EP. 92 — Lecture Circuit, Pt 1

OFFICE- 092 – Lecture Circuit, Pt 1

[00:00:04] Jenna I’m Jenna Fischer.

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

[00:00:07] Jenna We were on The Office together.

[00:00:08] Angela And we’re best friends.

[00:00:09] Jenna And now we’re doing the ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you.

[00:00:13] 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.

[00:00:20] Jenna We’re the Office Ladies. Angela just turned out the lights in the studio.

[00:00:27] Angela OK, here’s the thing. There’s a lot of buttons. This is what I want from a light switch. I want one button. There’s four buttons over there.

[00:00:36] Jenna There’s more than four. You guys, it is a complicated light switch.

[00:00:38] Angela Thank you.

[00:00:39] Jenna But we like to listen to our theme song to get in the mood. So we’re listening to it with you. All during our theme song Angela is pressing the buttons. The lights are going up. They’re going down. They’re fading in.

[00:00:50] Angela There’s track lighting. Then there’s these other kind of lights in the ceiling lights. Then there’s four lamps.

[00:00:56] Jenna We should turn some of the lamps on.

[00:00:57] Angela That might help me.

[00:00:58] Jenna We need the light because our eyes are fading.

[00:01:01] Angela Because I can’t see, guys. That’s what’s happening. But all right, we’re here. The lights are on and we are ready.

[00:01:08] Jenna We are ready for Lecture Circuit Part One. Season five, episode sixteen, written by Mindy Kaling and directed by Ken Kwapis.

[00:01:18] Angela It’s an official two parter.

[00:01:20] Jenna It is. And I’ve got a whole fast fact about it.

[00:01:23] Angela Look how your face just lit up. You’re so excited.

[00:01:26] Jenna I am. Here is your summary. Michael, accompanied by Pam, is embarking on a three day lecture tour of the nearby Dunder Mifflin branches.

[00:01:38] Angela I need to stop you one second.

[00:01:39] Jenna Yeah.

[00:01:39] Angela Three days.

[00:01:41] Jenna Yeah.

[00:01:41] Angela Three days Pam is going to be on the road with Michael.

[00:01:45] Jenna And she’s so cheery about it.

[00:01:46] Angela At the beginning.

[00:01:49] Jenna Well, you know, Michael’s branch is outselling all the other branches. David Wallace is perplexed.

[00:01:56] Angela What’s that secret sauce?

[00:01:58] Jenna Please go to the other branches and tell them all about it. Well, they’re going to start in Utica. This is where they’re going to run into Karen and they are met with a surprise. But back in Scranton, we reveal that Jim and Dwight are now the co heads of the party planning committee. And they forgot Kelly’s birthday.

[00:02:21] Angela And she is ticked off.

[00:02:23] Jenna Oh, that is an understatement. Meanwhile, Andy has a crush on one of Stanley’s clients. Fast fact number one? Lecture Circuit is a two part episode. It aired two different weeks and this is our first episode to ever feature a “to be continued” message you know at the end of the episode.

[00:02:45] Angela I know.

[00:02:46] Jenna But Lecture Circuit was not written as two episodes. It was one script like your regular forty one pages long. We shot it in five days.

[00:02:56] Angela So why did they make it a two parter Jenna?

[00:02:59] Jenna I will tell you.

[00:02:59] Angela I thought you might.

[00:03:01] Jenna I was trading emails with director Ken Kwapis. He told me that when they went to assemble it in the editing room, there was so much good stuff. His director’s cut was thirty five minutes long. He showed it to Greg and he said, Greg, I can’t cut anymore.

[00:03:16] Angela That’s it. It’s got to be thirty five minutes, Greg.

[00:03:18] Jenna Yeah. Make it super sized. Or something.

[00:03:21] Angela Something.

[00:03:21] Jenna Greg said I agree. We can’t lose any of this. Let’s turn it into two episodes. And Ken said he was thrilled.

[00:03:31] Angela That’s amazing.

[00:03:32] Jenna That’s how good it was. Mindy and Ken turned in that good of an episode. Well, fast fact number two, when they broke up the episode into two episodes, they did actually need more storylines to fill out each half. So they knew that the lecture circuit story and the birthday party story would remain in both episodes, but it actually wasn’t enough for two complete episodes. So they had to write two more stories.

[00:04:00] Angela And what were those?

[00:04:01] Jenna I will tell you. For this episode, they added the storyline of Andy wanting to date Stanley’s client, Julia.

[00:04:09] Angela Hmm.

[00:04:10] Jenna Yeah.

[00:04:10] Angela That makes sense because in the original script, it’s not in there at all.

[00:04:13] Jenna No. And then for the second half, which we will get to next week, they wrote a very interesting storyline for you and your cats.

[00:04:21] Angela Oh, yeah, I have stories, guys.

[00:04:25] Jenna So let’s talk about this storyline with Stanley and his client, Julia, that they added. The reason that he doesn’t meet with his client in the conference room is because the conference room was busy being a birthday party.

[00:04:43] Angela Sure, it was being decorated.

[00:04:44] Jenna So they did all of that in the break room. And also that way they could insert it into the episode wherever they wanted, and it wouldn’t affect any of the continuity of the other story.

[00:04:55] Angela And they could shoot it later because that’s what we did.

[00:04:58] Jenna Yes, we shot these two additional storylines a full month later.

[00:05:05] Angela Mm-hmm. That was the crazy thing for me. They were like, OK, you have a whole storyline. It’s going to be in Lecture Circuit. We’re shooting it in three weeks.

[00:05:11] Jenna Yeah, well, because they had to write it. Should we move on to fast fact number three?

[00:05:16] Angela Well, you sound eager. I think we should.

[00:05:18] Jenna Well, it’s a location breakdown.

[00:05:20] Angela You love a location breakdown.

[00:05:22] Jenna I really do.

[00:05:22] Angela I know.

[00:05:22] Jenna I love knowing where we made this stuff happen.

[00:05:26] Angela Yeah. You want to be in the room where it happens.

[00:05:29] Jenna Hamilton.

[00:05:30] Angela Hey-oh. Room where it happens. I love that.

[00:05:33] Jenna I really love that song.

[00:05:35] Angela I do, too.

[00:05:35] Jenna OK, we had a fan question from Joe S. Jenna, did you and Steve film your scenes in the car in a single day or multiple days? And where did you drive around to film the car scenes? I’ll tell you. We shot all of the driving scenes for both Lecture Circuit one and Lecture Circuit part two on the same one day.

[00:05:59] Angela Oh, wow. So you had a full day in the car?

[00:06:02] Jenna Yep, just driving around.

[00:06:03] Angela Just driving around.

[00:06:03] Jenna It was Wednesday, November 5th.

[00:06:06] Angela Look at you.

[00:06:07] Jenna Someone got the call sheet and I looked at it.

[00:06:10] Angela And that someone is Jenna Fischer.

[00:06:11] Jenna Yes. Thanks to James Kerry. So here’s where we went. We made a loop of three streets in North Hollywood: Nordoff, Saticoy, and Plummer.

[00:06:23] Angela I recognized Saticoy.

[00:06:24] Jenna Yeah. That’s also the street that our soundstages were on.

[00:06:28] Angela That’s the street we drove on every single day.

[00:06:31] Jenna To get to work.

[00:06:31] Angela Yeah.

[00:06:33] Jenna I will tell you, I was not actually driving in these scenes.

[00:06:36] Angela You weren’t?

[00:06:36] Angela No. You did some good fakie driving.

[00:06:39] Jenna Thank you so much.

[00:06:40] Angela I was going to ask you if you drove it all.

[00:06:42] Jenna I did not.

[00:06:42] Angela Oh.

[00:06:43] Jenna They had the car loaded onto a rig and it was being pulled by a precision driver. I’m not much of a precision driver. I wouldn’t describe myself that way at all. Precision is not the word I would think of to describe my driving.

[00:06:58] Angela Jenna I’ve ridden with you in a car.

[00:06:59] Jenna I know.

[00:07:02] Angela You know, you’re a very safe driver. But you um…

[00:07:09] Jenna What are you gonna say?

[00:07:09] Angela You I don’t know, it’s like you grip the wheel with both hands.

[00:07:14] Jenna I do. I’m a ten and two.

[00:07:16] Angela You’re a ten and two. And then you just kind of look straight ahead. And sometimes I’m like, you know, you can go around them Jenna. There’s a whole lane that’s empty right next to you. We’ve been behind Pokey Pokerson for like half an hour. Ten and two, turn a little bit and go around ’em.

[00:07:35] Jenna Can I say something right now? This driving does actually sound very precise.

[00:07:41] Angela OK, well.

[00:07:43] Jenna Maybe I am a precision driver and I don’t know it.

[00:07:46] Angela You’re a slow precision driver. You’re not going to be taking any courses where you’re like zipping around any cones. You’ll get around those-.

[00:07:58] Jenna Sorry, are you doing kown courses in your free time?

[00:08:01] Angela Yeah.

[00:08:01] Jenna Is that your hobby?

[00:08:03] Angela Did you not know this about me? I am a friggin bad ass. Like I do- I actually by the way, I did pull off the road like we did all that driving sequence I was driving when Dwight runs me off the road. That was me. Oh yeah.

[00:08:18] Jenna What do you want? What do you want?

[00:08:19] Angela I want my precision driving trophy. It’s a little gold like street cone.

[00:08:25] Jenna All right, I’ll find one for you and I will get it for you.

[00:08:28] Angela OK, so anyway, you were not driving, but you shot all in one day.

[00:08:33] Jenna We shot it all in one day. And then the next day we shot everything at the Utica branch. And we started with all of the interior scenes and we shot at this building in Chatsworth, California. It was on Hordoff Street and we started very early that day. We started at five thirty in the morning.

[00:08:51] Angela That was your call time?

[00:08:53] Jenna Yeah. And the crew call was six thirty and the shooting call was six forty five. What that means is that we had the goal of arriving at five thirty, rehearsing at six thirty and we had to start shooting by six forty five a.m.

[00:09:09] Angela That’s a early day.

[00:09:10] Jenna And we did it. All right. So before we go to break, lady, I think we should give a little book update.

[00:09:19] Angela Book update. Office BFFs!

[00:09:21] Jenna Office BFF’s is the name of our book that we have been working on for.

[00:09:25] Angela Oh good Lord. Three years.

[00:09:27] Jenna Longer than I can imagine.

[00:09:29] Angela Oh, my goodness. We’ve been sharing on our Instagram like our journey as we’re writing this together. And guess what? Well, you might know if you follow us. We finished our manuscript.

[00:09:38] Jenna We turned in our manuscript.

[00:09:40] Angela Someone throw some confetti.

[00:09:41] Jenna Please. Your husband, Josh, did throw confetti when you told him that we had finished. It was so sweet. But now we are in this really fun part where we are going through all of our photos.

[00:09:56] Angela So many photos.

[00:09:57] Jenna And they’re so good because you guys, the reason we wanted to write this book in the first place was because we did this big clean out of our garages and your shed and my basement.

[00:10:08] Angela Basically, it’s everywhere we stash stuff. And you know what we found out?

[00:10:13] Jenna What did we find?

[00:10:14] Angela We’re big stashers.

[00:10:16] Jenna We did not need to find that out, lady. I think we knew that.

[00:10:19] Angela Oh my gosh.

[00:10:19] Jenna But it’s true. And we saved everything, every scrap of paper, every ticket stub.

[00:10:27] Angela Here’s the other thing too, not only do we save everything, but like our family does. I have a whole envelope from my cousin Carol of all these clippings. Thank you, Carol.

[00:10:39] Jenna Well, all of this stuff is going in the book.

[00:10:42] Angela I don’t know that we can put all of it in the book, the book would be like eight hundred pages.

[00:10:46] Jenna That’s true.

[00:10:46] Angela Some of this stuff is going in the book, but it’s all really fun. And you guys, I just am so excited for you to to get it and to hold it in your hands and to have it.

[00:10:55] Jenna Me too. I’m excited to go on our book tour.

[00:10:59] Angela What?

[00:11:00] Jenna Lady, you know when your book comes out, you go on a tour and you like sign it and you meet people. We’re going to get to go on like a ladies-.

[00:11:09] Angela A road trip? I hadn’t even thought that far ahead. I’m sorry I’m yelling. I’m so excited. OK, you know this has been something I’ve wanted for a long time, which is a BFF road trip.

[00:11:20] Jenna I know it’s going to happen.

[00:11:20] Angela Like a real deal road trip where we go to multiple cities.

[00:11:23] Jenna Well it’s happening. Get ready for it. Office BFFs with all our hoarded stuff and all of our great stories. It’s coming your way soon.

[00:11:32] Angela Oh, my God. I don’t even think about going on tour.

[00:11:35] Jenna Well, there you go. There’s our book update. Life update.

[00:11:40] Angela Hit the road update. Look, I’m already excited. The book is not even done and I’m planning our road trip. Oh, I have my places I like to stop and snack at.

[00:11:50] Jenna What are they? Where will I be snacking?

[00:11:53] Angela I love a good, like just greasy burger joint.

[00:11:57] Jenna For sure.

[00:11:58] Angela Right? Also, I love the Frito chili chips, you know.

[00:12:03] Jenna Oh, really? you’re gonna eat Frito chili chips around me?

[00:12:04] Angela I know, I know everyone. Everyone says they stink up the room.

[00:12:08] Jenna It’s so stinky, lady.

[00:12:09] Angela I know I love them, OK? They’re one of my go to road trip snacks.

[00:12:13] Jenna OK.

[00:12:14] Angela OK.

[00:12:15] Jenna All right. We’re going to go to break now and I’m going to just try to convince Angela to eat regular Fritos. I love a regular Frito, especially with some queso.

[00:12:23] Angela Oh, you know what I love a regular Frito with? A Frito chili pie. Like in the bag.

[00:12:29] Jenna I’m so hungry now.

[00:12:29] Angela I know. Give it to me.

[00:12:30] Jenna We’ll be back in a second.

[00:12:30] Angela We are back. We’re in this episode. Now, Michael, you guys, oh, my gosh, a phone guy came in to fix his phone and showed him the P.A. system. You can’t show Michael Scott the office P.A. system.

[00:12:48] Jenna You definitely cannot.

[00:12:50] Angela He is really goofing about now.

[00:12:52] Jenna Yeah. He pretends to be a plane captain, a ghost. He forgets the intercom is on while he’s talking to his doctor about his mole. He calls Toby into the principal’s office for wetting his bed. I think we should hear it? Can you play the clip?

[00:13:08] Angela Yeah.

[00:13:09] Speaker 3 This is your captain speaking. The office will be flying at an altitude of two stories. Look out your left hand window and you will see Vance Refrigeration. I am the ghost of salesmen past. Do not come near me. (COUGHS) Yes. Michael Scott for Dr. Johnson, please. Hello, Doctor. I was just following up about my mole again? No, I was looking online about sebaceous cysts. I have not been squeezing it. Could I stick it with a pin? Toby Flenderson to the principal’s office. Your mother call and it appears that you wet the bed again, so you have to get home your watch your seat because they’re yellow and they’re wet with your urine.

[00:14:01] Jenna My personal favorite part of that is the coughing.

[00:14:03] Angela Yes.

[00:14:04] Jenna I loved listening to him cough. It reminded me of the tiramisu coughing fit that he had on the phone with David Wallace.

[00:14:11] Angela Steve Carrell’s, a master at fake laughing and fake coughing.

[00:14:16] Jenna Yeah.

[00:14:17] Angela You believe it.

[00:14:18] Jenna We had a fan question from Virginia S. When Michael is on the P.A. system, where any of his announcements improvised or were they all in the script? For example, the announcement that Toby has wet his bed is hilarious.

[00:14:31] Angela All right. They had several alts. And the one that was actually in the script for Toby read like this, Toby Flenderson to the principal’s office. You are in trouble for sucking.

[00:14:44] Jenna That’s pretty good.

[00:14:46] Angela That’s what was in the script.

[00:14:47] Jenna Well, I read the script while I watched this portion, and I would say that a lot of it was scripted. But Steve definitely did do improvizations off of what was written.

[00:14:58] Angela And I’m sure Mindy was pitching things to him, too, on the day.

[00:15:01] Jenna Yes. But I noticed that the line about Ghost of Christmas past, that was scripted, but the coughing bit was not in the script.

[00:15:09] Angela Really quickly, I feel like we need to point out something at twenty seven seconds.

[00:15:15] Jenna What’s that?

[00:15:16] Angela What’s up with Angela’s outfit?

[00:15:18] Jenna What is it?

[00:15:19] Angela It is a poofy, fluffy sweater.

[00:15:23] Jenna Oh yeah.

[00:15:24] Angela But it’s like poofy like at the shoulder.

[00:15:27] Jenna That was really in and I feel like that’s coming back.

[00:15:30] Angela What?

[00:15:30] Jenna Like the poofy arms.

[00:15:32] Angela Ugh.

[00:15:32] Jenna We went through a real Shakespeare Renaissance fair thing back then.

[00:15:37] Angela I’m not here for it.

[00:15:39] Jenna It’s coming back, lady.

[00:15:40] Angela Great.

[00:15:41] Jenna You know what I found in my closet? How do I describe this? I found a ribbon on a hanger and then clipped to the ribbon were various flowers that I could put in my hair or on my lapel.

[00:15:57] Angela You could adorn your outfit.

[00:15:59] Jenna Yeah. Like one of the flowers was like a fabric flower that you would clip on your blazer.

[00:16:04] Angela Oh yeah.

[00:16:05] Jenna Was that in for a while? Why do I have seven flowers to clip to myself?

[00:16:11] Angela I don’t know. It feels very much like a Pretty in Pink. Kind of like a Molly Ringwald put a flower on her hat.

[00:16:19] Jenna Yeah. It brought back no memories. When I looked at it. Two of the flowers were like Hawaiian flowers. I clearly bought them to clip in my hair while on a trip to Hawaii, but the rest were more casual, more every day. But I’m going to clip one on my blazer lapel when we do our book tour. All right. I’m planting that seed now.

[00:16:43] Angela I can’t wait. It’s going to make me real happy. What I won’t have on our book tour is a poufy sleeve sweater, because at my age, I don’t need any extra poufs.

[00:16:51] Jenna You know what? I’m going to say you will wear that on our book tour.

[00:16:54] Angela No, don’t say that. No.

[00:16:56] Jenna Poufy sweater thing and flower lapel.

[00:17:00] Angela Who are we on this book tour?

[00:17:02] Jenna I don’t know. We’re interesting people.

[00:17:04] Angela Well, we’ll see.

[00:17:06] Jenna Not dressed well, but interesting. All right, let’s get started. This episode opens with Michael exiting a motel room. He knocks on the neighboring door and out comes Pam.

[00:17:21] Angela Yes. And in the shooting draft of our script, it says Michael knocks on Pam’s door, they say good morning. That’s it. They don’t even have dialogue written out for you guys. You just sort of greet each other. This is not in the script. When Michael knocks, says hello, good morning. Pam says good morning. And then Michael says, You ready? And we’re off like a herd of turtles. That is not in the script. I think Steve improvized that.

[00:17:46] Jenna I will tell you, I absolutely loved doing this episode because I got Steve all to myself.

[00:17:51] Angela I bet.

[00:17:52] Jenna Just scene after scene of me and Steve and I loved it. Some of my favorite times on The Office were when I just got to have days with Steve, me and Steve.

[00:18:01] Angela I know they were brief and few and far between because, you know, Angela Martin hated him, but those were always such a delight.

[00:18:08] Jenna Well, I love this scene of me putting the luggage into the back of the car.

[00:18:14] Angela I did, too.

[00:18:14] Jenna I’m sorry. I thought I did- I’m going to toot my own horn. I thought my heavy luggage acting was superb.

[00:18:20] Angela It was so great that I wrote a question for you. Here’s my fan question,

[00:18:24] Jenna OK.

[00:18:25] Angela What was in the bag? It looked really heavy.

[00:18:27] Jenna There was almost nothing in that bag. That was all me. Thank you. I mean, I couldn’t be prouder of that.

[00:18:35] Angela You know what I want a cone award for my precision driving. I’m going to get you a little tiny suitcase.

[00:18:41] Jenna Thank you.

[00:18:42] Angela That says great prop work. Prop work award.

[00:18:47] Jenna I don’t know if you noticed, but we got a lot of mail about this car. Adele M. wrote in and said, whose maroon Ford is Pam driving? I thought she had a Yaris and Michael had a PT Cruiser. What is this car?

[00:19:01] Angela Exactly. Is it a rental car?

[00:19:04] Jenna Listen to this. This is a gem from Randy Cordray. He said in an early concept meeting for this episode, it was discussed that Michael would need extra trunk space for all of his props and his trunk and all that stuff, and that it just wouldn’t fit in his PT Cruiser. So they said that they thought it would be funny if Michael had to ask the company to provide him with a Lincoln town car that Pam would drive him around in. But corporate would only approve a cheaper Crown Victoria. So this was always intended to be like a scripted moment where we would explain this. But in the end, it never made the shooting draft. So it comes off a bit confusing, but this was like a whole joke.

[00:19:50] Angela I love it because Michael thinks he’s Carrot Top, right? So he’s got to have all of his props and his trunks of crazy gadgets and things.

[00:19:59] Jenna I mean, I’m surprised he didn’t dress in a costume.

[00:20:02] Angela I was, too. But yet he gives Pam like some sass about her outfit and says, don’t you know what a magician’s assistant looks like? I Googled magician’s assistant costume. There’s a lot of fishnet, there’s some short shorts. There’s a boustier. There’s a top hat. Sometimes a skirt. It’s a very sexy looking outfit.

[00:20:24] Jenna Yeah, well, Pam wore her tan cardigan.

[00:20:28] Angela It’s new.

[00:20:31] Jenna I, I had such a hard time getting through that line because of course we knew that line was going to be in the script. So when we picked my outfit for this episode, we thought it was very funny that her new cardigan was like.

[00:20:44] Angela Beige.

[00:20:45] Jenna Was beige. I have another amazing tidbit about this car before we get on the road. The toboggan that’s on top of the car, all right. The reason that’s there is because there was a scene that was written as a tag for this episode and the scene was going to be Michael and Pam going down a snowy hill on that toboggan.

[00:21:09] Angela Why didn’t that happen?  I need to see that.

[00:21:13] Jenna Yes.

[00:21:14] Angela Well, we’d have to go somewhere with snow.

[00:21:18] Jenna Randy said they went out to scout a snowy mountain and the photos that they came back with, it just didn’t look great. There just wasn’t a lot of snow happening at the time that we were shooting this episode. We couldn’t go all the way to Mammoth, which is five hours away. Right. We had to find someplace that was relatively close and there just was no snow. So we never shot it. But there were two options. One was that Michael was going to be going down the hill on the toboggan and Pam was just going to be kind of like standing there. And the other version is that Pam and Michael are sledding down together, but midway down the hill, Pam falls off and rolls to the bottom. And Michael says, “again!” Well, maybe I’m glad you didn’t have to do that. Jenna Fischer.

[00:22:08] Jenna No, I so wish I could have gone sledding with Steve. I so wish.

[00:22:12] Angela That would have been a blast. Back at Dunder Mifflin, Kelly arrives to work and she is a really upset. I would like to note at four minutes, ten seconds there is a big door slam. Guys, that front door did not slam. No it did not. In fact, it had that little suspension thing, you know, that suspension bracket. So it just would shut like feeeee. So that was added in post.

[00:22:38] Jenna They had to make it a silent door because a lot of times people would have to enter and we’d be in the middle of a scene and then you would have heard kajunk.

[00:22:48] Angela Right. So it was a feeee. Does not slam. Right. But they needed to really sell how mad Kelly was. So they put it in fakie slam.

[00:22:59] Jenna Well, Mindy says, screw you to Jim and Dwight. She storms off. And then Phyllis explains that Kelly is upset because they forgot her birthday yesterday. We got a piece of mail from Zoe S. Here’s what Zoe has to say. In this episode, it’s the day after Kelly’s birthday. Jim and Dwight forgot. Phyllis knew it was Kelly’s birthday yesterday. But Kelly says nobody wished her a happy birthday. Zoe would like to know why didn’t Phyllis wish Kelly a happy birthday if she knew? I mean, it’s one thing that Phyllis wants to make Jim and Dwight look bad, but Phyllis showed some real sass to Kelly on her birthday.

[00:23:44] Angela Thank you, Zoe. This is what Angela Martin had to deal with day in and day out. The secret Phyllis sass that people don’t see. They just see, oh, nice Phyllis. But there’s a deep current of deep, dark secret Phyllis sass. Passive aggressive Phyllis sass.

[00:24:02] Jenna This leads us into a talking head that I know these two boys loved filming.

[00:24:08] Angela Well, they couldn’t get through it. They couldn’t get through this whole episode. I’m going to be bringing up some bloopers in a minute. It started with the side by side talking head. And if you read this talking head in the shooting draft, what made it to screen you can see they were having some fun. They had some improv around what was written. The very top when Jim says, go ahead and Dwight goes, no, you go ahead, you do it. And Jim goes, OK. And Dwight goes, I insist, that was all improvised. Then they get into the part where they’re telling that Angela was blackmailed by Phyllis. That’s all scripted. But then Dwight goes, what he said was, and he puts a finger towards Jim’s face and Jim pushes it away and goes, just, easy. That’s all improv, guys. That’s just these two fellows having some fun.

[00:24:52] Jenna I think I could have told you all that because I know these two so well and I know the bits that they would do off camera.

[00:25:00] Angela What about the one at the end? That was all improv too, that whole like, that’s on my side. And then Jim’s like, so this was fun. That’s just them playing around.

[00:25:08] Jenna Yeah, that’s their chemistry. Well, after that talking head, we have a Kelly talking head where she explains that yesterday was her birthday. Everybody forgot. We see that she got all dressed up. There wasn’t a party. This one minute is full of some amazing background catches.

[00:25:29] Angela Oh, let’s hear them.

[00:25:30] Jenna The first one is a fan catch from Ryan W. When they show Kelly all dressed up for her birthday during her talking head, in the background on Dwight’s desk, you can see his bobblehead from Angela. It’s back on the desk. I looked at it. Yes, at five minutes, ten seconds, bobblehead. But also, this is the one I noticed, Creed is milling around in Michael’s office.

[00:25:59] Angela What?

[00:25:59] Jenna Yeah, he’s just milling around in there.

[00:26:03] Angela What the heck?

[00:26:04] Jenna What’s he doing in there?

[00:26:06] Angela I don’t know.

[00:26:07] Jenna I don’t either. But those are my background catches.

[00:26:11] Angela Those are good catches. Jenna. We all know that Ryan had his list. Remember when he came back? He was mad at everyone.

[00:26:17] Jenna Yes. He kept writing down names.

[00:26:19] Angela Did you know that Angela Martin also has her list?

[00:26:22] Jenna No.

[00:26:24] Angela She calls it her enemy list.

[00:26:27] Jenna She’s not subtle.

[00:26:29] Angela And it all comes up in a scene that was deleted between Jim, Dwight and Angela. She’s turning over her party planning committee box of items. OK, here it is.

[00:26:40] Angela Martin I reprinted my vendors list for parties, it’s a list of birthdays, half birthdays, minutes from past parties and an enemies list, you’re going to need it. If there’s some cat stuff mixed in here, I’d appreciate you returning it to me.

[00:26:55] Dwight Of course.

[00:26:57] Angela I wish you two the best of luck.

[00:26:59] Jim Thank you. Angela. Dwight and I would like to say that we’d be honored if you would stay on as a member of the committee.

[00:27:10] Dwight And we think you could even run it and take care of everything and we would not get in your way.

[00:27:14] Jim Well, that is a great idea.

[00:27:15] Angela Martin Nice try. It’s your problem now.

[00:27:19] Jenna I want to say I spit out my coffee when you explained that you had minutes for the parties.

[00:27:26] Angela She’s documenting everything that happens at these parties and she has an enemies list.

[00:27:32] Jenna Wow.

[00:27:33] Angela Oh, I mean, those are scenes I would have loved to sing toboggan scene. I would love someone to read the minutes of a party.

[00:27:41] Jenna Yeah, I agree. Well, back in the car, Pam wants to turn on the radio, but Michael needs silence or Sam Kinison in order to prepare. One of those two,

[00:27:53] Angela Sam Kinison, comedian that yelled his whole stand up routine was yelling,

[00:27:58] Jenna Yes, he needs one of those two things. But that’s OK. Pam’s just going to sing to herself. But then Michael asked Pam if she’s nervous about seeing Karen today. He says, Is that why you wore makeup today? And Pam’s like, what? What? No. I loved that line. I don’t know why.

[00:28:15] Angela Oh, because it’s just one of those statements that completely rattles you.

[00:28:20] Jenna And also because I have so done that. I have so szujed up a little extra.

[00:28:26] Angela And if someone points it out then you get embarrassed.

[00:28:29] Jenna Yes. That was such good writing.

[00:28:32] Angela So now we start that storyline that Jenna mentioned that we added to fill out the script. Stanley is going to escort in Julia, his client.

[00:28:40] Jenna And I want you to notice they did not use the front door.

[00:28:43] Angela No. Who ever comes in this way? No one.

[00:28:46] Jenna And the reason they did that was so that they would not have to pass by the conference room because they didn’t know where they were going to put this entrance and they just didn’t want it to mess up whatever Dwight and Jim might have done or not done to the conference room yet.

[00:29:00] Angela Yes. So they strategically position the camera. So you see them coming in by that door, by the file cabinet. The only other time we’ve seen that door was during the fire drill.

[00:29:09] Jenna Yeah.

[00:29:10] Angela Basically.

[00:29:11] Jenna And I have to tell you, in my mind, I have no idea where that goes. Where does that go? We don’t know.

[00:29:17] Angela We don’t know.

[00:29:18] Jenna I know where the front door goes. There’s also that door by the break room. Where does that go?

[00:29:23] Angela Well we think it goes to the parking lot because Michael and Dwight chased each other, remember? Like in Prince Family Paper.

[00:29:30] Jenna I can’t put it together in my head.

[00:29:32] Angela I can’t.

[00:29:32] Jenna Because obviously those doors went literally nowhere. They went to snacks backstage is where they went.

[00:29:40] Angela But yes, they enter that way so we could place this new storyline anywhere we wanted.

[00:29:44] Jenna Yes. Andy notices Julia. He is immediately smitten. Does anybody fall in love at first sight more than Andy?

[00:29:52] Angela No, Andy’s so.

[00:29:54] Jenna Maybe Michael.

[00:29:54] Angela Maybe Michael is might be what they have in common. They fall in love instantly. And Michael fell in love with a chair model. You know what I’m saying?

[00:30:01] Jenna Right. I’m sorry. It’s definitely Michael. Yes.

[00:30:03] Angela And Phyllis immediately is like she’s out of your league.

[00:30:07] Jenna Well, Andy doesn’t care that she’s out of his league. He is going to go for it.

[00:30:12] Angela He has such a great talking head. It was like so well-written when he’s like, I’m single now. And there’s an epic showdown between the Nard dog and crippling despair. Oh, my gosh.

[00:30:22] Jenna I know. Well, Jim and Dwight are also going to try and apologize to Kelly. They want to make it up to her. And she does this great, passive aggressive thing that we know she doesn’t mean where she says, you know what? All I want is for this to never happen to another person.

[00:30:42] Angela Oh, I know.

[00:30:42] Jenna That’s what I want.

[00:30:43] Angela Oh, I know. Well, they barely got through this scene. I don’t know how they have a usable take and then they continue breaking throughout the whole rest of the script. We got to hear some of these bloopers.

[00:30:56] Speaker 4 We just wanted to say we’re very sorry.

[00:30:58] Kelly Screw you guys, you’re dead to me.

[00:30:59] Dwight If you say screw you one more time.

[00:31:01] Kelly Screw you, beet farmer.

[00:31:02] Jim Whoa. OK, guys.

[00:31:06] Rainn Wilson I did that face you like.

[00:31:08] Dwight If you say screw you one more time.

[00:31:10] Kelly Screw you, beet farmer.

[00:31:17] Jim Hey guys just cool it. You knew. You knew that one was bad.

[00:31:23] Rainn Wilson (LAUGHTER) Within the workplace. Oh, there’s always a theme. Idiot.

[00:31:52] Jenna OK, here’s what I have to say, I can tell from listening to John laugh that he’s crying and he is bent over.

[00:31:58] Angela Yes, he’s like a full flop.

[00:32:00] Jenna Yeah, he has lost it. One of the hardest times I ever laughed was doing a scene with Mindy and Rainn, because when you put Mindy and Rainn together, nobody is in control. There’s no the two of them are a mess. They’re the hardest people to do scenes with. They laugh the most. And when we get to this episode I’ll show you, I hope they have a blooper of it, but it reminded me of that. Well, at the end of the scene, she does say that she would like an ice cream cake.

[00:32:29] Angela Were you burping as you said ice cream or did you have a gurgle?

[00:32:32] Jenna No.

[00:32:33] Angela What just happened?

[00:32:34] Jenna I don’t know.

[00:32:34] Angela You did this… Ice cream cake.

[00:32:38] Jenna I don’t know. I didn’t burp.

[00:32:39] Angela I know.

[00:32:41] Jenna Listen, listen. You already outed me for, like, eating off my shirt, but I don’t also, like, belch, OK? People are like, Jenna doesn’t wash her hands. She eats off her shirt. I don’t need belching as part of my reputation now.

[00:32:56] Angela Now you are the one who shared about the hand washing. That was on you.

[00:33:01] Jenna I know, but I only don’t wash my hands after a tinkle at home. I always wash my hands after a poop. I always wash my hands after I tinkle or poop in public. But somehow I’ve become the poster child for just never washing hands and I don’t want that on me. OK, that is not who I am.

[00:33:20] Angela That’s what she said.

[00:33:22] Jenna Oh.

[00:33:22] Angela You said I don’t want that on me. I couldn’t help it. All right. I think people had forgotten about your hygiene and now you’ve reminded them.

[00:33:30] Jenna That’s what you think. That’s what you think. They remember everything.

[00:33:35] Angela All I was going to say I didn’t think it was a belch. It sounded like a gurgle. You know how you get a gurgle in your throat sometimes?

[00:33:41] Jenna Maybe I needed to take a breath, but I pushed through it. I pushed through to finish my sentence.

[00:33:49] Angela I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

[00:33:49] Jenna You know what?

[00:33:50] Angela OK, ok. All right. We’re going to take a break.

[00:33:53] Jenna Yeah, I’ll get plenty of breaths.

[00:33:54] Angela You should take some water.

[00:33:56] Jenna I’m going to go wash my hands just to prove that I wash them.

[00:33:59] Angela OK, and then when we come back, we’ve got to get into this conference room.

[00:34:04] Jenna Oh it’s so good.

[00:34:05] Angela And these balloons and streamers. We’ll be back.

[00:34:08] Jenna We’ll be back. Are you ready for a birthday party?

[00:34:15] Angela I am. Is it your birthday?

[00:34:17] Jenna It is your birthday.

[00:34:18] Angela It is your birthday.

[00:34:19] Jenna Period.

[00:34:21] Angela Period.

[00:34:21] Jenna All right. Or in the conference room, Dwight has decorated for Kelly’s birthday. It is so pitiful.

[00:34:27] Angela It is pitiful.

[00:34:29] Jenna John is so funny when he enters the conference room, the way he holds the half inflated balloon. Do we need to describe this room, by the way?

[00:34:38] Angela OK, for those of you who haven’t seen the episode, I hope you watched it this week with us. Picture a conference table. It is full of half. Not even half.

[00:34:48] Jenna No. There’s like just maybe

[00:34:51] Angela three breaths.

[00:34:53] Jenna Into a balloon.

[00:34:54] Angela That are brown,

[00:34:56] Jenna gray, silver?

[00:34:58] Jenna I feel like a little silver is in there.

[00:35:00] Angela There are some sad, like brown beige streamers.

[00:35:05] Jenna Dwight has just sort of clipped off and taped to the ceiling.

[00:35:09] Angela With, like, beige masking tape.

[00:35:11] Jenna No, it was regular clear tape.

[00:35:12] Angela No.

[00:35:13] Jenna Yeah.

[00:35:13] Angela There’s masking tape all over the conference room. It is hilarious to me.

[00:35:18] Jenna No, it’s clear tape.

[00:35:19] Angela No, it’s not.

[00:35:22] Jenna Oh, no.

[00:35:22] Angela This is one of my favorite things about it because have you ever had, like, that guy that you were friends with in college wrap a gift for you and you’re like, what did you use? Electrical tape? What is this painter’s tape? Right. You had no clear tape. Oh, Jenna. OK, I got to bring it up. Do we have I need a break. I have my laptop.

[00:35:46] Jenna She got her laptop back.

[00:35:47] Angela I got my laptop back. Oscar Nunez as Jimmy Stewart.

[00:35:52] Jenna A long running long running inside joke on The Office.

[00:35:55] Angela Long running inside joke now on Office Ladies. Oh I can’t wait to show you this shitty looking tape they use to only make it sadder. OK, where are you. And I have a time code because, you know, I’m like that. This whole conference room scene with the sad balloons and the sad streamers, it starts at eight minutes, 30 seconds. Oh, I love it so much. Aha! Aha! Masking tape.

[00:36:25] Jenna Oh, my Gosh.

[00:36:27] Angela Not clear tape, please look at the shitty. Masking tape they used to tape up everything. It is so sad looking.

[00:36:36] Jenna I am delighted at this detail that I did not notice until doing this podcast.

[00:36:41] Angela It’s one of my favorite things. I also want to point out at eight minutes thirty seven seconds, who do you see over John’s shoulder?

[00:36:48] Jenna Oh, that’s you. The whole accounting department.

[00:36:50] Angela They had me come out to the copier for the scene and watch it. I’m in the background every time it pans to the bullpen because they sort of thought that Angela Martin would be keeping tabs. What are they doing? How are they planning this party? What are they up to? So I watch these two grown men disintegrate into tears of laughter. I don’t know how, again, we got any usable footage. They laugh so hard Jenna we had to pause. And this is what Rainn said about it. Ready? In his book, The Bassoon King, this is what he wrote: the longest inappropriate laughter was during the episode Lecture Circuit when Dwight and Jim are put in charge of the party planning committee and Dwight hangs tiny brown and gray balloons and a banner that reads “It is your birthday.” Rainn goes on to say, John and I literally could not stop laughing. We laughed until we cried. Production needed to be shut down for a twenty minute break while we gathered ourselves. And then we returned to film the scene.

[00:37:48] Jenna Just the way John picks up the sad balloon from the conference room table. I don’t know how they spoke after that.

[00:37:56] Angela I want to tell you the part I remember them laughing at is Dwight says, Are you trying to hurt my feelings? And he throws the balloon. But it didn’t have enough weight to travel in the air and so the balloon with the sad streamer attached just kind of fell like in the air. But he was trying to throw it at John and it just wouldn’t travel. You can see I’m going to show you right now, you can see Rainn starting to break because I think he broke every time. Watch.

[00:38:26] Jim What is that. It is your birthday, period.

[00:38:29] Dwight It’s a statement of fact.

[00:38:31] Jim Not even an exclamation point?

[00:38:32] Dwight This is more professional. It’s not like she discovered a cure for cancer.

[00:38:36] Jim I can’t believe how bad this looks.

[00:38:40] Dwight Are you trying to hurt my feelings because if so, you are succeeding. Fortunately, my feelings regenerate at twice the speed of a normal man’s.

[00:38:48] Jenna The sad balloon is so good. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

[00:38:53] Angela So Dwight is annoyed at Jim’s reaction to his decorating. And so he’s like, wait, have you collected the money, you know, for the cake?

[00:39:01] Jenna Yeah. And Jim is like, I’ve only collected six dollars.

[00:39:06] Angela Dwight’s like, damn it, Jim, that’s what we put in.

[00:39:10] Jenna This got me thinking.

[00:39:11] Angela Oh, no.

[00:39:12] Jenna We are always wondering where did we get the money for these parties?

[00:39:17] Angela There is no way we took a collection for casino night.

[00:39:21] Jenna Well, no, but for birthday parties, there is clearly a birthday party collection budget. It’s very clear that everyone is supposed to give three dollars. Right. OK, so I counted. There are 13 people in the office, including Ryan, who’s normally in the office, but minus the birthday person, that would be 12 people who contribute for each birthday party. Three dollars per person is thirty six dollars. The birthday party budget at Dunder Mifflin is thirty six dollars.

[00:39:55] Angela Now, I had a gurgle.

[00:39:57] See?

[00:39:57] I had a gurlge.

[00:39:59] Angela just gurgled.

[00:39:59] I  had a gurgle. OK.

[00:40:03] Jenna No but you just didn’t speak for a second because you were gurgling. So you needed air.

[00:40:07] Angela OK. I need to stop drinking fizzy water. This is what it’s telling me. Here’s the thing. You’re saying, how much is the party planning committee budget?

[00:40:16] Jenna The birthday party budget is thirty six dollars.

[00:40:19] Angela OK, I think that’s true, except there have been episodes where people go to Angela for petty cash. And I think Angela is not helping these guys at all. So maybe like Phyllis, she wants to see them fail. I feel like there’s some petty cash for parties, but she’s not going to let them in on that.

[00:40:36] Jenna That’s possible.

[00:40:37] Angela I’m just saying.

[00:40:38] Jenna I was just following this thread, you know?

[00:40:40] Angela Yeah.

[00:40:41] Jenna And here’s where it got me.

[00:40:42] Angela Did I take the wind out of your sails a little bit?

[00:40:44] Jenna No, I mean, take it or leave it. Birthday party budget is thirty six dollars or another theory, whatever you want.

[00:40:52] Angela I feel like I’m getting some sass.

[00:40:54] Jenna I’m not giving any sass.

[00:40:56] Angela I feel a little sass. I’m just saying I think there is some extra cash.

[00:40:59] Jenna Can I give you a fan question from Preston G?

[00:41:02] Angela Yes.

[00:41:03] Jenna Preston would like to know who came up with the It is your birthday period slogan.

[00:41:08] Angela Oh Preston. I want to know that too.

[00:41:10] Jenna Mindy.

[00:41:11] Angela Mindy.

[00:41:12] Jenna I texted her, she said it was her.

[00:41:15] Angela Genius.

[00:41:16] Jenna Genius.

[00:41:17] Angela Genius lady.

[00:41:18] Jenna So, so good.

[00:41:20] Angela Perfect, too. Perfect that that’s what Dwight would write. Perfect.

[00:41:24] Jenna I have a shameless plug.

[00:41:26] Angela What for?

[00:41:28] Jenna Our merch. Because we sell the most adorable it is your birthday wrapping paper and gift bags over on Office Ladies Dotcom.

[00:41:38] Angela We do. They have the sad balloons and streamers. They are so cute. And then of course we had to include it is your wedding.

[00:41:46] Jenna And it is your baby shower.

[00:41:47] Angela Yes, with sad balloons. If you want to have some sad wrapping paper for your baby shower, we got you covered.

[00:41:54] Jenna Listen, if the person receiving the gift is an Office fan, they will like it.

[00:41:58] Angela They will love it.

[00:41:59] Jenna We also have a nifty gifties bag.

[00:42:01] Angela You got to have a nifty gifties.

[00:42:03] Jenna You can tell we’re two ladies who like to wrap a gift.

[00:42:06] Angela We do. Office Ladies dotcom. Go to shop. OK.

[00:42:09] Jenna Shameless plug. Should we head over to you Utica for a second and check in? Because Pam and Michael have just arrived. They are taking a photo outside of the branch. I guess we’re documenting this trip.

[00:42:22] Angela Oh yeah. Are you kidding? I feel like Michael is a scrap booker.

[00:42:25] Jenna Yeah, Pam’s in charge of all of the bags and taking pictures. When they arrive. Rolando,.

[00:42:33] Angela Rolando is back.

[00:42:35] Jenna Adam Jamal Craig. So good.

[00:42:38] Angela Remember, he was in season four and Branch Wars.

[00:42:41] Jenna Well, he’s serving up a bit of sass because he says you’re late. A lot of people pointed out that Michael introduces Pam to Rolando, even though we know from Branch Wars that she knows him. And the thing that got cut out was that Rolando and I were supposed to share like a little look. Right. But it didn’t make it.

[00:43:05] Angela It’s so played for me, though, that Michael would forget who Pam knows and doesn’t know. And he just doesn’t really pay attention to what other people do at his own company.

[00:43:15] Jenna Oh, totally. This is also when Michael decides to offer Pam a little trick for getting through any nerves she might be feeling about seeing Karen. She should just picture her naked. And then Karen enters

[00:43:30] Angela a very pregnant Karen.

[00:43:32] Jenna Yes.

[00:43:32] Angela And then Michael. Oh, my gosh. Michael.

[00:43:35] Jenna Is so good.

[00:43:37] Angela He’s like, Is it Jim’s?

[00:43:38] Jenna Yeah. And he said, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to calculate in my head, when’s the last time you had sex with Jim?

[00:43:44] Angela He said that out loud.

[00:43:45] Jenna He said it was ten months ago?

[00:43:47] Angela To two women that have dated him are dating him. I oh so Awkward

[00:43:53] Jenna we had a fan question from Mickey S, was Rashida Jones actually pregnant in this episode? No, that was fakey belly.

[00:44:02] Angela Fakey belly.

[00:44:03] Jenna Well, they’re going to move into the conference room.

[00:44:06] Angela Michael is going to start a show. But first, he has a phone call.

[00:44:09] Jenna Yes, he has a dramatic phone call and then explains to the group that he just learned his father died. But then he says, I’m just kidding. But you bought it. You bought it and you can’t return it. Or can you? He got their attention.

[00:44:28] Angela What does that have to do with selling paper?

[00:44:30] Jenna I don’t know. But we had a huge fan catch from three people, Rebecca N, Evan H and Lauren B all noticed that when Michael takes this pretend phone call… In the background, I clocked it at nine minutes, thirty nine seconds, you can see Utica’s industrial printer is chained with a padlock.

[00:44:54] Angela Oh, no way.

[00:44:56] Jenna And there is a sign requesting employees to report any suspicious behavior. And this is a callback to the time that Michael and Dwight tried to steal Utica’s printer back in Branch Wars.

[00:45:10] Angela That’s a mazing. It is amazing. That is such a tiny detail.

[00:45:14] Jenna I know. And it’s such a small thing.

[00:45:16] Angela Oh, I’m delighted by that. I love that.

[00:45:20] Jenna It’s amazing.

[00:45:21] Angela Well, Karen, she has to say something. Michael is being so ridiculous. And she’s like, Michael, this whole sort of shenanigan at the top here just makes us think you’re a liar. And he’s like, hold up. Would a liar bring mini Mounds bars? And then you sadly throw them at everyone. Jenna, there are a lot of bloopers of you doing this.

[00:45:43] Jenna I know, because every time I did it, I would burst out laughing. And I had many conversations with Ken Kwapis and Mindy Kaling about this. I had to sit there for a long time with these mini Mounds bars in my hands

[00:45:59] Angela Hiding them.

[00:46:00] Jenna Hiding them. And Mindy thought it would be especially funny if I just did it very matter of factly. And of course it was. And it made us laugh every time. Sometimes I wouldn’t even get to the throwing part, just me standing up. We would start laughing. I mean, the Mounds bars were getting very melty because I was holding them for so long.

[00:46:20] Angela The way you threw them was so awkward. It was unnatural. It hit people.

[00:46:26] Jenna Yes.

[00:46:27] Angela So funny.

[00:46:29] Jenna Well, Angela, this is also not the first time that Michael has thrown candy at people. He loves to throw candy during a presentation. If you remember, in Business School, he threw a bunch of candy at the students and Ryan’s business school class.

[00:46:43] Angela Yes, he loves to use candy to make a point about paper sales. Well, I couldn’t resist Jenna when I heard many Mounds bars. I had to look up the origin of the mini Mounds bar.

[00:46:56] Jenna Oh, I’m fascinated. I love a Mounds bar. I ate many of the Mounds bars that day, I should say.

[00:47:01] Angela Are you Mounds Bar or Almond Joy?

[00:47:03] Jenna No, no, no, no, no. Don’t throw any nuts in my dark chocolate and coconut treat.

[00:47:09] Angela Can we play the jingle plays that will live in your brain forever.

[00:47:16] Unidentified Sometimes you feels like a nut. Sometimes you don’t. Almond Joys have nuts. Mounds don’t. Sometimes you feel like a. Sometimes you.   

[00:47:29] Jenna Yeah, I never feel like a nut.

[00:47:30] Angela You never feel like a nut.

[00:47:32] Jenna No.

[00:47:32] Angela I am also a mini Mounds bar person. I love the dark chocolate. I love it, but let’s start our story, guys. How did we get the Mini Mounds Bar? Our story starts with Peter Paul Halligan. He was a candy manufacturer in New Haven, Connecticut, in the early 20th century. He was born in Armenia and he immigrated to the U.S. in 1890 and opened a candy shop. He would sell candy bars to the U.S. Army and they would put them in the soldiers monthly rations during World War One. And then they love the candy bars so much. When they came home, they wanted more. So after the success of that, he teamed with five other Armenian investors to form the Peter Paul Candy manufacturing company. They then made a very smart purchase. They purchased a candy line from candy maker Vincent Natido, who created the original Mounds Bar. He was selling it for five cents.

[00:48:29] Jenna Oh, full size. Five cents?

[00:48:32] Angela They’re not very big,

[00:48:34] Jenna but a full size bar is two.

[00:48:36] Angela He sold one.

[00:48:37] Jenna It was always a mini.

[00:48:38] Angela It was always a mini. And then Peter Paul actually did start selling it a pack of two for ten cents.

[00:48:44] Jenna I wish you could see Angela’s hands right now.

[00:48:49] Angela Yeah, I wanted to show Jenna what it would look like. Two many mount’s bars. There it is. OK, well Jenna during World War two, the Peter Paul Candy manufacturing company was faced with a severe shortage of sugar and coconut, right? World War Two. They had normally been shipped from the Philippines. Then the war broke out. So the company began sourcing coconut from the Caribbean, using its own fleet of small vessels to transport coconut supplies to the US. They were nicknamed the Mounds Flea Fleet. There were about seven ships small enough to avoid detailed scrutiny by the German naval war vessels.

[00:49:30] Jenna My gosh, all of this just to get coconut for some candy.

[00:49:34] Angela Wait, it gets better.

[00:49:35] Jenna I have to say, if you’re a ship captain during World War Two, are you risking your life to bring people coconut?

[00:49:42] Angela Hold up.

[00:49:43] Jenna OK, I guess you are.

[00:49:44] Angela Apparently, this flea fleet, as it was called,

[00:49:47] Jenna Flee, like Flee, Lee?

[00:49:50] Angela F L E A. A little flea fleet. It’s a flea fleet.

[00:49:54] Jenna Oh, a teeny tiny.

[00:49:56] Angela It’s a tiny fleet.

[00:49:56] Jenna Got it.

[00:49:57] Angela It was so small in size it posed no threat to the German U boats that were patrolling the Atlantic waters. But what the German naval commanders did not know was that the crew of these vessels were also gathering more than coconuts. They were gathering valuable intelligence about the Germans’ fleet movements and sharing it with the American armed forces.

[00:50:18] Jenna Wait one moment. What you’re telling me is that while collecting supplies to make one of my favorite candies, these folks were also providing important war intelligence to the United States government during World War Two.

[00:50:35] Angela Yeah, the mini Mounds bar. I’m telling you, I was fascinated by all of this. And they also dropped all of their other production of candies and just concentrated on the Mounds bar because it was so popular and the U.S. military purchased as much as 80 percent of their outpu by 1944. They would package five million candy bars monthly into combat rations.

[00:50:57] Jenna Wow.

[00:50:58] Angela Yeah. And now, as we know over the years, Peter Paul, they added several more things to their line, including the Almond Joy, which they’re often sold together. But that’s the story of the mini Mounds Bar. They’re now owned by the Hershey Company. You can still enjoy them today. Isn’t that an amazing story?

[00:51:16] Jenna I would like to enjoy one today.

[00:51:18] Angela So would I. The Mounds flea fleet.

[00:51:22] Angela Wow.

[00:51:24] Angela You guys, you can learn more about it at Connecticut History dot org.

[00:51:27] Jenna Fascinating. I have to say, I also love that it’s an East Coast candy because it tracks with our show that Michael would be supporting something that originated.

[00:51:36] Angela In Connecticut.

[00:51:37] Jenna Wow.

[00:51:39] Angela There you go.

[00:51:40] Jenna I mean, the thing is, you did not know you were going to learn today were that.

[00:51:44] Angela I know.

[00:51:44] Jenna I definitely was not expecting that.

[00:51:46] Angela Amazing.

[00:51:47] Jenna This is another example of our offshoot podcast, two ladies who Google,

[00:51:55] Angela yes two ladies who love to Google.

[00:51:57] Jenna And tell you things.

[00:51:59] Angela We’re fun at a dinner party guys.

[00:52:01] Jenna We actually are.

[00:52:02] Angela We actually are.

[00:52:03] Jenna All right. Michael has a talking head that is so good, I texted it to Steve. I don’t know how he did it. He explains he always wanted to become an actor and he even has his own memorization techniques. He explains that the way he learned the Pledge of Allegiance is by singing it to the tune of Old MacDonald. Steve then as Michael sings the Pledge of Allegiance to the tune of Old MacDonald, and I don’t know how he did it. I don’t know how he did it. I text it to him and I said, this is an amazing performance. This is so badass. I mean,.

[00:52:42] Angela I know.

[00:52:42] Jenna He does take a long pause. This was in the script, by the way, this was totally s-.

[00:52:45] Angela I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

[00:52:47] Both United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God. with a woof woof here and a woof woof there-.

[00:52:53] Jenna I mean. That is not easy to do.

[00:53:01] Angela Well, it is true, you guys, you put something to a song and you’ll learn it.

[00:53:04] Jenna It’s called a pneumonic device. And that’s a real thing.

[00:53:08] Angela It’s a real thing. Michael says he uses it to learn people’s names. So what does he got here? He looks around the room. He’s got shirty, mole, lazy eye, Mexico, baldy, sugar boobs, black woman. He said, I take a unique part of you and I use that to memorize your name. Baldy, your head is bald. It is hairless, it is shiny. It is a reflective like a mirror. M your name is Mark.

[00:53:30] Jenna And he says, yes. Yes.

[00:53:33] Angela And Karen said, you know what? This is all really offensive.

[00:53:36] Jenna Guest star alert Mark a.k.a. Baldy was played by Brian Patrick Mulligan. He has an extensive career playing famous historical figures.

[00:53:47] Angela Like who?

[00:53:48] Jenna Al Capone. Alfred Hitchcock, Teddy Roosevelt. He has played Ben Franklin in three different TV shows, including on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He just played W.C. Fields in a movie. But his most frequently played person is former Vice President Dick Cheney.

[00:54:09] Angela Wow.

[00:54:10] Jenna He has played Dick Cheney in six episodes of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and ten times on Jimmy Kimmel.

[00:54:17] Angela Those guys love bring in Dick Cheney on.

[00:54:19] Jenna I guess so. They love bringing Brian Patrick Mulligan on as Dick Cheney. I also want you to know that Mole did not have a real mole,

[00:54:29] Angela fakey mole,.

[00:54:30] Jenna Fakey mole. I know this because I saw the call sheet and he had to come in fifteen minutes earlier than everyone else to get that mole put on.

[00:54:36] Angela There you go.

[00:54:37] Jenna Yeah. So listen, back at Dunder Mifflin, I think we need to check in on Andy.

[00:54:43] Angela Yeah, he’s fallen in love.

[00:54:44] Jenna He has. And he needs an in, right? Before he goes and introduces himself to Julia, he’s going to go down and he’s going to spy on her car to see if he can learn anything about her.

[00:54:54] Angela Got to get Intel.

[00:54:55] Jenna So he’s peering in her car and he sees that she has a Feist CD.

[00:55:00] Angela Oh, this is jackpot for him.

[00:55:02] Jenna Jackpot. Then he sets off the car alarm

[00:55:05] Angela and then another car alarm.

[00:55:07] Jenna Yes. Well, lady, do you remember this Feist song that he’s going to sing later?

[00:55:13] Angela I do.

[00:55:14] Jenna Huge. It’s called One, two, three, four. So it was written by Leslie Feist, who went professionally as Feist. She’s a Canadian pop singer. It came out in 2007. Anyway, I thought we should play the song for everybody. Here is Feist. One, two, three, four.

[00:55:33] Feist One, two, three, four. Tell me you love me more. Sleepless long nights that’s what my youth was for. Oh teenage hopes are alive at your door. Left you with nothing but they want some more. Oh uh oh you’re changing your heart. Oh uh oh you know who you are.

[00:55:59] Jenna it’s so good.

[00:56:00] Angela So like peppy.

[00:56:02] Jenna The song was nominated for two Grammy Awards and Feist was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Pop Vocal Album. It was so huge. She did a spin on it for Sesame Street.

[00:56:13] Angela OK, I didn’t want to say anything, but this is where I remember it.

[00:56:17] Jenna This was your Feist moment?

[00:56:19] Angela This was my Feist moment. I mean, I actually feel like I heard it here first on Sesame Street. And then I was like, oh, that’s what people are talking about because Isabelle loves Sesame Street.

[00:56:29] Jenna Well, I pulled a clip of it on Sesame Street. Get ready.

[00:56:32] Angela Oh, it’s going back all the feels for me. I remember. Oh, we watched this over and over. We’re going to learn to count you guys to the number four.

[00:56:42] Feist One, two, three, four monsters walking cross the floor. I love counting. Counting to the number four. Oh you’re counting, counting with me. To one less than five and one more than three. Oh uh oh we’re counting to four. Oh uh oh let’s count some more.

[00:57:09] Jenna OK, why am I crying?

[00:57:10] Angela Oh, my gosh, because our kids were little and they love Sesame Street and they’re older now.

[00:57:15] Jenna I didn’t even have a kid then. I didn’t even have a then, but just I could hear the monsters start to sing and I just could there they all are. And oh, I don’t know. You’re right. We don’t watch Sesame Street anymore. So maybe it just I don’t know.

[00:57:31] Angela I know. Listen, I found a video where I Isabelle was little and I was doing Elmo and I was doing like I was going la la la la la la la la. Elmo’s world.

[00:57:46] Jenna Oh yes. We sang that song all the time.

[00:57:49] Angela I know. Oh, yeah, well, let’s have a baby. No I’m kidding.

[00:57:53] Jenna Oh, my God.

[00:57:54] Angela I’m kidding. I’m kidding.

[00:57:55] Jenna No, my daughter’s been asking for a baby.

[00:57:58] Angela Oh my God.

[00:57:59] Jenna A little sister.

[00:57:59] Angela Listen, whenever I want to make

[00:58:01] Jenna I didn’t know how to explain perimenopause to her, but I was like, Mama doesn’t make any eggs anymore.

[00:58:07] Angela Mama, let me let’s talk about cobwebs. I want to describe to you what a cobweb situation is.

[00:58:15] Jenna Well, Andy is going to interrupt Stanley’s meeting. He’s going to bring them both some coffees. He’s put one, two, three, four splendors in Stanley’s coffee.

[00:58:25] Angela Yeah, he’s like one, two, three, four Splendas in your coffee, Stanley. None in yours, Julia, cause I don’t know how you take it.

[00:58:38] Jenna I thought Julia was absolutely perfect.

[00:58:41] Angela Oh, I did too.

[00:58:42] Jenna Guest Star Alert, Julia was played by Erika Tazel. I totally recognized her from the show Justified. She played Rachel Brooks. Erika is a classically trained actress. She graduated with an MFA from the NYU acting program. Her professional acting debut was at the New York Shakespeare Festival. And since we’ve been tracking these things, I’ll have you know, she was not on Monk, but she has been on both Law and Order and Law & Order Special Victims Unit.

[00:59:12] Angela I loved all of her reactions to Andy. They were so perfect. And this whole thing has just completely ticked off Stanley. He’s like, what are you doing? He pulls Andy aside and Andy says he loves Julia with all his heart. All his heart. Stanley is like, If you really love her, fine. Give me two of your clients. You can have this client.

[00:59:33] Jenna Yeah. So Andy takes over the meeting in a very awkward way. Mm hmm. He wonders where should we send your invoices?

[00:59:44] Angela To your boyfriend?

[00:59:45] Jenna Right. Because we certainly could.

[00:59:48] Angela And she’s so matter of factly is like, no, you can send it to my work address. This is for work.

[00:59:54] Jenna Yeah, but Andy does find out she does not have a boyfriend and then he kind of panics.

[01:00:00] Angela He’s so excited.

[01:00:02] Jenna And then he gets advice from Creed.

[01:00:04] Angela Why Creed?

[01:00:05] Jenna I don’t know. But I-.

[01:00:06] Angela Why would you go to Creed for advice. Creed’s like say no more. Just go in for a kiss. That’s how I got Squeaky Fromme.

[01:00:14] Jenna Yeah.

[01:00:14] Angela I didn’t know who that was. I had to Google it.

[01:00:16] Jenna Oh, you didn’t know who it was.

[01:00:17] Angela No. Now I do.

[01:00:19] Jenna Yeah.

[01:00:19] Angela Well.

[01:00:21] Jenna Charles Manson,

[01:00:22] Angela she was part of the Manson family,

[01:00:24] Jenna right?

[01:00:24] Angela Yeah.

[01:00:25] Jenna She went to jail.

[01:00:26] Angela She tried to assassinate Gerald Ford. President Ford.

[01:00:29] Jenna Right. She was not part of the Tate/La Bianca murders, but she did try to assassinate Gerald Ford.

[01:00:35] Angela So I guess Creed kissed her and he says, Have I ever steered you wrong, Jim?

[01:00:40] Jenna Yeah. Just go in and kiss her. Just do it. That just, you know, that’s what you should do.

[01:00:46] Angela When he called Andy Jim, if you’re Andy, wouldn’t you think- there’s many reasons for red flags.

[01:00:52] Jenna There’s so many red flags.

[01:00:54] Angela So many red flags.

[01:00:55] Jenna Well, for whatever reason, Andy is going to take Creed’s advice. He’s going to walk Julia to the car. He forgot his coat. Could he run back in and get it real quick? Because he’s very, very cold. Julia says, my car’s right here. I think. Thanks for walking me down, but I’m good. And then when he gets her to the car, he goes in for a kiss. Andy. Come on, this woman has had to put up with so much in this meeting and now this?

[01:01:21] Angela Also like she could write him up.

[01:01:24] Jenna I know.

[01:01:24] Angela He could lose his job. Andy, don’t listen to Creed, Andy.

[01:01:29] Jenna They do lose the account. He has a talking head. So he kind of lost in every way today.

[01:01:35] Angela He lost three accounts. He lost two that he gave to Stanley. One that Stanley gave to him and he kind of showed his ass.

[01:01:43] Jenna Yeah. Yeah, he did. Well, speaking of showing your ass, Karen has asked Michael to leave the conference room and come to her office.

[01:01:52] Angela It’s like getting called to the principal’s office.

[01:01:54] Jenna And he is trying very hard to explain that he had a whole bit with a chain saw that he hasn’t been able to do. And Karen’s like, you know what? Why don’t you just put it all in an email and I’ll send it to my team? And he’s like, I can’t put a chainsaw in an email. Karen, I can’t do it. This is when Pam and Karen are going to have a little bonding moment. It’s so sweet. Pam says, when are you due? And Karen says, I’m due in a month.

[01:02:24] Angela Yeah.

[01:02:25] Jenna Michael says, Who did this to you? Who did this to you, Karen?

[01:02:30] Angela She’s like my husband.

[01:02:32] Jenna He’s a dermatologist. We met at a bar.

[01:02:35] Angela And then they have all these photos. They have one where they’re like dress like hot dogs.

[01:02:40] Jenna Yes, a hot dog and a hamburger. It’s very cute. We had a lot of fan questions about this. Everyone wants to know who is the man in the photo? Who is Dan, the dermatologist who is married to Karen?

[01:02:55] Angela Well, it was played by writer Dan Gore.

[01:02:59] Jenna Yeah. He was a writer on Parks and Recreation.

[01:03:02] Angela Yes. And he had been working with Mike Schur and Greg Daniels as they develop that show. And we had seen him a few times on set and in the writers room meeting with those guys.

[01:03:11] Jenna And he came to set one day when we were shooting on the stages and he and Rashida dressed up in all these different outfits and they went around and took pictures. It was amazing.

[01:03:23] Angela sIt was amazing.

[01:03:24] Jenna Well, you know, now Karen is going to ask about Jim.

[01:03:28] Angela Yes.

[01:03:29] Jenna It’s a little bit of tension, but Pam says we’re engaged.

[01:03:34] Angela And Karen is just earnestly happy for them. Rashida really sold it because I think as an audience you’re like, oh, what’s that? And she’s like she has so moved on. She has a whole life. She’s happy. And it gives Pam closure.

[01:03:50] Jenna Yeah. I don’t know about you, Ange, but I am happy if someone I have broken up with finds like a new relationship with someone else and they’re in love because I’m like, yeah, that’s why we broke up, because we weren’t a match. And then you found your match. I don’t have a lot of hard feelings about stuff. And I’ve had some messy breakups, you know, and even still, I don’t know, I just I think I am more Karen on this one. I’m like, well, great, I’m glad that worked out because, you know, good. It wasn’t meant to be for me and Jim, but it’s for you and Jim.

[01:04:29] Angela Right no I think life is short. My grandmother used to always say every pot has its lid and I want everyone to find their lid.

[01:04:38] Jenna Yeah, I wasn’t your lid. I fell in the water or I was too big.

[01:04:43] Angela I was too big for your pot. Or too small for your pot. I didn’t fit your pot. Let’s break it down some more.

[01:04:51] Jenna I’m trying to see if there’s a that’s what she said in there. But I can’t find it.

[01:04:56] Angela My lid fit your pot perfect.

[01:04:58] Jenna Mm hmm.

[01:04:59] Angela No.

[01:05:00] Jenna I think it would be your pot fit my lid just right. That’s what she said.

[01:05:04] Angela I don’t think either of them are real strong. That’s what she saids.

[01:05:07] Jenna We should let it go. No. Let’s stick with it.

[01:05:09] Angela No, let’s try it. Let’s try a few more. Let’s try a few more. We’ll find it. We’ll find it.

[01:05:16] Jenna Everyone. If you find it, will you email us? Put it in a revisited.

[01:05:20] Angela Oh, no. What are you asking for?

[01:05:22] Jenna I don’t know. Some interesting mail to read, that’s for sure.

[01:05:25] Angela That’s for sure. I don’t know where we are. We’ve hopped around.

[01:05:29] Jenna Well, I’ll tell you.

[01:05:30] Angela OK,

[01:05:31] Jenna Michael and Pam are going to leave the Utica branch.

[01:05:34] Angela All right.

[01:05:35] Jenna Michael gives his lecture A B plus. He says Karen is mean. Pam says, I like her. And then Pam says she’s glad she came along and that seeing Karen gave her closure. Well, that’s going to come back because as they’re driving away, Michael tells Pam, you know what? I never got closure with Holly. She was the love of my life and I never got closure. So Pam says, I think we should blow off this lecture in Rochester and go to Nashua instead. Michael says, let’s do it,

[01:06:14] Angela Pam is like, yes, screw them, let’s do this. All of a sudden, Michael just got what do the kids call it, a ride or die? He’s like, yeah.

[01:06:24] Jenna And then we have to be continued.

[01:06:26] Angela Yeah. The screen goes to black. You think it’s over. But there’s a tag.

[01:06:31] Jenna There’s a tag.

[01:06:33] Angela Jim is asking Creed for three dollars for Kelly’s party. Creed says, great. I’d like to contribute. And then he hands him a three dollar bill.

[01:06:42] Jenna Mm hmm. I had to know whose face was on that three dollar bill, because, you know, Phil, she had to make that. I paused. I looked at it. You know who I thought it was?

[01:06:54] Angela Who?

[01:06:55] Jenna Brad Pitt.

[01:06:56] Angela No.

[01:06:57] Jenna It looked like Brad Pitt to me. And I thought maybe it was a nod to B.J. because he was doing the movie with Brad Pitt.  I don’t know. I remember we talked a lot about Brad Pitt when B.J. was making that movie. We all thought we might become friends with him.

[01:07:11] Angela We were positive. We like B.J., bring him to set. Maybe he’d like to come have lunch. We’ll be totally cool, B.J. We will be normal.

[01:07:19] Jenna Exactly.

[01:07:21] Angela He never brought him to work.

[01:07:22] Jenna I know. We went through that with John and George Clooney too.

[01:07:25] Angela We’re like John. We’re going to be so normal around George. We’re not going to bring up, you know, his place in Lake Como and that we want to go. We won’t say that we read about it in People magazine.

[01:07:35] Jenna We won’t say anything of that.

[01:07:37] Angela None of those things.

[01:07:39] Jenna Well, it turns out Randy Cordray told me who was on the three dollar bill.

[01:07:42] Angela Who?

[01:07:43] Jenna George W. Bush.

[01:07:45] Angela What?

[01:07:46] Jenna I don’t know. That’s who Phil picked. He said Phil made it and that’s who he put on it.

[01:07:50] Angela You thought George W. Bush was Brad Pitt?

[01:07:53] Jenna I guess I did.

[01:07:55] Angela It’s time for new glasses. Get nana some glasses, you guys. That’s Lecture Circuit Part One.

[01:08:02] Jenna Yeah. We’ll be back next week with Lecture Circuit Part Two and a lot of stories about licking cats.

[01:08:10] Angela You said that so Midwest, and a lot of stories about licking cats.

[01:08:17] Jenna Yeah.

[01:08:18] Angela Sometimes your Missouri really comes out and I live for it.

[01:08:22] Jenna Oh, here. I’ll give you some Missouri. One, two, three, far.

[01:08:26] Angela Far, we’re counting to far.

[01:08:31] Jenna We’re counting to far.

[01:08:33] Both Oh, we’re counting to far.

[01:08:36] Jenna There you go.

[01:08:37] Angela See you guys next week.

[01:08:44] 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.

[01:09:00] Angela Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For Ad free versions of Office Ladies, go to Stitcher premium dotcom. For a free one month trial at Stitcher Premium, use code Office.