EP. 78 — Business Ethics with Amy Ryan

OFFICE-079-20210501-Ethics-SKv03.mp3

[00:00:04] Jenna I’m Jenna Fischer.

[00:00:05] Angela And I’m Angela Kinsey.

[00:00:06] Jenna We were on The Office together.

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

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

[00:00:12] Angela 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.

[00:00:19] Jenna We’re the Office Ladies. Hi, everyone.

[00:00:25] Angela Hey, guys.

[00:00:26] Jenna What’s up, Ange?

[00:00:27] Angela What’s up with you and your cute pants?

[00:00:30] Jenna Thank you for saying that.

[00:00:31] Angela I noticed them right away.

[00:00:33] Jenna Here’s the thing. I hit a wall with sweatpants.

[00:00:36] Angela What?

[00:00:37] Jenna I know, guys, one of the reasons we started this podcast was because I wanted a job I could do in sweat pants.

[00:00:43] Angela Uh huh.

[00:00:43] Jenna You know, we talked about that a lot early on.

[00:00:45] Angela Yeah.

[00:00:45] Jenna Well, I counted. After four hundred and nine days of wearing sweat pants. I mean, not every single day, but for the most part, for the last four hundred and nine days, I would get out of bed and put on sweat pants.

[00:01:00] Angela Right.

[00:01:01] Jenna I actually had several pairs of pants that were made of the same material as my sheets.

[00:01:07] Angela Like a jersey?

[00:01:08] Jenna They’re bamboo.

[00:01:09] Angela OK.

[00:01:10] Jenna Made by the same company that makes my sheets.

[00:01:13] Angela Listen, if I could have pants made by people that make bedding,

[00:01:16] Jenna that’s what I thought. It’s like I’m just wearing my bed around all day. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. OK, so after four hundred and nine days of this, I hit a wall and I was like, I need to wear pants, actual pants. So I went out and I bought a pair of pants. Angela, I’m going to stand up and show you.

[00:01:34] Angela I’m going to describe them to you. I’m going to take a picture. They kind of look like camouflage, but like very sassy cargo kind of pants.

[00:01:41] Jenna Yeah, that’s what I was going for.

[00:01:43] Angela Sassy cargo.

[00:01:44] Jenna Yeah. I love a sassy cargo. All right. So here’s the thing. I think I’m so used to wearing sweat pants, I’m in the dressing room and I don’t know which size of pants to buy.

[00:01:54] Angela Because you’ve been wearing the baggy britches.

[00:01:56] Jenna That’s right. I went back and forth and back and forth and I went with the bigger size. And now I’ve been wearing them for what I don’t know, an hour? Now they’re all stretched out. They’re too big. And look what happens now. They’re falling down. And I’ve got a long crotch. Long crotch lady.

[00:02:14] Angela Oh I see it. You have long crotch. Gals, you know what we’re talking about. When like the seam of your pants is like halfway between your thigh and your knees, that’s long crotch.

[00:02:23] Jenna So what do I do? I’ve worn them. I can’t take them back and get a smaller size. I think I could get someone to alter it in the back.

[00:02:31] Angela Oh, my mom could do that in two seconds.

[00:02:33] Jenna I know. And the thing is, is I just I’m trying to reenter.

[00:02:37] Angela You’re trying to reenter the world. You know, I like the sassy cargo minus the long crotch. What are we doing today?

[00:02:44] Jenna All right, let me tell you,

[00:02:45] Angela For those of you guys wanting to know what we’re doing today.

[00:02:48] Jenna It is Business Ethics. Season five, Episode three.

[00:02:52] Angela Oh, yeah.

[00:02:53] Jenna It is written by Ryan Koh and directed by Jeffrey Blitz.

[00:02:57] Angela Love it.

[00:02:58] Jenna Here is a summary. Jim reluctantly reveals him and Pam’s engagement to the office. Mm hmm. We’ll discuss. Following Ryan’s recent actions, corporate has required Holly to conduct a seminar on business ethics. Michael offers immunity to anyone willing to confess to dishonesty at work.

[00:03:20] Angela What are we, like, an episode of Survivor.

[00:03:22] Jenna I know. You get immunity. Everything you say.

[00:03:25] Angela And then we’re going to light the torch for you.

[00:03:27] Jenna Well, some things are revealed. Again, we will discuss. And it’s going to cause a rift between Michael and Holly.

[00:03:35] Angela Yeah.

[00:03:36] Jenna Meanwhile, Jim makes Dwight observe the company’s time theft policy and Meredith provides Outback Steakhouse takeout to the entire office. So that’s our summary. Would you like fast fact number one?

[00:03:50] Angela I really would.

[00:03:52] Jenna All right. New writer alert. Writer Ryan Koh has joined the staff for season five. Hello, Ryan. Welcome.

[00:03:59] Angela Hello, Ryan.

[00:04:00] Jenna He was only with us for one season as he left to work on Cougar Town.

[00:04:04] Angela Oh, we knew lots of folks on Cougar Town.

[00:04:06] Jenna We sure did. Busy Phillips.

[00:04:07] Angela Oh, yeah.

[00:04:08] Jenna He is also a writer and co executive producer of The Simpsons. Welcome, Ryan.

[00:04:13] Angela Welcome.

[00:04:14] Jenna Fast fact number two, no Pam. Outside of the cold open where you hear Pam’s voice, there is no Pam in this episode.

[00:04:23] Angela But there was Pam.

[00:04:24] Jenna There was you guys. There was. I filmed a bunch of scenes at art school and they all got cut out.

[00:04:31] Angela I know. I saw in the deleted scenes there’s like three.

[00:04:34] Jenna Well, I’m going to talk about them as break down this episode. On Office Ladies, Pam will be inserted into this episode again. She will live again.

[00:04:43] Angela She will. And also Jenna, there was an amazing Ryan Kevin Runner that got deleted for time. And it’s great. And I’m going to bring that up.

[00:04:51] Jenna You guys, we’re bringing it all back today in Business Ethics. Fast fact number three, Amy Ryan. Holly is here today. We interviewed Amy Ryan all about this episode and her time on The Office. Let’s hear it. Amy Ryan, welcome to Office Ladies.

[00:05:16] Amy Ryan Hi, Office Ladies. I am so glad to be here and to see your beautiful faces and the interior of your closets.

[00:05:22] Angela Yeah, I was going to say welcome to our closets.

[00:05:27] Jenna Amy, it’s so good to see you. Holly Flax. Oh, my gosh.

[00:05:32] Angela Hollis. We found out your name is Hollis.

[00:05:33] Amy Ryan Is that right?

[00:05:33] Angela Cuz it’s on your little name placard. Yes.

[00:05:37] Amy Ryan I don’t know if I ever knew that. That’s a really good tip.

[00:05:41] Jenna Would you have played the character differently?

[00:05:44] Amy Ryan Oh, I would been much more, you know, refined. I feel like Hollis is a much more refined and maybe I would have had an accent. I don’t know.

[00:05:54] Jenna I think if your character had been a Supreme Court judge, you might have gone by Hollis.

[00:06:00] Amy Ryan Yes.

[00:06:00] Jenna But you ended up in HR and so you went with the less formal Holly. Maybe.

[00:06:06] Amy Ryan That’s correct. You. Yeah. When you run H.R., you really want to be more approachable.

[00:06:12] Jenna Yeah.

[00:06:13] Amy Ryan You know, kind of a, you know, warm, fuzzy character.

[00:06:16] Jenna That makes sense.

[00:06:17] Angela Holly was a warm, fuzzy character and we’re in love with her. I am so enamored by Holly and Michael. Jenna and I have cried because Michael is like finally with someone that cares about him.

[00:06:30] Amy Ryan She did.

[00:06:31] Jenna Well in watching it episode by episode and just four years of Michael not having a partner, to suddenly see a woman partner with him and joke with him and like his jokes, I did. I cried.

[00:06:48] Amy Ryan Oh, you know, in preparation for meeting you both today, I re-watched the episode and I hadn’t watched the show in a long time, save for like popping in the room when my daughter was on her third pass of the series, but it is so moving. I think all the characters are so moving. There’s I know everyone’s talked about this before, but that element of the family, you know, it’s not a workplace, it’s actually a family. And that really comes through so beautifully. But Holly and Michael, I mean, I’ve always said, you know, there’s a lid for every pot. So they finally found each other. But she has a high tolerance, I suppose, for for that kind of guy.

[00:07:31] Jenna What we always like to ask people, Amy, how did you come to be on the show? And we did a little research. Paul Lieberstein told us that they came to you. They were huge fans. But that you had simultaneously mentioned to your agent, you might like to do our show.

[00:07:47] Amy Ryan Yes.

[00:07:48] Jenna So what was that process?

[00:07:49] Angela Yeah. How did it go down?

[00:07:51] Amy Ryan That is true. And the timing was eerie because I did say that to my agent. It was so soon after the Oscars and I was like, you know, I’m doing a lot of dramas. And if I have any kind of cachet right now, at this moment, I want to do a comedy and I want to do a comedy like The Office, because I was never good at the four camera sitcom. I just felt too much pressure. And it wasn’t like I always feel like characters weren’t really rooted in reality the way The Office was. And that goes back to how I met Paul Lieberstein. We were both employed on The Naked Truth and he was a writer. My agent had kind of reached out and at the same time Paul had reached out, I guess, to him. I don’t know who got there first, but it was I really think it was like about the same week. And Paul had mentioned that he was also a fan of The Wire, as were some of the other writers. So it was kind of a culmination of of all those worlds coming together.

[00:08:52] Angela And did they pitch the character of Holly to you or did you have a script to read or anything?

[00:08:58] Amy Ryan I don’t remember reading a script. I remember saying- hearing it was a one episode only and potential love interest, which obviously I knew was code for, we’ll see how you do, kid, if we have you back. I remember also because I was a big fan of the British series, David finally gets a woman who likes him too. So it was loosely based, I think, on her for the first episode. And then our group took it to a different level. So there was no script that I was privy to. But I knew the I, I knew the kind of general idea of it.

[00:09:32] Jenna What was it like to walk on to the set for the first time?

[00:09:37] Amy Ryan Really weird. It was really weird because also then now I’m a fan of the American version and you start to know the set, obviously from the comfort of your couch or your tablet or whatever it is. You know, when you get there, it’s like everything’s smaller. And then there you all were, so warm and welcoming. You know, there’s always an element of being the new kid in school and how is that going to go down? But and I’ll see you guys at this point on a really massive big hit show. And it was the most down to earth, welcoming warm group of people, like true ensemble, that I met. And and even to the end, I feel like you hear all those stories of shows that become so successful that bad behavior starts coming out. And, you know, but at least I didn’t see any of that. And I just thought it was always about the work. And you guys really set such a beautiful tone there.

[00:10:38] Jenna Well, you said you re-watched Business Ethics, and one of my favorite parts is when you and Michael do the let’s get physical.

[00:10:48] Angela Yeah, that’s so funny. I watched that with my daughter and we watched that scene like two times in a row, just him reaching in trying to hit the play button and the two of you running in with those headbands and your dance number. How did you guys come up with all that?

[00:11:03] Amy Ryan Where did we do- well the headbands I have to give credit for wardrobe. I mean, that was pretty wonderful and ridiculous. Just that having that visual, the dance, honestly, that’s me just following Steve on anything. You know, I always anything that I was lucky enough to be a partnered paired with Steve I was smart enough to get in the sidecar of that motorcycle ride. I’m not going to leave this here. He’s going to have a better idea. So that was that was just me kind of, you know… Literally following his choreography.

[00:11:41] Jenna Well, I wasn’t there because my character was at art school, so I am super bummed that I did not get to see that done live. Did you guys do like tons of takes of it? You were there, Ange, do you guys remember?

[00:11:53] Angela It was so hard not to laugh. Like from the minute it started and when I was re-watching it, Oscar’s face says it all. He’s in the front. And I was like, I don’t want to be in the front. Please don’t put me in the front, because I knew I was going to get so tickled. And Oscar does this thing when he’s trying not to break. You know, we know each other’s tells after all those years where he kind of does this mouth open thing and that’s him trying not to laugh. So you go back and watch Oscar is like-.

[00:12:19] Amy Ryan I’m going to.

[00:12:19] Angela It was so funny.

[00:12:23] Amy Ryan First of all, being in that conference, you know, that’s kind of the most famous part of the set right. Here we go. And someone gets to present something. And it’s it’s better when, again, you’re paired with someone next to you. But those scenes where I’m alone, giving the conference, my hands are like white knuckle and like trying to be like very casual, holding my hands. But if you look closely, my hands are just like two iron fists of nerves. That’s the other thing. Like the- everyone always asks me is The Office was that a lot of improv? And I said, no, it was- I remember scripty coming up to me correcting me for like of instead of at, like something really tiny, and I tell people and tell me if I’m wrong, I was like it was heavily scripted and then maybe by the third take Steve would go off script first and then everyone would follow suit. That’s my recollection of it, is would you say that’s right?

[00:13:23] Angela Absolutely.

[00:13:24] Amy Ryan Yeah. And then and in that I just think it was, again, like you guys are so in tune with each other and no one trying to beat anyone to the punch line, it was just a constant set up and it was I thought it is just so perfect. And I think that’s why people can’t really tell between the scripted and when it goes to improv. It’s just a- just so perfectly done.

[00:13:53] Jenna I wanted to ask you about those restaurant scenes.

[00:13:56] Angela Oh, yeah.

[00:13:58] Amy Ryan At Coopers?

[00:14:01] Jenna Coopers. There’s that whole runner about the chastity belt where he’s trying to explain what a chastity belt is.

[00:14:07] Amy Ryan Oh my god.

[00:14:07] Jenna And you’re like, a chastity belt?

[00:14:08] Amy Ryan I think, like, the really fun part of their relationship is that it’s always a surprise when, like, Holly’s on board with him with some joke, and then those moments like the chastity belt where she’s so horrified and yet so forgiving. You know, here she is, this you know, she’s still flirty with this guy and she likes him and not sure where it’s going to go. But she’s going to give that a pass. You know, always with Steve, it was so hard not to laugh. It was also like a thrill that sets in. Look, I remember when I was twenty five, I went skydiving and I did it where you’re strapped to the other instructor. And just as the airplane door opened up and he made me look out, we were about, I guess, thirteen thousand feet in the air. And I remember the thought in my head is, OK, I’m going to die or I’m going to have the time of my life, pick one. And I remember picking I’m going to have fun. And as nervous as I was, you know, being like in those scenes with Steve, I remember that moment too like, oh, just pick one. Why don’t you have fun instead, you know, and certainly with with him at the lead, like, we’re all going to look good. You know, he’s going to take us along for the ride, I feel. But but it was so hard not to laugh, like, painfully hard not to laugh at him. But I felt like were dropped into another place of concentration that um that kind of pull pulled it all along, if that makes sense.

[00:15:48] Jenna Yeah, did you know Steve before?

[00:15:51] Amy Ryan Yeah, in a very- I have this minuscule part in Dan in Real Life that Steve starred in. It was this big extended family comedy. We all as a whole group of us there on location in Rhode Island. And so we all became friends. And then I think it was about six months after that film is when The Office came up. And I believe they ran the idea by Steve of casting me. And I guess it helped that I knew him from Rhode Island for that little bit.

[00:16:21] Angela Well, we always ask everyone if they have any favorite memories from their time on the show, like any kind of behind the scenes moment or just something that you remember that stood out to you during your time on The Office.

[00:16:32] Amy Ryan Oh, my gosh. There’s so, so much I mean, just just in a general note, I would honestly not no exaggeration, I would go home feeling like I worked out a series of sit ups because my stomach muscles were always in play from laughing so hard. And I’d just go home exhausted but happy. And that was a nice feeling. But there’s and speaking of that kind of the uncontrollable laughter, there’s the episode where Darryl helps me move and he comes in the car ride, the truck ride. Me, Steve and Craig, like, holed up in that truck all day kind of… Probably we had a little bit of lack of oxygen, but we couldn’t we we just we were in hysterics and could barely get through the scenes. And it was that like that was like one of the highlights of my time there, just spending the day with those two guys. Just laughing, I mean, I say that, but I’d also be on set and laughing all the time too. It was just very new to me. Usually I end up in these dramas where I’m crying all day. So this is a much better way to spend your day.

[00:17:54] Jenna I remember that, too. And I remember my agents asking me if I wanted to do dramas in my downtime. You mentioned you were like, I’ve done a lot of dramas. I want to do a comedy. They’d be like, do you want to take a stab at some drama? And I was like, I don’t think so. I’m really liking the jobs where I just laugh all day because I’m like in a good mood a lot. So let’s just let’s keep doing the comedies. It was like it was a happy place to work.

[00:18:24] Angela My only request was if I could ever have a scene where I didn’t frown.

[00:18:28] Jenna That’s true. You had to frown your way through this comedy.

[00:18:33] Angela Well, do you get recognized as Holly Flax, like when you’re out and about?

[00:18:38] Amy Ryan Oh, I do, I do, and it’s interesting, I’m sure I’m sure you guys have noticed there’s being uh being recognized when the show was on the air and then the whole streaming version of the show that has kind of taken it to a whole new level. And everyone’s getting younger. It’s like my daughter’s friends. And so, yeah, I do. I still get I still get recognized. Years ago, not that long ago, a few years ago, my family and our really good friends, we went to Scranton because there’s this amazing antique store called All Good Things. And it’s just a warehouse, a giant warehouse of just every old antique knob, hinge, dresser, door, toilet.

[00:19:32] Angela Sign me up, Amy.

[00:19:32] Amy Ryan I mean, it goes on it goes on forever. It’s really cool. And so we go there and then we’re looking for something to eat and we’re hungry and they pull in and I was kind of behind the eight ball on this. And we we pull into Coopers.

[00:19:45] Angela Oh, my gosh.

[00:19:47] Amy Ryan And I go, oh, no, no, no. You guys. No, I’m pretty… I mean, I don’t get harassed being, you know, but I I’m pretty shy. If someone comes up to me in the street to say hello and thank you, but but I also have a lot of privacy. People don’t always recognize me, but I was like, hell, no, I’m not going into Cooper’s. I am Holly from The Office. I can not walk into Cooper’s. I cannot. I cannot. And there were and my one friend Anne was there. She’s kind of naughty. She’s like, oh, it’ll be so good. We have to, we have to. So they talked me into it. But I go in and I’ve got my head down and I’m just like waiting, I’m waiting to be treated like the Beatles here or something. And we sit in a booth and this old, tired waitress comes up and she takes our order. My friend Anne right away she’s like, it’s amazing, you know, what’s the story here? She’s like, Oh, well, we’ve been here for X amount of years. And it was also used in the set of The Office. But, you know, I mean, people used to be excited about that, but they’re not anymore. What can I get you? I was like so offended. Not one person recognize me. I know. Not one. Not one. And then we left. We gave her a good tip and we left. And I was like, so, so bummed. But anyway, that’s my Cooper’s story. It’s pretty cool inside, though. I think our our set decoration did a pretty great job-.

[00:21:16] Angela Matching it?

[00:21:17] Amy Ryan But the real Cooper’s is pretty cool.Yeah.

[00:21:18] Jenna Well, when people hear this podcast and they realize they might have been at Cooper’s with Holly Flax and didn’t know it, they’re going to be like, what day? What day?

[00:21:33] Amy Ryan Oh my god.

[00:21:33] Angela It’s part of like a whole Scranton The Office fan tour now. You know, they have they have like a whole tour and you can go around Scranton and go to all spots. So maybe maybe don’t go back, because maybe it will be the Beatles experience,

[00:21:47] Jenna Amy, before you were going to come on the podcast, I admit I, I Googled you, which is a weird thing to do. It’s weird to Google someone you know.

[00:21:56] Angela It is so weird.

[00:21:58] Jenna It’s so weird. And I, you know, had never done that before. Googled you. But I did. And I saw all of your stage work and stage experience, which I, I knew that you did theater, but I didn’t know that you got your first touring job right out of school, that you toured with Biloxi Blues-

[00:22:19] Angela right out of high school.

[00:22:21] Jenna So did you ever have, like, that day job? Did you ever have or or were you able to work pretty consistently as an actress right out of school?

[00:22:30] Amy Ryan Yeah. So I went to a performing arts high school in New York. And then a month or so after graduation, I was cast in the touring company of Biloxi Blues. And I toured for nine months and I thought, well, that’s easy. I’ll work all the time I guess. And I didn’t work for a long time afterwards, but but I- after the tour, you know, I was still only like 18, 19. So I went back home so I didn’t have rent. I was still, you know, my family, we lived in New York, so I was able to afford a life in New York by just being an actor and doing acting jobs till I moved out of the house in my mid 30s. No. But I, no yeah, I’m very, very lucky. I had I’ve only ever been an actor save before high school graduation. I worked at my aunt and uncle’s ice cream shop in Vermont when I was 16. But yeah, acting has been my only job.

[00:23:35] Angela That’s amazing.

[00:23:36] Amy Ryan It’s kind of weird. But I, you know, I, I do think of how any young actor artist moves to L.A., moves to New York from other places, or to Chicago with- I always think of that person like suitcase in hand and, you know, room share lists, like my hat just goes off to them because it’s so hard. It’s so hard. I don’t know how people do it. You know, I was lucky that I already lived in New York and could go home for home cooked meals and all that kind of stuff. But but I’m glad they’re doing it somehow.

[00:24:14] Jenna Are you working on anything now, Amy?

[00:24:16] Amy Ryan I just finished this new first season of this Hulu series called Only Murders in the Building with Steve Martin and Martin Short and Selena Gomez. And it was again, like it was it was a throwback to like, again, Jenna, like you say, like doing the comedies like, oh, this feels fun. I’m in a good mood. And certainly shooting through a pandemic, you know, it was- I wouldn’t want to be on a heavy drama right now. It’s just too intense. But it was it was a joy to be around those people during this time. And so but that’s it. And I don’t know I don’t know what I’ll do next that, you know, even after thirty three years, like, I never know what’s next. So we’ll see what happens.

[00:25:03] Jenna Well, Amy, thank you so much for coming on Office Ladies and sharing your memories of being on the show. It was so cool to be back in touch with you and see you again.

[00:25:13] Amy Ryan Same here. I really miss you guys and I hope all’s well with your families and hope to see you in person.

[00:25:20] Angela Yes, that would be amazing. Jenna and I have said we want to do like a like a Office Ladies lunch like call up all the gals and have a lunch. Wouldn’t that be so fun?

[00:25:31] Amy Ryan That would be amazing. Yeah. Oh gosh. Well, let’s do it.

[00:25:33] Angela Let’s do it. Thank you so much, Amy.

[00:25:35] Amy Ryan Thanks for having me on your show. I miss you all and hope to see you soon.

[00:25:44] Angela That was so great.

[00:25:46] Jenna I love her.

[00:25:46] Angela I love her.

[00:25:48] Jenna You know, when we got finished with that interview, guys, I asked her what color were her walls because her room was, like, painted all this like kind of dark blue, gray color.

[00:25:58] Angela Kind of a navy blue.

[00:25:59] Jenna Very cozy looking.

[00:26:00] Angela I know. And she was in a red dress and her hair was perfect. I kind of want to get that bob. I don’t know if I can pull it off.

[00:26:06] Jenna It was such a cute bob.

[00:26:08] Angela It was. Well, you know, obviously, we’re going to put the photos from our Zoomie Zoom in the Instagram.

[00:26:12] Jenna Yeah. So you can see it all. The wall. The bob. It’s coming atcha.

[00:26:16] Angela OK, before we get into this episode, I need to share with you who was on the DVD commentary.

[00:26:23] Jenna Oh.

[00:26:24] Angela But I’m going to let BJ tell you.

[00:26:26] Jenna What?

[00:26:28] BJ Novak Welcome to the commentary on Business Ethics. This is B.J. Novak speaking, and this is a very special commentary because I have with me here four of the most beloved crew members on The Office to give us a behind the scenes look at how things go, not just with this episode, but every day for the past 100 episodes. So seated with me, why don’t we make introductions from my left, Vartan (UNCLEAR), Peter Evangelatos, Sergio de Coleman, Alan Mork. And here’s how it works. There are…

[00:27:00] Angela I know.

[00:27:00] Jenna Oh, my God.

[00:27:01] Angela I know, I know I had the same reaction.

[00:27:06] Jenna And their voices are on the whole thing.

[00:27:07] Angela Yes.

[00:27:08] Jenna Oh, my goodness, I did not expect it.

[00:27:10] Angela I know. I know. I texted B.J., I said, B.J., I have teared up. I have laughed. I have had every emotion.

[00:27:18] Jenna Oh guys.  OK, we should say who they are.

[00:27:22] Angela OK, so Peter and Vartan, they did our craft services. They provided the cast and crew with snacks, drinks, meals, anything that you could want. And fed us in overtime. We called them the snack masters. Peter was so beloved to us. He was like our grandpa.

[00:27:41] Jenna Yeah.

[00:27:42] Angela And he took such good care of us. He passed away a few years ago. Our cast and crew were heartbroken. We loved this man. And it was a delight to get to hear his voice in this DVD commentary. I felt like I spent an evening with him when I re-watched it and I texted BJ immediately and he said, Oh, my God, Angela, where is this? Where can I hear it? Where does it live? He said, I’m so happy it made you happy. He said, I’m so happy it exists. And he said that he pitched that Peter and Vartan and Sergio and Alan do this commentary. And people were like, What? No, you’re crazy. But he was like, you know, like they are like our sustenance. They took such good care of us.

[00:28:24] Jenna We should say, Sergio and Allen, they were Big Time Catering and they fed us lunch and breakfast.

[00:28:30] Angela They did our big main meals. Breakfast and lunch. And Peter and Vartan did everything in between. And I really want to share with you what all they talked about on the DVD commentary.

[00:28:42] Jenna Oh yeah.

[00:28:42] Angela They talked about food the whole entire episode. I learned nothing about the actual episode, but I learned what everyone has for breakfast and people’s particular like requests. And it was so delightful. And I think The Office fans are going to love this.

[00:29:02] Jenna You’ve gotta say, you have to share.

[00:29:04] Angela OK, OK, here we go. And then I promise we will get to Business Ethics, you guys. OK, first of all, we love people’s process. How is their day started? What do they do? Sergio and Allen shared that they got to set very, very early. Well, we knew this. I looked up our call sheets. You guys know I have digital clutter. I have all of our call sheets for years. Average cast call time started at five a.m. That meant hair and makeup had to be there at four a.m. That meant that Sergio and Allen had to have a full breakfast ready at four a.m..

[00:29:39] Jenna Wow.

[00:29:39] Angela So they would go to bed at seven p.m. and get up between midnight and 1:00 a.m. to be at work at two a.m. to start cooking. Allen said every morning I was cooking bacon at three a.m. and they kind of joked that he was like Michael Scott. He like woke up and had to start cooking bacon. But, you know, they fed breakfast are around one hundred and fifty people.

[00:29:59] Jenna Yeah, because the crew got a hot breakfast as well.

[00:30:02] Angela Yes. Everybody everybody cast and crew. Sergio and Alan, like BJ would just mention someone’s name and they knew their breakfast order.

[00:30:09] Jenna Oh say.

[00:30:09] Angela OK. Ready?

[00:30:10] Jenna Yeah.

[00:30:11] Angela Steve would have mushrooms, ground turkey, egg white scramble with a side of ketchup.

[00:30:17] Jenna OK.

[00:30:17] Angela Rainn would have a veggie scramble with egg whites and one piece of wheat toast. Jenna.

[00:30:24] Jenna Yes.

[00:30:25] Angela Would have two egg whites scrambled with a little bit of cheese.

[00:30:28] Jenna That’s true.

[00:30:30] Angela Paul Lieberstein would have an egg white scramble with onions and peppers with Sergio’s famous homemade salsa on the side.

[00:30:37] Jenna We were very into egg whites as a cast I’m discovering.

[00:30:42] Angela Keep it coming. Kate had egg whites scrambled with turkey bacon. Oscar- curveball- grilled cheese with tomato. Amy Ryan, who’s our guest this week, spinach and egg scramble. Now, some cast members had their breakfast order become classics because they became so popular.

[00:31:01] Jenna OK.

[00:31:01] Angela OK, so you could order these three. We’ve already discussed the Rashida special.

[00:31:06] Jenna Yes.

[00:31:07] Angela Remember, invented by Rashida. Black beans, turkey bacon, avocado, egg whites, Sergio salsa, two corn tortillas on the side.

[00:31:15] Jenna All right. This is a Rashida.

[00:31:17] Angela It was the most popular. OK. The Rashida special.

[00:31:18] Jenna OK. Rashida inventing the most popular breakfast.

[00:31:22] Angela In fact, it was like one of Mindy’s regular orders was the Rashida. OK, the Johnny K invented by John Krasinski, tomatoes and broccoli with egg whites and a little cheddar cheese.

[00:31:35] Jenna Hmmm. Sounds kind of gross.

[00:31:37] Angela I know.

[00:31:38] Jenna I don’t want to eat broccoli first thing in the morning. I don’t know.

[00:31:41] Angela I’m not going to lie. There were you know a few times I would cross over hair and make up with John, um, it didn’t smell good.

[00:31:49] Jenna It’s coming back to me now.

[00:31:50] Angela It didn’t smell good. OK, the Creed special. I learned something. Creed is apparently a big goat cheese fan. He loves goat cheese.

[00:32:00] Jenna In the morning?

[00:32:01] Angela Oh, yeah, so they said that he would have goat cheese, spinach, onions and egg whites with green tea.

[00:32:07] Jenna Oh.

[00:32:08] Angela Mm hmm. They also shared the two cast members who were always there the earliest.

[00:32:13] Jenna Oh, let me guess.

[00:32:13] Angela OK.

[00:32:14] Jenna Kate and Phyllis.

[00:32:16] Angela Leslie and Phyllis.

[00:32:19] Jenna OK.

[00:32:19] Angela And, you know, I looked at the call sheets. Leslie, Phyllis, me, and Kate were always called in at 5:00 a.m., OK? The four of us clearly didn’t make the early list, but Leslie would order his breakfast at  4:45.

[00:32:33] Jenna Wow.

[00:32:34] Angela Yeah. Sergio and Alan also did a huge lunch with multiple meat, fish, veggie choices, salad bar, dessert bar. But they said there was one item they featured just on a whim at the dessert table and it became incredibly popular. And if they wouldn’t have it, people would like get like annoyed. They’d be like, where is it?

[00:32:51] Jenna Can I guess?

[00:32:52] Angela Yeah.

[00:32:53] Jenna Was it the warm chocolate chip cookie bar thing?

[00:32:55] Angela Yes. Yes, it was the chocolate chip cookie cake and they served it like hot and melted and kind of gooey. It was so good.

[00:33:04] Jenna You guys, the chocolate chip cookie cake was Steve Carrell’s like kryptonite. I don’t know. This guy would eat so healthy, but he had to eat this chocolate chip cookie cake.

[00:33:16] Angela It’s his one treat. But literally they said they didn’t think much about it. They made it one time. And then everyone was like, where is it? Where is it? They had to make it like every day.

[00:33:22] Jenna Yeah.

[00:33:23] Angela So now I have to talk about Peter and Vartan. They were the snack masters. They had kind of like a full kitchen right on the set right outside the Dunder Mifflin bullpen.

[00:33:33] Jenna Yep.

[00:33:33] Angela You know, they had a fridge. You could have cereal. They had milk that you could make your own sandwich, but they would also have a little food bar. And here’s what they had to share. Peter talked about how he had been in the business forever. He also said, I thought this is kind of funny, that our cast, we were tea obsessed. He had hundreds of different types of teas. And you might have noticed that I didn’t make Sergio and Alan’s breakfast list.

[00:34:00] Jenna Because you would never eat an egg in the morning.

[00:34:03] Angela Because Peter and Vartan got donuts every morning. So I would go get a donut from Peter and Vartan. Also, BJ liked the Porto’s coffee cake. And then Peter said sometimes he would make you and I sandwiches.

[00:34:17] Jenna He would.

[00:34:17] Angela And he said he loved doing it and he would put them on a porcelain plate and bring them to us.

[00:34:23] Jenna I’m crying again.

[00:34:24] Angela I know. I know. He took such good care of us.

[00:34:28] Jenna I can’t explain to you, like the care with which he would make us a sandwich. It’s so silly and simple. But he would he’d put it on a porcelain plate and he’d always, like, garnish it with some cute little like fruit or like a little pickles.

[00:34:45] Angela Like he’d cut fruit into a shape or.

[00:34:46] Jenna Yeah, it really was. It was like your grandpa made you a sandwich.

[00:34:50] Angela It really was.

[00:34:51] Jenna And you felt so loved.

[00:34:52] Angela He was so happy to do it.

[00:34:54] Jenna Yeah.

[00:34:54] Angela He said that he would make you a tuna fish sandwich and he’d make me ham and cheese. I cried through this commentary, Jenna. I laughed so hard because Peter and Vartan give each other like such a hard time lovingly and they’re so funny. Alan called them the Middle Eastern odd couple because Peter is from Greece and Vartan is from Iraq. They had a hilarious banter, the two of them. They also talked about their infamous 10 a.m. hot snack.

[00:35:23] Jenna Hot snack.

[00:35:24] Angela Oh, my gosh. Peter said they like to mix it up every day. He said on Mondays, for example, there’d be tacos and burritos. One of the most popular hot snack items was-.

[00:35:35] Jenna Albondigas soup?

[00:35:35] Angela Well, they talked about that, but they said their turkey chili.

[00:35:39] Jenna Oh.

[00:35:39] Angela They said their turkey chili they had to serve twice a week. People wanted it. They loved it. Ed Helms in particular loved the turkey chili. And he came up with a little tip.

[00:35:49] Jenna What is it?

[00:35:50] Angela Ed, you know, they had garnishes on the side for the chili. They had shredded cheese and they had onions. Ed would put the raw onions at the bottom of his bowl, add the hot turkey chili on top and the heat from the chili would caramelize the onions at the bottom.

[00:36:04] Jenna Wow.

[00:36:05] Angela It became a thing. So and much like our Dunder Mifflin counterparts, they said the cast and crew had their favorite pizza places to order from if we went to overtime and we got second meal. Steve loved Mulberry’s Pizza, and we all love Barrone’s Pizza.

[00:36:23] Jenna Yes.

[00:36:24] Angela It was a delight. You guys. I just have to tell you, we loved these men so much. I was lucky enough to work with Sergio again when I guest starred on Mindy’s show, Never Have I Ever. She still wants Sergio on her projects. It was so awesome. These guys were our family.

[00:36:38] Jenna Yeah.

[00:36:39] Angela And they took such good care of us. And if you have ever wondered why the only thing my dad talked about was the food when he visited set, listen to this commentary.

[00:36:48] Jenna I loved that.

[00:36:50] Angela I loved it too. And I know I went on and on, but I had to share it.

[00:36:53] Jenna I hope everyone else found it interesting because I loved that trip down memory lane. Thank you, Angela.

[00:36:58] Angela You’re welcome. All right, should we get into this episode?

[00:37:02] Jenna I guess we can. I will pull myself together.

[00:37:05] Angela Yes.

[00:37:06] Jenna This episode starts with Jim and Pam on the phone. Pam is kind of mad because nobody congratulated her on her engagement. And Jim says, yeah I didn’t tell anyone.

[00:37:19] Angela And then he’s like, let’s tell him. And he puts Pam on speakerphone. And it goes I think exactly how Jim thought it would go.

[00:37:26] Jenna Yeah, it ends with Michael arriving and hearing the news and tackling Jim to the floor. We got a fan question from Kyle T and Peyton M. How was the stunt done where Michael knocks Jim over with a hug?

[00:37:39] Angela Also, John’s face is just amazing.

[00:37:43] Jenna You know, that is a really hard thing to do to know you’re going to be tackled, but keep your body relaxed.

[00:37:51] Angela And not like wince.

[00:37:52] Jenna Yeah.

[00:37:52] Angela Not expect the tackle.

[00:37:54] Jenna While I wasn’t there, I was backstage on a phone, so I didn’t see it go down. Angela, do you remember was there like a mattress or something that they landed on?

[00:38:03] Angela There is a big blue squishy thing, you know what I mean, a big blue square. It looked like a gymnastics kind of mat, right?

[00:38:09] Jenna Yeah.

[00:38:10] Angela But it was so funny.

[00:38:11] Jenna I have to imagine John lost it because John did not do well in scenes like that, especially with Steve, like-

[00:38:19] Angela My memory of it is they didn’t do it very many times.

[00:38:21] Jenna OK. Well now we’re into the episode. It’s Ethics Day. Holly has passed out a form everyone has to fill out. She’s going to be taking this seriously.

[00:38:30] Jenna She is. She explains that she is going to be running her first meeting. But don’t worry, we talked about this with Amy Ryan. Michael’s going to help her out and they’re going to start it off with their version of Let’s Get Physical.

[00:38:47] Angela With headbands and dancing and a boombox. Jenna, I worked in corporate America. I have been in human resources seminars that we had to go to.

[00:38:58] Jenna Yeah.

[00:38:59] Angela I’m telling you, they had skits.

[00:39:01] Jenna What?

[00:39:02] Angela When I watched this, I had such a flood of memories coming back of sitting in a tiny little conference room when I worked at this company and our human resources department, there were two people, they would come in and act out skits of what’s inappropriate. We had one guy, his name was Tom, and we had a gal, her name was Susan, and he’d be like, Susan, that skirt looks really nice on you today. Hey, time to party. And then Susan would do a face like huh? And then they’d freeze. And then Tom would say, what was inappropriate in this moment? And we’d all have to raise our hands and be like, he was kind of gross about her skirt.

[00:39:41] Jenna I only had to watch, like, produced videos of weird things. I’ve never seen a live presentation.

[00:39:48] Angela Oh, no, I watched skits.

[00:39:50] Jenna We had a fan question about this scene from Patricia B. She said, I’m wondering if some of the younger Office fans even know the song that Holly and Michael are performing. She wants to know, Angela, did your kids watch this one with you? Did you have to explain the song parody?

[00:40:08] Angela Isabel watched it with me. She didn’t ask about the song. She just thought it was funny. She probably thinks we made it up.

[00:40:16] Jenna Yeah, this was, I guess, for our younger listeners, a very famous song by Olivia Newton John. Let’s Get Physical. And the music video was like her in like an aerobics class, singing and dancing with a headband. Jane Fonda had like these workout videos at the time, too. This was like a little trend. Sexy working out.

[00:40:36] Angela Oh, yeah. But your sexy workout included tights, leg warmers, high tops, leotard, headband, wristband.

[00:40:46] Jenna Yeah.

[00:40:47] Angela It was a whole thing.

[00:40:48] Jenna It was. I remember it well. Well, Holly begins her ethics meeting by explaining that there’s been some misconduct. She’s clearly talking about Ryan.

[00:40:59] Angela Mm hmm. Who’s been hired again. It’s so hilarious to me.

[00:41:02] Jenna Yeah, I know. And then she starts going through the results of the quiz.

[00:41:08] Angela Yeah. Pretty much. She’s got this binder. And she’s got to go through the binder.

[00:41:14] Jenna The H.R. binder.

[00:41:15] Angela Yeah.

[00:41:16] Jenna We had a fan question from Peyton M, in the conference room scene, did Creed and Meredith actually break when Stanley said the meeting was a waste of time or was it scripted for them to laugh? Well, I looked at the script. It was scripted. The script said, people laugh a lot. That was the direction in the script.

[00:41:39] Angela So the meeting isn’t going so great and Michael’s like, you’re losing them. So he pulls Holly aside. You are losing them. They expect a lot.

[00:41:49] Jenna Yeah, it’s really sweet. He’s trying to help her in this meeting because he really wants her to succeed. So he says let’s get rid of the binder. This is your opportunity to speak up without any repercussions. He’s like, guys, what are some things maybe you’ve done at work to waste time? What have you done? Anything or anything you want to share?

[00:42:09] Angela Yeah, you have immunity. Go for it.

[00:42:13] Jenna Well, during this time, Michael confesses that he didn’t work for five days when he discovered YouTube

[00:42:20] Angela It made me laugh so hard.

[00:42:21] Jenna He said he watched Cookie Monster sings Chocolate Rain about a thousand times.

[00:42:27] Angela Did you go watch it?

[00:42:28] Jenna I had to know.

[00:42:29] Angela Of course.

[00:42:30] Jenna Here’s the thing.

[00:42:31] Angela What?

[00:42:31] Jenna Chocolate Rain, according to its Wikipedia page was a song by American singer Tay Zonday.

[00:42:38] Angela I went and watched Tay’s last night.

[00:42:41] Jenna Oh, you did?

[00:42:42] Angela I did.

[00:42:42] Jenna You watched it as well.

[00:42:44] Angela Yeah.

[00:42:44] Jenna Yes. So he wrote this song and he uploaded a video to YouTube. It was four minutes, 52 seconds long. He uploaded it, everyone, because I know you want to know, April 22nd, 2007.

[00:42:57] Angela I remember it went viral.

[00:42:58] Jenna Viral.

[00:42:59] Angela Like before things went viral.

[00:43:01] Jenna It was ranked the hottest viral video of summer 2007 and it was awarded the 2008 YouTube award in the category of music. So this song then became the subject of like parodies, remixes, tributes. It was everywhere.

[00:43:17] Angela Even Cookie Monster.

[00:43:18] Jenna Not Cookie Monster. We made that up. There was no Cookie Monster sings Chocolate Rain. They wrote that and after the episode aired, people made them.

[00:43:31] Angela Oh, no way. I didn’t know that!

[00:43:35] Jenna Isn’t that crazy?

[00:43:36] Angela That is crazy. You know, I did go to every version you could imagine of the song. I looked it up and I did notice the one where Cookie Monster is singing it, the first comment said, who else is here because of Michael Scott?

[00:43:50] Jenna Yeah, exactly.

[00:43:53] Angela Well, Michael has opened the door to confession time and people are just letting it fly.

[00:43:59] Jenna Yeah. The big confession comes from Meredith, who says that she has been having a six year affair with the Hammermill rep in exchange for discounts on our supplies and also Outback Steakhouse gift certificates.

[00:44:19] Angela Bruce Myers, Bruce Myers and Meredith, six years.

[00:44:24] Jenna Now, here’s something, wasn’t there in that previous episode we finally landed the Hammermill rep when they went to that big conference. And it was only a few, remember? I think there’s a little continuity catch here.

[00:44:38] Angela Continuity error.

[00:44:41] Jenna Yeah. So she’s been sleeping with him for six years, but we only just landed him like two years ago. I don’t know, Meredith.

[00:44:49] Angela Show Bible.

[00:44:50] Jenna Show Bible.

[00:44:51] Angela Sort it out, guys.

[00:44:52] Jenna Yeah. Holly is troubled.

[00:44:55] Angela Oh yeah.

[00:44:55] Jenna Holly is like this is a serious ethics violation. I have to report this.

[00:45:01] Angela Jenna there was one other confession that rattled someone else.

[00:45:05] Jenna What?

[00:45:06] Angela Ryan made a confession. And Kevin is like, what? This is the beginning of the runner. Sam, can you play it?

[00:45:14] Ryan Last year, you guys were riding me really hard for the website, and I just pulled out my Z3 and I knocked the mirror off somebody’s car. I never said a thing.

[00:45:21] Kevin Wait. What?

[00:45:25] Jenna What?

[00:45:26] Angela Kevin’s like, what? And then immediately after this conference room scene, Kevin approaches Ryan in the kitchen and confronts him.

[00:45:33] Kevin You knock the mirror off of my car.

[00:45:37] Ryan Yeah. Isn’t that messed up?

[00:45:39] Kevin Yeah.

[00:45:40] Ryan That guy did a lot of things I’m not proud of.

[00:45:43] Kevin Wait. When you say that guy, do you mean you?

[00:45:49] Ryan I mean the guy I used to be. I’m Ryan 2.0, and it makes you feel any better, that guy did a lot of messed up stuff to me too.

[00:45:58] Kevin No, you mean that you did a lot of messed up stuff to you too.

[00:46:02] Ryan Look, I feel you, OK? That guy took no responsibility for his actions.

[00:46:07] Kevin But are you going to pay for my mirror?

[00:46:10] Ryan If I have to answer for everything that guy did… never going to move on.

[00:46:17] Kevin It was like 200 dollars.

[00:46:19] Ryan We’re never going to get what we need from that guy.

[00:46:22] Jenna You know, my love of Ryan.

[00:46:23] Angela Yeah.

[00:46:23] Jenna In this re-watch, and I am so sad that did not make it in the episode, but I am so glad it exists.

[00:46:30] Angela I know I showed it to Sam and Sam was like, I know these people. I know these people.

[00:46:35] Sam Yeah, that’s a good example of Los Angeles.

[00:46:40] Angela But yeah. So Kevin gets Ryan back by putting his sunglasses, his really nice sunglasses, in the toaster oven.

[00:46:48] Jenna Amazing.

[00:46:48] Angela Melts them. But that was Kevin 1.0.

[00:46:52] Jenna Yeah. He can’t be responsible for what that guy did.

[00:46:54] Angela That’s right. So that was the Ryan Kevin runner that got deleted because we just ran out of time. But I thought it was so great.

[00:47:01] Jenna It’s so good. So now we have the scene where Michael and Holly are going to meet privately with Meredith to discuss her-.

[00:47:08] Angela Liaison.

[00:47:09] Jenna Yes. You know, Michael is trying very hard to help Meredith say the things she needs to say to get out of trouble.

[00:47:17] Angela Yeah.

[00:47:18] Jenna Meredith is not getting it.

[00:47:20] Angela She’s not getting it.

[00:47:20] Jenna At all.

[00:47:21] Angela And Kate is so funny in this.

[00:47:23] Jenna So funny.

[00:47:24] Angela Well, we do have a classic Jim prank.

[00:47:27] Jenna We get a Jim prank.

[00:47:28] Angela Yeah, it’s been a bit and I thought it was so funny. And I can tell that John and Rainn were having such a good time just because we know them like you gave John that prop, that stopwatch.

[00:47:40] Jenna He’s loving that stopwatch.

[00:47:41] Angela He’s loving it. Yeah. Dwight had said in the conference room that he doesn’t do anything personal at work.

[00:47:46] Jenna He wastes no time,

[00:47:48] Angela Wastes no time. And so Jim’s going to show him he’s going to like time every single thing he does.

[00:47:52] Jenna Well right about now is when we would have gone to see Pam at art school. And I’m going to tell you about it.

[00:47:59] Angela OK.

[00:48:00] Jenna So Pam and her classmates, they get to class and there’s a note on the door. No class today.

[00:48:08] Angela It’s canceled.

[00:48:08] Jenna Canceled. So her friends are like, let’s go get drinks. And Pam’s like, I can’t. And her friend Alex, who was played by Rich Sommer, says, What do you have to do? You’re supposed to be in class right now. We know you don’t have plans. So they get her to go to this tiki bar for a little day drinking. And I totally remember shooting this, Angela. We’re all drinking out of this big giant volcano bowl. There’s a flame. It’s on fire.

[00:48:38] Angela Yeah.

[00:48:38] Jenna We had to have a safety meeting about it. And in the scene, two of the other art students, they’re trying to decode this text message. They’re wondering what to text back.

[00:48:50] Angela Well, it’s like a guy, right? So she’s like wanting to text a guy back, but not seem like too in to him. You know, how you have to write the perfect text back to someone you’re into but you don’t want to seem too desperate.

[00:49:01] Jenna Exactly. Well Pam is spiraling. Remember I said in the other episode that we purposely cast people who would seem younger and hipper than Pam so she would be this fish out of water in art school?

[00:49:15] Angela Yeah.

[00:49:16] Jenna Well, she’s kind of spiraling about that. And she has this great, crazy monologue that she blurts out. Sam, will you play the Pam Tiki bar scene for me?

[00:49:26] Female Art Student He put a wink at the end. Does that mean something?

[00:49:27] Male Art Student It means he’s a dork.

[00:49:29] Female Art Student So how do I write back, you know, showing him that I’m also a dork?

[00:49:34] Alex Oh he knows.

[00:49:35] Pam Don’t ask me. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I’m like way older than you guys. I mean, like, I have a fiancee and I had like a ten year plan and like is graphic design even art? At this point, I thought that I would be married and running my own art company… But I would just put, like, big LOL little lol winky face.

[00:50:00] Female Art Student Oh, OK.

[00:50:04] Jenna OK, I thought that was so interesting, we just got a window into what Pam thought her life would be. She says at this point she thought she would be married and running her own art company.

[00:50:16] Angela What does she mean by art company?

[00:50:18] Jenna I don’t know.

[00:50:19] Angela It sounds like something like like a 5th grader.

[00:50:21] Jenna Like a kid would say.

[00:50:22] Angela Yeah. Like someday I’m going to own an art company.

[00:50:25] Jenna Does that mean she sells art supplies? What does she mean by that? I don’t know. I thought it was so it was such a window into Pam. I thought.

[00:50:33] Angela I did too. And, you know, it goes on to show that she drank the whole volcano herself, basically.

[00:50:40] Jenna Yeah. There are more scenes at this bar. She gets really tipsy. But then she has this really peppy talking head where she says if she were in Scranton right now, she’d be an alcoholic. But she’s not. She’s in New York. So she’s a moody artist. She loves New York. Well, I was really bummed that these scenes got cut because one of the art students, the guy who you hear trying to help the girl with her text message, was played by one of my very good friends in real life, John Cabrera. You might know him because he was a longtime cast member on Gilmore Girls. He played Brian Fuller. He was the bass player in Lane’s band. So we filmed all of these scenes at Pam’s art school. They never made it into an episode. He doesn’t even have a credit on IMDB for being on The Office because all his scenes got cut. But we had the best time.

[00:51:37] Angela Jenna, have you ever had a volcano?

[00:51:39] Jenna No. Have you?

[00:51:44] Angela Once.

[00:51:44] Jenna What?

[00:51:44] Angela Once in my-.

[00:51:44] Jenna I thought we made that up. That’s a real thing. Is that on fire?

[00:51:46] Angela Yes.

[00:51:47] Jenna Sam is nodding. Like, how many have you had, Sam?

[00:51:50] Sam Sorry, that was the most aggressive I’ve ever-

[00:51:51] Jenna You are like-.

[00:51:52] Sam Yeah, it’s it’s a staple of the tiki bar.

[00:51:54] Angela Yeah. Yeah, I’ve had one. And that’s all you’ll ever need to have. I had one at a bar in Manhattan Beach for a friend’s birthday. We got the volcano because my friend’s birthday, you know, we were like twenty five years old. It’s a huge, huge bowl. It comes on fire, all these different straws in it. It’s usually a mixture of like pineapple or grapefruit or lime juice, maple syrup, several different types of rums.

[00:52:20] Jenna OK.

[00:52:21] Angela I felt real gross the next day. And what’s so funny is I had Pam’s experience, like you’re just all drinking that you can’t tell who’s had more or what because there’s all these straws flopping out of it. And the photos from this evening are real special. We all decided to see if we could do the splits.

[00:52:38] Jenna Oh.

[00:52:39] Angela It was one of those nights. I can do the splits, no you do it. So volcano, guys. Tread lightly.

[00:52:48] Jenna Am I too old to have this experience?

[00:52:50] Angela I think so.

[00:52:52] Jenna Damn it.

[00:52:52] Angela You won’t feel good the next day.

[00:52:54] Jenna I missed my chance. I started drinking late in life.

[00:52:57] Angela I know.

[00:52:58] Jenna I really did.

[00:52:59] Angela I think it’s okay that you navigated your life without having the volcano experience.

[00:53:03] Jenna I don’t know. I’m having some FOMO. Well, now Michael is going to invite Holly to lunch because it’s OK if like two attractive people go to lunch, you know, they work together, they’re attractive.

[00:53:18] Angela Yes.

[00:53:18] Jenna They can eat lunch.

[00:53:19] Angela They can eat lunch. It’s not an official date. And there was a deleted Michael talking head that if it was an official date, Holly would know, because it would go like this.

[00:53:29] Michael No, this is not an official date. When it is an official date, she will be aware of it. There will be a rose. There will be music and dancing, bottle of red, bottle of white, bottle of water. I have to drink more water… Some whispered conversation, some giggling…little wine. We head back to her place. I will skip ahead to protect her dignity, but… we make hardcore love and then we fall asleep on our lanai to the sound of the full moon. And then. Chocolate chip pancakes.

[00:54:22] Jenna OK, I haven’t had a volcano, but I’ve had that date.

[00:54:27] Angela You’ve had that date.

[00:54:27] Jenna I’ve had that date.

[00:54:28] Angela Well, it’s a good date. I just want a shirt that says hardcore love. Oh, you know what? You got to fall asleep to the sound of the moon.

[00:54:40] Jenna You do. You do. Oh, well, he suggests that they go to Cooper’s restaurant and I’ve got some good information to share about that. So why don’t we take a break and we’ll come back?

[00:54:51] Angela Great.

[00:54:56] Jenna All right, we are back, Michael and Holly have gone to lunch, we got fan questions from Kelly W. Sammy B, and Carolyn P. What is the restaurant that Holly and Michael went to? Angela, you saw the outside shot of this restaurant?

[00:55:12] Angela Yeah, I’ve been there in real life.

[00:55:14] Jenna It is a real restaurant in Scranton called Cooper’s Seafood House. And we did not go to Cooper’s so we used a shot of the outside. The interior I got all the scoop from James-a-Pedia.

[00:55:28] Angela Jame-a-pedia is back. And Amy Ryan said they did an amazing job.

[00:55:33] Jenna Amazing, right? I looked at pictures online of the real Cooper’s and I compared them to screenshots because that’s what I do now, I guess is that. And we really- congratulations to our set designers. They did a great job redressing this.

[00:55:50] Angela What did James-a-Pedia have?

[00:55:51] Jenna James-A-Pedia said that we shot the interior at Clancy’s Crab Broiler in Glendale, California, that we started shooting at eight a.m. that day, and there was a note on the call sheet that said the restaurant will be open for business at 11:00 a.m. So they had three hours to film all of those restaurant scenes. And I asked him, I said, now, when it says they’re going to open back up at 11 a.m., does that mean we have to be done filming and get all our stuff out? Because we changed the look of the restaurant. And he said what we would normally do is we would get in there really, really early and dress it, do our scenes and get out as much as we can by 11 o’clock. But they would go back the next day to, like, do a full cleanup. So the patrons that day, ate in a kind of hybrid restaurant of Clancy’s Crab Broiler slash Cooper Seafood.

[00:56:47] Angela Say that ten times fast.

[00:56:48] Jenna I could barely say it once.

[00:56:50] Angela Clancy’s Crab Broiler.

[00:56:52] Jenna Clancy’s Crab Broiler.

[00:56:54] Angela Well, here’s a little something about Cooper’s.

[00:56:56] Jenna All right.

[00:56:57] Angela Brian Baumgartner and I went there in 2007 in Scranton. If you go to Cooper’s Seafood House website online, there are a bunch of photos in their gallery section of Brian and I.

[00:57:12] Jenna I saw them.

[00:57:12] Angela One in particular, I am barefoot and standing on top of a table.

[00:57:17] Jenna Oh, I missed that one.

[00:57:18] Angela It’s a good one. I’ll put it I’ll put it in our stories. Clearly, Brian and I were there to have a good time and we did. We had a blast.

[00:57:27] Jenna Well, this scene originally started with Michael ordering for he and Holly.

[00:57:33] Angela Yes, he was going to be fancy man on a date. He said this restaurant was business romantic.

[00:57:39] Jenna Here’s what he ordered. We’ll have the chowders to start. Then the lobster feast for two. And do you have a house red? And then he wants you to know house makes a great red.

[00:57:53] Angela Yes, I feel like, where did he- where did he come up with that? He heard that somewhere someone was like, the house wine is very good. The house makes a great red. And now he’s like he thinks the house is the winery.

[00:58:02] Jenna Yes. Well, Holly says she just wants a chef salad. No dressing.

[00:58:06] Angela With an iced tea.

[00:58:07] Jenna Yeah, she’s not going to have any house red. And then the waitress says to Michael, Do you still want the two lobsters? And Michael says, Yes, yes, I do,

[00:58:17] Angela Because now he’s a little embarrassed.

[00:58:18] Jenna So later in this scene, when you see Michael and he’s got two lobsters and a big bowl of soup and a red wine, this is why.

[00:58:27] Angela Yes, it’s at thirteen minutes, forty four seconds, you’ll see how he ordered double.

[00:58:32] Jenna Incidentally, on the Cooper’s menu, there is a recurring Tuesday special called Twin Tails and a Cup of Soup. And it is two lobster tails and a bread bowl of soup. And I am dying to know if this Tuesday special predated this episode of The Office or if they created this as a special after Michael ordered two lobster tails and a bowl of soup. I don’t know how to find out.

[00:58:57] Angela Well, we’ll have to go.

[00:58:58] Jenna Anyone? Cooper’s? Anyone?

[00:59:00] Angela Yeah, well, here’s the thing. We are going to Scranton.

[00:59:03] Jenna We are.

[00:59:04] Angela I can’t wait.

[00:59:06] Jenna Should we order two lobster tails and a bowl of soup? And the house red?

[00:59:10] Angela And the house red? Yes!

[00:59:12] Jenna We’re going to do so much eating in Scranton.

[00:59:15] Angela I know.

[00:59:15] Jenna Like the bulk of our trip there is just eating our way through Scranton.

[00:59:19] Angela I know.

[00:59:20] Jenna Well, this lunch, it just is not going well. They cannot get on the same page about what to do with Meredith.

[00:59:27] Angela No, they can’t. Michael was trying to just connect with Holly, get to know her. He asks her about where she grew up, Des Moines. We find out. She’s from Des Moines, Iowa. Right. Holly is being business. This is a business lunch and she feels gross about Meredith. They have this couplet of dialog that really sums it up. Holly says, I’m saying that Meredith’s behavior is unethical and a little icky and I don’t think I want to work in an environment where that sort of conduct is tolerated. Michael says, well, you have to tolerate a lot when you’re part of a family. And Holly delivers such a low blow, if you know Michael, she says it’s not a family, it’s a workplace. Oh, my gosh. The look on his face. Like how do they come back from this?

[01:00:14] Jenna Meanwhile, back at the office, Jim is really trying to trap Dwight into wasting time. He’s trying to get him to have personal conversations. He tries to explain an episode of Battlestar Galactica to Andy, purposely getting everything wrong and inserting all kinds of other characters-

[01:00:30] Angela All kinds of other characters. He says it’s like the crazy monsters and stuff. There’s klingons and wookies, he says there’s a guy named Dumbledore. They’re trying to get a ring back to Mordor. This is triggering every button in Dwight.

[01:00:44] Jenna I loved Rainn in the scene where he just was, and I also just loved the way John would hold up the stopwatch.

[01:00:52] Angela Oh, yeah, they were doing this beautiful, like, comedic dance. It was so good.

[01:00:56] Jenna It was so good. You know, we had a fan point out, Lindsay H said, I am so impressed with the camera focus when Jim is talking to Andy about Battlestar Galactica, slash Star Wars, slash Harry Potter, slash Lord of the Rings, slash Star Wars. Anyway, she says the camera focuses on Jim, then Dwight and back and forth so quickly and flawlessly. She just wanted to give kudos to our camera operators.

[01:01:21] Angela Yeah!

[01:01:22] Jenna Yeah. Because, I mean, John and Rainn are doing this dance, but they’re in it with the camera operator and that was flawless. I agree, Lindsey.

[01:01:32] Angela Me too.

[01:01:33] Jenna We also had a fan catch from Justin S. Jenna, I know you and Phyllis are both from St. Louis and I’m a big Cardinals fan myself. And I couldn’t help but notice that there is a Freebird on Phyllis’ desk over Dwight’s shoulder. And I was just wondering, how did the Freebird get there? Guys, I texted Phyllis about it.

[01:01:54] Angela Yeah?

[01:01:54] Jenna We don’t know. She said, oh, maybe that was when David Freese and Matt Holliday came to visit. And I was like, no, they haven’t come to visit yet. I’ll tell you guys that story later. That was amazing.

[01:02:08] Angela You guys were so excited.

[01:02:10] Jenna And I know they hadn’t visited yet because Ellie was with us when they visited. So Phyllis and I went back and forth and she’s like, I didn’t bring it in. She said, I don’t know who put it there. I didn’t put it there. Phyllis didn’t put it there. We don’t know who put it there. Well, Justin, I’m sorry. I’m going to try to get to the bottom of it, you know, answer pending.

[01:02:28] Angela Yeah. Jim has the talking head that Dwight hasn’t stopped working for a second. He even sneezed with his eyes open, which Jim was like, I didn’t know that was possible. You guys, he peed in a soda soda bottle. He peed under his desk. I mean, he is not going to waste any time.

[01:02:46] Jenna I had to know if you can sneeze with your eyes open.

[01:02:50] Angela You can’t.

[01:02:52] Jenna You can.

[01:02:53] Angela What?

[01:02:54] Jenna Yeah, Myth Busters did a whole story on it.

[01:02:56] Angela Myth Busters?

[01:02:58] Jenna And I watched it late last night when I suddenly had to know.

[01:03:04] Angela We both went on two random tangents. Just wait for mine.

[01:03:08] Jenna Is yours about the average amount of time someone has sex? Because I went on that tangent too.

[01:03:13] Angela Yes! Yes!

[01:03:15] Jenna Oh my gosh!

[01:03:18] Angela Yes okay because there is all of a sudden Dwight is like not wasting time, not wasting time. And then he comes back and Jim is like, nineteen minutes and forty eight seconds. What were you up to? And Dwight is like, none of your business, basically. And then it cuts to Angela Martin buttoning her blouse. Did you read the research on Business Insider?

[01:03:37] Jenna I read several articles at like midnight last night on this subject.

[01:03:41] Angela Me too. Our search history Oh my God, delete our search history. First of all, the one research I read about was fascinating because they gave five hundred couples stopwatches. It is as awkward as it sounds. They had to hit, start-.

[01:03:58] Jenna And stop. I don’t know how we talk about this, but I don’t know maybe parents if you’re listening with your kids

[01:04:04] Angela earmuffs for 30 seconds. Earmuffs.

[01:04:06] Jenna Yeah, they had to record their sex time over a four week period.

[01:04:13] Angela Yeah.

[01:04:13] Jenna And they had to press start on the stopwatch at the moment of penetration.

[01:04:19] Angela Oh. Oh God.

[01:04:21] Jenna And they had to press-.

[01:04:22] Both Stop at ejaculation.

[01:04:25] Angela We read the same article. Oh my God. You know what I found amazing is the range was from thirty three seconds to forty four minutes.

[01:04:36] Jenna Yeah.

[01:04:37] Angela That’s a huge huge variation.

[01:04:41] Jenna It is. And then what was really interesting to me was I read this whole article by a sex therapist who, after doing a bunch of research, broke down the ideal amount of penetration time in a sex act. I mean this is insane. I told Lee all last night, everything I read, he’s like, how are you sharing this on Office Ladies? I was like, I don’t know. But I found it so fascinating.

[01:05:08] Angela I know.

[01:05:08] Jenna So what she found was that in surveying the person being penetrated, that their ideal amount of penetration time in sex was anywhere from five to 11 minutes. But all of sex, they all wanted more than just penetration. So she deemed that like the ideal amount of sex, encompassing more than just that moment would be around nineteen minutes, and that it should consist of ten minutes of foreplay and nine minutes of actual intercourse, that she felt this was the bullseye after all of her research.

[01:05:53] Angela OK, well, something I discovered in my research is that of these five hundred couples surveyed, the average time was five point four minutes. And this was true across continents. I mean, literally, it’s a global thing. And this got me to thinking. Nineteen minutes and forty eight seconds.

[01:06:14] Jenna Yeah.

[01:06:15] Angela I did the math. I think it took them six minutes to get down to the warehouse,

[01:06:20] Jenna Six minutes to walk down a set of stairs?

[01:06:22] Angela Or take the elevator. It’s not close. They have to go in the elevator or stairs and they have to go down the corridor through the warehouse to that back room. Open it up.

[01:06:32] Jenna All right. So six minutes to get there. They need six minutes back.

[01:06:35] Angela That leaves them six minutes in the middle.

[01:06:38] Jenna Oh.

[01:06:38] Angela I think they had six minutes to shag.

[01:06:41] Jenna I mean, I think what we’ve discovered in all our research is you can have a really satisfying shag in six minutes.

[01:06:48] Angela By the way, this article went on to the evolution of sex. Why is there thrusting? It was fascinating. I was fascinated.

[01:06:58] Jenna Oh, the things we have learned.

[01:07:01] Angela Learned and shared with you all. So you’re welcome.

[01:07:06] Jenna Well, let’s get back to this Michael Holly story, OK? This whole lunch has really strained things between Michael and Holly. When he gets back, he has a talking head where he says he won’t even ride the elevator with her and then he throws her leftovers in the trash.

[01:07:22] Angela Yeah.

[01:07:23] Jenna And then up in the kitchen, he’s pouring himself some coffee. She puts her cup out. Not only does he not pour coffee in her cup, he takes the whole pot and walks out of the kitchen.

[01:07:34] Angela She called Dunder Mifflin a workplace, and it is his family. And you do not do that.

[01:07:40] Jenna You do not. If Holly wants to use the copier now, she’s going to have to wait for Michael to copy a plaque off the wall first.

[01:07:49] Angela Yeah, well, Holly has a talking head. Things are tense, people are suspicious of her. Her best friend in the office won’t even speak to her. So now we have a little window into Holly. She really sees Michael as her best friend.

[01:08:02] Jenna Now, Angela, in the script, there was a scene here where Michael calls Toby.

[01:08:06] Angela Yes.

[01:08:07] Jenna For help with Holly.

[01:08:08] Angela Yes, it’s in the deleted scenes.

[01:08:10] Jenna Oh, guys, it’s so good because Toby basically says at the end of all of this, oh, well, Michael, I think Holly is doing the right thing. And in fact, now that you’ve told me I’m obligated to report this Meredith incident to H.R. as well.

[01:08:25] Angela Yeah.

[01:08:27] Jenna But that’s how desperate Michael is, is he’s going to call Toby, who I guess is still in a hospital in Costa Rica,

[01:08:35] Angela and he’s still not nice to him. He calls Toby for help, but he’s still not nice.

[01:08:40] Jenna This is not the last H.R. rep that’s going to be involved. Kendall from Corporate has called and Holly’s going to come in Michael’s office and they’re going to discuss it with Kendall.

[01:08:51] Angela Yeah.

[01:08:52] Jenna We had a fan question from Meghan Q, who voices Kendall from corporate H.R.? Kendall was played by John Hartman. Now, the role of Kendall was first mentioned in the episode, The Job, when David Wallace mentions his dislike for the H.R. Rep Kendall during Jim’s job interview in New York.

[01:09:15] Angela Wow, that’s a major callback.

[01:09:17] Jenna I know, but we also brought him up again in Weight Loss, I guess. And here’s the thing. Kendall is going to come back two more times this season. He comes back in person in Stress Relief and Company Picnic. He’s always played by John Hartman. You might recognize John. He had roles in Mad Men, Arrested Development, The Good Place, Blackish, Space Force and Monk.

[01:09:42] Angela Oh, there it is.

[01:09:43] Jenna Of course.

[01:09:44] Angela There it is. Well, you think Kendall is going to get Holly’s back, right. And agree with her, but instead he just shuts her down, says he doesn’t really see this as a huge infraction. And what she needed to do was to get everyone through that binder. That was her job.

[01:10:02] Jenna Yeah, we just needed you to get signatures. Are you able to get signatures or not? Because every other branch got signatures.

[01:10:10] Angela And I think Michael feels badly for her in this moment.

[01:10:13] Jenna I feel badly for her.

[01:10:15] Angela I do too. She’s doing the right thing and corporate doesn’t have her back.

[01:10:19] Jenna So Holly is just going to go out to the bullpen and say, hey, guys, I have to finish this ethics training. She has to finish reading from the binder so she can say she did it. No one is giving her any respect.

[01:10:33] Angela Mm. Well, Michael’s going to step up. Because he, he does feel bad for her. So he goes out there and he goes, if you don’t get in there right now! He loses it.

[01:10:43] Jenna It’s so funny, everyone goes in, she reads from the binder and the look on Michael’s face as she’s like reading from the boring binder, he’s in love again.

[01:10:53] Angela Well, I don’t think he ever fell out of love. They had their first spat.

[01:10:56] Jenna I guess they did.

[01:10:57] Angela Yeah. Because Holly looks appreciative. They’re both like, OK, we’re back.

[01:11:02] Jenna We’re going to get through this. At the very end of this episode, we have a tag. Everyone’s in the break room. They’re eating steak that was clearly provided by Meredith. We had a fan question from Kelly W.

[01:11:16] Angela OK, Kelly, what is it?

[01:11:18] Jenna During the last scene when everyone’s eating steak in the break room, what is everyone actually eating? Is it prop food or actually real expensive steak? And Savi A wants to know, Angela, what were you eating since your character is a vegetarian?

[01:11:33] Angela I was eating potatoes.

[01:11:35] Jenna That’s what it looked like to me.

[01:11:36] Angela I was eating potatoes. That’s something we thought about. One of the things that Peter and Vartan shared is that our prop food was amazingly good food.

[01:11:45] Jenna Oh, yeah.

[01:11:45] Angela That they didn’t give us, like, kind of crappy food to eat in scenes. And Peter and Vartan would work with props, but I would have to think that Phil Shea and his team got us really good food from a restaurant.

[01:11:57] Jenna That was going to be my guess. Whenever I ate food in a scene it was delicious.

[01:12:01] Angela Yeah.

[01:12:01] Jenna So it was probably some really good steak.

[01:12:04] Angela Yeah.

[01:12:05] Jenna What a day at work. Hey guys, come in and eat the steak and ribs for an hour.

[01:12:10] Angela Angela, you can have these potatoes.

[01:12:12] Jenna Sorry, Ange. Well, there you have it. That’s Business Ethics.

[01:12:17] Angela Yeah. Thank you so much to Amy Ryan.

[01:12:20] Jenna And thank you to James O. Kerry for giving me the lowdown on Cooper’s.

[01:12:25] Angela And thank you to B.J. Novak for pitching Peter and Vartan and Sergio and Alan to do the DVD commentary. That was just so wonderful. If you guys love the show, you’ll love these commentaries.

[01:12:38] Jenna Well, I think on that note, might go have a volcano.

[01:12:43] Angela And I hope all of you guys have some hardcore love in your life.

[01:12:48] Jenna For approximately 19 minutes.

[01:12:50] Angela Or an average of six minutes.

[01:12:52] Jenna That would be fine. See you next week.

[01:12:55] Angela Bye guys.

[01:12:56] Jenna Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Codi Fischer. Our producer is Cassi Jerkins. Our sound engineer is Sam Kieffer, and our associate producer is Aynsley Bubbico.

[01:13:16] Angela Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

[01:13:19] Jenna For Ad free versions of Office Ladies go to Stitcher premium dotcom. For a free one month trial of Stitcher Premium, use code: Office.