All About Michael Scott

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Speaker 2 Hi, everyone. Steve Corell here.
Happy Wednesday. Angela and Jenna, my good, dear, wonderful friends, told me that they are doing a show on all things Michael Scott.

Speaker 2 So I thought I should say hello, welcome you to the show, and also congratulate the office ladies on Office Ladies 6.0. Let us begin with the Michael Scott episode.
Enjoy.

Speaker 1 I'm Jenna Fisher, and I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on the office together and we're best friends.
And now we're doing the Ultimate Office Lovers podcast just for you.

Speaker 1 Each week we will dive deeper into the world of the office with exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes details, and lots of VFF stories. We're the Office Lady 6.0.

Speaker 1 Hello. Hi.
How adorable is Steve Currill? Love him. He's so sweet.
Just love him. He said a special hello to everybody today.
He sure did.

Speaker 1 Well, today on Office Lady 6.0, as Steve said, it's all about Michael Scott. And we got a lot of great mail from you guys on this one.

Speaker 1 I am so excited about some of the things we uncovered about Michael. Jenna has been so secretive.
Can I just tell you? She's clearly got some nugget. She won't even tell me or hint about it.

Speaker 1 And lady, you got to share. I will.

Speaker 1 I will.

Speaker 1 Today is the day you find out. Find out.
I just have to wait. But first, I think we need to reveal our new format for Office Lady 6.0.
This is important. For me, it is.
It is.

Speaker 1 Instead of doing fast facts, we are going to start our episodes with a top-of-show share. Jenna is very happy to ditch fast facts, y'all.
I really am. But I still need my structure.

Speaker 1 You still need an outline. Okay, so a top-of-show share can be office news, office ladies news, personal news, or a fan mail share.
So there's lots of options.

Speaker 1 Today, we have office news and a fan mail share. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why don't I start? Do it. It's official.
Office ladies is going to the paper. Yes, we are visiting Greg Daniels' new show, The Paper.
We're going to be on the set, lady.

Speaker 1 They are in production right now. They have been very protective of things leaking out.
Oh yeah, it's locked down. But we've been invited to visit.

Speaker 1 They said we could bring a little portable recording thingy. Jenna is right now with her hands motioning to her imaginary

Speaker 1 like little microphone. Yeah.
I'm taking it out of my closet and I'm bringing it to the set of the paper. We're going to meet the cast.
We're going to be reunited with so many of our crew.

Speaker 1 So much of our crew is working on the paper. We're going to see Veda, our script supervisor.
Kelly Cantley and Rusty Mahmood are the first ADs. Yeah.
Ben Patrick is the sound mixer.

Speaker 1 And there are so many fun people from the office who have been directing episodes of the paper. Jen Salada, Ken Kwapis, Jeff Blitz, Matt Sohn, and The Week We're Visiting, guess who's directing?

Speaker 1 Dave Rogers. Yes, Dave Rogers is also a co-executive producer and an editor on the show.
And directing. That's triple threat right there.
It sure is.

Speaker 1 And, you know, Paul has been in the writer's room, so we might get to see him too.

Speaker 1 I just can't wait. I'm so excited about it.
I think it's going to feel like a mini reunion. I think it's going to be emotional.
Oh, for sure. But I mean, we get emotional a lot over things like this.

Speaker 1 We do.

Speaker 1 How can we not? This is like our favorite thing.

Speaker 1 Well, there you have it. That's our office news.
Angela?

Speaker 1 Well, my top of show share is inspired by this fan question from Erica H. in Portland, Oregon.
Erica wrote in and said, is there a story to the origin of Michael Scott's name?

Speaker 1 There is a Michael Scott and Dante's Inferno, and I wondered if that inspired anyone in naming the character. Ooh, I love this this question.
I know. So I reached out to Greg Daniels.

Speaker 1 It is not from Dante's Inferno. Okay.

Speaker 1 So as you know, on the British show, the manager's name is David Brent, which is two first names. And that has become sort of a tradition in the various versions of the office.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I was curious, how did Greg settle on the two names Michael and Scott? He said this,

Speaker 1 my name is almost two first names, and there is something kind of lame I always felt in a funny way about having two first names and no last name.

Speaker 1 And Michael is a pretty generic name for our age group. There are a ton of Michaels and I knew a guy named Scott who was kind of a derp, so I just put him together.

Speaker 1 I love the term derp, I know.

Speaker 1 I have never heard that. So there you go, Erica.
That is how Greg Daniels came up with the name Michael Scott.

Speaker 1 Well, my husband, Lee Kirk, has two first names, and I can tell you it causes him a lot of grief. We've talked about this.

Speaker 1 I texted Greg back and I said, you know, Greg, Jenna and I have talked about the fact that Lee has two first names, Lee Kirk. And Greg responded with the emoji that's the two exclamation points.

Speaker 1 I mean, I can't tell you how many dinner reservations, hotel reservations where people call him Mr. Lee.
Yes. Mr.
Lee, welcome.

Speaker 1 We don't correct people anymore. We just go with it.
We do. I know.
It's like me and Kingsley. I'm just going to say, okay, sure.
Yep. Well, finally, we have some office ladies news.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I guess this would be our third thing. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 We just did Fast Facts. We kind of did.
You can't get away from it, Jeff.

Speaker 1 The hell.

Speaker 1 Answer me. H-E-double hockey sticks.

Speaker 1 I can't believe it. I actually can't believe it.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, you know what? I'm going to just say, I bet that's not the last time you do fast facts. I'm just saying it.
Why would you say that? You're saying it like

Speaker 1 I want to be rid of these. I've just jinxed you.
Okay. Well, we had a super fun trip.
We were going to share about it.

Speaker 1 We went up to Santa Barbara and we finally got to meet in person Kendra Adachi, the lazy genius.

Speaker 1 Yes, she was a keynote speaker at an event that weekend, but we got to have a very girly, fun lunch with her. We took pictures.
And then Angela and I decided to stay over.

Speaker 1 We really wanted to mark the occasion of five years of office, ladies, with a really luxurious work trip as a reward for ourselves. We did.

Speaker 1 We treated ourselves and we also, though, had an amazing work session. We did.
I mean, that's very much like us, but it was so fun from the beginning. We drove up together.
Angela Angela drove

Speaker 1 and I did get nauseous, but it's not your fault, Ange. I really tried not to take any turns too fast.

Speaker 1 You did such a good job, but you know, with the medicines that I'm taking, they just cause a low level of baseline nausea.

Speaker 1 I pretty much feel like I walk through life with like first trimester morning sickness all the time, but it gets really triggered in vehicles. You travel with your saltine crackers everywhere you go.

Speaker 1 With a sleeve of saltine crackers and ginger juice. I have to tell you when I got back, I had to pick up the kids from school.
And Josh was going to ride with me.

Speaker 1 And he said, what happened in your boss? Boston?

Speaker 1 Where are they all kinds of crops? I'm so sorry. I said, oh, I said, poor Jonah ate probably a sleeve of saltine crackers in the car.
I really tried not to be swervy, lady. I hope I'm swervying.

Speaker 1 You were great. You were great.

Speaker 1 But what was really cool was we went to this hotel that was on the beach, but we had booked garden rooms.

Speaker 1 But when we checked in, they upgraded us to on the beach. Jenna started to cry.
I did cry. We were so excited because we had talked about how we'd love to stay on the beach, but we're like, no, it's

Speaker 1 a little extra.

Speaker 1 It was like pricey. And we're like, well, just stay.
I love a garden. I love a garden nook.

Speaker 1 And then we got the upgrade and that was so fun. And I got to wake up to the ocean right there.
And we took walks on the beach and we worked.

Speaker 1 And then we had a big celebration dinner that I forced us to have. I'm sorry, Angela.
I love a tasting menu. She does.
And you guys, I don't do tasting menus.

Speaker 1 I don't, I mean, I just don't know much about them. And

Speaker 1 it was eight courses of seafood. Of seafood.
And it was really good. It was really good, but by the end, I said, I can't do it anymore.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Although then they wheeled out a a cheese cart and you said I will take some fine. Okay fine.
I mean you had me a cheese cart. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But the coolest thing during the dinner I think was when they brought out that bread and

Speaker 1 it was this sourdough bread with a starter that was like 30 years old that the chef travels the world with. Chef travels the world with his starter.
You know I loved that.

Speaker 1 Your eyes about fell out of your head. And there were like flavored butters, like a butter infused with seaweed that I wasn't sure about, but was really good.
It was so good. Oh, really God.

Speaker 1 But yes, anyway, we had a fantastic trip. And I want you guys to know, Kendra is the real deal.
Sitting with her, having lunch with her, I felt like I had known her my whole life.

Speaker 1 She is so warm and just a delight to be around and smart and funny. And that was such a highlight as well.

Speaker 1 And we took a bunch of pictures and videos on our work trip, which we never posted because I was nauseous for two days.

Speaker 1 And then we had no Wi-Fi. We had no Wi-Fi when we got there.
And when we got home, I just, I was like, I can't look at a screen anymore. So we'll throw them up in Office Ladies Pod finally this week.

Speaker 1 You can check it out. Yeah.
So happy five years and happy getting to meet Kendra.

Speaker 1 Well, listen, why don't we take a break? And when we come back,

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 really did a deep dive on Michael's mangled words and phrases. It is my favorite thing about Michael Scott, and I had so much fun.

Speaker 1 And my favorite thing about Michael Scott is how much he hates technology. And I dive into that.

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Speaker 1 All right, we are back. Let's get started on our Michael Scott breakdown.
I thought we could start by cracking open the show Bible and seeing what all we know about Michael.

Speaker 1 It's sort of a summary of Michael Scott. You just had to get a summary.

Speaker 1 You noticed? I did notice. All right, here is your summary.

Speaker 1 Michael Gary Scott is the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Scranton, and he believes that the most important thing about a company is the people.

Speaker 1 He was born at 1123 in the morning and raised in Lackawanna County. 1123, so specific.

Speaker 1 He grew up on Kenneth Road down the street from Chili's. He failed the first grade at least once.

Speaker 1 Prior to working at Dunder Mifflin, he worked in a fast food restaurant to save up money for business school, but he lost it in a pyramid scheme.

Speaker 1 So I guess you could say he's a little gullible because he also fell for the Nigerian Prince banking email scam and got tricked into thinking there was a sport called poop ball.

Speaker 1 He also worked as a greeter at men's warehouse and invested in Blockbuster.

Speaker 1 He loves working at Dunder Mifflin, but he is not crazy about the name. He thinks it should be called something like Paper Great or Great Papers Our Passion or Super Duper Paper.

Speaker 1 Super duper paper is pretty great.

Speaker 1 He would love to start a restaurant called Mike's Cereal Shack or maybe a fancy men's shoe store called Shoe La La.

Speaker 1 His heroes are Bob Hope, Abraham Lincoln, Bono, and God.

Speaker 1 He claims to be part English, Irish, German, Scottish, as well as 2 15ths Native American.

Speaker 1 Michael enjoys improv.

Speaker 1 He really loves sugar. He has milk and sugar in the mornings.
He adds sugar to his diet cola. He likes scotch and splenda, and his favorite drink is grenadine.

Speaker 1 That's just the red syrup that you put in a Shirley temple. Isn't that just like

Speaker 1 a sweetener flavor?

Speaker 1 You don't drink that by itself. Michael does.
Okay.

Speaker 1 He has also been known to stress eat.

Speaker 1 He likes filet of fish, sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits, bologna, tomato, and ketchup sub-sandwiches.

Speaker 1 He orders the sweet pretzel with the 18 different toppings. He once lived on cup of noodles in college, and he loves mint chocolate chip ice cream cake.

Speaker 1 He would actually kill himself if he was allergic to dairy.

Speaker 1 He is, however,

Speaker 1 say that in the Alliance. He did, yeah.
He says that to Meredith when they're eating cake, and she's like, oh, I can't have any. I'm allergic to dairy.
He is sick of Chuck E.

Speaker 1 Cheese, and he is not a fan of apricots. He plays Who Would You Do all the time when he's falling asleep.
And he loves to wake up to the smell of bacon in the morning.

Speaker 1 He's a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, does not like the New York Mets, is a great hockey player, but not good at basketball.

Speaker 1 He wears Rite Aid Night Swept Cologne, which is the perfect smell alike for Drecar Noir.

Speaker 1 He loves a party, loves a holiday, loves to dress up as different characters. He claims to be the king of email forwards, but he doesn't really read memos.
He dry cleans his jeans.

Speaker 1 He claims he can bench press 190 pounds, but also only works out with two and a half pound weights.

Speaker 1 He's a big fan of Fear Factor. He's afraid of being buried alive, but his greatest fear is being alone.
He would love to be part of an inside joke one day. Aww.
He enjoys cuddling and spooning.

Speaker 1 He longs for a wife and children. He's good with kids.
He keeps a diary, has soft teeth, and has had multiple vasectomies. He eventually met the love of his life at work, Holly.

Speaker 1 They married and moved to Colorado and have two kids. Well, I just loved that.
What a wonderfully like huge picture we got to see of Michael. Jenna, you must have worked so hard on that.

Speaker 1 Was that, I mean, I don't know what the show Bible looks like. I haven't ever seen it.
The show Bible is just lists of facts about each person. Okay.

Speaker 1 And it starts with season one, episode one, and then it just goes through every episode.

Speaker 1 So you have to go through all the seasons for that one character and compile it all? That's what I did. Oh, lady.
That was a big job. Thank you.
You're welcome. Well, I had a lot of fun doing it.

Speaker 1 It was pretty cool. But yeah, I mean, I think the section of Michael Scott in the show Bible is something like 14 pages long of facts about Michael Scott.
Wow.

Speaker 1 You know, he also has the most episodes named after him, Michael Scott. Oh.
Followed by Dwight and then Andy. So Michael has six episodes named after him and

Speaker 1 Andy and Dwight have three each. That's good trivia, lady.
Yeah. I should have hit you up when I made up a quiz.
I made up a quiz for Michael Scott. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 You might have covered some of it in the show Bible, but I still have a few that are going to surprise you. Okay.
Some deep-cut Michael Scott. Hmm.

Speaker 1 Well, I have a fan question, Jenna, I wanted to answer from Michelle M from Berkeley. She wrote in and said, where did Michael get his Dundees? He created the award.

Speaker 1 Does this imply he also awarded one to himself? Which Dundees did he receive? I have always wondered this.

Speaker 1 Well, I did some digging and I read our table read draft of the Dundee script, the shooting draft. I found some fun stuff.
And then I also reached out to Greg.

Speaker 1 Poor Greg, I was just texting him like crazy.

Speaker 1 I texted Greg like crazy as well.

Speaker 1 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 I had no idea.

Speaker 1 What are you doing? I literally texted one more random question about Michael Scott. Okay, last one.

Speaker 1 So Michelle, to answer your first question, where did Michael go to get his Dundees? I found this scene in the table draft. Interior trophy shop.
Michael stands at the counter of a trophy shop.

Speaker 1 He points to a Dundee man on the shelf. He says, there he is.
Isn't he a handsome son of a bitch? The mythical golden Dundee Man. The clerk says, it's acrylic laminate.
Michael says, uh-huh, perfect.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'll take 18, please. The clerk says, we have none in stock that size.
I can get 18 of the larger ones. And then he shows Michael the larger ones.
They're twice as big, much nicer.

Speaker 1 And Michael's like, all right, you know what? Yes, sign me up. And then the clerk says, they're $30 each.
And Michael's like, okay, well, what else do you have while we're looking?

Speaker 1 Then the next scene is Michael at the register and there are a bunch of smallish trophies.

Speaker 1 The clerk says, okay, we have six swimmers, four football players, three lacrosse girls, and five forensic plaques. It's very funny.
And Michael says, gorgeous. Do you take Diner's Club?

Speaker 1 So there was a scene where he went to a trophy shop and he went looking for the Dundees. And to answer your second question, here's what Greg had to say about how many Dundees Michael had.

Speaker 1 He said, well, we always had one on his desk and then Jan throws one at him. And in shareholder meeting, he does say that he's won over 17 Dundees.
The man has a lot of Dundees.

Speaker 1 It's clear he's given himself a bunch of awards. But as far as what they say, we actually don't ever see one.
I mean, in the beginning credits, he's positioning one at the end of his desk.

Speaker 1 But the way the camera crops it, you don't see the little plaque. Yep.
And then in the Dundees episode, he holds up a few, but you can't see what's on them. I see.

Speaker 1 But Jenna and I both just re-watched the pilot, and we both looked to see if we could see what the plaque says on the Dundees, but the way the camera crops it, we couldn't see it. No.

Speaker 1 If someone out there saw it, let us know, but we could not see it. In fact, FanCatch in the pilot, his Dundee is on his back credenza.
It's not on his desk. Like the opening credits.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Nice, Jenna. This is when I really wish that we could reach out to Phil Shea because I know that he did put something on each one of those plaques and he could probably tell us what it is.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so I miss you, Phil. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, lady, I thought we could each discuss our favorite thing about Michael Scott. Okay.
We talked about this, and for me, it is his tendency to mangle words and phrases. You love this about him.

Speaker 1 I really do. The Office Alliance Facebook page posted a compilation video of Michael's mangled words and phrases.
This is not complete, but it does have the greatest hits. Why don't we listen to it?

Speaker 2 Colored greens, it's nebulous. Those things are like ticking time bags.
Product, progonal, effortlessly. Documentary.

Speaker 1 And I had an epiphy.

Speaker 2 Early worm gets the worm. Sedimentary lifestyle.
An escape code. RESP CVT.
Crescent Allen. Kind of sort of an oaky afterbirth.

Speaker 2 Euthanize this place. Migraine worker.
Downloading some N3P

Speaker 2 Catharctic. There's the XX6.
Erconomically correct. Improvisation.
Prophiligate. It's a little hypercritical.
How the turntables

Speaker 2 I am not to be truffled with. Gotta keep yourself dehydrated.
She's an anorexitech. You're going to AGLL double hockey sticks.
He can heal leopards. A woman has you slurped my role as Santa.

Speaker 2 Contraption. She's contrapting.
We're insurmountable. You are all successories.
I have your baguette. And like, I'm going to believe one of his spermed lovers.
A day which will live in famously.

Speaker 2 Integral to the story.

Speaker 1 We're all successories.

Speaker 1 I forgot about that one.

Speaker 1 So I think the reason why I love this so much is that initially the character of Michael Scott was based on David Brent from the the British office.

Speaker 1 But this character trait is uniquely Michael. This was not something that was based on the British show.
And it got me wondering, when exactly did we key in on this? Like when did this change happen?

Speaker 1 And the first time that Michael mangles a word is in the pilot. That is when he says incalculable.

Speaker 1 So I thought that was really significant because we've talked about how the pilot was basically the pilot script of the British show. Yeah.
But this little detail leaked in.

Speaker 1 And when we did our breakdown of the pilot, we talked a little bit about this. We said there was this talking head that was brand new to our version.

Speaker 1 Greg asked Steve to write down a list of who he thought Michael Scott would consider his heroes. And that's when he lists all the people and he goes on to talk about their contributions to the world.

Speaker 1 And then he said, incalculable.

Speaker 1 Well, I asked Greg about that. And he said, Steve came up with that on the day.

Speaker 1 Just on the day in one of his takes, he throws out this mangled word.

Speaker 1 And I just love this so much because I feel like we can credit Greg's collaborative spirit, Steve Corell's amazing improvisation, and it gave birth to this whole character trait.

Speaker 1 Yes, it reminds me so much of how a post-it note led to sprinkles. Yeah.
Right?

Speaker 1 Well, you know, eventually we started writing to this. Yeah.
And I got very curious if there was someone in the writer's room who specialized in these because they show up in so many episodes.

Speaker 1 So I did a major deep dive. Thanks to Dunderpedia, they have a list of every single word or phrase Michael has gotten wrong divided up per episode.
Wow. In most episodes, he has one or none.

Speaker 1 But I noticed that there are a few episodes where Michael has several misused words, like three or more.

Speaker 1 And those episodes were the convention, dinner party, job fair, and new boss.

Speaker 1 Guess what all of those episodes have in common? The same writer. Gene Stepnitsky and Lee Eisenberg.
Huh. So I reached out to them and I was like, guys,

Speaker 1 what do I do with this? Are you guys the mangled word guys? Yeah, like Brent Forrester is the pun guy. He loves the pun.
Yes, Aaron Scherr was our cold open fellow. Right.
Right.

Speaker 1 So tell me, were you the mangled word guys? And they said no. They said it was no single writer.
And they said it was a combination of written lines and Steve improvisations.

Speaker 1 Then they told me the ones that Steve improvised in their episodes. So they said, Prodigal Son Returns from the convention was a Steve improv.

Speaker 1 Make Yourself to Home from Dinner Party was an improv. And Oakie Afterbirth was a steve improv from dinner party.

Speaker 1 And then they said that their personal favorite mangled word, escape goat from product recall, was written by Justin Spitzer.

Speaker 1 I just love the system that we had in the office.

Speaker 1 I feel like our system of including the actors in the creation of their characters, trusting us to improvise, it just led to this amazing character trait of Michael Scott that we all all love. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And, lady,

Speaker 1 if I could give you a Dundee right now, I would give you a Dundee for being the Michael Scott of Office Ladies for your mangled words.

Speaker 1 Me, Sam, and Cassie, we traded some text messages trying to remember all of the words you've mangled. So, Angela, I shared my favorite, and it is kid in a candy jar.
Oh, yes, that's a classic.

Speaker 1 I love McKinsey right there. The kids inside that candy jar.
Yeah, uh-huh. That's me.

Speaker 1 God, that brings me back.

Speaker 3 The one I immediately thought of because I got it from you in a postcard on a frame is Peep Shot.

Speaker 1 Peep Shot instead of Spy Shot. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And life intimidating art.

Speaker 1 Yes. Those are our favorites.

Speaker 1 Intimidating art. It might be my favorite.

Speaker 2 The kidney candy jar. I think about that once a week.

Speaker 1 That lives. That lives in your mind.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, I just spent a week with my mom. It was so wonderful.
And I just come by this so honest. So I wear it like a badge of honor because my mom said, are you on Twitter?

Speaker 1 I was like, no, I'm not on Twitter, really, mom. Not really.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe this is why I love this quality so much in Michael Scott is because I love it in you. Yes.

Speaker 1 I really enjoyed that so much. You know, one of the things I loved most about Michael Scott is how much he hates technology.
I hate technology.

Speaker 1 You know, I don't want, gosh, I don't want to go through emails and I hate it when I have to update my phone or if we get a new remote for the TV, it just pisses me off.

Speaker 1 I just want my damn old technology. I'd be so happy with a flip phone.
I really would. It's true.
And I feel like Michael and I have this in common.

Speaker 1 And like you, Jenna, I found some amazing compilations that people have put together called Michael versus Technology.

Speaker 1 But the clip was so long, I'm just going to share a few. He hates technology so much every single season.

Speaker 1 Well, I don't know what you're going to share, but I love when he lies about having a PowerPoint presentation ready. Well, that's one of them.

Speaker 1 But before I get into all that, I have a fan question from a Joshua Snyder in Los Angeles, California. Oh, really?

Speaker 1 I know a Joshua Snyder in Los Angeles. What is his question? So do I.

Speaker 1 I told him I was doing Michael versus Technology, and he was very intrigued. He said, Ladies, I have wondered what Michael Scott would do with Chat GPT.
Oh, my goodness. I know.

Speaker 1 Josh said, so I asked it what the character Michael Scott would use it for, and here's what it had to say. No,

Speaker 1 no.

Speaker 1 Yes. What did it say? Josh, look what he did.
He did a document and everything. What would Michael Scott do with AI? This is what AI says Michael Scott would do with AI.
These are the top 10 things.

Speaker 1 Very, very, very funny to me. These are the top 10 things, right? Okay.

Speaker 1 Number one,

Speaker 1 Michael would ask ridiculous questions. True.

Speaker 1 Like, what is the world's best office prank, for example? Okay. Number two, Michael would write movie scripts.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Perhaps a Michael Scarn the prequel.

Speaker 1 This is what AI said? Yeah. How does AI know Michael Scott so well? I don't know.

Speaker 1 It also says his scripts would spend hours detailing extravagant and nonsensical plot twists that always end with him as the hero. Wow.
Number three, Michael would use it to plan office parties.

Speaker 1 They would be fun, but also professional, but mostly fun.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to give that one to AI. I don't think Michael ever is going to plan anything.
Number four,

Speaker 1 he would use it to seek business advice.

Speaker 1 Maybe. Number five, he would use it to practice jokes.
Yes. 100%.

Speaker 1 And he could even say, if no one was laughing, it was AI's idea, not mine. That's what AI said? Yes.
AI gave Michael Scott permission to blame it. Yes.
Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1 Number six, Michael would use it to get dating advice. Yes.

Speaker 1 He might ask it for some smooth pickup lines. For sure.
Number seven, reinforce his ego. He might ask AI questions like, am I the world's best boss?

Speaker 1 And then look at the answers, waiting for validation. Okay.

Speaker 1 Number eight, impromptu raps.

Speaker 1 Yes. Michael would use AI to help him write new versions of the Lazy Scrant rap or to help him with his roasts at the Dundee Award speeches.
Okay. Number nine, create office training exercises.
Maybe.

Speaker 1 Number 10, daydream about fame. Oh, how does AI help you daydream about fame?

Speaker 1 You know what? He could ask AI to make him the star of a movie poster or something. Well,

Speaker 1 this prompt was from AI said Michael might say, How do I become a celebrity? and create a list of steps to go viral so he can finally become an internet sensation.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 AI is terrifying.

Speaker 1 Well, there you go. Josh was very curious about Michael Scott and AI, and I really feel like he would have done some of those things.
100%.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, now I want to start my Michael versus Technology section with a clip from business school because it perfectly sums up what Michael thinks computers are for.

Speaker 2 Okay, well, we can do questions. Okay.
Very good. First hand up.

Speaker 2 Sir, as a company that primarily distributes paper, how have you adapted your business model to function in an increasingly paperless world? We can't overestimate the value of computers.

Speaker 2 Yes, they are great for playing games and forwarding funny emails, but real business is done on paper, okay?

Speaker 2 Write that down.

Speaker 1 So what I love about that is he says computers are for games and forwarding joke emails. This is all you need to know about Michael, truly, about his workday, about what he does all day.

Speaker 1 And I was really curious when the writers first started writing this relationship of Michael with technology. It starts as early as the alliance.

Speaker 1 So when Meredith has her birthday card and she's reading all the messages on her card, and Michael has written this lame joke about downsizing her and her age because she's getting older.

Speaker 1 And then he says, wait, there's so many more I didn't even use. Okay.
And then he says, she's so old, she went to an antique store and they kept her. And he says, that wasn't even mine.

Speaker 1 I got that off the internet. So this is the first time we learn about Michael digging through the internet to get jokes.
That's what he is. He's a comedian, you guys.

Speaker 1 These are his bits he's going to do all day. So that is proof.
early on that he uses the internet to get jokes. Then in Hot Girl, we learn more about Michael and technology in two scenes.

Speaker 1 One made it in the episode. It's when he asks Ryan if he wants to buy a purse.
And Ryan says, I'm installing FileShare on all the computers.

Speaker 1 And Michael goes, yeah, well, blah de bloody blah blah, technology babble. Just do it.
And then there would have been another mention of Michael and the internet.

Speaker 1 So there's a version of this in the deleted scenes on the DVD and in the Superfan episode, but I want to read you what was scripted in the shooting draft. Okay.

Speaker 1 Michael and Katie enter the annex. Michael points to a computer.
He looks at it and says, internet.

Speaker 1 It just made me laugh.

Speaker 1 I don't know why. He just looks at a computer and goes, internet.
Okay. Then he says, whole office is wired.

Speaker 1 Could you have imagined 10 years ago that we'd be sending messages from one side of the world to the other in the blink of an eye? And Katie goes, yes.

Speaker 1 And Michael goes, 20 years ago?

Speaker 1 And she doesn't say anything back. So there you have that moment, right?

Speaker 1 Then in season the writers really start diving into this theme of what Michael uses his computer for. I mean there's a whole episode dedicated to email forwards.

Speaker 1 He is, as you said from the show Bible, the king of forwards. And I read the shooting draft for sexual harassment.
There was a cold open scene that starts with Michael on his computer.

Speaker 1 It's not in deleted scenes. I want to read it to you.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Interior Michael's office. Michael is at his computer, giggling.
He gestures for the camera to come around and shoot shoot the screen. We angle on his screen.
It's an Outlook-like email program.

Speaker 1 At least half of the emails are Michael's forwards. They have Michael Scott in all caps as the sender and subject lines like this.
Forward, semicolon.

Speaker 1 This is a really funny exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, A plus.

Speaker 1 Forward, semicolon, top 10 reasons a beer is better than sex, B plus.

Speaker 1 And then Michael goes on to say, I rate my email forwards with a humor grade. So you know what you're getting.
Important. It's very important.

Speaker 1 He says it definitely makes people more excited to open their email. It's like how I like to do business.
Everybody's joking around. That's how he does it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But you would get emails that were A plus, B plus.

Speaker 1 Some got a C grade. But still sent them.
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 And as each season goes by, there's all of these big, epic technology fails for Michael. In season three, he emails pictures of Jan

Speaker 1 to packaging at Dunder Mifflin instead of to Todd Packer. And then in season four, he gets a car that can talk to him.

Speaker 1 Yes, it does not go well. Nope.
Let's hear it.

Speaker 2 Everybody likes new inventions, new technology. People will never be replaced by machines.
In the end, life and business are about human connections.

Speaker 2 And computers are about trying to murder you in a lake.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And then, as I was like researching this, every single season has so many Michael, computer, internet, email, mishaps. I feel like there could be a whole book written Michael vs.
Technology.

Speaker 1 This is just the tip of the iceberg of Michael versus Technology. But I think your favorite moment is my same favorite moment.
And we need to hear it.

Speaker 1 And by the way, if you watch this scene, we are both breaking. You are completely like smiling through it.
Like not at all in character.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Today we're going to be talking

Speaker 2 about

Speaker 2 PowerPoint.

Speaker 2 PowerPoint, PowerPoint, PowerPoint.

Speaker 2 Yes, I forgot about Ryan's presentation. And yes, it would have been nice to do well with the first presentation that he'd given me but you know what else would have been nice winning the lottery

Speaker 2 and the best way to start is to hit start

Speaker 2 and up comes the toolbar that's what she said what we have to do

Speaker 2 here is go to run

Speaker 2 and then

Speaker 2 you look up to

Speaker 2 PowerPoint

Speaker 2 and we are in. We are going to register.
You hit register.

Speaker 2 Updates are ready. I should update.

Speaker 2 Estimated time, 12 minutes, so this should take about five or ten minutes. This is the first time you've opened PowerPoint.
Why?

Speaker 2 You didn't prepare a presentation at all, did you? No one, I had a really rough night.

Speaker 1 You know what's so funny is just now playing that? The part where you laughed is the same part where you break in the scene. Oh, really? Yes.

Speaker 1 With the part where it's like now you have to register? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.
So I am curious why you laughed both times in the same place. Once, what, 15 years ago? Yeah.
And once today.

Speaker 1 What is it about the fact that he had to then go register?

Speaker 1 Because it became so obvious he had never opened it. Correct.
Like, that was the giveaway.

Speaker 1 Like, up until that point, you could maybe believe that he thought his job was to walk you through it from the very beginning. Right.
And that we're a room full of idiots.

Speaker 1 And so that's how he's giving this PowerPoint presentation. But when it's clear he never registered,

Speaker 1 you know, he has put no effort into it. I mean, we all knew that he was just tap dancing his way through this anyway, but that is the moment where he's caught.
Yeah. That's funny.
I love that.

Speaker 1 I think I loved that. I did too.
I also loved when he said, okay, now it's just going to take 12 minutes.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was the PowerPoint expert in my office when I was an administrative assistant in St. Louis, Missouri.
I would make the PowerPoint presentations for all of the salespeople, for the whole sales staff.

Speaker 1 If they had to go off and meet with a client, they gave me the information they wanted and I put it into a PowerPoint for them and I taught them how to use it.

Speaker 1 That is maybe my favorite thing that I have heard this whole month.

Speaker 1 You labeled yourself the PowerPoint expert. I was of that office and I was the youngest person in the office and

Speaker 1 I think today

Speaker 1 how Angela, we run into this all the time trying to post on Instagram and I don't know how to get the ratio and then the tagging and this. It's very high effort for me.

Speaker 1 And then we had this babysitter over, this young gal, and she was like, oh, didn't you know you can just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, no, I did not.
No, I did not know that.

Speaker 1 So I feel like that's who I was to those people in the office. I was this youngin' who just immediately knew how to use PowerPoint and they were always so clunky with it.
You were Ryan.

Speaker 1 I guess I was. I'm Michael Scott and you're Ryan.

Speaker 1 Well, listen, why don't we take a break? And when we come back,

Speaker 1 I did a deep dive into Michael's family of origin. Ooh, I can't wait.

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Lady, I think there's something weirdly therapeutic about getting fresh socks.

Speaker 1 Brand new socks. Yeah, nice good socks.
It's such a treat. It's a nice thing to do for yourself.
And I think the best socks are bombus socks. I asked for bombas socks for Christmas.

Speaker 1 My father-in-law said, what do you want for Christmas? I said, I want bombas socks. Like every year, just get me fresh bombas socks.
And he does. Now every year, that's what I get.

Speaker 1 And I absolutely love it. They're my daughter and I's favorite.
I just ordered a two-pack. I got her one and me one of the women's modern ribbed ankle sock.
You can get it in an eight-pack.

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Speaker 1 All right, we are back. And before the break, we discussed everything we do know about Michael Scott, but there is one very big thing that we do not know much about, and that is his family of origin.

Speaker 1 And we got a ton of questions. about Michael and his backstory.
This was our fan mail flurry when we asked people to write us about Michael Scott. Here is just a sampling.
This one from Victoria L.

Speaker 1 in Hollis, New Hampshire, who said, I always wanted to know more about the relationship between Michael and his mother.

Speaker 1 I so wish that we could have seen at least one episode with them interacting that wasn't just a phone call. I have always wondered why there wasn't more of this relationship.

Speaker 1 Was there ever a storyline pitched where we met Michael's mom?

Speaker 1 Well, Victoria, you are correct. We do not ever meet Michael's mom.
I don't even think we learn her name. I looked everywhere and I never found her name.

Speaker 1 The first time we hear from her is in season two, The Injury. Michael calls her on the phone and we hear her voice.

Speaker 1 She was played by June Squibb.

Speaker 1 We also got the impression that Pam and Michael's mom talk quite often. Then in season four, Michael calls his mom from the nightclub and night out.

Speaker 1 And in season five, he calls and tells her he's engaged to Holly. He's not engaged to Holly.
This was a thing he was doing with his mom.

Speaker 1 And then in Michael Scott Paper Company, he calls her again and says that Ryan and Pam are annoying him. So we set up that he calls his mom pretty often.

Speaker 1 And while we never ended up meeting her, there was a very famous person who lobbied very hard to play Michael's mom. And you're going to be so incredibly bummed when I tell you who it is.

Speaker 1 You love this person. Wait, let me get this straight.
There was an actor who would reach out and say, please, can I play Michael's mom, please, please, please?

Speaker 1 Over and over and over again. And they were like, nah, we're good.
They were like, you're too famous and we don't cast famous people on our show. Is it Carol Burnett? It's Carol Burnett.

Speaker 1 Out.

Speaker 1 Carol Burnett.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Greg said, if we ever did see Michael's mom, she had the role.

Speaker 1 But in early seasons, he was hesitant to cast her because she was so famous. By the way, we don't hear anything about Michael's mom in like season six and seven when we had broken our rule.

Speaker 1 But she has given several interviews where she said, I keep calling them, but they keep changing their number. I don't know.

Speaker 1 And this was confirmed on our season four DVD commentators. The writer said that if we ever meet Michael's mom, Carol Burnett would play her.
She has volunteered for the the role. Oh, my gosh.
I know.

Speaker 1 Carol Burnett. I know.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Maybe she could play one of our moms on mom detectives. Yes.

Speaker 1 Maybe not the role she was looking for. Probably not.
She might be like, ladies, I'm good.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, that's your tidbit about Michael's mom.
We also got a fan question from Stephanie M. in Iowa who said, what's the story with Michael's dad?

Speaker 1 We hear about about his mom, his stepdad Jeff, and even his step half sister, his nephew, but I don't remember him ever talking about his dad. Is that ever addressed?

Speaker 1 Was there ever a backstory to Michael? Was this discussed?

Speaker 1 Well, I traded messages with Greg Daniels, who said,

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 How many texts did he get from us for this episode? Too many. So many.

Speaker 1 He said for a very long time there was a card on the wall that said, Michael reunites with dad. Oh,

Speaker 1 we just never got to it. Yeah, Greg said that we almost met Michael's dad in season seven.
That is the season where we met his nephew. You know, that's when he spanks his nephew in nepotism.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then he has to go to counseling with Toby.

Speaker 1 Well, some of the early concepts for that episode were that Toby would draw out this really personal information from Michael about his family of origin, particularly his dad, we were going to find out that Michael only saw his dad three times a year growing up.

Speaker 1 And Toby was going to reunite Michael and his dad. The dad would come into the office.
It would be a surprise, but they ended up changing it. It never happened.
And we never even got so far as to like

Speaker 1 put out a casting notice for the role or anything. They just pivoted.

Speaker 1 But that is the closest we got to meeting Michael's dad.

Speaker 1 And then finally, in my deep dive on Michael's family of origin, I did find one moment, a story from his childhood that we shot and it was deleted. It's a deleted scene from the surplus.

Speaker 1 This is part of the Peacock Superfan episode, but I thought it would be fun to listen.

Speaker 2 I would like to tell you a little story.

Speaker 2 Let me call you right back. Okay.
About a boy named...

Speaker 1 It...

Speaker 2 That doesn't even matter. Could be any one of you.

Speaker 2 And like any other 12-year-old boy, he wanted a pippy long-stocking doll for Christmas.

Speaker 2 But his evil stepfather Jeff said, no, you may not have what you want. You must have a football.

Speaker 2 And the boy cried and he cried and he cried and he held his breath as long as he could and he wouldn't eat his dinner.

Speaker 1 But you know something?

Speaker 2 It turns out that Jeff was right because I already had a G.I. Joe and a Stretch Armstrong and a Malibu Barbie and a major Matt Mason, which technically is enough for a tea party.
So my point is this.

Speaker 2 I didn't need what I thought I needed. What I needed was to learn how to appreciate what I had.
Which in this case was enough dolls to have tea with. Exactly.

Speaker 1 So there you go. A little sad insight into his childhood.
Jeff is such a dick. I know, I know.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, people were very curious if it was like a decision to keep his backstory kind of vague. But Greg said it was not.

Speaker 1 He said they pitched a lot of different stories, but they just never really took root. But after they introduced the idea of the stepdad, Jeff, that happens in season three,

Speaker 1 it sort of became part of Michael's backstory that he was basically raised by Jeff and his mom.

Speaker 1 And so sometimes you got speeches like the one in the surplus. Right.
But there wasn't much more than what we saw. There was not some like big decision they were holding back or anything like that.

Speaker 1 Well, everyone, we got so many questions on that topic. I really tried to deep dive that for you.
So I hope that was a little bit satisfying, that we got a little more information about that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, it still paints a pretty bleak picture for Michael growing up. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, since this is all things Michael Scott, we got a fan question that I was really curious about as well.

Speaker 1 It's from Emily V in Kansas, and she says, how did the original casting call announcement describe the role of Michael Scott? Well, Emily Allison was very excited to get this question.

Speaker 1 She said, oh, Ange, I can find my notes for that. And then she gave like five exclamation points, smiley face, and here's what she wrote.
She said her notes were pretty simple for the role.

Speaker 1 They said, male, age range, 35 to 45. And for character description, it simply said, the manager at a small paper company, Michael, is a bit of a jerk with no self-awareness.
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They threw out a pretty wide net. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I always love the little trivia that, like, Rain Wilson first auditioned for Michael. Right.
Because how different the part would have been if Rain played Michael. Oh, yeah.
Right.

Speaker 1 I mean, you can only imagine him as Dwight Schroot. But what about some some other people I think about, like Ben Falcone?

Speaker 1 Auditioned for Michael. Auditioned for Michael.

Speaker 1 It's so crazy to me when you go through these audition processes and how you hone in on a character and then who ends up playing them.

Speaker 1 Because in hindsight, I can't imagine anyone but Steve Corell.

Speaker 1 He's just perfect.

Speaker 1 Well, Angela, we also got this fan question from Jada N in California who said, I'm wondering what scene, Jenna and Angela, do you think perfectly embodies the relationship between Michael and Angela and Michael and Pam?

Speaker 1 Oh, it's such a good question.

Speaker 1 You know, one of the ones that comes to mind for me is maybe not one that people would think,

Speaker 1 but it's actually in the Christmas episode where Angela's hemming Michael's pants. Okay?

Speaker 1 Because I do feel like that

Speaker 1 she like

Speaker 1 helped him with little things like that, you know, that he would probably go to Angela and Pam for different things like that.

Speaker 1 And I also, of course, loved

Speaker 1 when he was heartbroken about sprinkles. Yeah.
I was like, oh, no.

Speaker 1 You know, he was one of the people that showed true emotion about Angela's cat passing away. Yeah.
I mean, he did get the name wrong, but his emotion was genuine.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 that's true.

Speaker 1 Well, I think for me, it would be the scene where Pam finds out that Michael is dating her mom.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's such a good scene. And the reason is because when she first comes in the office,

Speaker 1 she is like genuinely invested and excited about his personal life and his relationship. And you see their friendship.
You see the way that they connect.

Speaker 1 And then by the end of the scene, she finds out who he is dating and she is absolutely horrified.

Speaker 1 And I just feel like that turn, that whole journey of that scene perfectly embodies the Pam-Michael relationship. It's just like a combination of horror and bonding, I guess, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love that question. Well, and, you know, we also asked people to reach out to us if they had a boss like Michael Scott.
We said, we want to hear about it.

Speaker 1 And we we got more letters than I was expecting. A lot of people have a boss like Michael Scott.

Speaker 1 I don't know if I ever shared with you that I had a co-worker that was my personal Michael Scott. And it was at the job that I had right before I auditioned for the office.

Speaker 1 And I would imagine this person during my audition process. What were they like?

Speaker 1 They were an aspiring comedian. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 my desk was right next to the like break room.

Speaker 1 And so in order to like go see what the treat of the day was or to refill your coffee, you walked right past my desk.

Speaker 1 And this guy would chat me up every day with some new pun or some joke that I knew was probably going to be in his stand-up.

Speaker 1 And I had to do a lot of Pam-like things.

Speaker 1 You know, he wasn't my boss, but he was a superior.

Speaker 1 And so I remember that feeling of just being kind of trapped by a person. Right.

Speaker 1 And I remember like looking around the office and like wondering, like, I wonder if another desk could become available because I really am. I am, I was in a high traffic area.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, it's the combination of comedy bits plus trapped audience. Yes.
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 Lady, this is reminding me so much of this last Southwest Airlines flight I was on. Uh-huh.
Speaking of a trapped audience. Yes.

Speaker 1 Well, the flight attendant really went for it, and folks were loving it. They were cracking up.
He had so many bits and I started jotting them down. I actually have them on my phone.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 I have to read them because I feel like I flew with the Michael Scott of flight attendants. The first one I jotted down was this one.

Speaker 1 He said, please do not open any previously purchased alcohol on this flight. Save it for your mother-in-laws.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Then during the safety announcements, he said, parents, pick your favorite and most promising child and save that one first.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 Wait. Then he puts on the, you know, the little life preserver thing.
Yep. And they talk about which thing to blow into and what to pull.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. I feel like there's a, that's what she said coming.

Speaker 1 There's not. Okay.

Speaker 1 He goes, please use the yellow tube to inflate and call Tom Brady to deflate.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy. Oh, boy, that's an old wrestler.
I know. I know.
Then this was a very early morning flight and people wanted to nap, you know?

Speaker 1 So he says, well, we all look better with a filter, so we're going to dim the lights. Okay.

Speaker 1 So, okay.

Speaker 1 Then, as we're about to take off, he goes, give your seat belt a tug and your neighbor a hug. This bowing is a going.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 And then when we landed, because we were landing in Austin, Texas, he goes, as we landed, as the wheels hit the tarmac, he goes, whoa, there, Nelly. Whoa.

Speaker 1 No, he did not make

Speaker 1 sound. He did the clip-klops.
Then he said, that bump when we landed wasn't our pilot's fault. It wasn't the flight attendant's fault.
It was the ass'

Speaker 1 And the last thing he said was, well, welcome to Austin. Enjoy this overcast, kind of scary looking day.
Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1 You know what? I'm going to say, in general, I love a Southwest bit. They must encourage their flight attendants to make it fun because they usually do.
That is off the charts, though.

Speaker 1 That's a lot. But I am usually usually an enthusiastic audience on a Southwest flight.
And you know what? That was Michael's philosophy.

Speaker 1 Michael's philosophy was, I could give you a boring sales speech, or, you know, this guy is like, I could give you a boring safety announcement, or I could make it fun. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or I could be the guy that's like,

Speaker 1 exactly. Welcome to Austin.

Speaker 1 Amazing. All right.
Well, this letter is from Amelia W. in Poland.
And

Speaker 1 of all the letters we received from people who said they had bosses like Michael Scott, Amelia, I think you win. Here is what Amelia said.

Speaker 1 I have a Michael-like boss. He is a good man, but very distracted.
And here are a few of the things he has done instead of working. I love this already because this is Michael.

Speaker 1 He's like playing games on the computer. He's doing email forwards or he's planning a party that we don't have the budget for.

Speaker 1 Amelia said, I work in transport, just to give you some perspective. Okay.
But I really feel like any one of these could be an episode of The Office. Here is something Amelia's boss has done.

Speaker 1 For a whole day, he was going through different apartments for sale, commenting on every one of them, even though nobody in the office was about to make this kind of purchase.

Speaker 1 On another day, around noon, he suddenly stood up and shouted that he has to go because he left his son at school and the school is closed. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Another time, he left the office without a word, came back with the blood pressure monitor and proceeded to measure the blood pressure of every employee. That's Michael.
100%.

Speaker 1 One time he called me in his office so I could spend an hour watching him calculate my loan rate, which I'm not taking for a random apartment I'm not buying.

Speaker 1 What is his obsession with apartment hunting? I don't know.

Speaker 1 Once he found an old numerology book in a garage sale and made us listen to him telling what the day of birth meant about every person. That is definitely Michael Scott.
Right?

Speaker 1 And then finally, once he wanted to cheer us up by buying pizza, but of course he picked a very bad one.

Speaker 1 And in the end of the day, I was just happy he hadn't kidnapped the delivery boy, which is what Michael did.

Speaker 1 But those were really good. And I feel like if we ever reboot the office, Greg might want to file those away somewhere on some cards for the wall.

Speaker 1 I just want to go to Amelia's workplace just for one day. I like want to meet this guy.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, we also got a lot of mail about people named Michael Scott.

Speaker 1 Whether people listened to them on the radio or saw them as weathermen on their TVs. There are people living in the world with the name Michael Scott.
We were super curious about this.

Speaker 1 So we reached out to one fella and asked him what it was like to share a name with such a famous television character. I want to say thank you to Michael Scott Souza for chatting with us about this.

Speaker 1 So I asked Michael when did he become aware that he shares a similar name to such an iconic television character and he said the show started airing when he was around 15 years old but he was super late into getting to know the show and watching it.

Speaker 1 He didn't start watching it until college. Here's a little something about Michael.
He does not work in paper.

Speaker 1 He is a consulting meteorologist. And I asked Michael, when did he become aware that he shares a similar name to such an iconic television character?

Speaker 1 He said he was super late to getting into the show and started watching in college. And he only found out that he shared the same name when Michael, the character, was leaving for Colorado.

Speaker 1 He said everyone on his Facebook page was saying, we love you, Michael Scott. We love you, Michael Scott.
And he said it was really strange. He didn't understand why everyone was saying this.

Speaker 1 And then he found out they were talking about the character. Oh.

Speaker 1 So they're like, goodbye, Michael Scott. We love you.

Speaker 1 He's like,

Speaker 1 where am I going? What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 He also said that when he meets people and they hear his name, they immediately ask him if he watches the office. And they ask him so frequently that he made up a little bit that he does.

Speaker 1 Oh, he started to have fun with it. He would say, yeah, NBC actually wrote to me and all the other Michael Scotts in the world for permission permission to use our name.
And I said yes.

Speaker 1 And people would look at him and say, really? Are you serious? And then he'd be like, no, no, not really. And he said, they'll share a laugh.

Speaker 1 And he said, it's been a really nice icebreaker for him when he meets people. But lastly, and this just cracked me up, he shared this story about how it can pop up in his work life.

Speaker 1 So he said he once saved a report as Michael Scott, just to name it quickly, and he sent it to a coworker to double check a few things.

Speaker 1 And when the email came back to him, they signed it at the bottom, thanks, Dwight Schroed. Oh, that's cute.

Speaker 1 Anyway, there are many more Michael Scotts out there, but I thought it was really fun to see what it's like to have that same name.

Speaker 1 Well, it just makes me think of our former sound engineer named Steve Martin. Yeah.
Right? You share a name. That's with like a famous person.

Speaker 1 But I've never talked to anybody who shares their name with a fictional character, which is so crazy. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, Jenna, you know, earlier I said I made up a quiz about Michael Scott.
Yes.

Speaker 1 I was just trying to find like sort of like interesting tidbits that maybe aren't just in your normal Google search. And I thought we could play it today.
Sam Cassie is just five questions. All right.

Speaker 1 All right. And then maybe everyone listening, you guys can play along too, and you can yell at your radio.
Do I say radio? I don't know.

Speaker 1 Your.

Speaker 1 Headphones.

Speaker 1 And you can yell at your answers out and be like, Angela, that one's so easy oh my gosh well the first one got covered in the show Bible so you guys should all get this correct because you just heard it Sam Cassie what cologne does Michael wear well it's a perfect smell alike for dracar noir yes and it is from the drugstore and it is night swept ding ding ding correct it is from ride aid it is called night swept great job i will share i will share you guys when i watched it i thought ryan said night sweats, which I thought was a horrible name for.

Speaker 1 That's what I do every night now.

Speaker 1 That's the menopausal of cologne. Exactly.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I can promise you no one wants me to wear that either. No one wants night sweats.
I don't want it. Night sweats.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. Number two.

Speaker 1 What snack does Michael say is his comfort food? Hint, I brought some today and we're all going to try it.

Speaker 1 That is his comfort food?

Speaker 1 did you just google that no oh yeah do you seriously know that it is mayonnaise and black olives oh why did you bring it angela because we're gonna try it

Speaker 1 i am not eating it i am gonna try it

Speaker 2 thank you sam

Speaker 1 all right are you trying some cassie

Speaker 1 you do not have to I am not trying it because I have still not completely recovered from Stanley's three by five

Speaker 1 or whatever that was.

Speaker 1 And I am not going to eat mayonnaise with olives in it. I can promise you that.
Let me just tell you. Let me tell you how disgusting this looks.
I got two forks, Sam.

Speaker 4 Okay. Do we ever see it in the show? Like, is it sandwich mayonnaise?

Speaker 1 It is because Jim mistakes it for ice cream. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It looks like a bowl of ice cream.
Oh, my God. Okay, ready?

Speaker 1 Oh, I'm just going to get... I'm just getting one like that.

Speaker 1 I can't believe you put that in your mouth. Oh, my God.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 that's what she said

Speaker 1 oh guys it's making me sick just looking at you as advertised

Speaker 1 oh god yeah why would it be good

Speaker 1 it's you know it's a little tricky mistress because there was one moment i liked it

Speaker 1 what and then what

Speaker 1 quickly didn't like it when it hit your mouth yeah i was like

Speaker 1 when i got to the olive i was like okay i got this but then more mayonnaise came through yeah with the phrase tricky mistress

Speaker 1 No, did I just have a Michael Scott moment? No, I like this phrasing.

Speaker 2 It's a bit of a tricky mistress.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I just mind that I'm a god.
So I don't know. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 I retired from the business of trying disgusting things after I drank that iced tea.

Speaker 1 Wow, that is pretty disgusting. It's a tricky mistress, y'all.

Speaker 1 Gross.

Speaker 1 Grody, gross. Okay, I gotta take some iced tea once I get

Speaker 1 okay.

Speaker 1 Question number four. I thought we were on number three.

Speaker 1 That was number two. Sorry.
That one took everything out of me. Yeah.
Sorry. What's question three? Question number three.

Speaker 1 Oh, sorry. I just burped a little bit of mango.

Speaker 4 You should have made this number five, Angela.

Speaker 1 Yeah, why did I make that so early in my list? Ugh.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Question number three.

Speaker 1 I feel so gross. I have such a bad aftertaste.

Speaker 2 I need another song. It really coats your mouth.

Speaker 2 My entire tongue is a nice mayonnaise coating.

Speaker 1 That's the truth.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 1 What is Michael Scott's greatest weakness?

Speaker 1 He shares it in the job, the episode, The Job. That's your hint.
Oh, he shares his greatest weakness. I think I know it.

Speaker 2 Doesn't he love too much?

Speaker 3 Yeah, he loves too hard.

Speaker 1 It's close.

Speaker 1 He works too hard and he cares too much, y'all.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's his greatest weakness.
All right. Number four.

Speaker 1 What is Michael's ringtone in season one?

Speaker 2 Mambo five?

Speaker 1 Sam! Yeah! Sam! You are crushing it! Good job. Yeah, it is not my humps.
That's later. That's in branch closing.
And number five is about Michael Scott's suits. Okay?

Speaker 1 Mysterious?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 No. Am I jumping ahead?

Speaker 1 I found the actual suit that Steve wore because it's being auctioned off. And so I found out who makes it.
Okay.

Speaker 1 But how would we know? You guys aren't going to know that. Of course not.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'll just call it. Maybe he'll figure.
Men to our our house. Stafford Essentials.
Oh. Doesn't that sound fancy? That sounds right.
Navy blue polyester wool. There you have it.

Speaker 1 That's who makes Michael suits. That's my quiz.

Speaker 2 That was the worst quiz I've ever gotten.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry. Sam, you won.

Speaker 1 Sam, you are the clear winner. There's an entire bowl of

Speaker 1 a can of black olives that's in the fridge and a jar of mayonnaise. I don't recommend mixing them,

Speaker 1 but maybe on their own they'll be okay.

Speaker 1 Well, I think that's a pretty great way to end this episode. I would like to share this final thought before we go.
It is an amazing Michael Scott haiku from Cat M in North Carolina. Are you ready?

Speaker 1 Yes, I mean, a Michael Scott haiku. Come on.

Speaker 1 A boss with no tact who just wanted a family. We cried when he left.

Speaker 1 Kind of sums it up. Really does.

Speaker 1 Well, in doing research for this episode, there was just so much fun stuff online about Michael Scott.

Speaker 1 In addition to all of the episodes we have and shooting drafts and candy bag alts, I love this character. He's just amazing.
But I wanted to share one fun thing I stumbled across.

Speaker 1 It's a really great article if you love all the props on Michael's desk. It is titled The Ultimate Guide to Michael Scott's Desk Toy Collection.

Speaker 1 It lists all the toys on Michael's desk and gives you a link where you can buy them. Oh.
So if you want to recreate your very own Michael Scott desk, I will put that link in stories to the article.

Speaker 1 Well, I feel like we could do six episodes on Michael Scott. There's so much we didn't even talk about.
I know. But I do think we uncovered some really fun new stuff about his character.

Speaker 1 I really enjoyed this. I did too, and I'm excited to do this for other characters.
Yeah, let us know who should we do next. We do not have to go like in any particular order, right? No, we don't.

Speaker 1 Do whoever we feel like. That's what she said.
A big thank you to Steve Carell, Greg Daniels, Gene Stopnitsky, Lee Eisenberg, and Rob Burnett for helping us get all the dish on Michael Scott.

Speaker 1 And thank you to Allison Jones for answering our question and to Michael Scott Souza for sharing with us about having the same name as Michael.

Speaker 1 And really, just a huge thank you for everyone who wrote in questions about Michael Scott, their observations about this character. You really helped us make this episode.
We love you so much.

Speaker 1 And before we go, I just wanted to say thank you to people who have shared with me that they're going to watch my Hallmark Christmas movie, you guys. This weekend.
Yes, it's this Sunday.

Speaker 1 It's Sunday evening. Check your local listings.
I think it's either 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., depending on where you are.
It is called Confessions of a Christmas Letter.

Speaker 1 Brian Baumgartner has a fun, fun cameo in it. It was so great to work with him again.
And it's just a really sweet Christmas movie. If you watch it, will you tag me? I want to share.

Speaker 1 If you get together with friends and family, we're going to get together and watch it. I can't wait.
Yeah, we're having a viewing party and it's going to be just super fun. So thank you guys.

Speaker 1 And yeah, I'm excited. All right.
Well, we will see you next week when we break down the accountants webisodes.

Speaker 1 And don't forget, you can watch the webisodes on YouTube before you listen to our breakdown. And when you put them all together, it's about 20 minutes long.
It's kind of like an episode of the office.

Speaker 1 We'll put a link in our stories about where you can watch it as well, and we can't wait to see you next week. Have a great rest of the week.
Bye. Bye.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.
Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins.

Speaker 1 Our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubbico. Odyssey's executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Leah Reese-Dennis.

Speaker 1 Office Ladies is mixed and mastered by Chris Basil. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

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