WEBVTT - Lee Eisenberg 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:08.320 Yeah, this is Lee Eisenberg played Pam Beasley on The Office. No, 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:11.159 don't do that, just for the whole day. This is 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:19.320 Lee Eisenberg. I was a writer producer on The Office. Hello, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:25.040 everybody here, I am again Pam Beasley. No, Brian Baumgartner 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:32.120 with another enlightening episode of The Office deep Dive. Today, 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.879 we are continuing our conversation with the writing staff of 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:40.040 the Office, So you're going to hear my conversation with 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:46.200 the hilarious Lee Eisenberg. Lee and his writing partner, Gene 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.640 Stupnitsky joined the show at the beginning of season two. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.400 Lee and Jean they were basically attached at the hip, 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.720 best friends. They lived together, they drove to work together 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:01.280 every day, they lunched together, they wrote together. Everything well, 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.000 accept this interview, they didn't do that together. But the 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:10.479 Office was their first real TV writing job, and as 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.240 you will hear, they were more than a little nervous 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.880 to be running with the big dogs, so to speak. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.399 And I have to say, it was so funny for 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.280 me to hear that they felt like that, because to me, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:31.399 like on set, they were always just completely self assured, 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.720 like these are the brilliant, twisted minds that brought you 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:40.680 our cringe eest episodes right Dinner Party and Scott's Totts. 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:43.200 I mean, that is who we are dealing with here. 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.880 So yeah, it's kind of mind boggling to me. Lie 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:48.960 and Gene, if you can hear me out there, just 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:51.080 what I want you to do right now is I 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.000 want you to look into the mirror and I want 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:57.920 you to tell yourselves I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.920 and dog on it. People like me. In fact, that 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:06.000 goes for all of you. You're all great people like you. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.200 So there you go. For me to you, there's there, 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.680 there it is. Anyway, let's get let's get back on track. 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:25.520 Here without further ado, here is Lee Eisenberg, Bubble and Squeak. 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:32.680 I love it. Bubble and squeak on Bubble and Squeaker 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:47.160 Cookie every month left over from the night before. You're 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.320 just like this is like, uh, I think it's like 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.000 summer camp. It's like you come back and you just 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.880 like see people and you're like, hey, well I know. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:03:00.520 I mean I've talked to Jenna Rain Angela Quapas. It's 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:02.440 such a fucking like I haven't seen you in so long, 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.240 and I love you and I know it's so stupid. Um, 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.160 this is all recording now right, this is no, it's 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:15.440 totally all recording. I bumped into Rain, I bumped into 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:19.040 Jenna somewhere. I haven't seen Angela and forever. I never 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.240 see Kappas. I hadn't seen Kappas in a really long time. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.680 And I hadn't seen Randall in a while. Yeah, I 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.000 saw rand Randall and I would like grab like breakfast 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.560 like once a year to kind of just like talk 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:35.080 about work and trap a nice breakfast. Who paid varied? Varied? 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:36.800 I don't remember who paid for the last I'm trying 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.320 to think who was reporting who? Yeah, like who was 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.880 I don't know. That's a really good question. Whenever i'm 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:43.400 a doubt, I always pay because then I don't want 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.160 it to feel like I took you to breakfast, like 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:53.960 like like breakfast is like not worth anything. I didn't 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.160 prepare for this at all. I've never seen the office before. No, No, 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:02.080 it's totally fine. I was so what's amazing is no joke. 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:09.760 I watched last night The Fight, the Return, dinner Party, 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:15.520 and Scott's tats. You know that there's a there's a 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.560 Reddit thread devoted to people Gene was telling me it's 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.679 like people can't watch Scotts Taughts. Yes, this is true. 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:25.800 I know. I get this all the time because you know, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:30.480 we are doing colleges and meeting fans at various events, 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:35.000 and by the way, the Scots Tats shirts are very 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:40.000 prevalent the fans events. Yes, Scott's the other Scotts Taughts shirts. 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.600 And then sometimes even the people who are wearing the 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.760 Scots Tats shirts say it's the one episode I can't 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:52.880 I can't watch. And so I started engaging about why, 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.600 because to me, Dinner Party is equally as cringe e 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.320 as Scott's Totts. And they're like, oh, dinner Party is 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:05.320 my favorite, and I'm like, hold on, how is that one? Okay? Theory, Okay, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.159 well you go ahead. My theory is that Dinner Party 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.080 you're watching him destroy his life, and then in Scott 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.960 Stots you're watching him destroy other people's lives. Okay. What 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.719 they say is that basically in Dinner Party, he's making 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:24.800 characters go through uncomfortable, cringing moments, but we know them 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.839 and we know their relationship to Michael, whereas now there's 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.040 like other people show out to the world thinking a 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.360 show to the world. We don't have any connection. We 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:39.480 just know it's horrible and oh gosh, so good. I 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:41.040 woul't see it, Scott stots in a little bit. It 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.600 is so uncomfortable. It is, it really is. And that 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.120 came from your brain, which makes it even weirder. But 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.920 we'll talk about that in a minute. Um all right, 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.440 So you what were you doing before you join the 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:55.640 writing staff of the office. I was an assistant to 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.640 directors and you know, writer's assistant, and then was a nanny. 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.280 You were writing together. Though we were writing together, we 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.800 sold some ideas to Larry David for Curb and then 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:12.520 we came up with a pilot idea that was about 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:17.400 two codependent roommates with unisex names and it was about 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.359 me and Jean, and then we decided to make it magicians, okay, 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:23.200 and then we and then we changed the names to 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:28.000 Lonnie and Gordo. Lonnie for League, Gordo for Gene. Are 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.160 you following? And then uh, and then that's what Greg red. 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:32.720 That's how we got hired on the office. Okay, So 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.920 you submitted this spec pilot script that you wrote, Well, 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:37.720 we sold it to Fox. The pilot was the first 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.120 thing we'd ever sold. We sold to Fox, and then 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:42.640 it was like this crazy thing. Like the people who 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.240 liked it were Greg Daniels and Harold Ramos. Those are 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:47.160 the only two. I mean, I think other people liked 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.440 it fine, but like for years it was like, oh, 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.240 like Jean was Harold Ramos is nanny. I'm not Harold's nanny, 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.760 but his kids nanny. He wasn't taking care of Harold, 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.600 he wasn't taking care of ral okay. And so when 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.800 you were brought on for a meeting with Greg Daniels, 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.200 did you know, Well, first of all, did you know 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.080 the British Office? Yeah, we knew the British Office. And 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.680 they've been six episodes of the American Office, And had 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.040 you watched that? Oh yeah, we're obsessed. We were big 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.640 fans of the We got the British Office really early 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.880 because I was working for a guy who had gotten Remember, 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.160 like the DVD kind of got like passed around, so 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:22.800 we watched it. We like couldn't believe that it existed, 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.720 and it was just insane. And then when they announced 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.560 the American version. My friend was Kevin Riley's assistant, so 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.240 we got to see the American version early and we're like, oh, 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.520 these poor fuckers, and then we saw it was like, oh, 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.680 that's really good. We were really into it. And then 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.520 and again we were like g made eight thousand dollars 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.080 the year before he was on the office, and I 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.200 wasn't that far ahead of him, and so I was like, 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:48.800 now of a sudden, we're sitting now with Greg Daniels. 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.560 Was incredible. Yeah, and how did that meeting go? He 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.120 had read your the script that you sold. He read 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.720 the script and people warned us that Greg would do 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:03.000 long meetings. We're like, okay, and Greg was very serious. 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:08.160 He took a lot of pauses, and my instinct, out 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:09.880 of like a desperate need to be liked and like 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.120 fit in is like, oh, you fill in the pauses 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:13.560 and you kind of like make jokes and all that 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.880 kind of stuff. And I was like, he's obviously very funny. 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:22.360 He's not demonstrating any he's not near funny right now, 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.800 but he's obviously very funny person and he's not trying 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:26.280 to make us laugh, and he must think that we're 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.080 funny because we're here. So I was just like I 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.200 went against every instinct of my that I had, and 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.040 I just was quiet and just waited for his next question, 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:38.400 and then at one point Jean said, he said, oh 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.760 my god, Harold's taught us so much. And I was like, 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:42.360 what has Harold taught us? We like smoke weed with 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.199 him and he hasn't taught us anything. I love him, 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:46.560 but he does anything. And Greg was like, what does 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:48.760 he taught you? I was like, fun, fun, fun, fun, 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.719 And then I was like, um, Harold always says to 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:53.920 write from theme, which, by the way, Jean and I 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:55.839 don't do. It was just the only thing that I 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.959 could ever think that Harold had said. And Greg got 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.280 really excited and flipped through his like UNI bomb or 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.920 notebook and he held up this page on the top 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.040 of the page. It's that theme is important in like 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.600 block letters. And I was like, I think that was good. 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.199 I think that was good. And then we met with 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:12.520 him for two and a half hours and then our 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:14.400 agent was like, don't read anything into that. Right has 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.280 really long meetings. I was like, who the fox, It's 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:17.520 down with people for two and a half hours and 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.040 doesn't hire them. And then we got a call and 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.200 just it was like crazy and we had turned down. 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.520 We turned on other jobs to get the Office, and 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.839 the Office was six episodes and the others were for 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.400 twenty two and we were just like, let's work on 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.360 something good and we had no I mean, that makes 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.319 a lot of sense now, but at the time, we 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.319 just needed money, right. I had a friend tell me 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.360 as I was in Guest star Land essentially the first 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.679 twelve and my friend was like, you have got to 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.959 get out of there, like you cannot keep doing this, 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.040 You've got it, And I was like, no, I think 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.760 this is this is good. And I I've been talking 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:56.959 a lot with people who, you know, like what was 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.880 the special sauce or like what made it so special? 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.280 And to me, your story fits in perfectly. The actors, 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:10.319 Ben Greg, everybody in some way was an underdog, and 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.559 everybody was just really focused on doing good work. And 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:16.839 nobody knew any better. I mean, we've never been in 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.599 the writer's room before, so we didn't know anything. And 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:22.560 so in the writer's room, if you pitch a joke 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:24.360 and people don't like it, they don't tell you they 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.240 don't like it. It's just you're met with silence, and 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.880 then you extrapolate the silence to me move on. But 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:31.559 we didn't know that, so we thought that maybe like 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.960 people couldn't hear and so like I remember Jane saying 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.040 to Paul once like did you hear what I said? 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:39.760 And that like stuff like that would happen a lot. 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.959 And then I pitched. I I pitched something. And because 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.880 you thought they were being rude, well I didn't. Well, 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:47.880 it's just not the way that people interact with each other. 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.199 You don't you acknowledge someone you said, like, oh, I'm 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:51.920 not sure that's right for me, But like if you did, 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.079 you know, you're generating thousands of jokes a day. Like 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.000 if you have every single joke and explain why it's 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.160 not right, you would get anything done. That's funny, Lee, 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.240 I don't think it works for this moment. No one 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:03.599 does that. We keep going. It was just weird and 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.120 we didn't know what we were doing. And then um, 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.000 everyone go out to lunch together. They would all kind 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.760 of like run to their cars and like five people 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:12.360 pile into a car, and then Jeane and I would 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.680 like get into like our camera. It just we felt 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:17.319 like we were the new kids and we didn't fit in. 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.160 And so I think our contract was like twenty weeks. 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:23.200 It was ten weeks with an option for another ten 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.559 weeks or something like that, and we were ten, We're 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.439 getting close to the ten weeks, and we're we were nervous, 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.640 but we also kind of felt like, no one's that 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.480 nice to us. I think we're gonna get fired anyways, 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.040 can we can we quit? And uh? And we called 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.839 our agent and we said, uh. He's like, hey, so 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:42.319 you're you're almost up. You know you're gonna you know, 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:44.640 we're gonna try getting you those other ten weeks. We said, well, 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:46.719 what if we want to quit? They said, well, I 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.480 understand where you're asking. And we said, well, like, you know, 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.199 people aren't that nice to us, like we're fourth graders 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.040 at the New School. And he was like, this is 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:56.800 the stupidest question anyone's ever asked me. And he just 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.720 was Mark Probozaro, who represented me and Bean and Mindy 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.400 and e J. And he was like, the dumbest question 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.360 I've ever been asked. And he hung up on us. 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.960 And then we've stayed on the show for five more years. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.160 Were you close to being fired? Do you think? Or 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.080 do you Was that just your perception because people didn't 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.560 seem nice. I think that when you say people didn't 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.880 seem nice, I really feel young. I think that the 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:21.440 you know when you're acting and when you first started 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:23.640 acting and you're like, the scene isn't about you, and 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:24.920 you're like you want to go up to the director 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:26.440 and be like, hey, did you like what I was doing? 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:28.800 And you think the scenes about you even though no 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:30.839 one cares about you because the scene isn't about you. 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:33.400 That's the way I felt about the writer's room was 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.640 I was like, they're scrutinizing us every moment and they weren't. 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.400 Greg had thousand other things to worry about. Then the 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:44.959 staff writers happiness or our contributions. We were we were contributing. 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:46.760 But I think for us it was like Gina I 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.240 would drive back and forth. We lived together, and we 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:51.520 have like a forty five minute commute every day each way, 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.600 and all we would do was just say like, hey, 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:56.800 Paul laughed a little bit at that joke I said 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.439 in the small room, did how did it go with 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.400 Mike and Gen in the other room? Did bj acknowledge 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.360 you today? I mean it was like we were parsing 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.959 out the smallest little things. And then Greg got pneumonia 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.640 season two while we were breaking the fight, so we 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.080 had to outline the fight. Everyone else got to outline 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.280 the episodes kind of more as a group, and for 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:18.520 us it was like me and Jean and Paul and 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.280 everyone else was off on script and then we had 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.160 to go meet Greg at his house because he had 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.840 walking pneumonia, and it was like, Oh, they're setting us 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.280 up to fail. They gave us this episode that's like 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:30.800 goofy and different from the rest of the show. There's 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.040 like a fight in a dojo, like they don't want 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.160 us to do well, and then when we handed a 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.920 bad script, they'll fire us. This is what we were 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:39.920 convinced of. I think we didn't. I think we didn't 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.600 feel confident that we weren't going to be fired until 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.439 three years in. I'm not kidding. Every single time, like 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.480 when we wrote the Secret, we were like, they gave 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.160 us a secret because there's not a lot of time, 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.160 and then we won't deliver and then they'll fire us. 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.080 That's how we went through the first few years where 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.679 we liked everyone eventually, but we were terrified. It was 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:02.240 like a culture of fear. It was just too insecure. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:08.280 Guys were just worried about yourself. We're terrified. Yeah, wow, yeah, 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.880 I'm really sorry to hear that. Thanks. I mean, it 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.920 doesn't surprise me. You're a bit neurotic, But but I've 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.760 monetized the neuroses. That's all that matters. Why do you 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.880 think that Greg hired you and Gene. I think it's 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.120 probably some program that was That's what I think. I mean, 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.440 that's why they have to hire. Yeah, a certain percentage 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:36.800 of yeah, Oh, it was charitable, okay. I think that 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.520 he was just really good at spotting people that fit 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:41.240 the tone that he was going for. And I think 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.800 we wrote that pilot, and that pilot was about underdogs, 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:50.520 and the jokes were very specific and unexpected, and before 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.040 we even understood like how to make an act one, 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:54.960 you know, like the way I would talk about Act 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.800 one now. I couldn't have articulated it then, but like 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.360 somehow we kind of knew enough, and I think there 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.320 was enough promise there that I think he I think 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.040 he took a chance. Also, we're inexpensive, and we were 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.320 two people for the price of one. That's really why 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:12.360 I thought it was. Yeah, I think that that's not 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:17.080 an unreasonable things like both of them probably don't actually 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.680 equal one great writer, but we get to yea, so 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:43.400 we can at least move them around in different What 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:45.960 was the office writer's room? Like, how is it different 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.720 from other writer's rooms? I think that it was in 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.440 some ways it was looser. It's like we it would 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:53.360 take us a long time to focus. But it's like 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:54.960 you're writing a show about an office. You're writing a 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.720 show about coworkers, and we're working in an office and 0:15:57.760 --> 0:15:59.200 we're co workers. We just happened to be writing a 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.680 show about the ing. So you know, we played Call 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:04.200 of Duty a lot, and then we did an episode 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.640 about Call of Duty or everything is fodder. I remember 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.000 going into the editing bay one time, uh, and I 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.280 was having a conversation with Dave Rogers and somebody kind 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.280 of whizzed by the door and they were like, okay 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.800 one minute, and someone else is like you ready, Dave, 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.720 and I'm like, what is going on? He goes It's 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:26.520 Call of Duty time, And literally the screens from editing 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.080 the show became Call of Duty, and you guys were 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.360 everybody would run to their battle stations and start playing 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:35.680 Call of Duty. No, so I think like it all 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:37.720 turns into something, you know what I mean, Like when 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.640 you're doing a show where it's just about people trying 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.600 to make it through the day. Everything becomes up for grabs. 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:45.800 So you come in and I would talk about my 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:47.720 date from the night before, and all of a sudden, 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:49.760 that could be you know what I mean, like the 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:51.960 problem with the writer's room. I mean the beauty of 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.840 a writer's room and the trickiness of it is you 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:57.560 don't know what you're doing from day to day, and 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.800 as experienced as everyone is, it feels like you're starting 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.320 over every single time because you want to do something 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:05.840 that nobody else has done before. And if you're greg 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.399 and you're excellent at it and you feel like you 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.320 have all these great actors and writers and whatever, you 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.200 just keep you just keep pushing, You just keep trying 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.919 idea and idea and idea until you finally come up 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.840 with hopefully the best one. But you're not. It's not 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:21.399 like somebody says, like, what if you do an episode 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.479 about a dinner party and everyone's like yes, and then 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.080 you just start writing an episode of a dinner party, 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.800 Like months or months are spent debating it. There's like 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:32.119 there's probably amazing office outlines. There was something that um, 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:34.040 I don't think it was already, but we were going 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.480 to write. It was called the Premonition, and it was 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.240 basically that Aaron is like, I don't want to say 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.000 any thing, and everyone's like, what is it, And she's like, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.119 I had a dream last night that someone died on 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.400 the way home from work, and she's like, the only 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.520 reason I want to say it is because I predicted 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.600 something else years ago and it did come true. And 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.879 so then just like people didn't want to leave the 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:56.960 people didn't want to leave work, and we outlined it, 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:58.600 like g and I were in the office. I remember 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.760 working on the Premonition and it was like there's a 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:03.359 faction of people that were like it was a bullshit, 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:05.600 a faction that didn't and Jim was on one side 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.680 and Pant was on another. But we like for a 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:10.960 day we worked on the Premonition. Their act breaks and 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.320 somewhere there's notes on it on a long lost office 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.600 episode and there's there's probably you know a dozen of those. Well, 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.879 there there is an there is a script that was 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.679 never produced. Pet Day was that before you? Pet Day 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.919 was before me? I read pet Day. There's another script 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:32.040 about like new higher, new higher. Yeah, there's gonna be 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:36.080 like a new higher in the office. Oh, it feels 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.240 like that is the name of an episode that actually 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.080 got produced. Sounds like it sounds like we probably did 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:44.679 New Higher four times. So that's why you exactly, Um, 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.440 is there a moment that you remember just a great 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.760 joke that got lost? Justin Spitzer Road a talking head 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.399 where Dwight explains what happens when you fart is that 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.800 a million tiny ship particles explode at once, but you 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:02.560 can't see any of that. They're invisible to the eye. 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:05.200 And I was just like, this is incredible, because what 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.080 a weird, specific Dwight thing to talk about. And I 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.200 have no idea what happened to it. I don't know 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.560 what episode it was for that might have been NBC, right, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:16.560 just being like, no, if you said ship, yeah it was. 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.680 That was crazy. There's a thing in Dinner Party that 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.720 I think must be in the extras where Pam's trying 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:24.840 to eat because the dinner is so late, and she 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.840 sticks upstairs with Jim and she has a protein bar 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:29.879 and she starts seeing the protein bar and we basically 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:31.760 had jan like a horror movie. She just shows up. 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:36.359 She just appears and she's like, really, Pam at a 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.600 dinner party just like so disappointed and Jim. It was 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.240 the beginning of Jim selling out Pam and he's like, Jan, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.760 I had nothing to do with this, and she, you know, 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.159 and then Pam's mad at Jim. And but that was 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.440 that was very funny based on your recollection, Yeah, what 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:57.000 episode came in that was changed the least? Was there 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:58.840 an episode that you remember that it was just like 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.280 it was handed in and it was okay, No, we're 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.080 good with that. I mean, I don't want to I mean, 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:08.399 Dinner Party is like that. I mean, I think, you know, 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:10.320 a lot of the work that the writers did on 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:12.480 it in a way kind of happened before. But I 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:14.399 think we did a really good job with it. The 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.560 big big change in the original draft of Dinner Party, 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.920 Jan intentionally drove over her neighbor's dog. She killed the 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.560 neighbor's dog, and she claimed it was an accident, but 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:27.960 you knew it wasn't. And then we changed it where 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.520 she wrote funk on the neighbor's dog and uh, yeah, 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:32.920 so that was a change. But I think Dinner Party 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.600 probably like changed like five and so there. And you know, 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.560 there's a double edged sword where if you write a 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.120 very good first draft, sometimes it's like, oh, thank God, 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:45.159 and then the room kind of works on it for 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.000 a day. And if you write a terrible draft, the 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:49.560 room was forced to work on it for a week. 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:51.200 And then now all of a sudden you have this 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.440 like collective rewriting a script from scratch, and sometimes those 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.520 become the best episodes, whereas like we did Michael's Birthday, 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.000 which I think is a good episode but not one 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:01.240