EP. 82 — Employee Transfer

OFFICE-082-20210527-EmployeeTransfer-SKv02.mp3

[00:00:03] Jenna I’m Jenna Fischer.

[00:00:04] 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.

[00:00:24] Jenna Dun dun dun dun dun.

[00:00:29] Angela Oh, Michael,

[00:00:30] Jenna Michael.

[00:00:31] Angela Bless his heart. You guys today it’s Employee Transfer.

[00:00:36] Jenna It is Season five, episode six, written by Anthony Ferrell and directed by Dave Rodgers. We have lots to say.

[00:00:45] Angela There was a really good DVD commentary.

[00:00:47] Jenna I didn’t do any deep dives, though.

[00:00:50] Angela What?

[00:00:50] Jenna I’m sorry in advance for anyone who likes them. And you’re welcome to the people who hate them.

[00:00:53] Angela I need a minute. No deep dives.

[00:00:58] Jenna I have a summary.

[00:00:59] Angela I know you have a summary and fast facts, but we also reached out to a ton of people. So we have lots of good trivia.

[00:01:05] Jenna We did. That is very true. I will give you my summary.

[00:01:09] Angela Do it.

[00:01:10] Jenna Pam is embarrassed when no one else at corporate wears a costume on Halloween.

[00:01:15] Angela That is the worst.

[00:01:16] Jenna It was so funny. It was so funny to do. And it gets me every time. Holly and Michael deal with Holly’s transfer to the Nashua branch. Remember when David Wallace last week saw them kissing after the auction?

[00:01:32] Angela Yeah, yeah. He was like, I’m not having another Jan and Michael on my hands.

[00:01:37] Jenna No, no depositions.

[00:01:38] Angela Not on my watch.

[00:01:39] Jenna No. Also, Dwight tries to get under Andy’s skin by applying to Cornell.

[00:01:44] Angela I love that storyline.

[00:01:46] Jenna Same. And finally, Pam is going to team up with Jim’s brothers to play a prank on Jim.

[00:01:53] Angela I’m telling you, those Halperts and the pranks.

[00:01:56] Jenna You know how I feel about pranks.

[00:01:57] Angela I know how you feel about them in real life.

[00:01:59] Jenna The same as how I feel about tickling.

[00:02:01] Angela I know. But Pam is like, sign me up. Let’s prank away.

[00:02:04] Jenna I know Pam loves a prank. That’s why Pam married Jim.

[00:02:08] Angela That’s right.

[00:02:09] Jenna Jenna would not marry Jim.

[00:02:10] Angela No.

[00:02:11] Jenna Because there’d be too much pranking. All right. Fast fact number one, new writer alert. Anthony Ferrell.

[00:02:20] Angela Yeah.

[00:02:21] Jenna Anthony was with us for season five. He is a writer and a comedian. This was the first episode that he wrote for the show. But I didn’t know this till I looked it up. The first thing he wrote was actually the Kevin’s loan webisodes.

[00:02:35] Angela That’s right. He wrote a series of webisodes and some of our writers got to break off and do that. I would have loved to done that. I would have loved to written a webisode.

[00:02:43] Jenna I feel like you had a lot of freedom on the webisodes.

[00:02:46] Angela Yeah, you did.

[00:02:47] Jenna They were pretty fun. Which reminds me, we should break down the webisodes sometime?

[00:02:52] Angela I mean, you don’t even have to make it into a question. We definitely should. The accountants, the webisodes won an Emmy.

[00:02:58] Jenna An Emmy. I’m so jealous that you have an actual Emmy.

[00:03:02] Angela I know, lady.

[00:03:02] Jenna In your house.

[00:03:03] Angela I know. It’s very pointy.

[00:03:06] Jenna Yeah, those wings are pointy.

[00:03:07] Angela It’s pointy.

[00:03:08] Jenna Angela, do you want to share that we got in touch with Anthony?

[00:03:11] Angela Yes, we were emailing with Anthony. We had the wrong email. Aaron Shure to the rescue.

[00:03:16] Jenna Thank you, Aaron.

[00:03:17] Angela Thank you, Aaron got us in touch. It was so great to reconnect with him. He and his family are back in Toronto where he’s from, and they’re doing awesome. He shared with me that he is the showrunner for a show called The Parker Andersens Slash Amelia Parker. And it’s actually two shows about the same characters from two different perspectives. I love that.

[00:03:37] Jenna It’s so cool.

[00:03:38] Angela He shared a lot of stuff with us. We’re going to sprinkle it through the episode. But one of the things he said was before he got The Office, he was a comedian, but he still needed that day job and he was working at Countrywide Home Loans. And he was so excited when he got the job as writer on The Office because it meant he could quit Countrywide home loans.

[00:03:58] Jenna He quit like the day before he started in the writers room, right?

[00:04:03] Angela Yeah, he was working at Countrywide Home Loans. And then literally, like the next day, it was like, I’m going to go write now on a TV show. But all of that experience paid off because he was often called on in the writers room to pitch like those very minutia office space storylines. And he sent us in audio clips. We’ll share those and some other trivia he gave us.

[00:04:24] Jenna It’s interesting because actually not a lot of our writers had real office work experience. So he was a find. This was awesome. To have him in there.

[00:04:32] Angela Yeah. Great perspective.

[00:04:35] Jenna All right. Fast fact number two, new director alert.

[00:04:39] Angela Yes. Our very own Dave Rodgers.

[00:04:42] Jenna Our editor.

[00:04:43] Angela Yeah.

[00:04:44] Jenna If you guys haven’t listened to his extended interview in our Revisited episode, you should check it out, because he is an amazing person and knows so much about the show.

[00:04:52] Angela I dare say I don’t know if anyone else knows the show as well as him.

[00:04:57] Jenna You should dare to say that.

[00:04:58] Angela I dare say it then.

[00:04:59] Jenna Say it.

[00:04:59] Angela I dare say it.

[00:05:00] Jenna She said it.

[00:05:01] Angela I said it.

[00:05:02] Jenna We were also able to get in touch with Dave. He shared with me that he was so nervous to direct. Very excited, but he had a ton of anxiety. He said he had a panic attack the night before filming, but he just pushed through. I was really curious, like what the most challenging thing was coming from editing and then directing.

[00:05:24] Angela Oh, that’s a good question.

[00:05:25] Jenna He said the toughest thing about this episode was that there were so many locations. There were these multiple storylines. Michael had this huge emotional journey to go on.

[00:05:36] Angela Yeah. And a physical journey.

[00:05:38] Jenna Yes. He said that the most challenging thing for him was just the pace of shooting. And he said it’s like it- there’s one thing if you have a ton of scenes in the bullpen and you have to make your day, but it’s a whole other thing if after you finish a scene, you have to pick up the entire crew and all the gear and move to another place and reset up because that eats up so much of your on camera shoot time. Yeah, but he did feel that coming from editing gave him an advantage because he just knew inherently the kind of stuff that got used on the show. He had watched so many directors do shots that we’re just never going to make it in.

[00:06:17] Angela Right.

[00:06:18] Jenna So he said he was able to be really, really efficient and he got to edit this episode.

[00:06:24] Angela Oh, that’s great, because how hard would it be as an editor to then direct and then give it away?

[00:06:28] Jenna I know, right?

[00:06:29] Angela Yeah, I would think.

[00:06:30] Jenna He said that Dean Holland assembled a few scenes and then Dave took over and he did a full assembly. He did like a director’s cut and he said not much changed.

[00:06:40] Angela I doubt it.

[00:06:41] Jenna And he was really, really proud that basically it was his director’s cut that went to air.

[00:06:47] Angela Nice.

[00:06:47] Jenna Well, I have more stuff from Dave, too, so we can share that. My fast fact number three is fun facts about Nashua.

[00:06:56] Angela Let’s hear them.

[00:06:56] Jenna I mean Holly has to go live in Nashua. Don’t we want to know more about it?

[00:07:00] Angela I do.

[00:07:01] Jenna Good. I’m going to tell you.

[00:07:03] Angela OK.

[00:07:04] Jenna Holly is lucky because Nashua was named the best place to live in America two times in an annual survey by Money magazine. And it is the only city to ever win that ranking twice.

[00:07:17] Angela Holy crap, Nashua.

[00:07:19] Jenna It was in nineteen eighty seven and nineteen ninety eight.

[00:07:22] Angela Going strong at the end of the 90s.

[00:07:24] Jenna Really.

[00:07:25] Angela What else you got?

[00:07:26] Jenna Russian dressing

[00:07:28] Angela Originated in Nashua?

[00:07:29] Jenna Yeah, the salad dressing. Russian dressing.

[00:07:33] Angela You’re kidding.

[00:07:33] Jenna No.

[00:07:33] Angela What? You said you didn’t have any deep dives. You were foolin. This is a mini deep dive on Nashua.

[00:07:38] Jenna OK, you’re right, it kind of is. And also on Russian dressing. It was created by a grocer named James Colburn. He started mixing it up, it looks like around 1910?

[00:07:50] Angela OK.

[00:07:51] Jenna And he started selling it at his grocery store under the name Colburn’s Mayonnaise Salad Dressing.

[00:07:56] Angela Well, that’s not a catchy title, so I can see why they had zhush it up.

[00:08:00] Jenna Soon he started manufacturing it on a bigger scale and shipping it around to other places. And he got so rich that he was able to retire.

[00:08:10] Angela Whoa.

[00:08:11] Jenna In nineteen twenty four.

[00:08:13] Angela Wow.

[00:08:13] Jenna So just fourteen years of selling the salad dressing and he was like peace out,

[00:08:19] Angela Should we make a salad dressing? What’s our salad dressing?

[00:08:22] Jenna What would be in it? What do you like in a salad dressing?

[00:08:25] Angela Well you had me at mayonnaise.

[00:08:28] Jenna OK, so we’ll do some kind of mayo based salad dressing.

[00:08:33] Angela I also like lemon. Do those mix? I don’t know.

[00:08:35] Jenna I don’t know because I was going to say maybe like a spicy mustard. Because I know they do a honey mustard salad dressing, but has anyone paired a spicy mustard with a mayo yet?

[00:08:45] Angela Probably.

[00:08:45] Jenna We need to cut this out. We need to cut this out because we’re on to something and we’ll never do it. And someone else will and then will be mad for the rest of our lives.

[00:08:54] Angela Office Ladies. But we need to give it a really long, clunky name. Office Ladies creamy mayonnaise spicy mustard delight.

[00:09:02] Jenna Yes. And then later

[00:09:04] Angela Delight’s got to go on the end. I don’t care what it is.

[00:09:06] Jenna Later we’ll call it like Dutch dressing. We’ll just pick a country, Denmark dressing.

[00:09:12] Angela We’ll just pick a random country?

[00:09:13] Jenna Pick a country.

[00:09:14] Angela OK.

[00:09:14] Jenna This is the formula.

[00:09:15] Angela OK.

[00:09:16] Jenna And then we’ll retire in fourteen years.

[00:09:18] Angela OK.

[00:09:19] Jenna All right. My final fun fact about Nashua is also about Amy Ryan. Her character in Gone Baby Gone.

[00:09:27] Angela Yeah.

[00:09:28] Jenna She is being interrogated.

[00:09:30] Angela Yeah.

[00:09:30] Jenna About a possible drug deal.

[00:09:32] Angela Yeah.

[00:09:33] Jenna And she admits that she did in fact make a drug run to Nashua.

[00:09:38] Angela No.

[00:09:39] Jenna And she made one hundred and fifty thousand dollars on this drug run.

[00:09:43] Angela Amy, what is it. All your roles lead back to Nashua.

[00:09:45] Jenna I don’t know.

[00:09:46] Angela Love it. I now need to Google Nashua.

[00:09:49] Jenna Why? I already told you everything you need to know.

[00:09:51] Angela I need.

[00:09:51] Jenna There’s only three things to know about Nashua and I’ve told you what they are.

[00:09:54] Angela Well, I need to Google image Nashua.

[00:09:57] Jenna It’s really cute.

[00:09:58] Angela I’m a big fan of the Google image button, guys. The button. Like I say it like it’s an actual button on my computer. I would love it if it was a button on my computer. Less clicking.

[00:10:08] Jenna Yeah.

[00:10:09] Angela OK, well, before we get into.

[00:10:12] Jenna That’s our next invention.

[00:10:13] Angela Yeah. Like computers for old people, before we get into Employee Transfer, I want to share that there is another great DVD commentary for this episode from our crew and I want to let them introduce themselves, because I’m going to be bringing up some of the trivia they share, here is the DVD crew commentary for this episode.

[00:10:31] Jenna Am I going to cry again?

[00:10:33] Dave Rogers By the way, I’m Dave Rogers. I’m an Emmy Award winning editor on the show. And this is my directorial debut. And to my left here is-.

[00:10:41] Kyle Alexander I’m Kyle Alexander, location manager for the show.

[00:10:44] Anthony Ferrell I’m Anthony Ferrell, writer of this fantastic episode.

[00:10:47] Veda Semarne I’m Veda Semarne, script supervisor. I’ve been on the show for 99 episodes now.

[00:10:52] Phil Shea And I’m  Philip Shea, the property master, and I have also been on the show since the first season.

[00:10:57] Chuck Canzoneri I’m Chuck Canzoneri. And this was my first full year as a production assistant on the funniest show on TV.

[00:11:03] Jenna Oh, my gosh, I love it.

[00:11:05] Angela I know. I love hearing their voices. So whenever there’s a crew commentary, I just want to let them introduce themselves because it just brings back so many feelings just hearing their voices.

[00:11:15] Jenna When Dave introduced himself as the Emmy winning editor, it reminded me, Angela, that we were at that awards show, remember? We read off the people.

[00:11:26] Angela We co presented.

[00:11:28] Jenna Yes. And then we got to give the Emmy to our own editors and then we partied all night with them.

[00:11:33] Angela That was so much fun. That was one of the most fun award shows.

[00:11:37] Jenna Absolutely.

[00:11:38] Angela Yeah.

[00:11:38] Jenna Without a doubt.

[00:11:39] Angela Yeah. So that is who does the DVD commentary for this episode. I’ll sprinkle in tidbits they share. And then also you guys, the bloopers for this episode are some of my most favorite of all bloopers. And you can’t find them online. You know, they’re not all there. So the bonus for this episode on the DVD box set is so great. I wish all of the driving scenes had been left in because they are all gold.

[00:12:04] Jenna I am bummed because I have every DVD set for every season except this one.

[00:12:10] Angela What?

[00:12:11] Jenna I don’t know where my Season five DVD went.

[00:12:14] Angela Oh, lady.

[00:12:15] Jenna I know. Well, while we take a break, maybe I’ll order that DVD, Ange.

[00:12:19] Angela Yeah.

[00:12:20] Jenna So I can watch these bloopers.

[00:12:21] Angela These bloopers are my favorite. Some of my absolute favorite.

[00:12:24] Jenna All right, I’ll do it. We’ll be right back.

[00:12:29] Angela All right, we are back and you guys, it is Halloween at Dunder Mifflin.

[00:12:33] Jenna It sure is. This is our Halloween cold open.

[00:12:36] Angela Not through the rest of the episode, just in the cold open.

[00:12:38] Jenna Well, we found out why.

[00:12:40] Angela Let’s play Anthony’s first clip. He talks all about it.

[00:12:43] Anthony Ferrell The show was initially the entire episode was supposed to be Halloween. So everyone was in their costumes for the entire episode. So Andy was a kitten initially, I think. And the whole B story with Dwight being in the Cornell sweater, that was his costume, an accidental costume initially. And that’s where that story came from. So costume wise, we had a thing where once we decided we were going to just put the Halloween stuff in the cold open, we rewrote the cold open. And that was mostly led by Lee and Gene. And that’s where the idea for the three Jokers came from. That was obviously a situation that year with that costume being super popular and they just totally made the most of that situation. It was amazing, the Charlie Chaplin thing that was actually a full like runner for you, Jenna. We had initially in the first draft where you were going to be- it was Halloween all day so it was just going to be you running around the New York office as the only person dressed for Halloween, trying not to look like Hitler. And it was a fun little runner for you. But I think the story we got eventually with Jim’s brothers and that beautiful thing with, you know, you taking the heat like that around them and having that nice little moment, I think that that to me felt more right. And I love that we ended up going there with the story.

[00:13:56] Jenna Yeah, it was going to be a whole Halloween episode, and then they changed it up.

[00:14:00] Angela Yes, Anthony shared in the DVD that all those Halloween costumes would actually be distracting from all the other storylines. So they just made it the cold open. And I have a costume breakdown.

[00:14:11] Jenna Oh, good. Because I have some good details about some of the costumes.

[00:14:14] Angela OK.

[00:14:15] Jenna What’s everyone wearing, Angela?

[00:14:16] Angela So we have the scripts thanks to James-A-Pedia. So per the script, here are some details. Stanley, in the script it says is wearing a creature from the Black Lagoon rubber mask with his regular suit.

[00:14:29] Jenna OK.

[00:14:30] Angela Creed, per the script, is an amazing joker from Batman, whereas Kevin is a, quote, lame joker. And in the script says Dwight is also a joker. Kelly is Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. Ryan is Gordon Gekko from Wall Street. Very fitting for Ryan. Oscar is Uncle Sam. Meredith, a cheerleader. Phyllis is Raggedy Ann. Andy, per the script, it says he’s dressed as a cat with whiskers on his face. Angela has brought back her cat costume.

[00:15:04] Jenna Yes.

[00:15:04] Angela Always a classic. And Jim is just wearing a nametag that says Dave. And of course, Pam, the solo Halloween costume wearer at corporate is dressed as Charlie Chaplin.

[00:15:15] Jenna Yes, I reached out to our wardrobe designer, Alicia Reycraft.

[00:15:19] Angela Oh, great.

[00:15:20] Jenna So starting this season, Alicia took over for Carey Bennett. Alicia was amazing, particularly, I think, at building wardrobe from scratch. My memories of her when I would visit her in the wardrobe trailer were that she always had like one of those fabric mannequins with, like, swatches on it, pinned on it or on her wall.

[00:15:41] Angela I am telling you, she was always pinning something to something.

[00:15:44] Jenna Yes.

[00:15:44] Angela And then standing back and looking at it and then moving a swatch here up and down.

[00:15:49] Jenna She said that with this episode, she had to really ride the line of designing wardrobe, but also making sure that the costumes look like things that we could have put together ourselves.

[00:16:01] Angela Right. The idea is that if Kevin is going to dress like the Joker, it’d be Kevin’s effort and feel like something Kevin had to put together.

[00:16:08] Jenna Yes, like you said, the script said that Creed’s joker was supposed to be the best version of the Joker. Kevin’s was supposed to be lame.

[00:16:16] Angela And they’re The Dark Knight Joker.

[00:16:18] Jenna Yes, that’s what Alicia said. They were supposed to be based on the Heath Ledger joker. And so she had a picture and she made a shopping list and she still had her shopping list.

[00:16:29] Angela Stop it. I love her.

[00:16:30] Jenna This is what it said. They had to go shop for a vest with a high neck center front- green for Creed, not for Kevin.

[00:16:40] Angela Because Creed got it right and Kevin didn’t.

[00:16:42] Jenna Correct. They needed a gray or dark lilac patterned shirt, green or olive tie with a pattern. Pinstripe Navy pants pleated for Kevin, but flat front for Creed, Argyle socks, black Oxford shoes for Creed. But Kevin is to wear his regular character shoes. She said the overall direction in shopping for Kevin was that all of the clothes they purchased should look like they came from his closet. And the direction for Creed was that Creed went out and picked it out specifically for Halloween.

[00:17:17] Angela Yeah.

[00:17:17] Jenna But for Dwight, she said they went with a nod to the Jack Nicholson version of The Joker.

[00:17:23] Angela I thought something was different when I re-watched it because the way they drew the smile.

[00:17:28] Jenna Yes.

[00:17:28] Angela Did not look like the Heath Ledger joker.

[00:17:30] Jenna That’s how they were like, how do we do three jokers? But it’s not all the same costume are the same look. But she also shared with me that she brought in a rack of clothes and that Rainn really put together his costume from everything she had bought, which tracks with when we talk to Carey and Carey Bennett said that Rainn was always really invested in what his character wore.

[00:17:51] Angela That’s awesome.

[00:17:53] Jenna So let’s see what’s next. We got a lot of questions about Andy’s kitten costume. A lot of people wrote in to say they thought it looked a little bit like- my favorite was Katie L said it looks like an off brand Rum Tum Tugger costume from the musical Cats. She said, In my mind, I like to think Andy was in a school production of Cats and he still had his costume. Katie L, you would be right on there. Dave told me that Greg was very involved in Ed’s costume.

[00:18:25] Angela Really?

[00:18:25] Jenna Yes. That he wanted it to look like it was from the musical Cats and he went over the top to please Angela.

[00:18:33] Angela Right.

[00:18:33] Jenna He was not just going to draw whiskers on his face guys. Alicia said she showed Greg a bunch of photos from the Broadway musical of Cats, and Greg picked his favorites. But she did not based this cat on any one character. It was a meld. She built that whole costume from scratch. She bought a unitard and hand painted it. She used to do textile painting. I mean. That’s amazing, and then she found another email that she shared with me, it was an email to her crew detailing how to build the little like fur diaper thing that he’s wearing.

[00:19:09] Angela oh god.

[00:19:09] Jenna What is it? Right?

[00:19:10] Angela Yeah, I don’t know but it looks like fur underwear. And there’s also like a rope belt and a tail and oh, my goodness.

[00:19:17] Jenna Yes. She said, please make a loincloth using a thong or small brief underwear as a base. And then swatch felts and wool crepe and heavy knits on top and please get faux fur for some gloves. So amazing. So that is how she put together all of those costumes, which were really amazing. And I remember my costume. We did like Pam went to a store and rented a tux, basically.

[00:19:45] Angela Well, I took a lot of photos this day. I have some great ones of you and Rainn. You guys were hanging out by your trailer. I was walking by you guys in my cat costume and I see Rainn as the Joker talking to Jenna as Charlie Chaplin, just casually hanging out. So I took pictures. They’re some of my favorite.

[00:20:03] Jenna Well, I think he put that one in his book.

[00:20:05] Angela I gave it to him.

[00:20:06] Jenna Yeah.

[00:20:07] Angela That’s from me.

[00:20:07] Jenna I loved this episode, Angela, because I had been away for a very long time at Pratt. But, you know, the corporate offices were over on the warehouse set.

[00:20:17] Angela We never got to see you.

[00:20:18] Jenna But you did on this day.

[00:20:20] Angela Exactly.

[00:20:20] Jenna And I got to participate in the Halloween, which was always one of my favorite things on our show. And I would have been really bummed if I didn’t get to see everybody in their costumes. But I got to be in hair makeup

[00:20:32] Angela and we were in there a long time. Me not so long, but oh my gosh, Ed had to come in really early.

[00:20:37] Jenna Yeah.

[00:20:37] Angela And so did Phyllis, like there was a lot of makeup there.

[00:20:41] Jenna Well my hair was not easy to wash out, I’ll tell you that.

[00:20:43] Angela Or your eyebrows. I felt bad for your poor eyebrows.

[00:20:47] Jenna Yeah. It was a real grease paint.

[00:20:49] Angela They shellacked you.

[00:20:50] Jenna Yeah.

[00:20:50] Angela I have a few little background catches for this cold open. I want you guys to know that at forty four seconds when Kevin is annoyed that Creed is such a good Joker, he brushes past me and knocks me over. This was like a little running bit Brian and I would have that if Kevin bumped into Angela, she’d go flying. It was like our own personal bit that cracked us up to no end. When he did it, one of my cat ears fell forward and didn’t come back up and I could feel it laying on top of my head. And I was trying not to laugh. And if you go to forty four seconds, you’ll see that Angela’s ear flops forward.

[00:21:25] Jenna I want you to know that three people that I reached out to on this episode pointed out that moment to me.

[00:21:30] Angela I know. I know they talked about it in the commentary too.

[00:21:33] Jenna I think it’s gone down in the lore of this episode.

[00:21:36] Angela I know. And then the other thing was, you guys, they really let Ed as that cat play around and mess with John. And in one take, Ed, as Andy came up to Jim and rubbed on his leg, like kind of rubbed on him like a cat and the two of them lost it. It’s in the bloopers, but they had a lot of fun with that. One of my favorite moments is when Andy- it says in the script, Andy walks back to his desk smugly. And Ed’s like sashay in that cat costume cracked me up. You guys know we love this fake elevator in our lobby, the Dunder Mifflin lobby. We’ve talked about it. Two wooden doors and a guy pulling a rope.

[00:22:16] Jenna Yep.

[00:22:16] Angela On the side.

[00:22:17] Jenna And they add all the sound effects later.

[00:22:19] Angela Add it all in. Well, in the script, when Rainn as Dwight arrives and the Joker outfit, he just was supposed to hop in the elevator and he was supposed to, a la the Joker say, and here we go, and the doors would shut, but it was just kind of falling flat. So they came up with this alt about the magic trick of the pencil disappearing.

[00:22:37] Jenna Yeah.

[00:22:38] Angela And it wasn’t really working still. And so Anthony pitched, what if the doors close as he’s saying the line, and then he opens them back up to finish the sentence. And they said they played around with this for a bit with the doors opening and closing, which you and I know means that there was someone working that pulley really hard. And that’s how they found this moment. And I thought that was really fun.

[00:23:00] Jenna That is awesome.

[00:23:01] Angela Those things that happened on the fly like that in the moment, I love to hear about.

[00:23:06] Jenna Now it’s time to get into the episode. We’re down in the warehouse. They are loading up a big truck so that they can take Holly to Nashua.

[00:23:15] Angela Yes.

[00:23:16] Jenna We got a fan question.

[00:23:17] Angela OK?

[00:23:18] Jenna That is very funny to me. Two people.

[00:23:21] Angela OK.

[00:23:22] Jenna Ian and Mary S wrote in to say, did Holly live in the warehouse? Isn’t it odd that this road trip started from the office rather than from her home?

[00:23:35] Angela This is such a good catch.

[00:23:38] Jenna It’s true. Where is this stuff coming from?

[00:23:42] Angela Oh, my gosh. I guess we have to justify it that they went to her apartment, packed it up, and then why did they drive to the warehouse? Why not just leave?

[00:23:51] Jenna This piggybacks very nicely on a question that I had along with Erin S and Amanda E. What is Holly wearing on the day she is moving? She is dressed in her work clothes, same as Pam driving to Pratt.

[00:24:05] Angela I know. I know.

[00:24:05] Jenna What is that? Michael is casual.

[00:24:06] Angela Michael is casual. He’s got his little casual little zippy jacket.

[00:24:10] Jenna Yes. Also, they pointed out, I don’t think it looks like she had any intention of helping move any of her own belongings. She is not dressed for a move.

[00:24:20] Angela No, she’s not. Why couldn’t she be casual? What’s happening?

[00:24:23] Jenna I thought these were good catches. You know, I talked to Dave about this and he said that during the prep for this episode, they brought him a bunch of trucks to look at and they were all giant 18 wheeler moving trucks. And he was like, how am I going to film with that?

[00:24:42] Angela How do I tow it?

[00:24:43] Jenna What am I doing? But he said he loves this truck that they found. It looked really realistic. He also just loved that the back was open because then when you got shots that, you know, the farther shots of them going down the road, just like you really felt the move.

[00:25:00] Angela Yeah.

[00:25:00] Jenna Because you could see her bed. You could see the stuff.

[00:25:02] Angela Right. They said that they wanted the table hanging off the front, like in the bubble wrap.

[00:25:07] Jenna I love it.

[00:25:08] Angela I loved it too. Phil props, you know, we love Phil props, he shared that Anthony and Dave really wanted Michael to have packed all kinds of crazy things for the road trip. Like him and Holly are little kids, like the finger puppets and the cat’s in the cradle and the movies to watch. You guys, a lot of those are in the deleted scenes. I mean-

[00:25:25] Jenna Aw. Of them doing it in the van.

[00:25:28] Angela Of them doing it. And my absolute favorite is the two of them, the windows are down and they’re watching a movie and they are pissing themselves laughing. They are laughing so hard and Darryl looks miserable. And Darryl takes a hard turn on purpose and the laptop that’s playing the movie goes flying out the window.

[00:25:46] Jenna I remember that.

[00:25:47] Angela It is so funny. I am so bummed it didn’t make it in. Dave said they spent three hours on that gag and finally had to just let it go. They said every time Craig turned the computer would slide and never go out the window. It only went out the window one time.

[00:26:04] Jenna Oh my Gosh.

[00:26:05] Angela But it’s in the bloopers on the DVD. And it’s so funny.

[00:26:09] Jenna We had a fan catch from a couple of people from Erica S and Mary F. And I have to say, they’re making a good point.

[00:26:17] Angela What?

[00:26:18] Jenna So it said repeatedly in Goodbye, Toby, that, you know, she’s coming in to train for this new position and that they only allowed one day for training. And when she’s on the ferris wheel with Michael, she talks about how she was unable to be promoted at her former company. Former company.

[00:26:38] Angela Right, right.

[00:26:39] Jenna But then in this episode, it says she’s being transferred back to Nashua as if she’s been a Dunder Mifflin employee all along.

[00:26:48] Angela I don’t know, guys.

[00:26:49] Jenna I mean, I think they got a continuity error there.

[00:26:52] Angela Oh, yeah. Here’s one of the things I was curious about. Why would Darryl agree to drive Michael and Holly- be in a car with Michael and Holly for seven hours? Well, there was a talking head in the script that didn’t make it in that explained this. Darryl said, I’m driving them up for five times what I would have made it work. I thought I made a good deal. Then I realized I’m going to be trapped in a truck with Michael all day. But he did earn a lot of money.

[00:27:21] Jenna So Michael paid him is why.

[00:27:23] Angela They paid him. Yeah.

[00:27:24] Jenna OK, that does make more sense. Well, Michael is not the only person who’s leaving for the day. Jim comes walking out of the building. He’s saying goodbye to them. Right. And we find out that Jim is going to go to New York and he’s going to have lunch with Pam and his two brothers. So we set up that storyline. And I’m bringing this up because at three minutes, twenty four seconds, Jim is holding the key chain that he got in the Yankee swap Christmas party from Oscar back in season two.

[00:27:52] Angela Oh, my gosh. What a great tiny detail.

[00:27:56] Jenna Yeah.

[00:27:56] Angela I love that.

[00:27:57] Jenna Phil Shea.

[00:27:58] Angela Phil Shea. Man. Well, as Jim and Michael are having this little scene in the parking lot, Holly would have said goodbye to everyone in the bullpen. It was a deleted scene. Jenna I laughed so hard in the scene. I was really glad I’m way deep behind the partition. It’s a series of people saying goodbye to her, but my absolute favorite was Oscar. Oscar Nunez is so good at like being the character that rains on your parade. But he’s just being reasonable, right? So he’s like, you know, well, good luck. And she’s like, well, I won’t be that far. And then he goes on to say all of this and he just slowly, slowly rains on her parade. Can you play it?

[00:28:42] Oscar We’ll miss you.

[00:28:43] Holly Oh, well, I’ll be around.

[00:28:45] Oscar Isn’t it a seven hour drive?

[00:28:47] Holly It’s not that bad. If I’m really jonesing to see you guys I can always fly.

[00:28:52] Oscar I don’t know if it’ll be shorter to fly. You have to drive to Boston, right, that’s an hour and a half. Get there an hour before the flight, now you’re up two and a half hours. The flight to Philadelphia is an hour, 15. It’s another two and a half hour drive to Scranton, assuming there’s no traffic. Because if you-.

[00:29:07] Holly Well, I just wanted to say goodbye.

[00:29:08] Oscar OK.

[00:29:10] Angela It made me laugh so hard.

[00:29:12] Jenna I just want to say goodbye.

[00:29:14] Angela Right. Right. But like, she’s trying to make, like, it’s not going to be that bad. And he’s like, oh, I don’t know about that. Like, that person Oscar was so good at being that person.

[00:29:25] Jenna So it keeps coming up in this episode that it is seven hours from Scranton to Nashua.

[00:29:30] Angela Did you Google it?

[00:29:31] Jenna It’s not true.

[00:29:33] Angela How far is it?

[00:29:33] Jenna Less than five.

[00:29:35] Angela What?

[00:29:36] Jenna It’s such a big difference.

[00:29:37] Angela Why didn’t anyone look that up in the writer’s room?

[00:29:39] Jenna I don’t know, but it’s only like four hours and forty five minutes.

[00:29:44] Angela Are you kidding me?

[00:29:45] Jenna I’m not kidding you.

[00:29:46] Angela What roads were they taking? Are there new freeways?

[00:29:50] Jenna There were some, like, fan theories that it took them seven hours in that big truck. But that’s not how we present it in this episode. We present it like, how are they ever going to see each other? Like Holly says, even if you leave right after work, Michael, you won’t even get here till after midnight.

[00:30:08] Angela And then we’ll just have one day together.

[00:30:10] Jenna And you’ll have to go back. But it’s not true. They really scared themselves.

[00:30:14] Angela I mean, at four hours, they’re in the middle of nowhere. That’s how we sell it.

[00:30:19] Jenna Exactly.

[00:30:19] Angela Oh, wow.

[00:30:20] Jenna I know. So anyway, I just wanted to say that I also did check the train schedule. For a reason I can’t explain, it takes over twelve hours on the train.

[00:30:30] Angela Maybe our writers checked the train schedule.

[00:30:32] Jenna I don’t know. A lot of stops though I guess.

[00:30:35] Angela My gosh.

[00:30:37] Jenna Yeah I know. Are you checking my work? You got your phone out. She is checking my work!

[00:30:42] Angela I’m not checking.

[00:30:43] Jenna What do you think I don’t know how to Google Scranton to Nashua?

[00:30:46] Angela No I’m very curious-.

[00:30:47] Jenna After all of my great information I’ve given you about rabies-

[00:30:51] Angela Can I tell you something right now?

[00:30:53] Jenna What? I’m doing it too. We’re both googling Scranton to Nashua. There it is. Five hours. It’s three hundred and eleven miles. Done.

[00:31:03] Angela You know what’s amazing is that a lot of people have written about this.

[00:31:06] Jenna I know there’s a whole Reddit thread.

[00:31:08] Angela I know. I’m looking at the Reddit thread.

[00:31:09] Jenna See?

[00:31:10] Angela OK, well, this shouldn’t have broken them up.

[00:31:14] Jenna It really shouldn’t have.

[00:31:16] Angela They should have picked a further branch. OK, well, all right.

[00:31:20] Jenna Speaking of all of these driving scenes, should we get into it a little bit? We’ll come back. Stuff is happening back at the office with Dwight and Andy, but we’ll get back to it.

[00:31:28] Angela Should we do the driving? Let’s do it.

[00:31:30] Jenna Let’s get to the driving. Sam.

[00:31:39] Both All night long. If you’re going my way I want drive it all night long.

[00:31:52] Angela Tom Cochran,

[00:31:54] Jenna Okay, according to James A. Pedia, they had two days and a little more, like two days and a half to shoot the driving scenes. They shot mostly on the 118 freeway, a little bit on Burbank Boulevard. That’s how we made it look like the East Coast. Some tidbits from Dave Rogers, they filmed this using lipstick cameras in the car and for the most part used a tow car. So they had a big old truck that pulled the truck. Craig was not actually driving. So Dave told me that it was over 100 degrees. The days they were shooting.

[00:32:30] Angela 104 is what they said in the commentary.

[00:32:33] Jenna And he, Randall Einhorn, our DP, Paul Feig and Veda had to sit in the back of the tow car-.

[00:32:41] Angela Under a tent.

[00:32:43] Jenna Yes, like a black box tent where they could see monitors showing them what was happening inside the car. They had little walkie talkies so that they could talk to Amy and Steve and Craig. He said Paul Feig started removing layers of his suit because, you know, Paul used to wear like a three piece suit every day. He said they were really jealous because Randall Einhorn wore

[00:33:07] Angela the cooling vest.

[00:33:08] Jenna Yes.

[00:33:09] Angela Yeah.

[00:33:09] Jenna The cooling vest that Steve Carell had worn.

[00:33:12] Angela Yeah, Veda said inside the tent with five monitors, all the heat was trapped in there. She said it felt like it was two hundred degrees in there.

[00:33:20] Jenna Dave sent me some pictures.

[00:33:22] Angela Oh, no. Were they like all melting?

[00:33:24] Jenna They were. They’re- they looked so hot. It was crazy. Yeah, so they are driving, they are singing the song over and over again.

[00:33:33] Angela Over and over. And then of course in the deleted scenes, you guys, they’re pulling things out of that bag Michael packed and doing things. And then one of the things they do is they just start doing like kissing push ups. Oh, my gosh, Darryl’s face. They put their lips to each other and they’re going, one, two, three. That it’s so good. And that didn’t make it in. But they’re driving Darryl crazy.

[00:33:56] Jenna But then they start to realize this is far. It’s starting to hit them. Michael wants to save the day. He’s like, stop right now, we’re halfway. There’s got to be an amazing bed and breakfast right here.

[00:34:10] Angela Yeah, it’s where we’ll meet. It’s going to be so cute.

[00:34:13] Jenna We’ll meet in the middle. So they pull off the road. There is nothing.

[00:34:16] Angela They’re in the woods. Kyle, our location manager, shared this. He said when they went tech scouting, they found this location kind of like off the side of the road. They were like, oh, this will be perfect. But then they found out another production was filming just a little ways down the way in the same area.

[00:34:33] Jenna Who was it?

[00:34:33] Angela He didn’t say who it was, but he said normally this wouldn’t concern us because we would film in our little nook, they would film in their nook and we’d be fine, he said. But then we found out they were filming a live band all day and he said we couldn’t have a live band, so we had to find a whole new location. And this spot was actually in Griffith Park.

[00:34:54] Jenna Oh, wow.

[00:34:55] Angela Yeah.

[00:34:56] Jenna It’s so funny. When you said another show was filming there, I assumed it was like a murder show or twenty four or something. Because who else needs just like to be out in the weird woods.

[00:35:07] Angela Maybe a teen rom com.

[00:35:09] Jenna I guess so. With a live band.

[00:35:12] Angela Right. Here’s another little thing I caught, Jenna, at nine minutes, 53 seconds. While Michael and Holly are having this heart to heart in the car, Darryl is getting gas, right?

[00:35:21] Jenna Yeah.

[00:35:22] Angela Did you see what the front license plate said?

[00:35:24] Jenna No.

[00:35:25] Angela It just says Rock 107.

[00:35:28] Jenna The license plate on the truck?

[00:35:30] Angela Yes, on the front of the truck says Rock 107. A radio station.

[00:35:36] Jenna Is there a rock 107 in Scranton?

[00:35:39] Angela Yes.

[00:35:39] Jenna Oh, my gosh.

[00:35:41] Angela It plays classic rock.

[00:35:42] Jenna Of course it does. Sam?

[00:35:44] MUSIC (MUSIC PLAYS) Life is a highway. I wanna ride it all night long….

[00:35:53] Jenna Rock 107.

[00:35:54] Angela Yeah, baby.

[00:35:54] Jenna Although I suppose actually these are all coming off of Michael’s mixed CD that he made for the trip. Life is a highway. Now. We all know I made.

[00:36:04] Angela Your Scranton mix CD.

[00:36:05] Jenna Sounds of Scranton. I would have put this on there because it was just a mix of classic rock. You know who would have appreciated my CD?

[00:36:12] Angela Michael Scott.

[00:36:13] Angela Michael Scott.

[00:36:14] Angela Jenna Fischer and Michael Scott.

[00:36:15] Jenna Yes.

[00:36:16] Angela Hanging out. So while Darryl is getting gas, you know, Michael says that he’s dated four women in the last 10 years and Holly surpasses them all. Well, Veda, our scripty, shared that the last 10 years was an improv from Steve.

[00:36:32] Jenna Aw, it made it so much better. I have to say.

[00:36:35] Angela I know. I know.

[00:36:36] Jenna Everything about that when she thinks he means four people in the last year and he says in the last 10 years, kind of at the same time, I was like, oh, Michael.

[00:36:46] Angela I know.

[00:36:47] Jenna I love you so much, Michael.

[00:36:48] Angela And they were adlibbing right there.

[00:36:51] Jenna Aww. All of it really breaks my heart, Ange, because as they’re getting closer, you can really see Holly shutting down.

[00:36:58] Angela Oh, she starts crying while the song is playing. And Amy Ryan crushed that.

[00:37:04] Jenna I know.

[00:37:04] Angela That was so good. Well, Dave talked about this. He said, you know, he really wanted a three shot. He wanted to see Michael and Holly having this moment. Michael begging Holly, no, don’t do this. We don’t need to breakup. And Darryl just making a random phone call. Like, just he needed to talk to anyone. Someone.

[00:37:21] Jenna Yes.

[00:37:22] Angela And he wanted to see all of that at the same time. I mean, it’s not an easy shot, but Dave was like, no, no, no, I want to see all three of them.

[00:37:29] Jenna You had to see all three of them. It only works that way.

[00:37:32] Angela Because he said it’s like two scenes happening at the same time.

[00:37:35] Jenna Well, maybe we should take a break from the car because we need to cover what’s happening back at the office.

[00:37:40] Angela Oh, yeah. Dwight is applying for Cornell, you guys.

[00:37:43] Jenna Oh, yeah. And also Pam’s about to have lunch with Jim’s brothers. There’s a lot to talk about.

[00:37:49] Angela The pranksters.

[00:37:49] Jenna We’ll be right back. Dwight arrives to work. He is wearing a Cornell sweatshirt

[00:37:58] Angela over his mustard shirt.

[00:38:01] Jenna Yeah, you want to know why he’s wearing that sweatshirt?

[00:38:04] Angela Because he’s applying to Cornell.

[00:38:05] Jenna That’s right. Yes.

[00:38:08] Angela I mean, did he know how to go after Andy or what? Oh, what does Andy covet? That Cornell diploma.

[00:38:16] Jenna My favorite thing is when you see Andy fuming in the back of Dwight’s talking head, through the window.

[00:38:22] Angela When he’s bobbing his chair back and forth?

[00:38:24] Jenna So good.

[00:38:25] Angela So good. I have a little Phil props tidbit about this talking head. Dwight is holding up a coffee mug that also says Cornell. Well, this was sort of a last minute pitch from Dave. He really wanted to pump up the Cornell merch. So he was like, what if he’s holding something? They made that mug in two hours.

[00:38:45] Jenna What?

[00:38:45] Angela Our props department.

[00:38:47] Jenna Oh, my gosh.

[00:38:48] Angela Yeah. So that he could have it in this talking head.

[00:38:51] Jenna You know, I’ve seen that happen on set sometimes where there will be an actor and they’re supposed to carry a briefcase. For example. And the props team will come up during the rehearsal of the scene on the day we’re lighting, we’re getting ready to shoot. And they show the actor three briefcase options. And then the actor says, oh, no, no, I imagined it would be like a distressed leather. Maybe it was my father’s that he had passed down to me. And the props person, you just see them just having a heart attack, basically.

[00:39:25] Angela Right. And I feel like the actor and directors, producers, the writer of the episode, they might all have a thought last minute like that-.

[00:39:31] Jenna On what this prop should look like. And the props person is like always without fail they’re always like, oh yeah, yeah, OK, no problem. We’ll get that. And then I know that they take like a van to some warehouse and they go through a giant shelf of all these briefcases to try to find the thing that the actor talked about.

[00:39:52] Angela Or they run across the parking lot. And like try to get something printed in the moment. I have such a memory of Phil running across the parking lot. Multipe times.

[00:40:02] Jenna My onlyy memories of Phil are that he is running.

[00:40:05] Angela Running or like fast walking and talking. Hey, Phil. Hey, how’s it going?

[00:40:10] Jenna I got to make a coffee mug. I’m going to print out a thing and we’re going to get that. We’re going to get that made. Yeah. Can’t wait. Yeah. Props are amazing.

[00:40:17] Angela Props department kicking butt.

[00:40:20] Jenna Well throughout all of this Dwight is just winding Andy up. They’ve got that scene in the kitchen. Dwight has clearly done his research.

[00:40:28] Angela Oh yeah. After that scene in the kitchen, there’s a deleted scene of Andy in the parking lot going off to his dad, like I died dad I’m gonna get him. Like, he’s so mad.

[00:40:39] Jenna One of my favorite scenes is the one with Dwight at his desk where he’s got all this merch. There’s like a pennant that hanging from the ceiling. And then he reaches into his drawer and he gets out a Cornell bobblehead.

[00:40:54] Angela Yeah.

[00:40:55] Jenna And Andy loses it.

[00:40:57] Angela He’s like, that’s big Red Bear.

[00:40:59] Jenna Well, I asked Phil Shea if that was a real Cornell bobblehead or if we had to make it. And he said it was real. Throughout all these years of the show because Andy had gone to school at Cornell, he made contacts at the school, particularly the Cornell bookstore, and that is where he got the bobblehead. He said, Claudia, Sandra, Peggy and Patricia are the ladies at Cornell that would always help him out whenever we had a storyline that required some Cornell merch. There’s going to be a really good one coming up, and I can’t wait to share it in a future episode.

[00:41:35] Angela Thank you, ladies. I love that Phil had all his people. He had all his people everywhere. Well, I have a little thing to share about that Cornell bobblehead as well. So it was not the first choice.

[00:41:45] Jenna What was the first choice?

[00:41:47] Angela So to ratchet Andy up, Dwight was going to have his cell phone ringtone be the Cornell fight song.

[00:41:53] Jenna Oh, that’s a good idea.

[00:41:54] Angela Yeah, but then when they heard it, it just didn’t quite work in the moment, it was like too much setup. And so they felt like the bobblehead was just like this quick, like boom. I now have the Cornell merch on my desk.

[00:42:07] Jenna Well I like the personal connection to Angela and the bobbleheads as well.

[00:42:13] Angela Side by side.

[00:42:14] Jenna Yes. So I like that choice for that reason.

[00:42:17] Angela Well, it almost was give my regards to Davy, which is the Cornell fight song playing on Dwight’s cell phone.

[00:42:24] Jenna You know, the scene where Andy confronts Dwight outside of the bathroom and Dwight starts asking Andy what a cappella group he should join at Cornell?

[00:42:35] Angela The harmoniacs or the Doe Re Migos

[00:42:37] Jenna Yes, I looked it up. According to the Cornell A Cappella Advisory Council, there is a Cornell a cappella advisory council.

[00:42:48] Angela Amazing.

[00:42:49] Jenna There are not any current a cappella groups with those names, but I’m not sure about when we filmed.

[00:42:55] Angela Aca what? Aca let me tell you. Veda said that Rainn was improvising quite a bit in this moment.

[00:43:02] Jenna Oh.

[00:43:03] Angela Some was scripted. And then he just started going off.

[00:43:05] Jenna I see.

[00:43:06] Angela Yes. And also, Anthony shared that he pitched that Stanley should be the first person to come out of the bathroom to kind of throw Andy off because Andy’s so ready. And then Stanley comes out and he’s like ugh. And then he has to get his energy back up for Dwight. I love that little moment.

[00:43:22] Jenna Great detail. All of this is going to lead to a delicious scene in the conference room because Andy informs Dwight, guess who is conducting your interview?

[00:43:36] Angela He’s contacted Cornell and he’s going to do the interview.

[00:43:39] Jenna Yeah. And Dwight’s like, bring it on. I love this conference room scene so much.

[00:43:44] Angela I love it so much. Dave shared that this conference room scene between Dwight and Andy was his first day of filming.

[00:43:52] Jenna What?

[00:43:53] Angela Yes. And he loved that because it was so contained. Right?

[00:43:57] Jenna Oh, my gosh. Yes.

[00:43:58] Angela Right. And he said it was about a 10 to 11 page scene. That’s a huge scene.

[00:44:03] Jenna Yes. A lot of people asked, was this scripted or improvised? It was almost all scripted.

[00:44:10] Angela It was almost all scripted. But Veda said that they did let Rainn and Ed really play around, especially with the role model name pitches. And these guys kept laughing. They were breaking so hard in the scene.

[00:44:25] Jenna In the end, Dwight says his role models are Dane Cook, Jack Bauer and Eli Whitney. But in the script, they’re different. And there’s many takes of these names being different. But there was one big part of the scene that was improvised and Anthony talks about it.

[00:44:42] Angela It’s so good.

[00:44:44] Anthony Ferrell That scene that we had in the conference room where they were the double interview, as it were, that was always like had always been in there as a fun scene for the two of them to square off at the end of that episode. I do remember there was a moment where it was either Rainn or Ed started pulling the table. And I just I was just like, oh, we’ve got to do that more. So I talked to Dave, Dave Rodgers, who was directing his first episode of The Office, and he’s directed a thousand things since because he’s freaking amazing. I remember talking. I was like they’ve got to just let him play with that table, let him pull let them pull it back and forth, like, let them struggle with that and see what happens. And I think we got that was the only take I think we did of that where Rainn just pulls it all the way to the wall. And thanks him for coming. It just that whole you know, those characters are all about all about conflict, all about power shifts. And that whole dynamic felt it felt like the right place to end up with those characters. And so that was a nice little bit of improv that we got to enhance on the day.

[00:45:44] Jenna I feel like Dave must have been so excited after this first shoot day, to get that table tugging moment, to get this whole scene. These guys are so good in it. He had to have been fired up.

[00:45:56] Angela You would think so. I mean, the biggest stuff was ahead of him, but at least he had that first day in the conference room.

[00:46:01] Jenna Well, you know, it’s interesting. Dave shared with me the last thing we shot for this episode was the Halloween cold open. That was the last day of shooting.

[00:46:10] Angela Oh wow.

[00:46:10] Jenna Yeah, he said we needed time to get all those costumes and everything organized. Should we talk about what’s going on with Jim and Pam during all of this now?

[00:46:20] Angela Yes.

[00:46:20] Jenna So we know that they’re going to have lunch with Jim’s brothers. But what we find out is that Pam gets to the restaurant early. She wants to do a prank

[00:46:29] Angela Because she wants them to like her. She’s, like, going to be the fun sister in law. Jenna, do you have a guest star break down?

[00:46:35] Jenna You know, I do. Pete Halpert was played by Tug Coker and Tom Halpert was played by Blake Robbins.

[00:46:45] Angela They were super tall.

[00:46:46] Jenna Very tall. There’s the reason for that. John Krasinski has two very tall brothers in real life and they thought this would be a fun nod to his family.

[00:46:57] Angela Yeah.

[00:46:59] Jenna I was able to get in touch with Tug, by the way, and oh my gosh, I could not love this guy more. I mean, we had such a fun time shooting together and I had so much fun reminiscing with him about this. He told me that the audition notice for this episode, it said it was looking for actors who were six foot one or taller, preferably with brown hair, but it did not reveal that you would be playing Jim Halpert’s brother. And when he got to the audition, he said, first of all, he’s six foot five. And when he got to the audition, Allison Jones said, you look like you could play John Krasinski brother. That’s what she said. And he was like, oh, I’m going to be playing a Halpert. That was his first clue. He read with Alison’s associate, Ben Harris. And the next day he got a call that he’d gotten the part.

[00:47:47] Angela Well, I definitely felt like these guys looked like they could be John’s brothers. And, you know, John’s brothers in real life are super tall. They’re like six eight or something. They’re like the tallest family.

[00:47:57] Jenna Isn’t John the short one?

[00:47:58] Angela Yes.

[00:47:59] Jenna And John is six three.

[00:48:01] Angela Yeah. And he’s the shortie.

[00:48:03] Jenna That is so crazy. Well, Tug said, here’s the thing that happens when you’re a really tall actor, you usually have to bring your own clothes.

[00:48:12] Angela Listen Tug, that’s what happens when you’re really short actor, too.

[00:48:14] Jenna Angela can relate. He said that is his own suit and those are his own shoes.

[00:48:20] Angela I believe it.

[00:48:21] Jenna He’s pretty sure that Blake wore his own clothes in the scene as well. So, you know, this first scene at the restaurant, Angela where Pam has met them early and she’s pitching her idea for what the prank could be. She says her ring, she put it in her little apron. She left it. She’s going to throw another girl under the bus. This whole drama, she lost her engagement ring. And they’re like, oh, we have a better idea. Their idea is that they’re going to dog Pam about her career choice as an artist.

[00:48:51] Angela Yeah. And they said, let’s do the same thing we did to Jim’s girlfriend in high school. What the heck, guys? What is your pattern here? Oh, our bit is we make the girls that Jim’s dating feel crappy about themselves.

[00:49:04] Jenna I know what the heck.

[00:49:06] Angela I know. They said in the DVD commentary that they wanted Jim’s brothers to be bad at pranking. Like they’re like the less sophisticated prankers of the family. Jim is better at pranking. They’re kind of lame at it.

[00:49:18] Jenna So most of this stuff was scripted in the restaurant. We did not have a lot of time actually to play around. But Tug reminded me that we did improvise the very end of the scene. He said, Jenna, I’m pretty sure you improvised that line, So not the ring thing then. And then the two of them are like, no, no, no, this is better. This is better. And I checked the script and he’s right. The scene had actually been meant to end sooner.

[00:49:44] Angela That sounds like you in real life, by the way. That sounds like something you would say.

[00:49:48] Jenna Maybe so.

[00:49:49] Angela I feel like we’ve ordered lunch together and I’ve gone back and forth about an appetizer. And you’ve said so not the dip, then we’re not doing the dip.

[00:49:56] Jenna Just to clarify.

[00:49:58] Angela Well, Dave shared that you guys filmed this restaurant scene the day after Labor Day. Tuesday in September. I thought that was a fun little detail to know. And Kyle, the locations manager, said that this restaurant was called E Third, and it was on the east side of downtown L.A. They were really trying to get this area to double as Brooklyn, where Pam was attending Pratt.

[00:50:22] Jenna I think they did a good job.

[00:50:23] Angela Yeah.

[00:50:23] Jenna Well, the restaurant was a steakhouse. And in the next scene where you see that we’re eating after Jim has arrived, we got to just pick off the menu.

[00:50:34] Angela Oh so you’re really eating the restaurant food.

[00:50:36] Jenna Yeah.

[00:50:36] Angela Oh, that’s so lucky.

[00:50:38] Jenna I know.

[00:50:38] Angela Oh, that’s cool.

[00:50:39] Jenna Well, Tug said he remembers that very clearly because it was the very first time he had to eat in a scene, and when they gave him the menu, he thought his character would order steak at a steak house and that John Krasinski said, Oh, dude, you’re going to regret that choice. You’re going to be eating cold steak for several hours. And Tug was like, what do you mean? I’m going to eat steak? And that’s what my character would eat. And he said, John ordered a salad and like a little protein on the side. And that’s what I ordered as well. Well Tug said that his concern about ordering a salad was that he didn’t want any food to fall on him during the scene. He was like, this is the first time I’m eating and acting. I think steak. I can get it on the fork. I can get it in my mouth.

[00:51:22] Angela Well, steak is definitely easier to eat than salad.

[00:51:26] Jenna Well, Tug pointed out to me and I didn’t notice that the first time I watched it, but he said it’s burned in his brain because this is the scene that was on his acting reel for years and years. So at 12 minutes twenty five seconds, John is struggling with this bite of salad. You can see it.

[00:51:43] Angela I saw that, too.

[00:51:44] Jenna He’s having a very hard time getting this piece of lettuce in his mouth. And then if you watch closely, one leaf misses his mouth and falls into his lap, which was exactly Tug’s fear that if Tug had been eating salad, he would have missed his mouth. He was then glad he had ordered that steak and had to eat it for hours.

[00:52:05] Angela John as I re-watched that, I thought that’s a really big, aggressive bite of lettuce. Like he really went for it.

[00:52:10] Jenna He did. You know, sometimes when you’re eating salad in a scene, you don’t realize what you’ve got on the fork and then you just have to commit to it.

[00:52:18] Angela And that was on Tug’s reel so he watched it over and over.

[00:52:21] Jenna over and over again. He watched that piece of lettuce fall.

[00:52:24] Angela So, you know, their dinner starts out pretty sweet, right? Jim is holding up a photo of his niece, right?

[00:52:30] Jenna Yeah.

[00:52:31] Angela So you feel like this is going to be nice.

[00:52:33] Jenna It’s pre- prank. The prank hasn’t started.

[00:52:35] Angela Hasn’t started yet. The photo that John is holding up is our set medic Patrice King’s daughter. Phil shared that Phil would do that you guys.

[00:52:46] Jenna this scene also has the moment where all of us at the end of the scene give a look to camera and it’s such a cool moment. Tug said he remembers Dave Rodgers giving him the direction to check in with the camera throughout the scene. And this was like so crazy to him because, you know, he’d never been in a project where you were allowed to look down the lens like that. But I love this moment. I love the look that he gives the camera. And you just go around the table and we all give this little look to camera about this prank that is not going well.

[00:53:16] Angela Not going well. Dave talked about it a little bit. He said he wanted the brothers to look to camera to just give that subtle hint that their mannerisms were similar to Jim, that they would check in like that. At eight minutes thirty three seconds, Pete gives a solo look to camera. And at twelve minutes thirty one seconds, Tom gives a Jim kind of shrug to camera.

[00:53:37] Jenna I loved that one. I thought that was so good. Well, as this prank continues, it is really getting under Pam’s skin. Like she is getting very flustered, I think, particularly when he suggests that she pay the bill by drawing on the napkin.

[00:53:53] Angela Oh, Jenna. If you need a boost, listen to the DVD commentary, because Veda said she was so impressed with your performance. She said, you know, the way this was scripted is tough because Pam has to want to be on board to be pranked, but then also start clocking like, hey, that’s kind of a dig, OK, you’re kind of going too far. And she said Jenna did such an amazing job. It’s really sweet. Veda was showing you some love.

[00:54:20] Jenna That’s really sweet. Well, it was kind of a fine line because everything that Veda said, part of the storyline was also meant to further Pam’s insecurity about the idea of being an artist.

[00:54:33] Angela Oh.

[00:54:34] Jenna And, you know, because this is something that she wants. But Pam is not a person with a lot of certainty all the time. And this was supposed to play on that. It was a lot for Pam to go to art school. It really was. And so this is meant to kind of discourage her momentum.

[00:54:53] Angela Oh, that makes me sad.

[00:54:55] Jenna Yeah, I know. I know. I have to say, it was so nice reconnecting with Tug about these scenes. You know, he said he’s still in touch with Blake. He still gets recognized for having been on the show. Something he told me that I thought was really special was that the day this episode aired, Dave Rodgers called him personally, complimented his performance and told him, hey, I wanted you to know that the bulk of the brothers scenes made it into the episode. And so when you see it tonight, it’s there.

[00:55:31] Angela That is so nice. No one does that. That was so nice of Dave.

[00:55:35] Jenna No one does that. And Tug said, you know, I’ve done a ton of guest roles and sometimes you tell your whole family to watch it and they watch it and your whole part has been reduced to one line.

[00:55:45] Angela All the time.

[00:55:46] Jenna He said, so he was so excited, he called his friends and family and he was like, yes, yes, watch the show. I’m really on it. And the show was a big deal at the time. This was a big deal to him and his friends and family that he had been on it. So Dave Rogers, you are a gem. Tug, thank you so much. I want you guys to know that you can catch him on a show called Now We’re Talking. It is a scripted comedy series, and he co-created it, produced it and stars in it. And it was nominated for a WGA award. It’s produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s company, Springhill. But Office fans, if you check it out, you might see some office alums on there. They’ve got Malcolm Barrett and Andy Buckley pop up on the show.

[00:56:33] Angela Nice!

[00:56:33] Jenna So definitely check it out, because this guy is amazing. Tug, thank you so much.

[00:56:38] Angela So we finish out this Jim and Pam storyline. They’re leaving the restaurant. The two of them are walking down the street. And Pam’s like, that’s not exactly how I had that going. I had a whole different prank. And she tells it to him. And then Jenna, Veda shared that you ad libbed the end.

[00:56:52] Jenna The line about him being bald?

[00:56:54] Angela You ad libbed, how about we prank him on Thanksgiving about him being bald? That was all you.

[00:57:00] Jenna I was really proud of that line. I thought that was funny.

[00:57:03] Angela It was really funny. So you had some improvs in this one lady.

[00:57:06] Jenna I did. I really did. Now, I think we should wrap up this Michael and Holly storyline because they’ve arrived at Holly’s charming little house in Nashua.

[00:57:18] Angela I know. Anthony said in the script he wanted it to be a basement apartment. But he was like, but we don’t really have basement apartments here. So they found this little house in Angelino Heights. Isn’t it so cute? I thought it was so cute.

[00:57:33] Jenna It brought up a lot of questions for me, though.

[00:57:35] Angela OK.

[00:57:36] Jenna If Holly was in Nashua and she had to move her whole life and all her stuff and get rid of her house slash apartment that she had been living in and move to Scranton, she was only in Scranton for, I think like less than two months. And now she has to move all the way back. And it was kind of breaking my heart for her. I was glad they picked a cute location because I was thinking, oh, my gosh, she just left this city. But then I thought it tracks that she would know where to get a cute place if she was from there.

[00:58:10] Angela Right. Maybe it’s even her old place.

[00:58:13] Jenna Maybe it is. It’s super cute.

[00:58:15] Angela Super cute. Also, per Dave, they were really stressed about losing light and they were going to be losing some of the crew because they were going to leave to go film the Jim and Pam proposal scene with Ken Kwapis.

[00:58:29] Jenna Yeah. So we would do this sometimes. We filmed the Jim Pam proposal during this episode’s week of filming.

[00:58:39] Angela Right. Because they had to build the whole thing. Sometimes the schedule just got wonky like that. So Dave was really on a time crunch here to get this filmed.

[00:58:47] Jenna Well, Michael decides he’s not going to stay. He had planned to stay for the weekend, I guess, to help her unpack. It seems pretty clear that they’re going to break up.

[00:58:58] Angela Yeah.

[00:58:59] Jenna Because of the seven hour drive, that’s really a five hour drive.

[00:59:02] Angela Only four and a half. They could have totally done it.

[00:59:06] Jenna They could have done it. I wanted to go into the TV and tell them, but

[00:59:11] Angela Anthony said that he wrote dialog here for them saying goodbye and how well, maybe I’ll see you or maybe we’ll go and this and that. And then in the moment, Amy and Steve just did this really big, long, lingering hug. And Dave was like, that’s it.

[00:59:26] Jenna Yeah. They don’t need to have the dialog. That hug tells you everything.

[00:59:30] Jenna We had a lot of mail.

[00:59:33] Angela Oh, yeah?

[00:59:34] Jenna From Chris W., Chelsea C., Hamlin H., and many others just asking a couple of questions. Number one, how was Michael planning to get back to Scranton if he and Holly hadn’t broken up?

[00:59:50] Angela Right. Neither of them have a car.

[00:59:52] Jenna That was the other thing. Did Holly not bring a car to Nashua? What did she do with her car? Did she leave it in Scranton?

[01:00:00] Angela I don’t know.

[01:00:01] Jenna They didn’t tow it. I noticed. I looked for it. And poor Holly has just gotten dropped off with all her stuff, a mattress in like, you know, plastic wrap. No one is helping her unpack. And she has no car and she’s dressed for work. That’s how we leave Holly in Nashua.

[01:00:19] Angela Yeah. I know.

[01:00:22] Jenna This whole storyline ends with such an amazing scene of Michael and Darryl in the car driving back. Dave was really stressed because, like you said, they were losing light.

[01:00:35] Angela Yeah. He said Randall, our camera operator, was going, come on, we got to get this now. We got to get it now. The sun was setting, but didn’t it make for such a beautiful backdrop?

[01:00:44] Jenna Yes, it just meant that they didn’t get a lot of takes, they had to nail it.

[01:00:48] Angela Anthony said he loved that it was getting dark because you really got the sense that they spent the whole day together.

[01:00:55] Jenna I liked that, too. Dave told me this is his favorite scene from the episode. Anthony said the same thing.

[01:01:01] Angela Yeah, Anthony was very excited because this was his pitch and his idea. He talks about it right here.

[01:01:07] Anthony Ferrell Yeah, this is my first ever episode of television that was written and got on to TV. So it holds it very near and dear place in my heart. This one, all the stuff with the breakup and oh, the thing with the um oh my God of course, the scene at the end where Michael singing the blues, that’s a special moment for me in particular, because I do remember pitching that in the room. And it’s one of those things as a writer, so many things you pitch, they might end up in other people’s scripts, but they might end up in your script and you’re just trying to tell the story the best way you can. And every once in a while you get a situation where something you pitch is in your script and it ends up being on the show and you feel like, oh, that’s amazing. So that whole blues moment at the end when Michael Scott just doesn’t get it but still has the cathartic moment he needs at the end of that, I thought I remember pitching that in the room and thinking, oh, that’ll be fun to get to do. And then I got to write the episode and then I got to watch it happen. And it was getting dark and it was just a perfect little moment for us. And I just remember feeling like I have the best job in the world.

[01:02:01] Jenna I know those scenes.

[01:02:03] Angela Well, I just love that there is something so special about seeing your idea fully realized and I just love that he shared that. Well lady, we have one last scene.

[01:02:13] Jenna We do. You know, we don’t really ever find out exactly how this Cornell interview application thing wraps up. I assume he doesn’t get in. But that was never really the point. The point of this storyline was really Angela. Angela was the point. This was- Dwight was performing for her. And he’s winding Andy up because he is jealous.

[01:02:40] Angela That’s right. Well, there was a whole runner. There were scenes between Angela and Andy where Andy’s all worked up and Angela is trying to calm him down. And then Angela goes to Dwight and is like, what the heck? Here’s one of those deleted scenes.

[01:02:55] Angela Martin Why are you doing this to Andy?

[01:02:58] Dwight You once told me that Andy and I had different strengths. Well, he can’t do what I can do. I can get into Cornell, but he doesn’t know how to make food and shelter from a golden retriever.

[01:03:11] Angela Martin Even if you do somehow get in. That’s not going to make me leave Andy.

[01:03:15] Dwight No, but it’ll make you respect him less.

[01:03:21] Angela Martin Yes, that’s true.

[01:03:26] Jenna Oh, I wish that has stayed in.

[01:03:28] Angela I know, because Dwight does get what he wants, right?

[01:03:31] Jenna Yeah.

[01:03:31] Angela I think Andy unravels in front of Angela and whether Dwight gets into Cornell or not, she didn’t care for it.

[01:03:38] Jenna No, not at all.

[01:03:40] Angela And now we have this tag where Andy’s going to pay back Dwight. But of course, it’s just so embarrassing. In fact, at 20 minutes, 51 seconds is one of my most popular memes.

[01:03:50] Jenna What when you’re rolling your eyes?

[01:03:52] Angela Yes. Andy walks in dressed as a farmer with no shirt on and beets, and my character rolls her eyes and then puts her head into her hand.

[01:03:59] Jenna Oh, we had a fan question. People wanted to know, did Rainn actually take a bite out of a beet at the end of the episode? Yes, he did. And that was improvised.

[01:04:10] Angela Yes. And Veda said he did it in the last take. Very smart, Rainn if you’re going to do it.

[01:04:16] Jenna Yeah. It was scripted that Andy tries to bite the beet and that line about, oh, you’re supposed to cook it first that was in the script. But the button of Dwight being able to bite a beet, that was all Rainn. All Rainn Wilson.

[01:04:32] Angela You guys, that was Employee Transfer.

[01:04:34] Jenna Yes. And we want to give a huge thanks to all the people who helped gather information on this episode. It was a bunch of people. Thank you. Thank you to James Kerry, Dave Rogers, Alicia Reycraft, Phil Shea, Anthony Ferrell and Tug Coker for sharing your memories. One final shout out for Tug. He and his wife own a wine bar in Santa Monica. Angela, it’s called Esther’s. He’s invited us to come down, have some wine and cheese with them.

[01:05:02] Angela Tug we are there!

[01:05:04] Jenna Right? Well, he and his wife also do a podcast together called The Long Finish. You can find them on Instagram @the longfinish. Here’s what they do. They open a bottle of wine and they discuss their life as they work together and raise three kids. He has a three week old baby.

[01:05:24] Angela Tug.

[01:05:25] Jenna Right.

[01:05:25] Angela Bless your heart.

[01:05:26] Jenna Right.

[01:05:27] Angela You’re in the weeds.

[01:05:28] Jenna They are in the weeds, but they still do this podcast about their life together. And Tug, we’re coming to have wine with you guys.

[01:05:35] Angela We sure are. And you guys, if you haven’t watched the bloopers for this one, they’re a must watch. Go to the DVD box set. They’re so good.

[01:05:44] Jenna I’m so jealous. I don’t have this one.

[01:05:46] Angela We got to get it for you.

[01:05:47] Jenna I know.

[01:05:49] Angela Well, you guys, sometimes life is a highway

[01:05:53] Jenna and you got to ride it all night long.

[01:05:57] Angela We’ll see you next week.

[01:05:59] Jenna See you next week. And this song will be in your head forever now.

[01:06:03] Angela You know it. If you’re going my way. ow!

[01:06:07] Both All night long. Hum.

[01:06:21] 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.

[01:06:36] Angela Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

[01:06:39] 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.