Speaker 1: Hello everybody. Hi uh oh, I am so excited today.
Speaker 1: That jazzy little tune is getting me very excited. Welcome
Speaker 1: one and all to the first, the absolute first premier,
Speaker 1: as we call it, in the business episode of The
Speaker 1: Office Deep Dive. I am your host, Brian Baumgartner. Now
Speaker 1: where did this podcast come from? I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're aware that I had another podcast, an oral History
Speaker 1: of the Office. Now, if you haven't listened to that,
Speaker 1: you should, because I mean, it's absolutely genius, if if
Speaker 1: I say so myself. But what happened was we did
Speaker 1: that podcast and we had so much fun making it
Speaker 1: and getting back together with my old castmates and crew
Speaker 1: and writers and directors. The problem was, we got so
Speaker 1: much good material we could not fit all of the
Speaker 1: great stuff in. That's what she said. So we decided
Speaker 1: to make another podcast, this podcast, the one right here
Speaker 1: that you're listening to right now, And this time I
Speaker 1: am releasing all of my raw, unfiltered, full length interviews
Speaker 1: for you to go even deeper. So let's dive in,
Speaker 1: shall we. Hi. I'm Greg Daniels. I was the showrunner
Speaker 1: of the Office. So how do we begin? Well, we
Speaker 1: begin at the beginning that made no sense. Uh. The
Speaker 1: thing is, there is only one way to begin a
Speaker 1: podcast about the Office, and that is with Greg Daniels. Now,
Speaker 1: as some of you Office fans undoubtedly no, Greg was
Speaker 1: the creator and showrunner of the American version of the Office.
Speaker 1: But what you may not know is that before that,
Speaker 1: Greg was the showrunner and co creator of King of
Speaker 1: the Hill. And before that he was a writer on
Speaker 1: The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. And see what is
Speaker 1: so cool is that, as you'll hear momentarily, all of
Speaker 1: that experience totally shaped Greg's vision for The Office, which
Speaker 1: at the time was honestly revolutionary. There was nothing like
Speaker 1: The Office on American television. I truly cannot overstate how
Speaker 1: significant Greg's role was on the show. He assembled the
Speaker 1: entire team, and he was responsible for everything from casting
Speaker 1: to set design, production design, the shooting style. Again, all
Speaker 1: of that you're gonna hear about in a minute. But
Speaker 1: the point is he is literally the reason we're all
Speaker 1: here today. Well maybe not you guys, but me. He's
Speaker 1: definitely the reason that I'm here. So I'm obviously very
Speaker 1: excited to kick things off. I'm gonna shut up now,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, for our very first interview. I am
Speaker 1: proud to present Mr Greg Daniels Bubble and Squeak. I
Speaker 1: love it. Bubble and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker Cookie
Speaker 1: at every month lift over from the night before. Oh hi, buddy, Hire,
Speaker 1: so good to see you, to see you too. I
Speaker 1: love that carved I have Atner's chapel. I have an
Speaker 1: engraved plaque. That's fantastic. We face each other. How do you?
Speaker 1: I think we face each other. I think we're here.
Speaker 1: It's kind of neat. It's a great room, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you are they recording? Yeah, we're just having
Speaker 1: a chat. We're having a chat. I've stolen a few tricks, exactly.
Speaker 1: We just merge in. Actually, that's exactly right. I learned
Speaker 1: from the best. Um, well, thank you for fighting me.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on your podcast. Thank you so much. It's been
Speaker 1: so fun to one just see people and to to
Speaker 1: like reminisce and talk. I mean, everyone has been so
Speaker 1: generous and thoughtful and articulate, and well that's going to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of figured. So I'm not talking to you
Speaker 1: about I'm just going to talk to you about King
Speaker 1: of the Hill because it's fun. Um so before the office,
Speaker 1: what were you what were you doing immediately prior to well, Um, So,
Speaker 1: I had just kind of come off a very intense
Speaker 1: maybe eight years at King of the Hill, and this
Speaker 1: was the first show that I was the showrunner. And uh,
Speaker 1: that job is maybe not that widely known outside of Hollywood.
Speaker 1: It's like the director of the movie. It's very full time, intense,
Speaker 1: start to finish on something job. So I had come
Speaker 1: off The Simpsons, and the Simpsons was really good training
Speaker 1: in many ways, but there was a lot of things
Speaker 1: I wanted to do differently because you know, when I
Speaker 1: got to The Simpsons, it was season the end of
Speaker 1: season four and the show was getting a little wilder
Speaker 1: kind of And for Key of the Hill, I wanted
Speaker 1: to keep it contained and realistic the whole time. And
Speaker 1: I was very much of the opinion and you have
Speaker 1: to really start slow on the show and just the
Speaker 1: value of slowness, but come up with stories like from
Speaker 1: a simple place, not a grand idea or set up.
Speaker 1: Is that what you mean? Well, like, for instance, the
Speaker 1: the pilot of King of the Hill, you know, the
Speaker 1: first couple of minutes, these guys are standing around a
Speaker 1: truck just going yep, you know really and um, you know,
Speaker 1: so I I had come off that and you know,
Speaker 1: I was a huge fan of Seinfeld and I wanted
Speaker 1: to get on that show. I sold them one script.
Speaker 1: I was a freelancer, but I generated a lot of
Speaker 1: stories and would pitch them and I really thought about
Speaker 1: that show a lot. And then I went on The
Speaker 1: Simpsons instead and learned a whole bunch there. But I, um,
Speaker 1: it was kind of a good student of knowing that
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a runner. So I would take
Speaker 1: notes and you know, write them down, and I have
Speaker 1: all these scraps of things and I would develop a
Speaker 1: different theories. And one of the theories that I had
Speaker 1: I call stuff the Sausage, And that theory is a
Speaker 1: great show like Seinfeld is wasteful of wonderful ideas, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like they'll have a great idea
Speaker 1: and it might just turn into a couple of lines
Speaker 1: or a scene, like they don't milk it and make
Speaker 1: a whole episode out of right. So we tried to
Speaker 1: do that on the Office too, But there was a
Speaker 1: lot of that on King of the Hill, where you'd
Speaker 1: have subplots and you know, really tried to put a
Speaker 1: lot of story into an episode. What were your favorite shows? Like,
Speaker 1: what were you watching at that time? Seinfeld? I loved.
Speaker 1: But part of it was when Matt came out. You know,
Speaker 1: it was very different and it was really on by
Speaker 1: the skin of its teeth, and if you picked up
Speaker 1: on it early, you had definitely this feeling of, oh
Speaker 1: my god, here's something super funny and if I don't
Speaker 1: watch it, it's gonna be extinguished. And actually I had
Speaker 1: a I had a meeting at ABC and they were talking.
Speaker 1: They said, what do you like to watch? And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I love Seinfeld And they said something like the that
Speaker 1: they had Home Improvement and that they identified that Simon
Speaker 1: felt was going to be a threat, and they wanted
Speaker 1: to move Home Improvement against it and squash it in
Speaker 1: its cradle, but they couldn't because they had this long
Speaker 1: standing deal to run Sibs opposite Seinfeld, and they were
Speaker 1: watching it kind of catch hold, and they were they
Speaker 1: were like, as soon as they could, they were going
Speaker 1: to squash it with Home Improvement, and I was like,
Speaker 1: don't you dare do that? You know, um, well, that's
Speaker 1: kind of what happened to us too. By the end, right,
Speaker 1: they moved Gray's anatomy against US and c S. I
Speaker 1: was on CBS like they were pulling all their big
Speaker 1: shows against US. Yeah. Well, I kept making I made
Speaker 1: a lot of Seinfeld comparisons in the beginning, because um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, oh, look how small that started.
Speaker 1: It's something new, it's something unique, it's funny, you know,
Speaker 1: let it grow and everything. But it turns out every
Speaker 1: single producer made Seinfeld comparisons if you had a show
Speaker 1: that was struggling, you know, no matter how good it
Speaker 1: was or how close it was the Seinfeld, they had
Speaker 1: heard that argument before. Um, and when did you become aware?
Speaker 1: You were aware of the British version Ricky Gervais and
Speaker 1: uh no, here's what happened. Um okay, So so I
Speaker 1: do King of the Hell. Yeah. I go into an
Speaker 1: overall deal at twenty and then when that deal expired,
Speaker 1: I started to kind of look for the next thing.
Speaker 1: And my agent, our Emmanuel, sent me a VHS cassette
Speaker 1: and said the office on it and the show was
Speaker 1: completely unknown, and I didn't watch it, and he called
Speaker 1: me like after the holidays and he said, um, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, you know, send this to next guy on
Speaker 1: my list. If you don't watch it. So I said,
Speaker 1: all right, all right, hold on, I'll try and watch
Speaker 1: it tonight. So I popped a set in like at
Speaker 1: nine PM or something, and I stayed up till one
Speaker 1: watching the show. And I absolutely loved it. I thought
Speaker 1: it was amazing and I couldn't even figure out how
Speaker 1: it was done, you know it was. It didn't feel
Speaker 1: like scripted. It was so alive and cool. And you
Speaker 1: know how I said, I was like a student a
Speaker 1: bit of being a showrunner. So a lot of times
Speaker 1: I wanted to meet the people who I thought were
Speaker 1: doing the best work, whether or not I figured I
Speaker 1: would ever work with them. So it was really important
Speaker 1: for me to sell a freelance episode of Seinfeld so
Speaker 1: that I could work with Larry David and see what
Speaker 1: was up. And I identified that Ricky and Stephen had
Speaker 1: created something amazing, and I really wanted to figure it
Speaker 1: out right, but I didn't. I didn't really think that
Speaker 1: it was plausible that it would come to American TV,
Speaker 1: or that I would get the job or whatever. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to meet them and asked them about it.
Speaker 1: So I met him at Ben's office, a little bungalow
Speaker 1: on the Universal Law yeah, and it turned out that
Speaker 1: number one, they loved the Simpsons. Number two Rickey's favorite
Speaker 1: Simpsons episode was one that I had written, called Homer Badman.
Speaker 1: So we started vibing nicely and um, you know, and
Speaker 1: I talked to them about what I saw in the show,
Speaker 1: and you know how I would adapted, and a lot
Speaker 1: of it came from King of the Hill being kind
Speaker 1: of realistic and slow and poignant. Um. But anyway, we
Speaker 1: got along really well and um, so they trusted me
Speaker 1: to take over and do the adaptation. And Ben had
Speaker 1: identified a few people who he thought would be really receptive,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Riley was the front runner and he was
Speaker 1: running f X, and it seemed plausible that if anybody
Speaker 1: could take the office, it would be f X or
Speaker 1: maybe HBO. Those were like the two we were thinking about.
Speaker 1: But now Ben told me that HBO wasn't interested because
Speaker 1: they didn't want to do a remake. Correct, Yes, they
Speaker 1: were out of the running. So FX looked pretty good.
Speaker 1: But what happened was, um, Kevin Riley left f X
Speaker 1: and took over NBC, and he still wanted to do
Speaker 1: the show. And I was very skeptical because everything on
Speaker 1: NBC had was multi camera Will and Grace was their
Speaker 1: number one show, and um, it did not feel at
Speaker 1: all like The Office. So okay, So I started to
Speaker 1: convince myself maybe the point of bringing the Office, I
Speaker 1: actually thought this was, was move the ship of comedy
Speaker 1: in a direction towards something I liked more. And even
Speaker 1: if I just nudged it in that direction, maybe it
Speaker 1: would be valuable, like flame out to do you know NBC,
Speaker 1: even if it failed miserably, you were doing your part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna nudge Network Comedy or the main ship
Speaker 1: of comedy. I wanted to nudge it in a different direction. Um.
Speaker 1: Then a few things happened that were very anxiety producing
Speaker 1: for me. At some point, Uh, the Office started to
Speaker 1: air on BBC America in the United States and it
Speaker 1: was very small ratings. Um. But that also made me
Speaker 1: very anxious because I didn't think that it would ever
Speaker 1: air in the United States. Do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: I have the role to the Office that Norman Lear
Speaker 1: had All in the Family because All the Family was
Speaker 1: in English show. But no one's ever seen the English
Speaker 1: show that all the Families based, right, so Norman Lear
Speaker 1: has no points of comparison. I didn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about anything. It was just like, oh, what a great,
Speaker 1: great new show you got. Um so that shared air
Speaker 1: and all the cool comedy people were really into it,
Speaker 1: you know. And this was when we had we had
Speaker 1: already shot pilot. So I'm jumping ahead a little bit.
Speaker 1: This was right before, right before we uh, right before
Speaker 1: we were going to airs, when I started to come
Speaker 1: out because they wanted to like connect it, I think
Speaker 1: to the NBC show or something. Okay, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I I had gotten an early DVD of it too.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I was one of the first people
Speaker 1: to get a DVR because I felt like, well, if
Speaker 1: I'm meeting on these shows, I need to see what's
Speaker 1: out there, whether I like it or not. I should,
Speaker 1: you know, see an episode of c S I and
Speaker 1: see an episode of Will and Grace. So I just
Speaker 1: spent all my time watching and to try I got
Speaker 1: a ti VO. Yeah, and so I had watched I
Speaker 1: had watched it at that point. I have a funny
Speaker 1: Tevo stories sidebar. But yeah, so I got a TVO
Speaker 1: two and they had an early version of the Netflix algorithm.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, you look, you watch this and
Speaker 1: this and this at the time, I was watching Ken
Speaker 1: of the Hill episodes just to make sure it aired properly. Um,
Speaker 1: I love the Sopranos. So I was watching that and
Speaker 1: then my kids we're watching Dragon Tales on PBS, and
Speaker 1: so they tried to triangulate off those three and uh
Speaker 1: and they said, you know what you'd like McHale's Navy.
Speaker 1: That was the cross second of three shows. I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. So you sell the show to NBC. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're running it, and now it's time to come up
Speaker 1: with a pilot. Now, how how did you come up
Speaker 1: with a decision to keep it so close to the
Speaker 1: British version? Yeah, well that was interesting. I had went
Speaker 1: back and forth. I had generated a bunch of stories
Speaker 1: if I was going to do a completely original story.
Speaker 1: And when I was growing up, my dad was a
Speaker 1: businessman who had a lot of performative interests like stand
Speaker 1: He used to do a manager's meeting every year at
Speaker 1: his company where he got Karnak hat you know, the
Speaker 1: turban and his name is Aaron. He would do Aaronak
Speaker 1: And my first joke writing was writing jokes for his
Speaker 1: routine for Aaronach. And as I became a comedy writer.
Speaker 1: Some very good people like Colan O'Brien wrote for him,
Speaker 1: and you know, Mike Reis a lot of good comedy
Speaker 1: writers wrote for Aaronach and I used that, I think
Speaker 1: in the Dundees because I, uh, Michael has an aaronak
Speaker 1: or karnak wig and he does the exact same joke.
Speaker 1: That was the first joke that I wrote for my dad. Um.
Speaker 1: But to get back to the question of what to do,
Speaker 1: so uh so I used to do an award show
Speaker 1: at King of the Hill called the swamp Eas, named
Speaker 1: after Swampy Marsh, who was one of our designers who
Speaker 1: went on to create Phineas and ferb and he had
Speaker 1: a big personality, and so we called it the Swampys.
Speaker 1: And I got those little plastics salesman trophies that are
Speaker 1: not too hard to get, and I used to give
Speaker 1: those out at King of the Hill. So anyway, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: the Dundees Dundee Awards would be a good you know,
Speaker 1: pilot episode, yeah, because you'd sort of by giving awards
Speaker 1: to everybody, you could introduce all these different characters or whatever.
Speaker 1: But um, then I started to get worried and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to Um, do an original script that the
Speaker 1: NBC executives were going to start giving notes on which
Speaker 1: they would have I believe with an original script. And
Speaker 1: I was just really I felt like the pilot was
Speaker 1: like the challenge was, can we do something that feels
Speaker 1: like The Office and not like Will and Grace and
Speaker 1: not blow it right? I thought it was more of
Speaker 1: a producing challenge and the hiring challenge to anything else.
Speaker 1: And so ultimately I got Kevin to say, I want
Speaker 1: to make The Office, and I said, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hold you to that. The first the pilot we're
Speaker 1: gonna make is going to be very close to the
Speaker 1: English show anyway, So I made some changes to the
Speaker 1: English pilot. I added a bunch of stuff and advanced
Speaker 1: the romance a little bit so you'd know at the
Speaker 1: end of the pilot what was going on. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: in the edit room, which lasted forever, we did twenty
Speaker 1: three cuts. I ended up losing a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: that I had added, but I did you know, there
Speaker 1: were some good things I added, Like I added that
Speaker 1: World's Greatest Boss mug that he bought from Spencer Gifts,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of things like that. Um Anyway, but
Speaker 1: for you, it was more about creating the world and
Speaker 1: finding the team and finding the and the cast, the rhythm,
Speaker 1: the dynamic and selling that as opposed to trying to
Speaker 1: you know, write a Dundee's Award and change how the
Speaker 1: show was launched. Yeah, I thought it was a huge
Speaker 1: producing challenge, and you know, and I had all those
Speaker 1: theories and like the stuff to sausage and stuff, and
Speaker 1: some of the theories that I had was that the
Speaker 1: show had to be handmade, like it couldn't be a
Speaker 1: factory product. And what I didn't like about network television
Speaker 1: was how much of a factory it was. And how
Speaker 1: you know, there was a writing staff and the writers
Speaker 1: wrote jokes, and the jokes got passed down to the actors,
Speaker 1: and the writers and actress would always resent each other,
Speaker 1: and the writers would try and write actor proof jokes
Speaker 1: that you know, are can contain the setup in the
Speaker 1: punchline in the same line, because they didn't ever trust
Speaker 1: that the actors could get laughs on behavior. So the
Speaker 1: first thing I really wanted to do was create comedy
Speaker 1: television in a different pattern so that you could get
Speaker 1: more laughs off performance and not jokes. Right, I've heard
Speaker 1: um and people have talked about it, and you've talked
Speaker 1: about it, Um, that you were trying to create an
Speaker 1: environment that was more like S and L where the
Speaker 1: writers and the actors there wasn't so much disconnect and
Speaker 1: that and that writers were performing with the actors, and
Speaker 1: actors could pitch ideas to the writers. Um what I
Speaker 1: what I haven't heard before that you just said, which
Speaker 1: I find so interesting that you wanted laughs to come
Speaker 1: from behavior and from actors performances, and and and so
Speaker 1: you needed a writing staff that understood and had trust
Speaker 1: in the actors, which is in a way kind of
Speaker 1: the reverse of how I thought about it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know what they always said it was the biggest
Speaker 1: laugh of all time was Jack Benny where he's getting
Speaker 1: mugged and the guy says your money or your life
Speaker 1: and he just like has to think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: And like, to me, that's great because that's not a joke, right,
Speaker 1: it's just like you're bringing to bear the everything you
Speaker 1: know about the character. I thought those were such cooler
Speaker 1: things than jokes. And Um. Anyway, so that was like
Speaker 1: the big challenge. And then also it was that format, right,
Speaker 1: it is mockumentary, and it was very quiet, and it
Speaker 1: had its rhythm and the comedy of awkwardness where like,
Speaker 1: you know, someone's supposed to behave a certain way and
Speaker 1: they aren't, you know what I mean, and then it
Speaker 1: sinks in and and um, that was certainly really hard
Speaker 1: to pull off at that time. Yes, I had a
Speaker 1: director that I worked with for a long time in
Speaker 1: theater before. He always talked to me about off the beat.
Speaker 1: That comedy exists off the beat. So if you have
Speaker 1: an expectation of when you should respond, you you you
Speaker 1: wait a half beat, you do something that jars people,
Speaker 1: which surprises them. And I felt like, that's what what
Speaker 1: you did so well on our show. Well, surprise is
Speaker 1: really good for comedy, right, And to me, um, anything
Speaker 1: you can do to increase surprise is good. And the
Speaker 1: problem to me with your multi camera shows in general
Speaker 1: was that the rhythms were so ingrained. You know, it's
Speaker 1: always like up, you know, and you could kind of
Speaker 1: just and it felt like like kabuki, you know, or
Speaker 1: some kind of really ritualized thing. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of really cool things about the Office in terms of
Speaker 1: increasing surprise. One of them to me is you're going
Speaker 1: for poignancy half the time, you're going for something emotional,
Speaker 1: so you're not aware as an audience, remember what the
Speaker 1: goal of the moment is, so you think, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: oh this is sad, this is a you know, and
Speaker 1: then it's funny and then you you're surprised or if
Speaker 1: vice verse him. So um. So the first the pilot,
Speaker 1: we had Peter Smokeler as the DP, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the hiring of the pilot for me was trying
Speaker 1: to get people who I super respected from different things
Speaker 1: that were kind of off, like not the standard sitcom.
Speaker 1: So um. Alison Jones loved freaks and geeks that thought
Speaker 1: her casting was amazing, so I really wanted to get her.
Speaker 1: And then I had tried to work on Larry Sanders.
Speaker 1: I did a couple of days of punch up there.
Speaker 1: I'd identified that as something similar to to Seinfeld, like
Speaker 1: some show that was just doing amazing stuff. And that's
Speaker 1: how we got to Ken koppas Yes, And the whole
Speaker 1: thing with Ken was wanting everybody to believe that they
Speaker 1: were working at a paper company and absorbing that and
Speaker 1: kind of taking the Hollywood out of it. Well, there
Speaker 1: were so many things that you guys did. First of all,
Speaker 1: getting a sound stage as a location and choosing to
Speaker 1: put the offices in the production offices upstairs, right because
Speaker 1: that was a real space and Ken and his making
Speaker 1: us be all ready to go at seven am and
Speaker 1: doing thirty minutes of just work. Yeah no, that was
Speaker 1: really uh part of that notion of obstacles that like
Speaker 1: I um, we discussed that a lot as well, which
Speaker 1: is uh on the Hollywood set. And again this is
Speaker 1: like trying not to be factory, not to be Hollywood. Right,
Speaker 1: So on Hollywood set they make the walls wild a bole,
Speaker 1: which means any room you're in you can pull the
Speaker 1: wall off so that the camera can get back and
Speaker 1: get a great shot. And our aesthetic on the office
Speaker 1: was nothing should be wild able, you you should. The
Speaker 1: obstacle of a column in the way is subconsciously interpreted
Speaker 1: by the audience as another piece of evidence that this
Speaker 1: is actually happening, that's real, which makes it much more intense,
Speaker 1: right because subconsciously you're like, oh my god, they couldn't,
Speaker 1: they can't, they can't quite see what's happening, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're totally leaning forward and that zoom lends stuff and
Speaker 1: going through the blinds and going around the side and everything,
Speaker 1: and there was always a debate about how much to
Speaker 1: lean into that device, and the writer is often would
Speaker 1: want to do it more than the rest of the crew.
Speaker 1: And one of the interesting things of being a showrunner is,
Speaker 1: first and foremost you're the head writer. You're like one
Speaker 1: of the writing staff, but you also interact with everybody
Speaker 1: else on the crew way more than the writers do.
Speaker 1: And so, for instance, Phil Sheha, the prop master, He's
Speaker 1: a guy that I would ask his opinion all the time.
Speaker 1: And Dave Rodgers, the editor, I completely relied on. And
Speaker 1: I would also often bring in the accountants. Remember this,
Speaker 1: I would have two different cuts downstairs, and I'd bring
Speaker 1: the accountants in. I'd play it for them because I
Speaker 1: figured they were the closest we had to ordinary people.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so like some certain key moments, the big
Speaker 1: question was how much to use that device of obstacles. Interesting, Um,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the casting just a little. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Alison Jones, how why did you choose Alison Jones? Okay, Well, um,
Speaker 1: so I did. Uh. While I was at Fox. I
Speaker 1: did a pilot uh, and it was sort of based
Speaker 1: on me growing up in New York and I. I
Speaker 1: considered it sort of Seinfeld the Family show. It was
Speaker 1: like a Seinfeld family show. And I was casting right
Speaker 1: when Freaks and Geeks had been canceled, and I saw
Speaker 1: all of the kids and UM, a lot of them
Speaker 1: perst into tears when they went toition because they were
Speaker 1: so sad that their show got canceled. And I ended
Speaker 1: up using Sam Levine in this show. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: got I was really into Freaks and Geeks and UM,
Speaker 1: I really liked the choices, Like she chose really funny people,
Speaker 1: but they were, you know, pretty character in a great way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I when I tried to think of all of
Speaker 1: the casting directors that I could try to go to,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, I was like, I want, I want
Speaker 1: to work with her. I think she she'd be great.
Speaker 1: So we went into this really long casting process and
Speaker 1: we were off for some reason. We were off cycle.
Speaker 1: We were like going to be mid season so we
Speaker 1: didn't have to compete with every single other show. And
Speaker 1: we started with um, you know, Jim and Pam, Michael Dwight,
Speaker 1: those were like the ones we started with. And we
Speaker 1: saw a ton of people for Michael, and I brought
Speaker 1: in people who I had worked with were writers. I
Speaker 1: brought in one of the head writers of The Simpsons,
Speaker 1: Mike Greece, to try out, and this writer I knew
Speaker 1: named Chuck Tatham, And I remember taping myself on a
Speaker 1: video camera late at night doing the sides for Michael
Speaker 1: because I was like, I don't even know what to
Speaker 1: tell them, you know. And I did it a bunch
Speaker 1: of times, and I realized that one of the keys
Speaker 1: that I thought for people trying out for Michael was
Speaker 1: that he's thinking that if he does a good job
Speaker 1: on this documentary, maybe Jennifer Anniston will watch it, and
Speaker 1: that's in the back of his head. That was well,
Speaker 1: that was like my direction that yeah, And I did
Speaker 1: that from taping myself and going, oh, that's the only
Speaker 1: thing that's motivating me into something resembling this weird performance. Um,
Speaker 1: was there anyone that came in right away who you
Speaker 1: ultimately cast that you went, that's it? Jenna? Yeah, Jenna
Speaker 1: came in and it kind of blew my mind because
Speaker 1: I didn't understand it. I was like, she doesn't appear
Speaker 1: to be acting. She appears to simply be Pam. And
Speaker 1: I had all these weird questions for her that were like, well,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't ask an actor. IU was like, where where
Speaker 1: have you worked? What is that? You know? It was
Speaker 1: like it was a real interview for receptionists. There was
Speaker 1: one part of me in trying to get an interesting
Speaker 1: love story that thought maybe it should be interracial love story,
Speaker 1: and so part of me was I had a one
Speaker 1: version of it where Craig Robinson was Roy not Darryl.
Speaker 1: And there was a really likable actress Erica Bettina Phillips,
Speaker 1: and I was like, could she be Pam? Wow? Is
Speaker 1: that gonna work? And everything? You know, but she was
Speaker 1: a pretty easy pick and I felt pretty much like
Speaker 1: that about John. I think too. Um, there were some
Speaker 1: other good guys for John, but not not close and
Speaker 1: was it about the two of them together? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: then well the great thing also that Ken did and
Speaker 1: it was really smart, which is he said, okay, like
Speaker 1: we are not going to try and take these people
Speaker 1: in front of NBC on a little stage and have
Speaker 1: them read in front of the executives. And I was
Speaker 1: completely on board with that because we would never be
Speaker 1: shooting like that. That's not the right style. And what
Speaker 1: that is is a filter to get more theatrical performers.
Speaker 1: Who are good for multi camera, who can work a room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who work a room and come alive when they're in
Speaker 1: front of a room and and project and you know,
Speaker 1: are just more theatrical. And so we got this idea
Speaker 1: to do screen tests like old fashioned screen tests, and
Speaker 1: we blocked off three days and um, and we took
Speaker 1: all the different top three or four candidates for each
Speaker 1: role and we pitted him together in different improvs. And
Speaker 1: it was great for Ken too because he worked out
Speaker 1: a lot about the shooting style doing this. And it
Speaker 1: was fun for me too because I came up with
Speaker 1: lots of little improv games and could figure out things
Speaker 1: and like, for instance, one of them was between the
Speaker 1: Gym candidates and the Dwight candidates, and I had Dwight
Speaker 1: sitting at his desk and I said, like, all right,
Speaker 1: the Gym just bring a glass of water in a
Speaker 1: nice way to Dwight, and Dwight be super suspicious because
Speaker 1: why is Jim doing something nice? And it was really
Speaker 1: nice by the way of all the actors, because a
Speaker 1: lot of the actors gave us three days shooting. So
Speaker 1: that's a long audition. But just like everything, it took time.
Speaker 1: I mean, you cast for three months, then you did
Speaker 1: multiple days. I'm super methodical. I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: i feel like, if I have time to make a decision,
Speaker 1: I'm going to chase down every option and abe it
Speaker 1: and really try. And you know, and as you started
Speaker 1: to find the rest of the ensemble, what were you
Speaker 1: looking for there? Well, part of it was different types
Speaker 1: of people, you know, and part of it was Allison
Speaker 1: having passions for people, like we didn't have a ton
Speaker 1: of choices for Kevin, right, she was really passionate about
Speaker 1: you and came in and we could see it right away,
Speaker 1: and it was like cool, that's great. And Oscar and
Speaker 1: Angela were both you know, had come from the same
Speaker 1: improv theater. They were both io guys. And Oscar has
Speaker 1: the ability, like he has such a straight face, I
Speaker 1: mean he has the ability to play it so straight
Speaker 1: and it's so funny. Has a little Jack Benny actually
Speaker 1: you referenced him before, just yeah, yeah. And and the
Speaker 1: great thing was also the set informed a good bit
Speaker 1: because like we were all in the same room. But
Speaker 1: it was very useful to have a nook with three
Speaker 1: improv masters to have a sort of create a subplot
Speaker 1: with almost you know, you needed to cut away from
Speaker 1: the what was happening in the triangle of Jim Pam
Speaker 1: dwighte desks, and the accounts were great for that. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that was great was you guys were
Speaker 1: just making your own bits up. You know. We we
Speaker 1: were the star of our own show in the corner,
Speaker 1: which was how Areous? And you would come to me
Speaker 1: and go, hey, hey, hey, check this out. We got
Speaker 1: this thing going. I have to tell this story. Um.
Speaker 1: We were the first season, we shoot the basketball episode,
Speaker 1: which is your the first episode you wrote. And I'm
Speaker 1: trying to bond with my boss, right, and I'm a
Speaker 1: huge sports fan, big basketball fan, and so we're doing
Speaker 1: the basketball episode and I remember I said, so, Greg
Speaker 1: are you are you You're a big fan of basketball
Speaker 1: and you turned like kind of tilted your head slightly
Speaker 1: and said, I'm a fan of comedy and then turned
Speaker 1: and walked away. I was like, that went really well, Brian,
Speaker 1: a great, great job with it. Was just so so
Speaker 1: interesting for me that you had constructed that as being
Speaker 1: that was my That was funny. Yeah, I mean this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so sad and lame on my part. But I
Speaker 1: didn't have enough brain space for sports know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I I am marvel at people who can know all
Speaker 1: about all the teams, and it's a great thing for
Speaker 1: guys to hang out and bond with each other. It's
Speaker 1: like my dad and my son are both great at it.
Speaker 1: No matter where they go, they're just they can instantly
Speaker 1: have a cool conversation about basketball. Well, they just didn't
Speaker 1: have the room. Well there's a theory, right that people
Speaker 1: only have the brain space for for one of three things.
Speaker 1: One is sports, two is music, and three is useless trivia.
Speaker 1: Oh I got that. That's man. So it's one of
Speaker 1: three things and useless trivia because that's not Unfortunately it's
Speaker 1: not music in sports. But it does help when you
Speaker 1: write Dwight because a lot of times I would, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, yes, if there's one character I'm probably
Speaker 1: the closest to, it's fucking Dwite. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's sometimes it felt that way. It was
Speaker 1: really easy to do all those bear runs. And like
Speaker 1: one time when that do you remember that book what
Speaker 1: was it called? It was like worst case Scenario handbook?
Speaker 1: Remember that book? All right? So this is this was
Speaker 1: like a Christmas type you know, novelty gift book, and
Speaker 1: it was it was just how do you escape from
Speaker 1: a bear? How do you escape from a burning building?
Speaker 1: You know, worst case scenario and book and anyway, that Christmas,
Speaker 1: I got like eight copies of that bad book from people.
Speaker 1: They were like all of them were like, this is
Speaker 1: for you, this is this is for you. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, definitely easy to write, right. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, also I identified a lot with Michael. For instance,
Speaker 1: the Halloween episode, this notion that you would have to
Speaker 1: fire someone but you'd want to stay friends with them.
Speaker 1: That comes from identifying with the boss in the situation.
Speaker 1: And normally you identify with the employee until you've had
Speaker 1: an experience of being a boss, and then you start
Speaker 1: to go, oh, wait a minute, maybe there's somebody has
Speaker 1: a point of view there. And I was the boss
Speaker 1: of the writers, and so it was sort of funny
Speaker 1: because like a lot of times they would be you know,
Speaker 1: pulling the right at me and mocking me, and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you can use it for the show.
Speaker 1: And Steve used to say something like, if you're in
Speaker 1: a situation where there you don't see any Michael Scott,
Speaker 1: you're Michael Scott, that's right, that's right. So after doing
Speaker 1: the pilot, we get a very anemic pickup of five
Speaker 1: episodes for a season one, and all of my Seinfeld
Speaker 1: arguing rebounded against me, because you know, I was dancing
Speaker 1: and trying to get get a pick up and everything,
Speaker 1: and they were like, well, if it's really like Seinfeld
Speaker 1: Seinfeld only had four episodes whenever in the first season,
Speaker 1: were like, um, so we get this little skinny pick up,
Speaker 1: and now I get the ability to hire writer, and
Speaker 1: so I love hiring writers. And I read hundreds of scripts,
Speaker 1: not hundreds, but at least a hundred for each time
Speaker 1: I have to hire a staff, and I meet people,
Speaker 1: and in the meetings, I'm describing the show because it
Speaker 1: hasn't come out right, and the more you describe it,
Speaker 1: the more your thoughts start to coalesce. And I and
Speaker 1: I realized as I was trying to like pitch the
Speaker 1: show over and over again to different writers, that this
Speaker 1: was the first um comedy version of reality show, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of the first show. And this gets
Speaker 1: maybe theoretical, but like I was saying, all right, well, sitcoms,
Speaker 1: multi camera coms are a TV show for people who
Speaker 1: love theater and have done a lot of theater and
Speaker 1: go to theater. That's the idea. But now everybody has
Speaker 1: their own cam quarters, And what about a show for
Speaker 1: people who have taken video and are used to looking
Speaker 1: at the viewfinder and turning to cover one guy and
Speaker 1: then the other guy. You know, America's funniest videos like
Speaker 1: that cam quarter thing had come in hard and um
Speaker 1: and reality shows. So I was kind of developing this
Speaker 1: idea that the bones of the show wouldn't be theatrical,
Speaker 1: they'd be video. And when you think about photography and
Speaker 1: you think about the great you know, street photographers, so
Speaker 1: much is about finding a way to look at the
Speaker 1: real world and finding beauty in what you see right
Speaker 1: in front of you, by the way you compose it,
Speaker 1: or your selection of subject matter, where the decisive moment,
Speaker 1: or you know, stuff like that. Well, randall Uh talked
Speaker 1: to me a little bit about this idea. He attributes
Speaker 1: to quote to you, which is everything that makes it
Speaker 1: harder makes it better. Yeah, that's that obstacles and the yes.
Speaker 1: And in terms of the obstacles and obviously a huge
Speaker 1: part of the aesthetic was the camera as a character.
Speaker 1: How important and was that to you. Oh, I think
Speaker 1: that's huge. I mean I used to give notes very
Speaker 1: differently to camera operators then most shows. Like most shows,
Speaker 1: the note is okay, I want you to pan over here,
Speaker 1: and then on this line, I want you to, you know,
Speaker 1: do blah blah blah, push in or whatever. And I
Speaker 1: used to only give notes to them like their actors.
Speaker 1: I would say, Okay, here's what's interesting. You've been following
Speaker 1: this story, and you know this person who's never expressed
Speaker 1: any interest in that person before, You've suddenly noticed that
Speaker 1: they're eyeing them with interest. Go for that. And some
Speaker 1: of the things we used to do with Randall. I
Speaker 1: would sometimes say, Okay, the problem with this scene is
Speaker 1: you know what you're looking for, and I would have
Speaker 1: the camera operator close their eyes and I would spin
Speaker 1: them around and I'd say, right, find it on action,
Speaker 1: and we go action and the scene would start and
Speaker 1: the camera guy would open his eyes and be pointing
Speaker 1: the wrong way and he'd have to like find find
Speaker 1: what was interesting. Yeah, we had a bunch of tricks
Speaker 1: like that. What I have said is the thing that
Speaker 1: I'm the most proud of was that every single shot
Speaker 1: was purposeful in terms of the camera is the camera
Speaker 1: in the space. Are the characters aware that the camera
Speaker 1: is there? How does that make them behave? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I you know, the writer's offices were near the stage,
Speaker 1: and so I would often come down and look and
Speaker 1: see stuff or get called down, which was very fun
Speaker 1: but also kind of high stakes kind of deal, because
Speaker 1: you show up, the whole crew is there and they're
Speaker 1: they're saying, can you look at this? This doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be funny, Or I would look at the rehearsal
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't think it was funny, And then you
Speaker 1: only have a couple of minutes to figure it out.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I noticed was that camera awareness
Speaker 1: was the cause of half the times when it wasn't funny.
Speaker 1: Is that we had gotten the camera awareness wrong and
Speaker 1: we were in a situation where we should have been
Speaker 1: spying on them through blinds, but the cameras are right
Speaker 1: and everybody's face and we were expecting people to act
Speaker 1: as if they didn't know the cameras were there, right,
Speaker 1: or you know, sometimes it's funnier to not spy on
Speaker 1: them and to let them be embarrassed that the cameras
Speaker 1: are seeing it. Like I was just watching that one
Speaker 1: which one was it? I guess it was the client,
Speaker 1: remember that one, and just the camera chased Michael he
Speaker 1: got the call being the jan didn't want to see him.
Speaker 1: While he was he was sort of bragging the camera
Speaker 1: and then he got this horrible call and he had
Speaker 1: to actually hide in the well under his desk, and
Speaker 1: the camera came around and like squeezed and kind of
Speaker 1: caught him there like a raccoon in the light next
Speaker 1: to a garbage. It's added so much, the camera could
Speaker 1: add so much. Totally, did you right for the camera
Speaker 1: as though it were character? Yeah? Sometimes, for sure. I
Speaker 1: remember jen Um Salada actually doing that the most. Like
Speaker 1: she she was the first person to have the camera
Speaker 1: like nod you know, she had I forget which episode,
Speaker 1: but she had somebody looked to camera and say where
Speaker 1: do you go or something like that, and the camera
Speaker 1: kind of like gestured and that was kind of fun.
Speaker 1: It was. It was really up to the line though. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you know when we had that arc of
Speaker 1: Jenna going to art school or Pam going to art school,
Speaker 1: we had a whole thing and it was originally I
Speaker 1: think I think it was Mindy's idea or she was
Speaker 1: the biggest proponent of it. But it was the idea
Speaker 1: of the boom operator getting involved, and it was to
Speaker 1: me one of the coolest ideas. I couldn't really figure
Speaker 1: out how to work it, and we had a version
Speaker 1: where she got mugged on a subway and the boom
Speaker 1: operator dropped or the camera dropped the camera, and I
Speaker 1: remember that, I remember that idea. Yea was that in
Speaker 1: a table read? Even it probably I probably was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what's really fun? Now, it's like people are
Speaker 1: talking about the show all the time, and so I
Speaker 1: got asked about it. But it's ten years ago, fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, and sometimes I can't remember what made it
Speaker 1: into the show or what was like a crazy table
Speaker 1: read or what was pitched and I turned it down
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. One other question, just about the pilot.
Speaker 1: Do you remember how the pilot tested? I'm guessing not good. Yes,
Speaker 1: So Kevin Riley told the story that how testing happens
Speaker 1: is there's certain people who are set up in different rooms,
Speaker 1: and every room was bad. Yeah, and accept they got
Speaker 1: to the last room, which essentially were people who didn't count,
Speaker 1: but they were p a s and office assistants at
Speaker 1: young people and they loved it. So it was like
Speaker 1: from the very beginning that that's interesting. Well, they they
Speaker 1: said to me, with the testing, they said, we're going
Speaker 1: to go out in the mall and just grab a
Speaker 1: bunch of people. You can have one question to disqualify people.
Speaker 1: And so the question I had was if they were
Speaker 1: a fan of according to Jim, that TV show. They
Speaker 1: were disqualified because I didn't want to you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do a sitcom, so I had to
Speaker 1: pick one. But anyway, but I mean, I had prepared
Speaker 1: Kevin right like way before I knew this wasn't going
Speaker 1: to test well, and I you know, I had certainly
Speaker 1: laid the ground worth Kevin for that. I was like,
Speaker 1: this thing is not going to test well. It is
Speaker 1: firmly in the pattern of Mary Tyler Moore, Cheers Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: It's classic NBC comedy, and you know it's gonna work.
Speaker 1: But don't don't worry about the testing. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a in this podcast room. You guys
Speaker 1: have this Cheers poster where you've replaced all of the
Speaker 1: Cheers characters with office heads. One of the things that's
Speaker 1: so funny, I think inappropriate about that is about the
Speaker 1: theme song because we had put a theme song on
Speaker 1: the pilot that then was grabbed by another NBC show. Yes,
Speaker 1: um what was it, Mr Blue Skies. That was what
Speaker 1: was on the pilot, and it was all the internal screenings.
Speaker 1: That was the theme song on the pilot. And the
Speaker 1: pilot was also called The Office colon an American Workplace,
Speaker 1: which I thought was more doc you you know that.
Speaker 1: I also kind of figured it would open us up
Speaker 1: to be able to do other an American workplace like
Speaker 1: this is. I mean, it just didn't really apply until
Speaker 1: we got to the finale and I managed to work
Speaker 1: it in finally, But that was the that was the
Speaker 1: thinking that you could you could do another series that
Speaker 1: was something else in American workplace, where the that this
Speaker 1: was just a season of a larger series called an
Speaker 1: American Workplace, just to just to try and get more
Speaker 1: reality to the documentary thing. Because after a while, I
Speaker 1: mean we sort of pointed it out at the end,
Speaker 1: like why were you here for nine years? But um,
Speaker 1: so I had really fun experience getting the theme song
Speaker 1: for King of the Hill where we went out to
Speaker 1: bands and stuff and they all submitted stuff and we
Speaker 1: had to sort of sum up what the show was
Speaker 1: really quickly. And my line on King of the Hill
Speaker 1: was Andy Griffith's back and he's pissed. That was how
Speaker 1: I would sum up that show. But when we were
Speaker 1: looking for a theme song for the Office, I kept
Speaker 1: referencing Cheers because I was like, the Office is funny
Speaker 1: and poignant and original, and it has this sort of
Speaker 1: cheersy vibe. I always felt like our show that that
Speaker 1: was where it's deepest roots was Cheers. Yeah. Um, the
Speaker 1: only difference was these were people who had to show
Speaker 1: up every day, whereas Cheers they chose to show up
Speaker 1: at this particular place. But that, um, the tone of
Speaker 1: familiarity and constant interaction that that it had its ties there. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I agree with you, And and Cheers had a very
Speaker 1: it's sort of there were moments of nobility and a
Speaker 1: lot of appreciating different character people. I also used to
Speaker 1: compare it to Hogan's heroes in the beginning. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: because uh, the staff were kind of like prisoners. They
Speaker 1: were all trying to like outwit the boss. Kind of
Speaker 1: that was I don't think that's the main influence at all,
Speaker 1: but interesting, it's fun to think about it like that. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, we're gonna pause. We're not gonna stop,
Speaker 1: We're just gonna pause. Um, because there is so much
Speaker 1: more great stuff from Greg. You're gonna hear more from him,
Speaker 1: and not just one, but two future episodes. But in
Speaker 1: the meantime, you can go right now and you can
Speaker 1: listen to my interview with Rain Wilson, a k a.
Speaker 1: Dwight Shrewd, which, as you just heard, Greg and Dwight
Speaker 1: kind of the same person, so it makes total sense. Now,
Speaker 1: Normally we're just gonna put out one episode a week,
Speaker 1: but I was just too excited. I was just too
Speaker 1: excited about launching the podcast. So go now, America's sweetheart.
Speaker 1: He's never been cooked that Rain Wilson. Anyway, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Episode one done check. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed it, and uh yeah, we will see you
Speaker 1: next week. The Office. Deep Dive is hosted and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer, our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia. My
Speaker 1: main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our theme
Speaker 1: song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend Creed Bratton,
Speaker 1: and the episode is mixed by Seth Olandsky. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the amazing production crew who recorded these interviews with
Speaker 1: us Joanna Sakalowski, Julia Smith, Benny Spiwak, Russell with Jaya,
Speaker 1: Margaret Borchard, Christian Bonaventura, Matthew Rosenfield, Alex Mobison, Lucy Savage,
Speaker 1: Judson Pickward, Jack Walden, Jonathan Mayer, Andrew Stephen, David Lincoln,
Speaker 1: and Saida Lee