EP. 49 — Safety Training

OFFICE-049-20200917-SafetyTraining-SKv04.mp3

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:04] I’m Jenna Fischer.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:05] I’m Angela Kinsey.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:06] We were on “The Office” together.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:07] And we’re best friends.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:08] And now we’re doing the ultimate “Office” rewatch podcast just for you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:12] Each week we will break down an episode of “The Office” and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:19] We’re the “Office Ladies”. Hi, everybody.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:25] Hey, you guys.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:26] Welcome to “Safety Training”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:28] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:28] It is Season 3, Episode 19. Written by B.J. Novak and directed by Harold Ramis.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:35] Yes. And Jenna, I mean, I’m going to talk about this as we go. But on the DVD commentary for this episode. There is B.J., Mindy and Harold Ramis. And it was so wonderful to hear him.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:48] Oh my gosh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:49] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:50] Oh, I’m gonna go listen to that. I bet that was amazing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:00:53] It’s a great one. It really is. And I’m going to sprinkle in some, some little nuggets from it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:00:58] All right. I love it. Let’s start with a summary. It is “Safety Training” day in “The Office”. Michael and Dwight are on a mission to illuminate the dangers of the workplace. Meanwhile, Andy returns to “The Office” after his five weeks of anger management training, and he is determined to make a fresh start with all of the Dunder Mifflin employees.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:19] It is a doozy. Jenna.

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:21] I have no Fast Facts today.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:23] What?

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:25] I have no Fast Facts.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:27] Should I go buy a lottery ticket? Like what’s happening in the universe? Are things going to be a big shift? What’s going on?

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:35] First of all, I have a very big thing we have to acknowledge in lieu of Fast Facts.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:41] Oh, what?

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:43] Lady, today is the one year birthday of “Office Ladies”!

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:47] Get out.

JENNA FISCHER [00:01:48] Yes, yes, lady. Our very first episode aired one year ago this week.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:01:54] Oh, my god. How I, I, I’m so bad about putting things in calendars. This is a big deal! This is our one year birthday.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:03] It’s our one year birthday. Happy birthday to us, “Office Ladies”, Boss Ladies, podcast.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:09] Oh my gosh. And you guys, thank you for being part of our “Office Ladies” journey for one whole year.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:16] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:17] Oh, wait.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:17] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:18] Sam is tapping on the glass. Sam?

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:19] I know why.

SAM KIEFFER [00:02:21] Yes. I wanted to say congratulations for a year. I got you guys these, about a year ago when it came up on the podcast and had been waiting patiently for a reason for you guys to open them. So enjoy.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:33] So, Angela, we should tell people, you’re in the studio.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:36] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:36] And Sam just handed you a wrapped gift.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:39] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:39] I got one at my house. I’m holding mine.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:42] OK. So we’re gonna open it together at the same time.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:44] Open it together. Here we go.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:45] Sam. Here we go. I cannot believe you bought this a year ago.

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:49] It is in-.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:49] What is it?

JENNA FISCHER [00:02:51] Well, it’s in some Christmas wrapping paper, which I like.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:02:53] I did, too. It’s got little dogs and sweaters and things. “Angela, congrats on one full year of ‘Office Ladies’”. Aw, Sam.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:02] Oh, my god!

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:04] Oh, my god, this is so disturbing.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:06] No. Sam.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:07] Oh, my god.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:09] Sam.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:09] Sam, where did you find these? You guys, it’s our face as a mask.

SAM KIEFFER [00:03:14] Amazon, there is now 14 available of each.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:17] Oh, my lord.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:17] Because you’re one. Oh, my gosh. I guess I have to poke out the eyes.

SAM KIEFFER [00:03:22] Yeah, in a very creepy way, you have to poke the eyes out to wear them first.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:25] I don’t want to poke my eyes out. Oh, I have to-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:27] Well, I just, I just poked my own eyes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:29] Oh, you did? OK. I just poked my own eyes out. It was really creepy.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:33] Oh yeah. Are you smiling behind your mask, Angela? Because I’m smiling.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:36] I am smiling, but I noticed my-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:36] You can’t tell.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:39] Thank you, Sam.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:41] Oh, my gosh, Sam. I love it so much.

SAM KIEFFER [00:03:44] Well, congrats on a year, guys.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:44] Wow.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:47] Ah. Thank you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:47] Oh, my gosh. That was so fun. Well, that, I know it wasn’t a Fast Fact, but that was pretty great.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:53] Yeah. That was like an “Office Ladies” Big Fact.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:03:56] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:03:57] Well, I thought that since it’s our birthday, in lieu of Fast Facts, I thought we could just go to our mailbag and answer some frequently asked questions this week.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:04:07] Oh, I love that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:04:08] Here is the fan question from Eve and Maria Barbic. They said, “Each time there is a conference room meeting, is everyone given an assigned seat or can you sit where you want”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:04:20] We were always given an assigned seat.

JENNA FISCHER [00:04:22] We would walk into a conference room and they would usually have a little sticky note on each chair with our name on it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:04:27] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:04:28] And we knew that was our spot because they would plan it out. They would plan the camera blocking and the camera angles and how they were gonna catch all of our reactions according to who had dialog and who didn’t.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:04:40] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:04:40] So they, they planned all that out before we even walked in the room.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:04:43] Yeah. Sometimes someone’s dialog would affect someone else and you would need to see their reaction immediately after the, the line of dialog. So they had that all mapped out. And sometimes if you were really big and pregnant, you were in the back row just going to say.

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:01] Yes. So we could hide that big old belly.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:04] That’s right.

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:06] We’re getting close to that, Ang.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:07] To my belly?

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:09] We’re getting-. Yeah, that’s next season.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:12] I know, that’s gonna be crazy for me. I’m going-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:14] I can’t wait to hear those stories.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:15] I’m just going to probably drive you guys all crazy. ‘Cause I’m going to be like, “In this one, Isabelle was really kicking”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:23] I can’t wait. I can’t wait. We’re gonna get it all down on record.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:27] What else you got?

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:29] All right. This question comes from Riesha Patterson. “Can you explain the decision of the audience not hearing the questions posed by the documentary crew”? So like in our talking heads. Right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:41] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:05:42] She asked, “Did Greg Daniels make this decision or was this taken from the BBC version”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:05:49] Well, I mean, I have my thoughts. My thoughts are usually in a documentary. The camera crew wants to disappear. They want to really capture people’s lives. And they try not to, like, interfere too much. And so I, I, I would guess and I think you probably have the answer that they wanted it that way. They wanted it to really feel like a documentary.

JENNA FISCHER [00:06:13] Yeah, I reached out to Greg, Ang, and you are exactly right. He said they made the decision because he felt like the audience would be more invested and more connected to our characters if you didn’t hear anyone asking the questions, if your mind wasn’t thinking about this crew of people filming them.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:06:33] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:06:33] But he said they did wonder about this all the time. They wondered about what are the circumstances when they might reveal someone from the crew. And I remember at least on set, Angela, I don’t know if you remember this, but there was this big debate about in the final season or ever, if we reveal who the documentarian is who’s been making this, who should it be? And I remember the cast saying that it should either be Greg Daniels or Ken Kwapis. Do you remember this conversation?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:05] I do. I do. And I, I, I remember I wanted that. I wanted to see the camera crew, but also Jenna, I don’t know what it’s like for you when you watch actual documentaries. I love them. And if I ever hear the voice of the documentarian, like off camera, I’m, I’m instantly fascinated. I’m like, OK, I want to see this person.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:29] Yeah. You want to see a shot of their face.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:31] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:31] Right? You’re like I, I’ve heard a voice.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:33] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:34] Well, Greg told me that there was also some debate that maybe it should be Randall Einhorn or Ricky Gervais.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:41] Oh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:42] That, like at the very end, it would be revealed that Ricky Gervais was our documentarian.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:47] I would like to go one step further and say, what if it was David Brent?

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:52] Oh, no.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:53] What if David Brent had come from the UK to make a documentary in America like his own?

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:01] Well, I guess there was a problem with this idea because Greg told me that there are a few times that you do hear the voice for the documentarian. And do you know whose voice it is?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:10] Ken Kwapis?

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:12] Dave Rogers.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:14] Oh, no way.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:16] Right? And when Greg told me that I couldn’t even think of any times that we heard the voice. So guys-.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:21] Did he loop it in? Like, when did he-?

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:23] Yeah. And I don’t know why or when. So I, I, we haven’t gotten to it, right? Like we haven’t heard a documentarian yet so far.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:32] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:33] So it must be coming up. We’re gonna have to track it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:35] Oh wow. I want to track that. These are good. These are good questions.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:39] I thought so too. All right. Are you ready for another one?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:43] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:43] All right. This question, we got a lot. This was definitely a most frequently asked.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:48] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:50] We got this question from Julianne K., Luke D, Kate Smith. Alanah Boylen, and two Emilys.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:57] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:58] The first one is Emily Howard. And the second is my own sister, Emily, who texted me this question. She has been catching up on our podcast, Angela. And it’s so funny because I’ll just suddenly get a text where she’s like, “Oh, my god, you told people I threw up in Ellie’s bushes”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:18] I know. I know. I know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:20] And I’m like, “Oh, yeah. You’re just catching that? Yeah. That happened a while ago”. Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:24] My sister, Janet, listens and so does my stepson, Jack. And remember when we did “Laundry and Betrayal”?

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:31] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:32] Jack came out of his bedroom with his headphones on and was like, “Angela”! I was like “Oops, sorry”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:39] Our kids don’t hear us talk like that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:41] What did Emily ask?

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:43] OK, they all want to know why do we have multiple directors on the show instead of just one?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:49] So he can prep the other one, right? I mean.

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:52] So I actually called my sister because I was like, I don’t know how to put this in a text. And I explained it like this. I said, you know, it takes us one week to shoot an episode. But the director works the week prior preparing it and the week after editing it. So the director’s job is three weeks long. So you couldn’t have someone direct every single episode. It would just be impossible. But she was like, well, I don’t know, because sometimes I watch these streaming shows and they have the same director the whole time. And I’m like, yeah, that’s because on those streaming shows, a lot of times they’ve written, it’s a short number of scripts, it’s six scripts or eight scripts, and they write them all. And then they kind of shoot them like one big, long movie.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:34] That’s true.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:35] And they do all their prep beforehand and they do all their editing after.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:39] And they’ll shoot out of order too. They’ll, like a movie, they will wrap out locations. So it’ll be like we’re gonna shoot every single scene we have at the high school this week.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:50] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:50] And next week we’re gonna shoot every scene at the house and they shoot like a movie.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:56] But on our show, we shot each episode like its own little mini movie. So that’s why.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:03] And we also did like 24 instead of 6.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:08] Yeah. Exactly.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:09] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:09] And we, they would be writing while we were shooting. So yeah. That’s why we have one director per episode and they switch.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:17] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:18] So now, Angela, this one comes to you. This is from Christina Koosland.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:23] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:24] And she said this. “Angela, can you say something in Indonesian on your podcast? Because my daughter Alana is studying the language in school. She is a big fan of the show and thought it was so cool that the person who played her favorite ‘Office’ character had grown up in Indonesia”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:42] All right. Alani, how about we say hi? How are you? I’m fine, thank you. OK, Jenna? We’ll do it together.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:49] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:49] So “how are you” is “Apa kabar”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:53] Apa kabar.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:54] Kabar abite. Terimakasih.

JENNA FISCHER [00:11:57] I love it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:11:57] There you go. That’s just a little simple phrase. But I mean, I loved growing up in Indonesia. I had such a wonderful childhood there. And I have very fond memories. So thank you for asking that question. I get really excited if I ever run into anyone that can speak Indonesian. Like years ago I was at the mall and there was a couple over by a bunch of shoes and, and they were talking about the shoes. And the man said, “[Indonesian]”. And what he was saying was like, “These are really expensive”. And I got so excited and I was like, “[Indonesian]”! Like, I was like,  “You guys speak Indonesian”! And they looked to me like, “What”?

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:38] I love that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:38] And then we, then we spoke Indonesian. I get, I really geek out. I get really excited.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:43] Angela, you speak three languages because you also speak Spanish.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:48] Un poco. Yo, yo intendo más que hablar. Sí. I feel like I understand it better than I can speak it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:56] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:12:57] But.

JENNA FISCHER [00:12:58] I really admire this about you. I wish that I spoke another language fluently and I don’t.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:03] Well, you know, during this time I’ve been doing Duolingo. I love Duolingo. And I’ve been-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:08] Which language?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:09] I’ve been just brushing up on Spanish because I feel like I could be close, you know, closer to being fluent in Spanish, and Indonesian is great, but I don’t get a lot of chance to use it here.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:19] Yeah, yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:20] I don’t get a lot of opportunities to speak it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:23] Well, thank you to Cristina and Alani. We really liked that question.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:27] Thanks, guys. Terimakasih.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:29] So Ang, you know that we get a lot of mail from people telling us how much “The Office” and this podcast is helping to get them through tough times.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:37] Yeah. And your letters and e-mails mean a lot to us. And we thought we would share a few here today.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:44] Yes. So John Petrie wrote in to tell us, just this beautiful email, about how he and his daughter Kayla have bonded while listening to “Office Ladies” and what that has meant to him. And John, your letter really touched our hearts.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:59] Aw. Well, Luke Foote wrote in about his daughter, Sophia, who is having some health issues, and she’s a big fan of the show. And we wanted to give her a little shout out. Hi, Sophia.

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:09] Hi, Sophia.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:10] We just want to say thanks for listening. And we’re so glad you loved the show. And we’re sending you some big hugs.

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:15] Yes. And we also want to say hello to Julia in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Julia, we hope that you get better soon so you can get home to your little kiddos.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:25] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:27] And guys, I know that we’ve said this before, but we really love doing this podcast each week. It is our absolute pleasure to rewatch this with you. We love your messages. I just, I feel so grateful to be connected in this way. And doing this show has just been a really special thing for us too.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:50] I mean, yeah. I get emotional to even talk about what this time in doing this with you, Jenna, and sharing with, with everyone that’s listening in each week and, and just having a community with all of you. And we just love you guys. It’s, it, it feeds us as much as it feeds you.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:13] Yeah, I mean, I get a lot of messages, Ang, that people tell us like, oh, I’m listening to you while I drive to work and I’m an essential worker and it really calms me down before my job or, you know, I’m listening while I’m home. It’s, you know, I’m doing the laundry and I’m listening to you. And it’s funny, Ang, because that’s when I listen to our episodes, you know, when we get ready to do our edit notes, I fold the laundry and listen to us too.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:39] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:39] So I think I know literally what you’re talking about. I do the same thing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:44] Oh lady, I’ve listened to us while picking up dog poop.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:47] Oh, boy. I don’t.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:48] I like have my headphones on, listening to us, just like whatever it is I’m doing. But I love to hear everyone’s stories so much. And.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:55] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:56] It just. It just, all of it, warms my heart, you know?

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:01] And it is tough times. It is.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:04] It is. It is tough times.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:05] But we’re gonna get through it together.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:07] We are. And we thank you guys for helping us get through it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:12] Well, listen, why don’t we take a break?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:14] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:14] And then we will come back with some “Safety Training”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:17] All right. All right, so we started this episode with Andy coming back into the office. He’s back and he’s new and improved. He’s gonna go by the name Drew. And he walks up to Pam. He’s got a box full of stuff. Jenna, two things I need to discuss right out of the gate.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:39] All right.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:39] Number one, at 4 seconds, we have a new plant at-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:45] No.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:45] Reception.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:46] No.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:47] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:47] That’s, we just had a new plant.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:49] Doesn’t matter.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:50] Pam.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:50] Pam throws them out every week. Clearly.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:51] What is her problem?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:53] It’s even in a new pot. It’s a ceramic pot. It’s kind of like a rainbow, like trimmed in like a purple. What’s happening?

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:02] I don’t know, Angela. But I want to say. You know, there’s a lot of things that we’ve been noticing, but then if you deep dive on the Internet, you see lots of people have noticed. I have never once seen this plant issue come up.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:15] Well.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:15] This is exclusive to you and this podcast.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:18] I know this sounds crazy, but I had this thought that I wanted to screen grab every single plant at front reception and make collage art out of it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:28] Yeah. And then frame it and I’ll hang it in my office.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:30] Oh, OK. Wait. Here’s, here’s on this week’s. Ready?

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:34] Oh, it’s, this one is in like a rainbow striped pot.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:38] I know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:39] It’s very festive.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:40] I know. You’ll never see it again. Say goodbye to it. And then-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:45] All right. What was your other thing?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:46] Well, my other thing is, you know, Andy, slash, Drew, his box of stuff, what is wrapped in tin foil? It looks like, is it a plate of food? What is it?

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:55] Yes, I saw that as well. And I was like, who brings their lunch in like that? Is that his lunch?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:03] Yeah, I, I don’t know. I was very curious about it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:05] You know, when Andy has his talking head and he’s sort of explaining that he is going to go by a new name. He’s got a new attitude and he’s got a new way to deal with the grumpys. Did you notice how much wall there was in his talking head?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:20] No. I guess I was-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:22] There’s like, it’s all wall. There’s almost no window. And then when it cuts to Dwight’s talking head, where he’s talking about how he has to shun Andy.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:29] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:30] In Dwight’s talking head, it’s a lot of window and very little wall. It was just something I noticed.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:35] Is it because Dwight has a future at this company, but Andy doesn’t?

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:39] Maybe Andy hit a wall? I don’t know. I don’t know. There’s a lot of wall. That’s all I’m saying.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:45] Well, I do notice that Andy always, he’s like one of these people that has little little phrases for everything, like his “nifty giftys” and the “grumpys”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:53] And a lot of nicknames. Well, we had a fan question from Don Mackley.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:57] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:57] Who wrote in to say, “There are so many times Andy mentions his old nicknames and they’re almost always different. How many nicknames were mentioned over the course of the show”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:08] Oh my lord. That’s a good question.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:11] I looked it up in the show Bible.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:12] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:13] And here is what it says. Here they are, ready?

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:16] Nard Dog, Boner Champ, King Butt, Ice Man, Puke Ace Buzz. Those were while he was in college.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:27] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:27] And then in this episode, he asked everyone to be called Drew. And in the next episode, he gives himself the nickname, Will Do.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:35] So these are just nicknames for Andy. For himself.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:38] Just Andy.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:39] Right. Because it’s not like his friends like Broccoli Rob and all those guys.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:43] Yes, that’s right. These are just names that Andy has referred to himself as being.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:49] Boner Champ.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:49] So there you go.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:49] Wow.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:51] So that’s nine. I counted nine.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:53] Nine nicknames. What were nicknames you had growing up? What about your friends?

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:57] Just no. They called me Jenna.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:00] Oh, my gosh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:01] What?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:02] Well, let’s see. In college.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:05] Hambone.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:06] Well, that was high school, Hambone, I was also called Bones, ’cause I was really skinny. Hambone, Bones. I was, in college, my roommate’s name was also Angela. So they called me Kinsey. And then that became Kins, Tiny Kins. But I had a perm and I would wear a ponytail, kind of like on top of my head. So a few people start calling me Koosh Ball.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:29] OK.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:29] Koosh Ball, Hambone, Bones, Tiny Kins.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:34] A lot of nicknames. You’re very Andy-esque in this way.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:37] I gave myself a nickname when I was on a charity softball team for Children’s Mercy Hospital.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:42] Please tell me what it is.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:43] The Kinsanator.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:45] Wow.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:46] That was on my jersey. Oh, my god, I’m Andy. What’s happening?

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:51] I don’t know. I mean, people called me Fischer. They called me by my last name. But it was never like, it never felt like an official nickname.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:58] Right.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:59] Well, my friend told me once. Listen to this.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:01] What?

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:01] Tell me if this hits you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:02] What?

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:03] A friend of mine went and did this very intense, like therapy week at this therapy center.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:11] Great.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:12] Right? This is where you’re supposed to, like, dig in to any of your childhood traumas.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:17] Oh, god.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:17] Really unpack all your baggage.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:19] Sounds horrible.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:20] Right? Super intense. What he told me was that when you get there, you fill out a form and you are asked, what is the nickname that your parents called you when you were a child? And that is the name they refer to you as the entire week. And it’s supposed to, I think, try to put you, like, back into a space where you’ll start unpacking all your baggage.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:45] I don’t want to go, ’cause I don’t want to fill out any forms. I’m done with forms.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:49] Well, we know that about you, lady.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:50] I don’t want to fill out your form.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:52] No.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:52] I don’t want a do your questionnaire.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:54] I’m surprised you have a passport. Because that was some real intense form filling out.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:01] I know, and that I got into college. So many forms.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:04] So many forms. They’re not for you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:07] I did it when I had to do it. I’m done now. I’m done.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:11] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:11] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:11] This intense therapy place that lost you at forms.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:14] Yeah. Too many forms. Pass. OK. Well, I have a beef with Jim.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:21] I think I know what it is.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:22] Andy is really earnestly doing his process that he went through from anger management. He’s trying to turn things around. He tells Jim he’s going to go by Drew now. And Jim goes, “No, I’m not going to call you that”. And I was like, what a jerk. What a jerk.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:39] Yeah. Yhy not? What does it cost you to call this guy, Drew?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:42] He’s just messing with him to mess with him.

JENNA FISCHER [00:22:44] Yeah. Why are you being an instigator with a person who’s struggling to, you know, turn over a new leaf?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:22:52] Yeah, there is a runner in the deleted scenes of Andy going through different scenarios with everyone in “The Office” where he’s tested and he keeps being earnest and trying to get through them. Like he brought in cookies and they were really crappy and people were talking about how crappy the cookies were. And they’re, “Yuck, who brought them in”? And Andy was like, “Me”. But he didn’t get mad. He was just like working-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:14] Right.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:14] Through it. So, yeah, I thought Jim was a little bit of a jerk right there.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:18] I agree.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:20] Oh, and Jenna, I want to go back to Dwight’s talking head.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:23] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:23] Speaking of forms to fill out about your childhood, what would he have written? He was shunned from ages four to six because he didn’t save the excess oil from a tuna can. I mean.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:34] Intense.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:34] He said it’s like slapping someone with silence. Yeesh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:38] Yeah. Well, let’s get in to the main plot of this episode now.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:43] Let’s do it. Michael has a talking head where he explains that today is “Safety Training” day and it’s going to be led by Toby. He really hopes Toby isn’t going to mess it up.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:54] Right.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:56] But first, they’re all gonna go down to the warehouse and listen to Darryl’s presentation about safety in the warehouse.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:01] It’s gonna be zoppity.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:03] It’s gonna be zoppity.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:04] You know, Dwight is like, “All right, let’s get down to the warehouse”. Right? Everyone’s like filing down the hallway.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:11] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:11] There was a deleted scene that I loved. It’s just a quick snippet. But these are the things I loved about our show. Dwight is saying, “Everybody buddy up”. Like, why is he saying that? And I’m walking down the hallway and Meredith is like a step or two behind me and Dwight’s like, “Everyone buddy up”. And Angela Martin grabs Meredith’s hand. And Meredith is like, “Don’t hold my frickin hand”. And it’s like three seconds. And I just loved it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:38] I love that. It’s so funny. It’s like you’re not evacuating from the building. You’re just going to the warehouse.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:44] I know, but whatever Dwight is doing, I’m like, I’m on board. OK, buddy up.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:50] Well, when we get down to the warehouse, these are some of my favorite scenes of all time. Led by Craig Robinson. Oh, man, I love it when Craig has the floor.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:03] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:03] I love it when he’s in charge. And Michael has to listen to him. He is just trying to deliver information that is important.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:10] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:11] And he has to deal with Michael. You know, it reminds me very much of watching my first grader’s Zoom classes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:18] Oh, trying to keep people on task.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:21] Yes. The teacher is like, “What is three plus two”? And everyone’s like, “I got a new puppy”. “It’s loud outside”. “My mom likes wine”. And the teacher is like, “What is three plus two”. That is, this is what it reminds me of, Darryl trying to talk to all of us about this forklift and this bailer.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:44] Yeah. You know, Harold Ramis has talked about Craig and about how brilliant of an actor he thought he was and how he felt like Craig was a naturalistic actor. Like it was so natural, this dialog coming out of him, that you just wholeheartedly believe him.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:02] It never seems scripted.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:04] Right.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:05] Like everything about his cadence. Like all of it. It’s so. It is. It’s amazing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:12] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:13] I was sort of studying that. That’s so funny that Harold Ramis said that because I was studying that, I was like, how does he make it seem so natural?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:20] He’s, I mean, Craig is really brilliant, guys. He’s super talented. Craig, come be on the podcast.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:26] I reached out to him. We’ve traded some messages. It’s going to happen. We just have to figure out dates.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:31] Let’s lock it up, Craig, let’s lock it up.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:33] Well, as Darryl is explaining the dangers of the bailer, for example, Michael is making a ton of jokes. Andy’s trying to suck up to Dwight. And this is when people start making bets, right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:48] Yes. This is the other storyline of the whole episode.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:51] So Darryl is about to say, “Do you know how many people lose an arm in a bailer each year”? Kevin and Jim decide to bet on what they think the answer is.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:01] Yes, exactly. It happens around 4 minutes. I want to share with you that Mindy said something that really made me laugh, in the DVD commentary, she said that in the writers room they were talking about this bailer, and they, they really saw it as a scary big piece of machinery, like maybe it had blades or something. And when they got it, she said it just looked like a big telephone booth.

JENNA FISCHER [00:27:26] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:26] That moved really slowly.

JENNA FISCHER [00:27:29] Well, I talked to Kent Zbornak about this bailer, and he said that it was a real working bailer.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:37] Yeah. We had an actual safety meeting. Remember, Jenna?

JENNA FISCHER [00:27:40] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:40] When we went into the warehouse to shoot, our second A.D. held a safety meeting that was like, guys, “We have a forklift, we have a bailer. Do not touch anything”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:27:50] Yeah. These are real machines. He said that he called the manufacturer Olympic Wire and Equipment and they donated a bailer because they got like free product placement. So that we got a free bailer. Well, I want to say that there is this little part at the end of the bailer conversation where it’s going on and on, right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:12] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:12] And Darryl is like, “Do do you understand”? And Michael is like, “Yes, only on the rarest occasion”. And then, Darryl is like, “On no occasions. On no occasions”. I had to look that up in the script. And I will tell you, that was not in the script. I think that was improvised. I feel like I remember that too, being there and we just let Steve and Craig-.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:36] Go back and forth.

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:37] Just keep going. Just go back and forth. And I, you know, it brought me back, Angela. I just loved shooting this episode. And part of it was because if you notice, we’re all in these big group scenes almost all the time.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:52] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:53] This was an episode of big group scenes. And not just that. We also got to work with Patrice and Craig and Karly. We had all the warehouse folks too.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:02] We were all together, all the time. And it really is rare. I mean, it happened in the basketball episode. It happened in this one, some Christmas parties and things like that. But it was rare and we would all just have a great time.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:16] And I liked it too, because it was such a simple idea.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:21] Mmhmm.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:21] It’s just “Safety Training” day.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:22] I know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:23] That’s it. And it goes off the rails and we’re all in, like all of us are now.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:28] On this roller coaster.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:29] Can’t get any work done. Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:30] Well, I have to say, before we leave the scene, I absolutely love that Michael cannot remember Madge’s name. He can’t.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:37] No.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:38] He calls her Patch, Pudge. He cannot remember her name. My mom cannot remember a name that is just slightly different. Just slightly different. Here’s an example. When I was in college, my roommate’s boyfriend’s name was Bart. B-a-r-t. Bart.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:57] OK.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:57] And the day I met him, my mom was with me. And the minute he was like, “Hi, I’m Bart”. I thought, nope, not gonna happen. Nope, she’s never gonna get that one.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:06] What did she call him?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:07] For years, for years, she called him Mart. “How’s my Mart”?

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:12] Mart.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:12] I’m like, “Mom, it’s Bart”. “What’d I say”? “You said Mart”. “I did”. “Yes, you did”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:19] Wow. What? Who would name their child Mart?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:23] I don’t know. I don’t know. But like, who would name their kid Patch? Or Padge or Pudge? It’s like.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:30] You’re so right. By the way, I apologize in advance for our listener named Mart.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:35] I would also like to apologize to anyone named Patch.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:38] Or Pudge. Well, now we’re gonna go upstairs, Angela, Toby is going to teach his Safety meeting. For whatever reason. Michael has forced everyone from the warehouse to come to this presentation.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:50] Paul Lieberstein knocks this out of the park. As great as Darryl was in the warehouse. Paul is as Toby in the office.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:58] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:58] His list of things, guys, to be prepared for. Are you ready for them? Toby’s office, “Safety Training”. Carpal tunnel syndrome. Poor circulation. Computer screen eyestrain. And you might want to keep a sweater or cardigan in case it gets drafty.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:17] Yeah, Michael is so frustrated.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:20] He really can’t take it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:21] None of these things are as exciting as getting your arm cut off in a bailer.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:25] He can’t take it, at 5 minutes, 52 seconds. Ryan says, “What about a long sleeved tee”?

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:32] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:33] Here’s a great story about that. According to B.J., there was a huge joke debate about that line. “What about a long sleeved tee”? And at 2:00 a.m. in the writers’ room, they were debating it. Mike Schur’s said, “No. This is a ridiculous line”. And Greg was all for it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:52] This is so funny that they spent time debating this line.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:55] I know. I know. I love this line.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:58] Me too. And it gets called back later.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:00] I know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:00] When we’re asked to go downstairs.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:01] I know. I love it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:04] Well, maybe that’s why B.J. delivered it so ryely, is because-.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:10] It got in.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:10] He knew the backstory of this debate in the writers’ room over that line. We had a fan question about another line in this little bit.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:19] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:20] Sarah Bell, Dagny Albano and Katie Boyd all asked, “When Michael’s reading the safety booklet. And he says, ‘Office life causes a sedimentary lifestyle’, was that improv? Or was that in the script”? That was not in the script.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:33] You’re kidding.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:35] There’s a little bit of banter there between Michael and Toby that looks like it veered a little bit off script, like they were having a little fun with it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:42] Oh, I love that. So Michael has had it. He takes over. He’s like, “Toby, I’m going to do the Safety Training” and he wants to show the warehouse people that working in office is just as dangerous. And he says, “Oh, they’re seasonal affective disorder. Like dim light can lead to depression”. And the warehouse people, they’re out, there like, “Yeah, dim light’s a bitch. You live a little sweet nerfy life, sitting on your biscuit, never having to risk it”. And Michael is, he’s just so bummed out. He, he really wanted to prove to these guys that things get just as crazy up in the office.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:22] It’s such a weird thing to take a stand on.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:24] I know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:25] It’s such a, it’s such a Michael Scott thing to become so invested in this.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:30] He just wants to be cool, Jenna.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:32] He’s fascinated by the warehouse guys.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:35] Oh, yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:35] He really is. And this tracks from previous episodes and he especially wants them to think he’s cool.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:41] Yeah. He wants to win their favor. Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:44] Well now Kevin, Jim, Oscar and Karen are all gathered around Pam’s desk and for whatever reason, they are trying to guess how many jelly beans are in her little dispenser.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:55] Yeah, it’s now taken over. This whole sort of betting from the warehouse. It’s how they’re gonna pass their day.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:00] Jim wins. Jim thought 50. Karen went with 51. Turns out there were 49.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:07] Yeah. And then at 8 minutes, 39 seconds, Kevin says it’s not fair because Jim has spent countless hours talking to Pam at front reception. I mean, hours and hours.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:21] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:22] Ooh, awkward.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:24] I would like you guys to know that I kept Pam’s candy dispenser when we wrapped.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:29] What? You’re just now telling us this? One year we’ve been doing this podcast. One year, we’ve talked about, what did you take from set?

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:38] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:38] Where is it?

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:38] I have it. It’s in my office. It’s a little plastic. It’s so simple and it has a little like silver scooper.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:47] And it has a little lid you lift up.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:49] Mmhmm. Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:51] Do you keep candy?

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:52] Yeah. And people never use the silver scooper. What they would do is they would just open it and shake it into their hand, which, by the way, was just as sanitary and effective. But I always use the silver scooper because I’m a big fan of tiny cutlery.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:06] You’re also a big fan of desserts that come in a very small size.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:11] With a very tiny spoon.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:12] Yeah, you’d love that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:13] I like eating with tiny cutlery.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:15] Do you follow Tiny Kitchen?

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:18] Yes, from Taste Made.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:20] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:20] Where they make a teeny tiny meal in a teeny tiny kitchen.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:24] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:24] It’s mesmerizing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:26] It’s mesmerizing. I did a really fun project with Taste Made with my husband, Josh, and we got to go tour the Tiny Kitchen. Jenna? Are you there?

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:34] I can’t speak.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:34] Are you OK?

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:35] I can’t speak.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:36] I thought you froze.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:38] I didn’t freeze. I can’t believe that you got to see the Tiny Kitchen in person.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:44] Oh, my god. It’s so cool. It’s so cool.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:46] Is it so tiny? I mean-.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:47] It’s so tiny. And the lady that does it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:50] The little bitty spatula.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:51] The little-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:51] And she like makes the little egg on the little baby pan.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:54] Yes. And, and, you know, the oven. They put a little tiny like candle, a little tea-, what are they called? Tea, tea lights? What are they called?

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:02] Yeah, like a tea candle, tea light.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:03] They, they do in, they really do cook things on the stove pot and they use a little candle. You need to go see it. You’ll love it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:15] You guys, it’s so cute. Look up the one where they make a little hamburger.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:18] Oh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:18] All right. Where were we?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:20] I don’t know. We got completely lost talking about tiny cutlery and tiny kitchens.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:24] I know where we are. Michael has called Pam into her office to ask her opinion on the seriousness of depression versus the threat of working with a bailer.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:35] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:35] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:36] I got very excited about this conversation, Jenna, because I thought it was a fantastic, very subtle callback to “The Convict”, because Pam says, “You know what? The warehouse guys had visuals on their side”. Oh, my gosh. Light bulb for Michael. If you could look at his face. He’s, OK. At 9 minutes, 17 seconds. Look at Steve’s face as Michael when he’s like, “Yeah. You’re so right”. Jenna.

JENNA FISCHER [00:37:07] That’s all that was missing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:37:08] That’s all that was missing.

JENNA FISCHER [00:37:09] That’s all. Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:37:10] Remember, we learned in “The Convict”, from the deleted scene, that Hoot the Owl came to his school. And in that moment, he realized, if you want people to hear you, you have to have a costume. You have to have some props. You have to have visual aids.

JENNA FISCHER [00:37:25] Well, Michael is off and running now. Now, he calls Dwight into his office and he’s like, we need ways to illustrate the imminent threat of depression faced by office workers and, OK. I am pretty sure all of this was either improv or like given to them on the day, because this scene in the script is about four lines long. But here, when Dwight suggests a quilt.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:37:53] A depression quilt.

JENNA FISCHER [00:37:53] And Michael says, a depression quilt. Michael is like, “There’s no time to sew one”. That is the greatest response. It’s not like, no, that’s a bad idea. It’s like, yes, if only we had time.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:07] That would be perfect. I think this was a lot of improv because there’s also extra in the deleted scenes. They go on and on.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:15] Oh, is it so good?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:17] It’s fun. It’s really fun. And Michael has Dwight so worked up, like Dwight is so immediately on board.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:23] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:24] I loved the line when he says, when Michael says, “You know what our killer is”? And Michael says, “Depression”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:32] Oh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:33] And Dwight says, “Wolves”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:34] Yes. That made me laugh out loud.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:38] Oh, my gosh. Those two together are so brilliant.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:41] Well, now we go to the parking lot where Michael is bouncing on a trampoline.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:38:45] He, he had Dwight reach out to the giant big boy toy store. I looked it up. There isn’t one. Just so you know.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:53] Oh, OK. That was made up. Well, if, what I love is the detail in the background of the box and all the packaging that’s in the background.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:02] Oh, that’s a great detail.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:04] Yes. So this came in a box and they had to assemble it. He’s gonna go up on the roof and he’s gonna have Dwight call everyone outside.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:13] Mmhmm.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:13] And then he is going to pretend to jump off the roof as a way of illustrating what can happen if your depression goes unchecked.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:23] And it was a way to visually teach everyone.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:26] That’s right. And after he jumps off the roof, he’s going to take a few extra bounces just for fun before he walks around the corner to reveal that he is alive, that he’s fine. This is, this is Michael’s big plan.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:39] This is going to show everyone.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:40] What could go wrong?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:41] I have a little nugget here from Harold Ramis.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:45] All right.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:45] I’m going to share it with you. So they talked about in the commentary that, originally, the idea was that everyone went up on the roof to talk Michael out of this. Everyone.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:59] Oh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:39:59] Yeah. And Harold was like, I don’t think it really sells how serious, like what he is contemplating. I think if he’s on the roof and he’s shouting down to everyone in the parking lot and you have that whip camera panning from the roof back to him and down and up, you really get the sense of what a horrible idea this is.

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:23] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:23] That was Harold. Harold was like, no, guys. Everyone else should be in the parking lot. Only Michael on the roof. I just thought that was really great.

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:30] Well, I know that they probably wanted us up on the roof because technically it would be easier to shoot with sound and camera. It was, it was such a technically difficult episode. And I remember that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:43] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:43] I remember how difficult it was for them to get angles on all of us and him and the bright sun and the sound. Kudos to our crew because it doesn’t seem like it was difficult, but it was actually really technically difficult.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:59] Yeah. And to Steve and the guys that were on the roof, just the limited crew up there with him they were up on that roof for a really long time.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:06] Yeah. Yeah, they were.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:08] Well, now, back in the office, the whole betting game is still going. People are placing bets on how long it’s going to take Kelly to explain to Ryan how Netflix works. They’re betting like how many times she’s gonna say the word “awesome” and, and what movie she mentions and how long it takes. It’s, it’s heated.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:25] Yes. We find out that Kelly talked for 2 minutes and 42 seconds. She said the word “awesome” 12 times and mentioned six romantic comedies.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:34] And never had a clue, as people were like putting money on the table next to Ryan.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:40] Yeah. Well, we had a fan question from Elizabeth Myers who says, “Old Tech Alert. Can you guys explain this Netflix scene? What is a queue”? What is a queue? You guys. Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:54] I didn’t even think of that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:55] Netflix. You remember old Netflix, right, Angela?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’d put it in your queue like it was like a list of what you were gonna watch.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:03] Because you got a DVD in the mail.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:06] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:06] It didn’t just come up on your TV, so you would have to go to the Netflix website and pick what DVDs you want them to send to you. And you could pick the order. And then when you were done watching it, you put it in this like prepaid postage envelope and you sent it back. And whenever they got the one that you sent back, they would send you the next one in your queue.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:27] Yeah, it was like a mail-in Blockbuster. Basically.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:31] It was revolutionary because the idea was you didn’t have to drive to the video store anymore to rent your videos.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:37] Right.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:37] The problem was, though, sometimes you’d be like waiting for your next thing to come up in your queue.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:44] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:45] So, lady, this whole Netflix queue thing, it reminded me of how my parents got the DVD mail Netflix service.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:54] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:54] For like ever. For like ever. They would not switch to the streaming one.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:59] Why? Why wouldn’t they switch?

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:02] I don’t know, but they did the DVD thing forever, and I texted them about it. I had to know. And their responses were so funny and my mom said I could share them.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:13] OK. So you said?

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:14] All right.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:14] Wait. What did you text them?

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:17] I texted, “Hey, guys, how long ago did you switch from the old Netflix service of getting physical DVD in the mail to getting the streaming service”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:27] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:28] They texted me back separately.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:30] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:31] OK. My dad texted me back, “Don’t remember. Quite a while”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:36] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:38] The end. My mom texted back, “Dad’s mowing the lawn, but I think I can help you”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:47] Maybe that’s why his text was so brief.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:51] Yeah. I think so. It made sense.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:53] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:54] And then she said, “A while back I was having lunch with a friend and she told me that we could get Netflix, the cable channel for $9.95 a month. We were paying that just to get two movies a month in the mail. So that’s when we signed up and dropped our other plan. It’s funny because I had wanted to get Netflix on cable, but Dad kept telling me it was too expensive. I mean, you know how dad is about money. So we’ve had Netflix streaming for, I’d say, three years now. But Dad does not like it when you have to pay extra for certain movies. I really want to watch the movie, ‘Fadima’, but you have to pay for it. And he won’t do it. But I will once again win this battle. You know how it works”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:38] Oh, my gosh. That is so layered. That is so jam packed with information. First of all, I love that she’s like, “Dad is mowing”. Then I love that she’s like a few, a while back I was having lunch because you’re like, wait, what? Where are we going? What’s happening?

JENNA FISCHER [00:44:54] I know. I know. But yes. So I guess three years, only three years ago, my parents were still getting DVD in the mail. And I remember because I would ask them, you know, I would be like, how? They were in love with “Downton Abbey”. “Downton Abbey”. And I’d be like, “What season are you on”? And they’re like, “Well, we’re waiting for the next season. It hasn’t come yet”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:15] Yes, it’s right there. Just subscribe. It’s right there.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:21] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:21] Oh, my gosh. They’re waiting for their DVD. That is, that is amazing. All right. Shall we take a break and then come back and talk about those watermelons on the roof?

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:30] Yes. And I have some good info from Kentapedia about the watermelons.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:34] Well, I want to hear it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:35] All right. Good. We’ll be right back.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:39] All right, so we’re back. Dwight and Michael are on the roof and they are testing sort of an experiment to see how far Michael has to jump out to land on the trampoline. And they’ve got some watermelons and they’re giving it a go.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:54] So, lady, I reached out to Kentapedia because I had two questions.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:58] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:59] Number one, I wanted to know how did Steve and Rainn get up on the roof and who all was up there with them?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:06] Did they have to ride that thing that you and John rode?

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:09] Yes, they had to use that big scissor lift and everyone had to wear a safety harness. But here was some, something new that Kent added this season.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:19] What?

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:20] Kent hired some stunt guys to rig safety cable up on the roof of the stage so that if there was ever a time where the crew had to be up there to do lighting, they would be able to wear a safety harness and clip themselves onto a safety cable. So for this scene, Steve and Rain and Randall, who was our cinematographer, they all had safety harnesses underneath their costumes and they were clipped onto the safety cable as well.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:48] So that also probably involved the wardrobe department because she would have had to have made sure their suits were big enough to go over the safety harness.

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:58] Yes. I also had a question about the watermelons.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:03] Oh OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:04] And I was not alone. Lauren Brightwell, Meghan Keall, Ciara Begley, Phoebe Bono and Maddie McKee all wanted to know, “How many watermelons were used for the trampoline test scene”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:18] How many?

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:19] Kent told me that we purchased 12 watermelons. But around take 10, Kent said to Harold Ramis, I think we’re going to need to CGI the watermelon thing because none of the watermelons that he was throwing off the roof were coming anywhere close to hitting the car.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:35] Yeah. They talk about it in the commentary that they, they weren’t getting it until take number 11.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:42] Oh, Kent said it was the last watermelon that it was take 12.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:46] Oh, Harold-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:47] Did they say it was?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:47] Harold Ramis said it was take number 11.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:51] Oh well. So guys, it was either take 11 or 12. I guess by some miracle it landed on the trampoline and it hit the car perfectly.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:00] And I feel like Steve and Rainn’s expression like is real because they were like, “Oh, my god, we finally did it”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:08] Well, do you know what this reminded me of, Angela? This reminded me of those Dude Perfect guys. Do you know, Dude Perfect?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:15] No. What’s Dude Perfect?

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:17] OK, so this is, my son is obsessed with Dude Perfect.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:21] Is this like a basketball, like you have to shoot a basketball from a crazy place?

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:25] Yes, they are these guys. They’re from Texas and they became famous by doing all of these elaborate trick shots.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:33] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:48:34] On YouTube. But I mean, they’re so much bigger now. They’ve got like a life tour now and, you know, yada, yada. But yes, they would have done something like this. They would have thrown a watermelon off of a building onto a trampoline and tried to hit something with it. And Dwight and Michael’s reaction, just 100 percent reminded me of these Dude Perfect videos. But I’ve been watching with my son.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:48:55] Yes, I have seen those videos. I didn’t know the guy’s name or whatever they go by. But yeah, our kids love that stuff.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:03] It also made me think that maybe we need to collaborate with Dude Perfect on some sort of a frolfing thing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:09] So it’s like, off the tree.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:12] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:12] Hit the trash can.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:16] Yeah. Frolfing trick shots with “Office Ladies” and Dude Perfect. It’s a, it’s a collaboration we’ve all been waiting for.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:23] And woofle ball.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:26] Did you, how did you say it just now? Woofle. You said it in the middle. Wiffle ball.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:29] Wiffle ball. You’re rubbing off on me.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:31] I know. I love it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:33] Two things before we leave the whole watermelon off the roof moment, Jenna.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:38] OK.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:38] Number one. All of these shots appear when they look out over to the trampoline, you can see a great view of the impound lot across the street with all the trains.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:50] I noticed it too.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:51] Yeah, you get a real slice of where we were, guys. Those were our neighbors when we filmed at Chandler Valley Studios.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:58] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:59] And one last thing from this watermelon moment, because I just thought it was so sweet. B.J. in the commentary said that this was one of those moments, Jenna. It reminded me of when you talk about being on the roof, eating that grilled cheese sandwich on that warm, beautiful night. Right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:19] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:19] It was like that for B.J.. He said, I had this moment where I was like, “Wait a second, I’m on a roof with Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson and Harold Ramis, were throwing watermelons and I’m getting paid”!

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:33] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:33] I thought that was so sweet.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:35] That’s what made me think of the Dude Perfect thing, because I was like, these are like a bunch of dudes up on a roof throwing watermelons down, just having a great time. But, oh, they’re at work.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:45] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:46] Like that was their job that day.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:47] I mean, how fun?

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:49] So fun. Well, I have some more news about the scene before we move on.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:53] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:54] The car that they hit was a rental. It was a Chrysler 300 picture car. Guess how much money it costs them to do this gag?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:04] Oh, my gosh. I don’t know, how much?

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:07] They dented the roof and they broke the electric moon roof of the car.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:12] From that one watermelon?

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:14] Yeah. It cost 6500 dollars to fix it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:17] Dang.

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:18] Yeah. All right. Should we move back inside?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:22] Yes. Because I texted Creed Bratton about this next scene. The betting is continuing. Everyone is watching Creed eat his apple. Creed doesn’t know, they’re all standing behind him. He sets the apple down, Jim walks by, puts a potato where the apple was. Will Creed notice he’s now eating a potato and not an apple?

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:48] Well, we got mail about this, Angela. Bianca H., Kayla. O., Cassidy Price, Deanna Horn and Marylee S. all asked, “Did Creed really take a bite out of the potato”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:02] Uh, yeah, I texted him. This is what-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:05] What did he say?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:05] This is what he said, he wrote, “I definitely bit right into that potato and it wasn’t half bad”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:12] Oh! So there you go.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:15] There you go.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:16] Well, Angela. It makes sense to me because in French the word for Apple is “pomme” and the word for potato is “pomme de terre”. Which means “apple of the earth”. Or “apple of the ground”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:29] I’m sorry. What is your logic? It makes sense to you that Creed would eat a potato and not know it wasn’t an apple because it’s the French word is “pomme de terre”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:39] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:40] OK. Potato in Indonesian is “kentang”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:44] What’s Apple?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:45] Apple is “apel”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:47] Oh. Well, the French have related the apple and the potato in their language.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:53] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:54] And so perhaps, perhaps they, I don’t know. They’re on to something.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:00] Perhaps Creed would do well in France.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:03] Yeah, I guess that’s right. But as long as he doesn’t try to pick him up himself at a market.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:08] And thump them. Before we leave the whole Creed betting scene, at 12 minutes, 38 seconds, you can see Angela sitting at her desk watching everyone and judging.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:22] Oh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:22] She’s not participating, guys. She’s not going to gamble. She’s not going to bet on things.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:27] No.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:27] I remember I had a whole conversation with Harold about it, like, where would Angela be in the bullpen? Would she be watching? You know? And she’s reluctantly glancing over to see what the hubbub is about, but she will not participate.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:40] Well, Angela is a little bit of a busybody, in the sense that she likes to know the goings on.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:47] Mmhmm.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:47] But that doesn’t mean she’s participating.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:49] No, she needs to know just enough to judge you, but not enough to be judged.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:54] Correct. Well, now we get to a scene that is really fun. Dwight has to enlist Andy’s help in getting a bouncy castle, which means he has to momentarily unshun him, which leads to a great shun, unshun bit.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:13] it’s actually unshun, reshun.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:17] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:17] That’s what he says. “Unshun, reshun”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:19] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:20] And the commentary, they talked about this, this little bit and they said that Gene and Lee came up with the whole shun thing and that Rainn is who physicalized it. Rainn doing that hand thing, up and down, was just Rainn playing around.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:33] I loved that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:34] I know it really sold it.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:36] It really did. This like weird like fake window thing that he was doing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:43] I know. I know. So childish.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:45] OK, so now we go back up on the roof. They have this bouncy house castle. There, you know, this is gonna be so much better than the trampoline. But then Dwight’s like, “Do you want to test it”? And Michael’s like, “No, no, these tests are going horrible”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:01] I won’t do it if I keep, if we keep doing these tests.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:05] Yes. And he asked Dwight to kind of psych him up. Right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:10] Mmhmm.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:10] And so Rainn starts doing this amazing musical like thing. It’s like the thing that he does when he’s pumping himself up in the stairwell before a big sales call. Or before a big interview.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:23] Yeah. It’s the Dwight air guitar.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:25] Yes. Oh, it’s so good. I watched it like three times.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:29] Yeah. I loved at the end when I started to, like, get his, like, do things with his mouth. It was kind of gross when he was like [air guitar mouth noises].

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:38] Yeah. Well, I notice something, Angela. It was very windy in this scene. Did you notice that?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:43] Yeah, I did.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:45] And I, their ties were like just whipping all around. Did you see that?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:50] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:51] Well, I decided to pause at 14 minutes, 30 seconds and read the label on Steve’s tie.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:56] Oh, you’re crazy. And I love it. What’d do you find?

JENNA FISCHER [00:56:00] It looks like it was a tie made by John Franco Ruffini, who was an Italian clothing designer. OK. And the reason I became sort of obsessed with this was because I recently had a conversation with Carey Bennett, our wardrobe designer.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:56:16] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:56:17] And she told me about how when she was designing the show, she wanted every man in “The Office” to have a very specific tie story. She wrote a tie story for every man. And she told me that this was because, you know, when you’re designing a show where there’s a bunch of men working in an office, it’s really hard to differentiate them. It’s just a bunch of people in suits and ties. So she told me that when she was doing the original design for the show, she got really worried that all the men were going to look alike because they were all just wearing suits or shirts and ties. Right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:56:52] Right.

JENNA FISCHER [00:56:52] So by doing this tie story, this was her answer. Her tie story for Michael Scott was that Michael buys all of his suits at J.C. Penney and they come with a matching tie. So he buys all his clothing as a full kit. And this tie is part of a suit kit. I looked it up. And I think this is like Michael’s designer. This is Michael stuff.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:19] That’s his go to guy at J.C. Penny’s? Oh, I’m sorry, “Jacque Pinay” as my aunt Brenda used to say.

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:25] Oh, is that how she says J.C. Penny?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:26] Yeah. She’d be like, “Are we gonna go to Tarjai and then Jacque Pinay”?

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:31] I love that. I love that. Well, I don’t think you can get these guys suits anymore because when I was trying to find them online, the only place I could find them was Etsy and eBay, people reselling them. If you want a Michael Scott tie. Incidentally, something I thought was interesting, the tiemaker’s son is named Remo Ruffini and he’s a billionaire.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:56] What’s Remo doing? What? How do you get to be a billionaire?

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:00] He is also a fashion designer and he is the owner of this huge fashion company.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:07] In Italy.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:08] In Italy.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:10] There you go. There you go.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:13] There you go. All because they were filming on a windy day. I went down that rabbit hole.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:16] I love that. I love that. I love that all the, all the men have their tie story. You certainly see that. I feel like with Andy, because he’s so New England preppy. I feel like his suit looks very different from the other fellas.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:29] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:30] OK, well.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:31] And we can, we can discuss more tie stories as they become relevant in future episodes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:37] I hope we do. I’m going to hold you to that. You and Carey. Carey should send in some audio clips.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:43] Oh, yes. I’ll have her do that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:45] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:45] Or maybe we should have her on for a deep dive because she has fascinating story.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:49] Oh, I would love that. I would love it. OK. Well, now Dwight burst into the office, right? He tells everyone, “Come outside, come outside”! And, you know, “Michael is suffering from depression and you need to come out here,” and, and everyone begins to ask him, you know, “Are we going to need a coat”? And he’s like, no, the weather, it’s, no, it’s, it’s a gorgeous day out. Come on. Come on”. And then he has a line at 15, 15 minutes, 1 second. That I absolutely love because he’s like Dwight, he’s being Dwight. Come on. Come on. And then he answers Stanley and he goes, “No, no. It really is. It’s, it’s very nice”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:59:32] That was so Rainn.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:59:32] It was so Rainn. It was so good.

JENNA FISCHER [00:59:35] I loved it too. I loved it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:59:38] So now everyone gets up and they go outside to see what’s happening with Michael.

JENNA FISCHER [00:59:43] Yeah. And we had a fan question from Caitlyn Morabito and Brinkley Hope, who said, “When the office workers go down to watch Michael demonstrate depression, some people are in the elevator and other people are coming down the stairs, but they arrive at the same time”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:00] Oh.

JENNA FISCHER [01:00:00] SoI guess like they noticed it doesn’t matter if you took the stairs of the elevator and they said, “We imagine this is because they all couldn’t fit in the elevator at the same time, especially because it’s not a real elevator. But the question is, how would they decide who was on the elevator and who was coming down the stairs and which did we prefer waiting in the elevator or being crammed in the stairwell for the start of the scene”?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:25] I always liked the stairwell because that elevator is small and it always made me feel a little claustrophobic.

JENNA FISCHER [01:00:32] Same. I would always, if given the choice, I would vote stairs. But with the stairs, you would have to go up quite a bit and come down. So you did have to go up and down, up, because you’d have to tuck around behind the stair, you know, behind the corner. So now we’re in the parking lot and everyone has gathered. Michael is up on the roof and this is when Michael and Dwight kind of start their show.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:57] Oh, yeah. They have it very rehearsed. Before we get into that, Jenna, I want you to know that Harold said that there was so much from all of this parking lot that he, they had to cut, that he had a longer version that he just loved, that really got everyone’s reactions to what was happening. And he said, in the DVD commentary, he was like, I hope that original longer cut that we had, that you guys will all get to see it someday.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:24] And is it in the deleted scenes?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:26] No, I think there’s even stuff there, there’s some in the deleted scenes. But I think there’s more that didn’t even make the deleted scenes.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:34] Wow.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:34] I know. I know.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:36] Well, we had a fan question from Tess Shornik.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:40] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:41] This is what she wrote. “After 53 hours of labor and an emergency C-section that included general anesthesia. I woke up holding my first born daughter, and the first thing I said was, ‘Dwight, you ignorant slut’”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:57] Come on.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:57] She said. She said, “This was because I woke up to hearing my husband tell the nurse about how she should watch ‘The Office’. So I have to know, where did that line come from”?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:02:10] Yes. Oh my gosh. I love this line. This line for you guys rewatching is at 15 minutes, 37 seconds.

JENNA FISCHER [01:02:18] Well, this was based on a skit from “Saturday Night Live” with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin. They would do this parody of the “60 Minutes’” Point Counterpoint. And Jane Curtin played a liberal and Dan Aykroyd played a conservative. And what, the way it would go is like Jane Curtin, she would present her side first and then Dan Aykroyd would lead off with “Jane, you ignorant slut”. And then he would give his counterpoint. And Jane Curtin would say, “Dan, you pompous ass”. And this was this bit. So this is Michael once again, stealing from “Saturday Night Live: for his little show.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:00] And also “Saturday Night Live” in a time when Harold Ramis knew all those folks. You have to wonder.

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:05] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:06] Right?

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:07] Right.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:07] I love that. I love that. I’ve seen that phrase on so many things. I’ve seen it on throw pillows, on socks, key chains, baseball hats.

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:17] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:18] It’s a, it’s a classic. So Michael and Dwight. Yes. They’re doing sort of this performance. You know? They’ve got it, clearly, they have rehearsed this. And everyone starts talking in the parking lot. Like, is this real? Is it not real? It probably definitely is not real. And they start taking bets on it. Kevin gets everyone going.

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:41] Yeah. Kevin says if someone gives you 10,000 to 1 odds on anything, you take it. And if John Mellencamp ever wins an Oscar, Kevin’s gonna be a very rich dude.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:52] You go Kev, you go Kev.

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:55] Well, my favorite part of this, Angela, is when Michael realizes that the warehouse guys aren’t there. Those are the ones he wants to impress the most.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:04:04] Yeah. He doesn’t care about doing this for his coworkers upstairs. The whole point of this and he gets so frustrated with Dwight is that the warehouse guys see that he’s on the roof.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:16] Yes. So he gets Dwight to bring all the warehouse folks out and they start the whole thing over again. And this is when you realize it is 100 percent scripted. He says, “Dwight, you ignorant slut” again.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:04:32] Yeah. Dwight does his air quotes with his fingers again.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:36] Yes, exactly. And Jim has this great talking head where he is like, “The first performance was a little rough, but, you know, they hit their stride”. And I, he can’t wait to bring his parents tomorrow for the matinee.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:04:49] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:49] Has just been great.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:04:50] Then we see Creed coming out of the bushes. He’s zipping up his pants like I guess he’s just gone pee, which is so on brand for Creed that he just ran over to the bushes to take a whiz with his coworkers right there. Anyway, he says, “Guys, what’s up with the bouncy castle”? They’re like, “What”? They all run over. And this is the moment where Jim and Pam are like, “Oh, my god. Oh, my god. He’s. It’s part of his bit. He’s going to do it”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:05:19] Well, lady, I remember shooting this scene because it is not in the script that Creed comes around the corners zipping up his pants. And we came up with that on the day. We thought it would be really funny that Creed was taking a leak back behind the bushes.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:05:34] And that’s how he discovers-.

JENNA FISCHER [01:05:36] And that’s how he discovers it, because it was like, well, why is Creed around the corner? And like in the moment you realize, like, how, wait, how do we justify that Creed went behind the bushes.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:05:45] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:05:46] And that I, I, we thought that was so funny. We thought that was so Creed. So I loved that. And then I also loved that Pam tells Michael that he has to come down because she has a present for him and he never doesn’t believe her.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:06:05] Well, you know, Jenna, I found it interesting because when I was watching this again, all I could think of is where’s Karen? Like Jim and Pam are sort of together in this moment. They’re figuring out what Michael’s up to and sort of brainstorming how to help him. And where is Karen? Right?

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:23] Well, you are not the only person who was curious about that, Angela, we got mail on that.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:06:26] Oh, yeah?

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:26] Kira Bailey, Rachel Ross, Maggie June, Sarah Hamilton and Meghan Womble all asked, “Where’s Karen”?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:06:36] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:36] Why is Jim only standing with Pam and talking with Pam? And then we don’t see Karen again until the end of the episode when she’s on the other side of Jim standing behind him?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:06:48] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:48] I went to the script, Ang, and there is a whole plot for Karen that is not in this episode. You know how Karen earlier in the episode, she has that line where she says, “Wow, I do not know the people in this office like I thought I did”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:07:01] Yeah. Because she’s losing all the bets, she’s betting wrong. And she has a talking head where she’s like, “I am like, I’m getting wiped clean here on these bets. I don’t know everyone”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:07:12] Yes. So they had this whole plot for her where she’s down in the parking lot and she’s on a mission to get to know people better. So she’s starting conversations with different people. She’s got a little side conversation with Oscar. So I think that’s why she’s not standing by Jim. But those scenes are not in the deleted scenes, right?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:07:35] They are not. I watched the deleted scenes and that Karen runner is not in it. Well, one thing I did find that I thought was really fascinating and I loved this. I’ll share it with you guys. And it’s about the Jim Pam parking lot sort of story. In the DVD commentary, B.J. said he talked to Greg and Greg was talking to him about Jim and Pam in, in this scene. And he said, I sort of see them as a couple that had been together for a long time and they’d had a child together. And that child is Michael. And, you know, they’re no longer together. They’ve moved on. But like oftentimes divorced couples who have kids, when there’s a crisis with their child, they work together to help their child. And they sort of have the shorthand with one another when it comes to their child. And Karen would not have known any of that history, or Michael the way they know Michael. And so it made sense that Jim and Pam would be working together to try to make sure that Michael doesn’t do something really stupid. And, and if you think about it in that context, it makes perfect sense. And also the fact that Pam is like, “I have a present for you”. That’s very parent mode, right?

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:53] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:08:53] “Come inside, I’ve got a treat for you. Stop doing what you’re doing”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:59] I love hearing what B.J.’s thought process was when he was writing these scenes, because something I really appreciated about them was that Pam and Jim were not laughing about this.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:09:11] No.

JENNA FISCHER [01:09:11] This was not a joke to them. They, when they realized what Michael was doing, they come together very seriously to help him. This was, also was not flirty. This was not a flirty moment, but instead really highlighted their bond.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:09:28] Yeah. And just the fact that, instantly, the two of them knew what Michael was up to. And, and it’s like everything else didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that they had hurt feelings over Roy, over Karen, over everything that has happened between the two of them, none of that mattered. All that mattered was getting Michael off of the roof safely. And that’s what happens.

JENNA FISCHER [01:09:53] I love that.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:09:54] That’s what, that’s what happens in real life. You put everything aside for your child and you work together and, and I loved that little piece of backstory between Greg and B.J.

JENNA FISCHER [01:10:04] Me too. Well, it’s ultimately kind of Darryl that gets Michael to come down. I mean. Darryl has this great line where he’s like, “No one is braver than you. You have to wake up everyday and be you, Michael. It’s so brave. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:10:25] I mean, like it’s like the dig that Michael doesn’t understand. And he just takes it so earnestly, like, “Thank you”. And Darryl is like, “You Braveheart”. And Michael’s like, “I Braveheart”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:10:38] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:10:39] And that’s what got him off the roof. Darryl. Darryl believing in him got him off the roof.

JENNA FISCHER [01:10:45] And the episode ends with Michael having a talking head where he says, “You know, sometimes you have to do crazy things to show the danger in an office”. But he saved a life today. And it was his own now.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:11:00] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:11:00] And you know, he asked like, is he a hero? Is he a hero? He can’t really say, but yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:11:05] Well and then we have this tag, which I love. It’s Stanley. He walks out to the parking lot. And it was his car that they bashed up. Like Stanley needs an excuse to hate Michael more. Oh, my gosh.

JENNA FISCHER [01:11:19] Exactly. Now, I do have to point out, Angela, that this watermelon all over the car was clearly visible through all of the scenes while Michael was on the roof. And we had a lot of people write in and say, “How did Stanley not notice this”? And I can only say because what was happening on the roof was so compelling that we were all just looking up the whole time. And maybe that’s why we didn’t see this watermelon.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:11:44] Well, I wonder if that’s why the deleted scene, which it’s not even on the DVDs. But there was a scene where Mindy saw a busted up watermelon and like she thought it was a corpse and she freaked out.

JENNA FISCHER [01:11:57] Oh.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:11:57] There’s all these deleted scenes, guys, from this episode, many that aren’t even on the DVD. Speaking of deleted scenes, before we wrap up this episode, Jenna, we did get some fan questions about a scene I was in that was deleted. Courtney Klein, Alice Chan and Maria Malik said, “Angela keys Andy’s car. Why does she do it? Is it because she despises him that much for getting Dwight temporarily fired? How many takes did it require? And did they need to fix the car each time”? So yes, this is in the deleted scenes on the DVD. Listen, my character holds a grudge and Andy messed with Dwight. Angela is not gonna forget it. She doesn’t care if he’s been to anger management. He’s, he’s on our list now, lady. He’s on our list. So in the way we did this scene, it was really great. Phil Shea gave me like a keychain, set of keys. But the way I held it, there was this one sort of piece that stuck out and it was basically a wax stick.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:02] Mmmm.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:03] And when I walk around and I do that whole line, I’m really doing that. But I’m basically drawing that line on with this sort of special wax stick. And it looks like I’m kicking the car, but I’m literally just drawing a line around it.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:19] Whoa!

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:20] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:21] I would have never imagined that what-.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:25] Isn’t that cool?

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:26] Yeah. And then they would just erase it between takes?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:27] They would just wipe it off.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:31] Oh, my gosh, that’s so cool.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:32] Yeah. And it obviously, you know, it’s a spy shot. It wasn’t close up. So it was really easy to sort of cheat that and sell it.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:40] Wow.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:42] I know.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:42] Well, guys, that was “Safety Training”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:44] Yes. And, you know, not to be Debbie Downer here, but I just know how scary being that depressed can be. And I know this episode, we talk a little bit about depression and, but it is real and it can really, it can really take hold of you. And I just would want anyone listening out there to know that you’re not alone and that you are loved and my nephew suffered from depression, and he, we lost him to it. And I’m so sorry. I didn’t anticipate I’d get this emotional, but I just want you to know you’re not alone and that people love you and that you are valued. And if you are suffering from depression, there are places that you can call if you feel like you cannot talk about it with your family or friends.

JENNA FISCHER [01:14:45] And guys, we have the phone number for the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, and we want to take a minute and give that to you. Angela?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:14:53] Yes, it’s 1-800-273-8255. Or you can text “Talk” 741-741. And that’s the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention. And, you know, this happened a few years ago and my family and I, what I wouldn’t give to be able to talk to my nephew and tell him how much we love him. And anyway, I’m, I, I, I didn’t mean-.

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:24] This was a hard episode for you to watch.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:26] It was, it was a hard episode.

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:27] It was.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:28] Even though there is so many wonderful things in this episode, just wonderful, funny, hilarious moments. It was a little difficult for me. And I just wanted you guys to all know that you’re loved.

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:40] All right, guys. We’ll see you next week.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:42] OK, love you, guys.

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:44] Love you.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:48] Thank you for listening to “Office Ladies”. “Office Ladies” is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:54] Our producer is Codi Fischer. Our sound engineer is Sam Kieffer. And our associate producer is Aynsely Bubbico.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:16:00] Our theme song is “Rubber Tree” by Creed Bratton.

JENNA FISCHER [01:16:03] For ad free versions of “Office Ladies”, go to StitcherPremium.com. For a free one month trial of Stitcher Premium use code “office”.