker 1: you get is gettable by real people. Now, the rules
Speaker 1: were very, very very strict for like three or four years.
Speaker 1: As they went on, they got a little less stract,
Speaker 1: and I remember having conversations in season four about oh no,
Speaker 1: it was in season three. It was it was the
Speaker 1: Traveling Salesman episode. Lee Jean and I wrote it, and
Speaker 1: basically like you went off with Dwyt and Jim, you
Speaker 1: went off with Phillis and Carrot, you went off with
Speaker 1: Daily and Ryan, and there were cameras back in the office,
Speaker 1: and we were like, well, what do we do now? Right?
Speaker 1: And Greg was like, you know, the documentary company is
Speaker 1: doing another documentary somewhere else. And it just got into
Speaker 1: a bunch of festivals and it got bought for a
Speaker 1: lot of money and they're flushed with cash and they
Speaker 1: hired other operators. Okay, let's go. And it was just like, okay,
Speaker 1: so we're relaxing their rules a little bit because there
Speaker 1: were suddenly five or six games. Um, but for a
Speaker 1: long time, like, you don't get the purity of what
Speaker 1: the show was unless you create those rules and stick
Speaker 1: to them. And I'd say like, sorry, you gotta, we gotta,
Speaker 1: and we would cheat sometimes we would have security cam
Speaker 1: footage rarely, like in the episode where there was a
Speaker 1: the Ryan burned the toast, I think there's a security
Speaker 1: cam shot because we really wanted the shot of Michael
Speaker 1: shoving people out of the way and running out the door,
Speaker 1: and there's no way to get that with the cameras
Speaker 1: that we needed still in the thing whatever, So we
Speaker 1: would cheat sometimes. But it was funny because when Greg
Speaker 1: and I started Parks and Wreck, which is also a mockumentary,
Speaker 1: we were like, okay, the the the deal is the
Speaker 1: Office was such a success that now the documentarians have
Speaker 1: a lot more tools, Like we were like, now the
Speaker 1: rules are even looser, and we would set up shot
Speaker 1: and so like if you track through the entire history
Speaker 1: of both of those shows, by the end the documentary
Speaker 1: crews were like there were fifteen cameras and thirty eight
Speaker 1: sound guys and whatever. Um. I think that's the thing
Speaker 1: that they did keep through the end though they wouldn't
Speaker 1: use a shot where a camera guy whatever never did that.
Speaker 1: That was the one hard and fast rule. Like if
Speaker 1: if Michael was addressing a group of people and you
Speaker 1: were right over his shoulder onto the group of people,
Speaker 1: you could not then cut over the through the crowd
Speaker 1: back flat on Michael where you saw space on both
Speaker 1: sides of him, where one of the that camera would
Speaker 1: be there. I don't think they ever broke that rule.
Speaker 1: If they did, it was very late in the game.
Speaker 1: There were times when we kind of needed to do
Speaker 1: something like that and Randall or Matt would walk around
Speaker 1: and go like, well, what if the camera's hiding behind
Speaker 1: something next to him or whatever. We would stage him
Speaker 1: near a pillar and the idea was the camera was
Speaker 1: over there and then like got out of the way,
Speaker 1: like because in real life, Matt and Randall would communicate
Speaker 1: with each other using hand signals I'm I'm demonstrating this
Speaker 1: as if this isn't a podcast, but they would communicate.
Speaker 1: They would wave like I'm going this way or back
Speaker 1: up or whatever, like in the middle of a take,
Speaker 1: and so we began to feel like, okay, well that's
Speaker 1: what they would do in real life. They were. So
Speaker 1: there were times when there was a camera in a
Speaker 1: certain place and then when you cut to the other side,
Speaker 1: like it was a real close call whether you would
Speaker 1: have seen that camera. But as long as Randall and
Speaker 1: ma could work it out, we're Randall would like duck
Speaker 1: out of the way. In time, They'll be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well that's possible. So if they're again very talented, they're
Speaker 1: really well, but I really do it bears repeating like,
Speaker 1: I don't think this show is what it is without
Speaker 1: the adherence to that kind of reality and those rules
Speaker 1: that Greg and Can and everybody else set up. You know,
Speaker 1: all right, folks, I'm gonna stop Mike there for now,
Speaker 1: but he will be back. So if you're wondering why
Speaker 1: didn't we talk about MOS, don't worry. We will get
Speaker 1: to that. Mos will be discussed, as well as lots
Speaker 1: of other juicy tidbits. Thank you all for joining me.
Speaker 1: I hope you have the best week ever and we
Speaker 1: will be back next time for more of the Office
Speaker 1: Deep Dive. The Office Deep Dive is hosted and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Am baum Gartner, alongside our executive producer,
Speaker 1: Lang Lee. Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer, our associate
Speaker 1: producer is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia.
Speaker 1: My main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our
Speaker 1: theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend
Speaker 1: Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by Seth Olandsky.