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