A Look Back on Fun Run Pt. 1

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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 Rewatch podcast just for you.

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.

We're the office ladies.

It is season four.

Season four.

Holy guacamole.

It's fun run.

It's fun run part one.

That's right.

Because fun run was an hour-long episode.

So once again, we're going to break it down into two parts.

Today is Fun Run part one.

Written by Greg Daniels.

Directed by Greg Daniels.

So much happens in Fun Run.

It needs to be two episodes.

It really does.

Oh, for sure.

For sure.

Here is a summary of just part one.

Yeah, let's hear it.

Yeah, let's hear it.

Okay.

Michael accidentally hits Meredith with his car and breaks her pelvis.

There's so much there already.

Already.

He gets the whole gang to visit her in the hospital and later discovers she may also have rabies.

Angela asks Dwight to give medicine to her cat Sprinkles while she visits Meredith in the hospital.

But when Dwight returns, he announces that Sprinkles is dead and he puts Sprinkles in the freezer.

In the freezer!

Also, your television was on.

Yeah, my television was on, and Sprinkles is in the freezer.

Meanwhile, everyone wants to know if Jim and Pam are dating.

They insist they're not.

They say they're just friends,

but Kevin is not convinced.

Kevin really has a bee in his bonnet about it.

Yeah.

Why does Kevin care so much?

I don't know.

He's obsessed.

Because this episode begins so dramatically,

we felt like we needed to speak with the woman at the center of this episode.

Absolutely.

We need to talk to Kate Flannery about getting hit by that car.

Yes.

So guys, Kate chatted with us.

Sam, will you play the interview?

Kate Flannery is here today, you guys, with her tiny teacup.

Hi, Kate.

How are you?

Oh, great.

How are you guys doing?

It's so nice to see you.

Wait, we have to get a picture of you with that teacup.

Cody, will you take a picture?

It's not tiny.

It's a regular size teacup.

What's tiny about that?

I don't believe you.

It looks tiny.

It's regular.

Oh, my gosh.

And you have a little...

cup and saucer.

Here's the thing, guys.

Kate Flannery is one of the classiest gals.

Her home is spectacular.

It is decorated like it's out of architectural digest.

It is every little thing is amazing.

And I am not surprised at all that you look so put together and you're having your tea in a proper cup and saucer.

Oh my gosh.

Wait, now sorry.

I'm going to turn my phone off.

It's getting a burning phone call.

Sorry.

Take it on air.

Take it on air.

Who is it?

Let's talk to them.

I think it was a potential spam, so I hung up on them.

I'm sorry.

I can't get locked in a timeshare just for you, for the bit.

I'm sorry, you guys.

I can't.

it's so good to see you you got you doing we spent every day together for nine years

i know oh my god i know it was so much like a real office job in that respect just like

at our desks and the fluorescent light yes i mean that has a real effect on you and the snacks come on that was the best spread oh god we had the best best food ever it's it's all my dad ever talked about all the years that he visited and i would pepper him with questions about, so Steve Carell ate lunch with us today.

Wasn't that great?

And he was like, did you see the steak they had?

It was always about the food.

Bill Kinsey.

Oh, Kate.

It's so good to see you.

And Jenna, you guys.

You guys.

Kate, we always like to start by asking people

how they came to be on the office.

I actually auditioned for the pilot for the part of Jan.

Allison Jones said, I think you're really right for this show, but I don't know if this is your part.

So clearly they went a different way with

Laura Harden.

And lo and behold, you guys shot the pilot.

I remember that summer, I was doing a sketch show once a week that was timed.

It was a two-minute sketch show.

So literally at two minutes, the lights would go out.

It was this live show

in Hollywood at this theater on Melrose with the Scholar.

One of the Scolar brothers, Randy, was doing a sketch right before me.

He's like, have you been watching that British show, The Office?

I'm so obsessed with it.

He was like the first person to really tell me about it.

I was like, yeah, I've seen it a little bit.

He goes, you got to watch the whole thing.

So I kind of got obsessed.

And then come September, late August, early September, I had an audition.

I couldn't make the first one because I was in Chicago with my aunt.

And then I just came, I figured the part was going to get taken.

And they had another session a few days later.

And I went in and I read.

And I remember Allison Jones said, no makeup.

And like usually in LA, you know, that means light, you know, mascara, some foundation.

It means it means something.

It never really means no makeup.

No, and they're like, literally, she literally had a box of tissue.

She's like, no makeup.

Wipe it off.

Get off, right?

Anyway, and then I just remember there were a few actresses that I knew from Chicago that were there.

And I felt like they booked everything.

I'm like, I'm never going to get this.

But I just remember that room was Ken Kwapas and Greg and Allison Jones.

And I'm sure Paul Lieber Seepers.

I'm sure there were, you know, Mike Sher.

I'm sure all the producers were there, the writer producers.

It was like the most unique experience I think I'd ever had in an audition.

And then I, when I came out, I got home and then Allison told me to go to Gower and do it again, do it one more time and do less, less, less, do less.

And then by the time I got home from there, I found out that I got the part.

What?

You booked it on the drive home?

World, wait a minute.

I didn't have a cell phone, so I didn't know totally.

That's every actor's dream.

You didn't have a cell phone, so you didn't know.

Those were the days, man.

Like, you know what?

They couldn't get a hold of you.

You found out at home.

i was playing hard to get on the drive home wow well kate i was so excited because when you walked on to set that day kate and i had been doing an improv show called bitch planet all chick improv all chick improv and we'd been doing that for years and then all of a sudden my good friend was going to be sitting like right behind me for years that was just amazing Who knew when four people were in our audience on a Sunday night for our show?

At 10 o'clock.

Kate, Kate, do you remember what your audition scene was?

Yeah, it was from

the Alliance.

It was the whole reaction to the surprise party and Michael reading the birthday card and insulting Meredith like crazy.

Yes.

Amazing.

Yeah, it was so awesome.

So awesome.

So awkward.

So awful.

So awful.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

Well, Kate, we have talked a lot on this show about how once we were filming in that bullpen, we were all in the scene.

And so we were all each other's background.

And that's very unique.

It's not like that on a lot of shows, right?

So we've sort of talked about the things we did in the background.

We talked about how Phyllis looked at gates.

Remember, she looked at gates

for her house for years.

I remember they told us, they told me when I booked the job that I was supposed to bring paperwork because they really wanted us to be looking like we were working.

And I loved that suggestion.

I thought it was so, like, it's so method because then no one is suddenly acting like they're working.

They're actually working and the camera catches them, which makes so much more sense.

So I actually brought my taxes the first season.

I was going to say, Kate, I have a memory of you opening your mail and like having it.

I did.

I did.

I brought a bag of stuff.

And I think I also like snuck reading a book, which is kind of like a thing that people do in an office anyway sometimes.

Well, especially Meredith.

Well, I don't know.

Does Meredith read a lot?

Maybe not.

I got into solitaire, clearly.

That was like my main background choice for so much of it.

But that was so much because the back of my head was in so much of it that I my camp my screen was caught all the time on my computer.

So I would just rather than like go to some file at the last minute, I would just dump into solitaire because I knew I could just get right back into it.

And I thought it was a funny thing for Meredith to be multitasking all the time with a game.

So stupid.

Well, you became really, really good at it.

Actually, Creed and I would have many, many a competition and I whooped whooped his ass.

I am still sort of hung up on the fact that they told you to come to set and bring paperwork.

Did they tell you that?

Did they tell you that?

No.

You know, I don't remember that specifically, but I did bring some.

I used to write down my grocery list a lot.

I was constantly, or just general to-do lists I would do.

I would journal.

Oh, my God.

You know, but with a paper and 10.

So funny.

Now, Jenna, you and I had a little system that we created.

Do you remember?

You remember this one?

You have to.

It's one of my fondest memories.

What?

What?

What?

What?

Okay, we had specific boxes of other people's real life paperwork.

Yes.

Phil Shea bought like medical records.

It was bizarre.

And these receipts.

And I had this whole system where

I was stapling and I had a whole like thing, certain things that would match.

And then I would bring them to you.

And then you would approve or disapprove sign.

I just remember this whole, oh my God, it was fantastic.

It was amazing and it was very specific.

My favorite thing about it, Kate, was that we would do this in the deep, deep, deep background when no one would appreciate it.

It was really just for us and we would never break character and we would argue.

Not with each other, but sort of like with the system.

We were all

mad at like how they had

these, yes, these alphanumeric characters that don't match any of the forms and are impossible to input into the computer

we had this whole like thing we were mad at at corporate that we would do we did oh my gosh this is the greatest job in the world this is the cutest thing that i how is it that i was on set with you guys all these years i didn't know i i didn't know you guys were doing this Do you know what Oscar Nunez would do?

With these health records, Oscar would find one that had something really peculiar and he'd circle it and highlight it and make it very important and he would hand it to me in the middle of a scene with great authority and it would say something like

bulbous mass

on eyelid probably sty

recommended to drain of the pus.

And I'd be like, oh my God, I'm reading this in the background of a scene.

We were so respectful though.

Obviously, we never gave away anybody's name or medical condition on the show.

I want to say, I have a memory that those forms were redacted, like that the real personal info was blacked out.

Did I do that to the forms or I think we did it to the forms?

I literally think we did because I remember sometimes there were a little bit, but not everything.

Not every, not every, yeah.

I do remember addresses being blacked out.

But anyway, guys, it was sort of creepy to know that you could buy old medical records in those days.

I'm sure now they're all computerized.

And also the dates were from like three decades ago.

It was like there's a lot of stuff from

the 1960s.

Yeah, the 80s was a big, yeah, yeah.

It's so big.

I love how we're trying to reassure people when the truth is we clearly had things we shouldn't have had.

Oh my gosh.

But you know what?

Let's keep, let's keep trying to justify why it was okay.

Well, it's fine.

It's fine.

What happened at Dunder Mifflin stayed at Dunder Mifflin?

We did not share any

sensitive material.

But I will say, what I loved about that and the real, the realness of the paperwork,

it just kept everything.

It was like a little focus for the lens.

One of my favorite things was they had stacks and stacks of some type of time code documentation from these offices, and they were on really thin, like

almost like the pages of a Bible thin, you know?

And then they had all the little carbon slides in them.

And I would sometimes smell the carbon slides

because I like the smell.

It's like the smell of like a Sharpie.

I like this.

This is the E-True Hollywood story right now.

Angela's.

Yeah, I don't, what is that pie?

Angela was sniffing the carbon in the background sometimes.

This is how you got into character.

I don't know.

Well, you know, it's funny because Ken Kwapas would do that thing, you know, like the general tone at the beginning, like when he would come.

And this was all part of it, just like actually,

you know, filming us working.

just working and being like, you know, who are you working?

It's funny.

People have asked me, like, how did you stay in character or whatever?

I feel like those were our desks.

So the crew really wasn't allowed to sit at our desks.

So

it really did feel like an office job in that respect.

Like you would literally walk in to set and just go right to your desk.

It was kind of like focusing and specific and really wonderful.

And it kept all of us in the game.

And

you know what?

I wouldn't sit at anybody else's desk.

Like I would never just go sit down in Phyllis's chair.

No.

Right?

That was like her space.

Sometimes Rain would sit at my desk to talk fantasy football with Brian.

Right.

And I would have to come kick him out of my seat.

But I just, I always, I just had such respect for the process.

Like, I just feel like the focus was always in the right place for our show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I feel like I didn't always have a lot of lines, obviously, but I feel like there was something that I felt like I was kind of holding the space for the reality that we were in.

And that was very important to me.

I was always very conscious of that.

Well, we are super excited to talk to you about this amazing stunt that you did in this episode.

I mean, holy cow, Kate,

you get hit by a car.

You get hit by a car.

What was your first thought when you read this episode?

Okay, I literally said, does she live?

I literally said, does Meredith live?

I said it right away.

And then like, I've been reading later that like there's been articles saying that one of the the writers decided that you know they wanted to pitch that Meredith didn't live and then they thought that was too dark Greg thought it was too dark for Michael to have killed one of the employees of

that yeah, I'm not sure I'm not sure but I was like I but I remember like I was so conscious of it because I was like I know this isn't a soap opera like this could be it but um the first time we shot it literally they played it almost like Meredith was a speed bump that he just like went over because like you were laying on the ground and he rolled over you I was underneath the wheel, literally.

We finished shooting the episode, and then I think two weeks later, Dave Rogers, our emmy winning editor, had an idea for an insert shot that he thought was so much more interesting than what we had shot, which was Meredith hitting the glass.

And he asked our UPM Kent Zubornak to try it out and show it to me.

You're like, Kent did it?

Do you think he'd do it?

I mean, he obviously did not know me because I would have said yes.

Anyway, I totally would have said yes.

I was going to say, you would say yes.

I would would have, but season one, I remember Greg, there was a shot of Dwight and Michael dressed like Crockett and Tubbs from Miami Vice from the Halloween party.

Do you remember that?

Yes.

Yeah.

And they had me dress up like Madonna.

And I remember it was like, it was like maybe my second week there.

And I was like, oh, okay, I'll be Madonna, whatever.

And like, they really went for it.

I mean, I was, I was like 1987 Madonna.

I was wearing like a busier.

It was nuts.

I was just in the background.

And I thought there was something about that.

It was like my responsibility to do whatever as full out as possible.

I don't know.

I was like kind of up for anything because I remember Greg saying, is it okay if you do this?

And I was like, sure, like, of course.

So that started the whole Meredith saga being full Madonna.

Right.

But I actually felt like it was so much fun to do the physical comedy because I have such a good time doing it.

I mean, I've always had a good time doing that my whole career, but like this was so up another level for sure.

So literally when we went to shoot it, we had to shoot it again and Steve wasn't available.

So Dan Beals, who was our PA, who was so young at the time,

he had Steve's jacket on and shirt.

So it was his hand that they would cut from.

And it was, it's such a quick swipe.

Like it, you know.

So wait, Dan was driving?

Well, he was just in the car.

The car was stationary.

I started in the center of the hood.

I had to roll up to the glass and then roll off the car onto a giant mat.

So you sort of had to like with force roll into that windshield on your own.

You sort of slammed your body into the windshield and then slowly rolled off of it onto a mat in the parking lot.

Yes.

And I remember after like the fourth take or fifth take, Greg took me aside and we went to the back where the warehouse entrance is in that alley where we shot like where the bird, you know, where they had the bird funeral, you know, the alley.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's like, okay, come with me and do some jumping jacks.

He was like doing jumping jacks with me just to get me really loose.

I love Greg so much.

I mean, he's so Greg, by the way.

He's the great, like the greatest.

It's funny.

I just recently saw Dave Rogers sent me an outtake, another, another

take that they didn't use.

And I actually did an extra spin in there, which I actually thought was a little funnier, but I'm just so used to watching the one thing.

I think it just caught me by surprise.

So wait, there is a take of you out in the universe where you roll, you flip forward twice into the windshield?

No, once in the windshield, but then I flip twice off the car.

Oh, so it's like,

like it's insane.

It's insane.

Well, guys, at 53 seconds, you can see Kate's face up against the wheelchair.

And I'm telling you, after we shot that, I remember they were using it in the promos for the episode because it was the first episode of season four, Fun Run.

I remember Joaquin Phoenix canceled at the last minute for the tonight show.

So they asked me basically because of the promo.

It was so much fun.

Like they actually want to be on the tonight show.

So that was the first time I did that.

That was so awesome.

Well, Kate, Kate, you're just like a rock star.

I mean, I have to ask you, though, if you're rolling with force into a windshield over and over and rolling off, were you sore?

Did you like?

We had to match what we shot before because they weren't sure about the before if they were going to see us before.

So I had to match the clothes and I was wearing short sleeves and like a denim jumper.

Yeah.

Kindergarten teacher.

And I remember the Emmys were like the next week and I was so bruised.

I had to use like body makeup.

Yeah, because I think if they knew they were going to do the stunt that way, they probably would have patted you up and dressed you accordingly.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh, that's crazy.

Well, Kate, you did so many stunts on the show.

Was this your favorite?

Do you have to do that?

I think so.

This was my favorite.

I also loved being on top.

This is so weird.

I was on top of the men's room stall when Dwight comes.

I was planking.

Meredith is planking.

Yes.

Dwight comes in with a fire extinguisher and just blows her off into the stall.

Yeah.

We used the real men's room where Video Village, where the guests were, those two bathrooms.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they put like this weird flim flam mattress on top.

And I was like, fingers crossed, I don't go the other way because there was nothing on the other side because I had to balance.

It was so crazy.

But yeah.

And it was really the men's room.

I'm like, okay.

And this, hopefully, I don't land too hard because then I'm going to hit the toilet.

And it's so bizarre, but it was really fun.

I want to give some props to your athleticism.

I know that Angela has often

shyweed me for my athleticism.

Here we go.

No, no, no, it's okay.

I'm not going back to that anymore than I just did.

But, Kate,

you are amazingly athletic.

I mean, in doing all these stunts, it doesn't surprise me.

I mean, we know that you were on Dancing with the Stars and you were amazing, but you also did your lounge show, the lampshades, for years and years and years.

And I remember coming to see you in that.

And you do this

deep squat

repeatedly over again.

And you kick your leg up.

And I was like, oh my gosh.

I feel like they got so lucky with you

as Meredith because you were qualified for these stunts.

That's so sweet.

I feel like for me too, it was empowering.

Like I did not do the stunt with my hair on fire.

I did do all the stuff in the parking lot of Moroccan Christmas.

I just didn't.

You did the bat.

That was crazy and you really sold it.

So crazy.

And then I didn't actually shave my head.

I had a bald cap for that.

So I feel like those are the two like, I'm like, okay.

But I think, I think it's okay that you let your hair be.

You know what I'm saying?

I know.

I think Greg was disappointed, though.

It's like the first time I was like, nope, not doing that.

Well, can we talk a little bit about the moment in this episode where we're all in the hospital?

We've all come to see you.

My memory of this was it was so so hard to get through those scenes without laughing.

In fact, you see us break.

I fully break in the episode.

That was during fun run, yeah.

What are your memories of shooting in the hospital?

I remember there was one scene where Dwight talks about the fact that if they pulled the plug, you know, basically the energy, like they were.

They were wasting money keeping you going.

I loved it when you were like, do not pull the plug.

Don't pull any plug.

Oh my God.

It's so good.

And I remember the take when Steve just, as an apology, he's trying to get an apology out of me and I won't apologize.

I won't apologize.

And so he just decides to climb into the bed with me.

And I feel like I had a slight delayed reaction, but I'm like,

I just started screaming because I'm like, like.

Well, we were also surprised because he improvised that.

And you even see all of us, we sort of like freeze.

And then we're like, Michael said, yes.

Yes.

It really took us by surprise.

Totally.

Totally.

Well, Kate, another question we like to ask our guests is if they took anything with them when the show wrapped.

How dare you?

Oh, what do you mean?

You have it.

You have it.

Well, first of all, I have Meredith's purse.

I always wore it like a,

you know, like a crime saddle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You satcheled it.

And I left everything in it that was still in there.

So this is why I still had the marriage union of Pamela Morgan Beasley and James Duncan Halpert.

Is that our wedding?

Yes, it's the program.

So, this is what I showed you.

It's our wedding.

The wedding party and the wedding party.

Yes.

This is what I showed on Some Good News with John Krasinski when we did our wedding.

Oh my gosh.

Isn't that crazy?

That is so that you had just tucked it in your purse and you still had it.

We would do that, though.

We would get prop purses.

And like, if we had props, we would just put them in our purse.

Yeah.

I have, oh my gosh, what else do I have in here?

I think I have.

Do you have some old sides?

I would also have to.

I do have sides.

Yes, I do have sides.

But I also have, I have Sweeney Todd from when Andy was performing in that theater.

Wow.

And I have

Church of Angels Cecilia Marie Halpert when she got christened.

Cece's christening.

Oh my gosh, Kate.

These are amazing.

I know.

Well, Kate, fans love Meredith, and you know we're going to be hitting you up.

We've got a few more episodes to cover before we're done here.

Before we say goodbye, is there anything we can share with everyone?

Like where to find you, what you're up to?

Yes.

I,

well, on Instagram at The RealKate Flannery, on Twitter at Kate Flannery.

I go to a little ramen place once a week in K-Town.

I hope you.

But I'm actually doing some charity work for

Phil Abundance, which is the biggest food bank in Philadelphia.

That's my hometown.

I'm working with WMMR, which is the big radio station.

They always have the big morning show with Preston and Steve.

And I've been doing their show for years.

and it's literally like five minutes from my dad's house like i will roll out of bed and and if i'm in town i i just and i occasionally sometimes let a four letter word slip so they literally have a button on their panel that says the flannery button because there's a four second you know five second rule like they had whatever those fcc gosh it's crazy but anyway i love these guys so much and they're making such a difference fill abundance is uh they're doing a huge push they always do it right before thanksgiving but this year is even bigger because of the pandemic and because so many families are in need and there's so many businesses that are not happening and that we have to wait until we can all be together again.

And we will be together again.

But in the meantime, you know, you guys can go to philabundance.org and I'm going to be doing some little bit of press for them.

And

I'll be

that is so great.

And we should have mentioned that you are from Pennsylvania.

Yes.

And that your family, your dad had a bar in Philly.

What was the name of the bar?

Flannery's Tavern.

He was up all night trying to figure out a name.

No, I'm just kidding.

My grandfather came up with the name too.

Well, Kate, we love that you are giving back to Philly like that.

And we'll definitely,

you know, we'll put in our socials where people can find you.

That would be awesome.

Thank you so much.

You guys, I love you.

So great to see you.

Thank you so much, Kate.

This was amazing.

You have to come back.

I would love to.

I used to have this idea of what home security was.

I thought it was like an alarm that goes off after someone tries to break in and that scares off the intruder.

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Oh, we are back.

Angela, that was so great talking with Kate.

She looks beautiful, stunning.

We have been talking to a lot of people through Zoom for our podcast, and most people show up like a hot mess.

Not Kate Flannery.

No.

She looked amazing.

And Kate, that was so fun.

And we can't thank you enough.

And we have a lot to cover.

We better get into it.

Yes.

Let's break down this episode, lady.

First of all, Jenna, I would like to share with you what you were doing this week that we filmed this.

Are you ready?

Okay.

Someone went digging into old emails.

Oh, I'm kind of scared.

Don't be scared.

Although I could burn it to the ground, but so could you.

Oh, dear.

Okay.

On July 31st, 2007, the whole cast got an email from Kent Zabornak.

That said,

Hey all, for this Friday, August 3rd, here's our schedule for the day.

8.45 a.m.

Check in with the NBC Universal Studios Harassment Seminar.

This will be located on stage 3.

9 a.m.

Harassment Seminar, Mandatory Attendance.

10 a.m.

Costume Fittings, wardrobe trailer, 11 a.m., table read, episode, fun run, in the writer's trailer, noon, cast physicals.

Is that the end of the email?

Please call if you have any questions, Kent.

Oh,

that's it?

That's it.

I thought it was, first of all, I thought this was an interesting perspective that you saw what a day would be like as we prep an episode.

It is.

Your buildup to like, would you like to know what you were doing?

I guess I just wasn't expecting the answer to be you attended a harassment seminar and got a physical.

I mean, I just thought, like, no, what was I doing?

I can't wait to find out.

I mean, I have to say, I wouldn't pick this day to redo if a genie in a bottle ever gave me a wish.

Okay, okay.

Well, I just thought this was a very interesting perspective.

A, it shows what we had to do to start a new season.

And also, B,

we filmed Fun Run part one and part two in August.

Okay this part of the episode we're inside but folks we're gonna be running outside.

It's August.

I just think I just think that's interesting perspective Jenna.

I love it.

It's great.

I just thought you were gonna let me in on something more exciting.

That's all.

Than my cast physical.

I don't know.

And my wardrobe fitting.

Well, I was very excited.

Clearly, I was very excited to find this email from Kent.

Well, I'm glad you saved it because that's a keeper.

Oh, shut it up.

You're going to want to

scrapbook that.

You shut it.

What would Dwight say?

Zip your lid.

I probably deleted that email because I like to keep a tidy inbox.

I love that you saved it, I think.

I don't know what to say.

I don't know how to segue to the episode.

How about we get into this episode?

All right.

We off with Michael eating some cereal.

Yeah.

And at nine seconds,

my background, folks, you can see that red pot basket thing that fell out of Jan's box as she was leaving corporate.

No, you're kidding me.

It's sitting right there.

Oh my gosh, I love that so much.

Yeah, she's put her things around the condo.

Well, we had a big fan catch at this moment from Hannah A., Robert F., Christine J., Adrienne Gibbs, Chelsea Warren, and many others who wrote in to say that Michael is eating cereal from Wegmans.

And Wegmans is a local

East Coast grocery store.

They wanted to know whose idea was it to feature these Wegmans products.

That would be Phil Shea.

Yeah, I was going to say it had to be Phil Shea.

He was so great about doing that kind of research.

But how in the world did Phil Shea get Wegmans raisin bran and Wegmans' soy milk?

I have no idea.

I'm impressed.

Listen, Phil Shea is the guy that knows a guy.

He's got a guy.

Phil Shea's got a guy.

He's got a guy on the ground in Scranton going to the Wegmans in Scranton, which by the way, I looked it up is open seven days a week from 6 a.m.

to midnight and is located at 1315 Cold Spring Road.

There you go, folks.

If you want to eat the raisin bran that Michael is eating, that's where you can get it.

Add it to your Dunder Mifflin Scranton tour.

Exactly.

Well, then Michael enters the bedroom to reveal that Jan is still sleeping.

She's probably going to sleep for another few hours, he says.

You can really see what she's doing to the condo in this.

I mean, she has set up a vanity.

There's a giant mirror.

There's a clothes rack.

I see two tall, enormous like candle things.

There's a pink chair, but guess what?

There's not.

Well, Michael's little bed that he sleeps on during dinner party at the end of the bed.

The bench at the foot of the bed that he says he sleeps on is not there yet.

I noticed that as well.

Well, maybe I'll email you about it someday.

Maybe Kent sent us an email.

You can delete it because you like it.

You like a tidy box.

Oh my gosh.

You're so mad at me about this email thing, but I I like, when you listen back, when you listen back, Angela, I want you to hear like the anticipation that you built.

This is, I'm going to do it for you.

I have an email that I found that is going to tell you what you were doing this week.

I have it.

I'm going to tell you.

And then you were like, I could burn you to the ground with some of my emails.

And I'm like, what is she going to say?

I said, you were like, you said said

8:45 a.m.

Check in for sexual harassment seminar.

And I was like, wait, what?

Hold up.

That's where this is going?

Hold up.

You said, ooh, should I be scared?

And I said, no.

I mean, I have the ones that can burn it down.

So do you, but not this one.

Clearly, not this one.

Clearly, not this one.

This week, you complied with your job

and its requirements.

Well, your new nickname is Tidy Box.

So

enjoy that.

You know that is another word for vagina.

I know.

Hence, the double entendre.

Is that how you say that?

Oh, good lord.

Tidy Box.

Okay.

We.

What's happened to us?

Whoa, we've been friends a long time.

That's what's happened.

All right.

I love it.

Well, Michael's in his car now.

He's excited, you guys.

He is a talking head.

He thinks it's going to be a good year.

Jan is home.

Jim is back.

Ryan is at corporate.

Andy and Dwight are rocking the sales team.

He feels blessed.

He does.

He also is not paying attention.

And then, bam!

When he hits Meredith with his car.

And we talked about this with Kate.

What an amazing and exciting way to start

the season, I have to say.

I was surprised.

Even when I re-watched it, I was like, oh, God.

well remember in her interview when kate said that her first thought was oh my gosh does meredith live and she heard that maybe there were some writers who had pitched that they kill meredith do you know who they were i got to the bottom of it oh now that this is probably a better email

i was emailing with Greg Daniels and Justin Spitzer, and they told me that, yes,

they spent one evening pitching on this idea that maybe Meredith died but it's more than that it's not just that Meredith died what

Greg told me that first of all the idea was that they would shoot this as a spy shot

so they would not have a camera inside the car with Michael it would just be a spy shot of him arriving at work for the day with the talking head as a voiceover.

Okay.

He said that the pitch was that Michael would accidentally hit Meredith with his car, and then thinking that no one could see him, he didn't want to leave any witnesses.

And so

in one pitch, he backed over her to make sure she was dead.

Oh, good lord.

Justin told me that there was a pitch that Michael would go into his trunk and get one of those anti-theft devices called the club and then club her to death and then hide her body.

Were they on drugs?

Were they on drugs?

I mean, seriously.

That is the end of the show.

There's no coming back.

What were they thinking?

That's what Greg said.

Greg said, of course, we could never do this, but it was a pitch that was discussed for some time.

And he said there were a few writers who were fighting for it.

They were fighting for Michael to

accidentally and then purposely do Meredith in.

I need names.

He wouldn't give me the names.

I need names because I need to do a mental check on them.

Holy cow.

So, yeah,

that's what I found out.

There was a moment where they were pitching that maybe Meredith doesn't make it.

Wow.

Craziness.

Craziness.

Also,

I definitely don't want to know any of their late night pitches on Angela.

Okay, thanks.

Okay.

All right.

Well, let's get into this episode.

There's a lot to discuss.

We start out with Jim and Pam talking to the IT guy

because Pam crashed the computers

looking for some celebrity sex tape?

Yeah,

we got a lot of mail about this.

I did a little bit of a mini deep dive.

Well, let's see.

Lydia Lind,

Megan Harrison, Mary Newberry, and Chris Roa

all wrote in to say, it seems out of character for Pam to purchase a celebrity sex tape.

Did your script say whose celebrity sex tape Pam clicked on, or did you ever come up with your own idea of who it might be?

Okay, Jenna, I think I know what the writers were hinting at here because I googled, by the way, be careful Googling this.

I googled celebrity sex tape 2007.

Yes.

And the first thing that comes up is Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend were vacationing and made a video.

And that got leaked.

And it was released in March of 2007.

And there was a ton of like chatter, you know, just everyone was talking about it.

Right.

And I think when the writers thought of this story idea, that's what they were thinking of.

I don't have, I don't have proof of that, but this was written in around June of 2007.

And that had happened in March.

Yeah.

So it was in the zeitgeist.

But I don't think Pam would click on that.

Like, is she

getting here?

Maybe she's just trying to be coy or

dirty or something.

It definitely shocked me when she said it.

And also, she's at work.

She's at front reception.

She's going to watch this and shut down the whole computer grid.

I don't know.

It was a little bit of a stretch for me when I watched it too.

I agree.

Okay.

Well, now Jim has a talking head.

He talks about how he broke up with Karen and it was really awkward because she came back and she said she wasn't going anywhere.

And you can see Karen is letting him have it.

They're in the kitchen

and as they're going at it, Phyllis and Angela shoot Pam a very judgy look.

Yeah.

Two minutes, 10 seconds.

Judgy, Phyllis, and Angela.

Oh my gosh.

Phyllis, Angela, combo sass.

Combo sass.

That's a lot of sass.

And

but he said, you know, Karen said she wasn't going anywhere.

But then the next day her desk was cleared off and he's single and looking.

Yeah.

He wrapped that up quickly.

You know, this was a highly anticipated episode because we had this big cliffhanger from the last season of Jim asking Pam on a date.

And here now Jim's saying he's single.

Pam has a talking head where she says, oh yeah, we went to dinner a few times.

We talked through his breakup, but we're just good friends.

And it's really nice to be friends again.

Well, I'm with Kevin.

I'm with Kevin.

Are you kidding me?

Yeah, Kevin's not having it.

This was also a fun talking head for Kevin and Oscar because it starts with Kevin and then reveals Oscar when Kevin's like, right?

And he's like, well, there's no evidence of intimacy.

And, you know,

but they are both in very good moods.

We had a couple of fan questions about

this plot point.

Okay.

Julia Johnson and Madeline Nelson noticed Pam has a big change to her hair and wardrobe.

Is it because she's stating Jim now?

And was there a lot of discussion about these changes?

Oh, yes.

Well, her hair is very different.

Yes,

no more

clipped back hair.

Crunchy hair.

Yes, this change was a huge discussion.

Pam is also not wearing her traditional button-down shirt and her little cardigan.

She's wearing this cutesy little sweater with a little kind of bow that ties on the side.

A very, very flirtatious shade of beige.

Yes.

I noticed that too.

I was like, well, we didn't, we didn't go too far.

Yeah.

Get me the cutest beige sweater you can find.

Well, it was a big discussion.

We couldn't have this giant transformation.

Greg did not want that moment from those movies where the sort of nerdy girl with the glasses falls in love.

And then after she falls in love, she's got a gorgeous blowout and doesn't need her glasses anymore.

You know, that whole story that we saw a million times growing up?

It was called Kelly Kapoor.

It was called Kelly Kapoor.

You can only do that with one character.

So we met our limit.

But we did imagine that this new relationship would possibly affect him and how she looked and her desire to make an effort that maybe she didn't have a desire to make before.

I get this.

I mean, don't you remember, Angela, in your young love phases with someone new that you're dating?

You give a little extra zhuzh, right?

Yeah,

of course.

We had a big fan catch regarding Pam's wardrobe.

This came from Megan Robinson, Steph Baldwin, Laura Roldan, Haley McMurdy, and Kelly Ann Mim.

They all all noticed that Pam's necklace changes in this episode.

You know what it is now?

What?

She's a butterfly.

Fly, butterfly!

You're not that worm anymore.

Fly!

I think you mean caterpillar.

Caterpillar?

Squishy thing!

You're not that squishy.

You're a beautiful

flying in the wind.

Yes,

she has

metamorphosized

into a beautiful butterfly.

That's right.

No longer the unicorn, now the butterfly.

Jim and Pam at three minutes are discussing their separate weekend plans in front of Kevin.

It's making him crazy, right?

Because he's not buying it.

Yep.

Pam says, you know, maybe she'll go to the flea market at the drive-in.

Guys, I'll look this up.

There is a flea market.

at an old drive-in and it was actually the reader's choice award for best flea market it's located at the famous Circle Drive-In in the Circle Flea Fair.

It's the largest flea market and farmer's market in northeastern Pennsylvania.

So that is 100% believable that Pam would be going.

Yes.

And Jim says he's going to go mountain biking at Montage Mountain.

Well, I look that up.

And

correct me if I'm wrong, folks in Pennsylvania,

but Montage Mountain has, you know, ski runs, but you can't mountain bike on it unless there's some trails I don't know about.

I actually found an online petition from April of 2019 of folks wanting to mountain bike on Montage Mountain, but you can't.

And there's an online petition because people want to.

Wow.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Had to do a local deep dive.

Well, you know what?

Perhaps that's the evidence.

that Jim and Pam

are not actually having separate plans that weekend.

Because he would know.

If Kevin knew that there was no mountain biking on Montage Mountain, he would know.

Kevin doesn't know that because he's not athletic.

No.

But Jim knows that.

That's right.

Jim got it wrong.

Well, now Michael arrives

and he breaks the news that Meredith has been hit by a car.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, luckily he was there.

Yeah.

And he drove her to the hospital.

He said the doctors did the best they could.

They did everything they could to save her life.

And she's going to be okay.

Yeah.

And Stanley's like, why the hell would you say it like that?

Who talks like that?

It's so good.

I love that line from Stanley.

So much.

Leslie is so good in that delivery.

He's so good.

And I loved it when Andy's like, well, who hit her?

And then Michael's like, kind of a good news, bad news there.

I was able to be on the scene so quickly because I was in the car that hit her.

And Jim's like, oh no.

Yeah, Jim's like,

who was driving the car?

And that's what Pam is like, oh, Michael.

Oh, Michael.

At four minutes, four seconds, there's a reaction shot of everyone, and the accountants are all sort of standing together.

Guys,

the return of the floofy blouse.

Ooh, is it a floofy blouse in an accountant stack?

It's a floofy blouse in an accountant clump.

This is more of a clump than a stack.

All right.

But Jenna, you can also see that over the summer, I got bangs.

Oh.

Yes.

And Kim Ferry had to try to style my hair.

But I think I have sort of stylish bangs.

Oh.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

I know.

Well, now we are moving into Michael's office.

Dwight is trying to make Michael feel better by explaining, it's going to be fine.

I mean, it's only Meredith.

But Michael is upset because he thinks everyone thinks he might be a murderer.

Or they were looking at him like he was a murderer.

Can you imagine if some of the writers had had their way?

I know.

No kidding.

Gosh.

Well, now Pam is going to go around the office.

She thinks everyone should visit Meredith and she's collecting money so they can buy her flowers.

Yes, but Angela says she can't go because Sprinkles is sick

and Angela needs to go home at lunch to give Sprinkles some medicine and eat lunch with her cat.

Yeah.

And you guys, there are wonderful deleted talking heads from this episode.

So many characters have great talking heads, but this is a talking head that would have happened right before Pam walked over to Angela and I have to read it to you because it's so fun to me.

Angela has a talking head that says, I've had sprinkles for 16 years.

I adopted her when I graduated from accounting school.

I knew the kind of life I wanted.

One with the companionship and unpredictable good times only a cat offers.

The unpredictable good times a cat offers.

You know, cats really do offer unpredictable good times.

Creed Bratton has texted me this sentence.

An unpredictable good time only a cat offers.

Creed texted me that the other day.

I love that.

So, yes, so Angela has that talking head and that you didn't get to see.

And it really sort of builds up like, this is like more than a cat to her.

I mean, we already know that.

But when Pam

suggests that Angela like should go and that she's like ditching on her party planning committee duties Angela's ticked.

Uh, Sam, can I get a Pam sass?

Pam sass!

Yeah.

We had some people write in: Paige Banker, Lauren Corwin.

They just wrote in all caps: major Pam Sass at five minutes, 35 seconds.

Yeah, I agree, you guys.

Pam, Pam says, Can't your other cats keep her company?

And Angela's like, There's bad blood, jealousies, clicks.

What's happening at this woman's house?

Um,

I have to tell you something about this scene.

This was what I thought you were gonna tell me when you said that I had written you an email about this episode.

Why?

And about what I was doing this week.

Why?

Lady,

I was really,

really hungover when we shot this scene.

Like, super hungover.

And if you look at me in this scene compared to every other scene, you can see it on my face.

I am like, I am gray.

I'm kind of green.

Why?

My eyes are puffy.

I will never forget it.

So the night before this shoot, I went to a Mexican restaurant and I was with a friend who ordered a margarita.

Okay.

I had never really had a margarita before.

Oh, no way.

Yes, yes, it's true.

I, we've talked about this.

I did not have a lot of experience with drinking.

I just, you know, I had a cosmopolitan.

I had to research drinking in order to play drunk Pam.

So I took a sip of it.

Yeah.

And I was like,

this is delicious.

I love this drink.

And then I had three.

Three.

Three over the course of this dinner.

I then, you know, lady,

this scene was the first scene of the next day.

We had a super early call time and I was really feeling it.

Like I didn't,

I had not had enough time to recover from my three margaritas.

Oh, yeah.

My call times were routinely like 5 a.m., 5.30.

So you were, you were sweating tequila.

I was.

And so I thought when you said earlier that you had an email from me about what I was doing this week, I was like, oh my gosh, did I write Angela about those margaritas?

Sorry to disappoint.

You had a mandatory physical table read and a sexual harassment seminar.

Exactly.

Anyway,

that's my little tidbit.

Every time I see this scene, I'm reminded of the night that I first drank three margaritas.

Well, now I'll always remember it.

So now Michael has to call Ryan because Ryan is his boss and tell him he hit Meredith on company property.

With his company car.

Yeah.

And Ryan is such a badass boss in this.

He's clearly, he's liking being the boss and talking to Michael this way.

Well, and then we go to the Ryan talking head.

And Ryan has a new look.

He's got his like,

his, what do you call that?

It's not a beard.

It's like a the permanent stubble.

Yeah, it's like a five o'clock shadow, but it's a choice.

It's a choice.

Yeah.

Yeah, and his hair's all slicked back.

He's got like kind of a Gordon Gecko thing going on.

Yeah, he looks like he should be in the show succession.

That's what he looks like.

Yes.

Right?

And he has the same kind of like cheesy attitude.

He's like, some people keep calling me, you know, Wonder Kid, you know, not really sure what that means.

Well, I guess I do know what it means.

He's, oh, it's so cringy.

Yeah, it's great.

This is, is, we're going to get a glimpse now of what this new dynamic is going to be like.

Well, then we have a scene that I love, Angela, because it's a Dwight and Angela secret scene.

Remember, the people in the office, we don't know you're dating, right?

So you guys are still kind of like a secret couple.

Whenever you want to talk to each other, you have to go be like weirdly secretive about it.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess only Jim knows, right?

And Pam.

And Pam.

Have Jim and Pam hopefully talked about it at this point?

We still don't know.

You would think.

So, lady, I had a long speech where I talk about all of Sprinkles medications, and I did that thing like you did on Beach Games.

I learned it backwards and forwards so that I could say it just effortlessly, you know?

But here it is.

Sam, can you play that clip?

So what do you need me to do?

I wrote it out.

There's a diabetes shot.

Roll the insulin in your hands.

Don't shake it.

She gets an ACE inhibitor with her meal.

You have to put her right in front of the dish or she won't see it because of the cataracts.

Mix one capsule of omega fatty acid in with her kidney medicine.

And you want to give that to her 15 minutes after she's eaten.

And oh, there's a fungal cream because she has this infection under her tail.

So you're going to have to lift her tail and put the cream right at the base of her tail.

I love that you memorized it, Angela, because when I watched that, I wondered.

I thought the answer was yes because you delivered it like you knew.

And if you had a cat that was sick, you would know, right?

You wouldn't be searching for that information.

You would know it.

Oh, yeah.

And they had the props department had given me this blue notepad with all of the different steps written out, but not in the same order, not exactly.

So, like, actually, if I looked at the notepad, it would have messed me up.

But I saved the notepad with all of Sprinkle's medications.

And it's the one I hand Dwight in the scene.

He's holding it.

I saved it.

I never tore off that first page and I still have it.

And the whole notepad is unused.

And that first page just has all of Sprinkles, like medicines and how to care for her.

Oh my gosh.

Oh, look.

Oh, wait.

Oh, I took a picture of it.

Do you want to see?

Yeah.

Okay, here.

That is amazing.

But that's not your handwriting.

No, no, no.

It's not my handwriting.

Someone in the props department wrote that out.

Wow.

We have to post that on the pod.

We'll post it on the pod.

Okay.

Sprinkles medication going on the the pod.

Well, we got a fan question from Tracy Prescott who said this.

I am a cat-focused veterinarian in Atlanta, and I was wondering if an actual doctor of veterinary medicine was consulted about Sprinkles' medical needs because Angela's list of medications and treatments she gave to Dwight were very realistic.

Oh, that's fantastic!

Well, Greg told me that he had the writer's assistants Nate Fetterman and Jonathan Hughes, do research into the accurate cat medicines.

And that is why that list of medicines is so realistic.

Well, good job, writer's assistants.

That's right.

Well, listen, before we go on, maybe we should take a break because coming up, Michael is going to try to, I don't know, write this wrong.

He's going to try.

It's not going to go well.

It never does.

No.

All right, right.

We'll be back.

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All right, we are back and Angela.

Michael has gone into the break room in an attempt to rally everyone to plant a tree in honor of Meredith.

But do you know what I titled this scene?

You are always titling scenes and I have titled a scene.

What?

John eats popcorn.

Oh my my gosh.

Did you notice he is eating popcorn through this whole scene?

Not carrots, not baby carrots, but popcorn.

And the way he's eating it, it's so

delicate.

Was he trying not to crunch too loudly?

I think he was trying not to be a problem for sound, but he was clearly hungry because he eats it through the whole scene.

Oh my god, was this the year we got that little popcorn maker by Craft Services?

It must have been.

This must have been the first week with the popcorn maker.

We went a little crazy for popcorn and then the sound department, I think, said, okay, guys.

I remember it went away.

Yeah, but we were excited about it.

Well, he's eating popcorn in this whole scene.

And it's also in this scene that Pam explains to Michael.

You know, we're just going to go visit Meredith.

We're going to go and shift so we don't overwhelm her.

But Michael is like, no, we're all going together.

At the same time, I'll drive.

So Jim and Pam are like, well, we can each take people in our separate cars.

And Oscar's like, separate cars.

And Kevin's like,

I don't believe it.

I know.

Well, then Michael has a talking head and he says, you know, I have flaws, you know, what, so sue me.

And he's like, no, no, no, don't sue me.

But Jenna, there was an alt to this talking head and it's in the deleted scenes.

And it made me laugh so hard.

And it's also in the bloopers.

And Steve couldn't get through it.

He kept laughing.

What is it?

Okay,

this is it.

There's one take.

Clearly, he got through it because it's in the deleted scenes.

He says, I am not a bad guy.

I am a good guy who runs over women with his car.

Why am I having such a hard time getting my message across?

Oh my gosh, that is funny.

And the way Steve does it is so good.

That's good.

I have to go watch that.

Yeah, you have to.

Well, we don't find out exactly how they get there, but the entire gang does arrive at the hospital.

Michael has a whole bunch of balloons.

The entire gang minus Dwight.

That's right, because Dwight has gone to take care of Sprinkles.

Everyone gathers around Meredith's bed, and we talked about this scene with Kate

about how Steve improvised crawling on top of her in that one moment.

He's like trying to give her a hug.

It's pretty amazing.

It's pretty great.

There is a deleted scene from this moment where Creed, as they're exiting, just grabs all her meds out of the little plastic cups.

They're sitting on her tray.

Oh.

And Creed just pockets all her meds.

Of course he does.

Well, I had a favorite moment from this scene, and I wanted to ask you about it because I think maybe you improvised it.

When Michael is trying to get Meredith to forgive him,

He says that she should think about the Bible

because it says says that forgiveness is next to godliness.

And you mutter, that's cleanliness.

I did improvise that.

Oh, I also wanted to mention in this scene the nurse

who is an improv person from IO.

Her name is Sylvia McClure.

Well, I looked at her IMDB and I found this very interesting.

In addition to playing a nurse, on the office, she has also played a doctor on Young and the Restless, Dexter and Intelligence, Intelligence, a nurse in Night of the Dead, and a receptionist nurse on the unit.

So she's played a lot of nurses and doctors.

And incidentally, she's also twice been cast as a nun.

That is very interesting.

Like, sort of a, it's like a weird typecasting.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, I used to get a lot of auditions for school teachers and nurses.

Have you ever played a nurse or doctor?

Yes,

actually.

I played a pediatric nurse in this movie called The Promotion.

I played a doctor

on an episode of Monk.

And I played a sexy nurse briefly in one of our Halloween episodes of The Office.

What were you most often typecast as for auditions?

Before the office?

Before the office.

Quirky, quirky gal.

What's up?

My quirky, quirky fun neighbor.

Quirky neighbor.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was, I got a lot of just the school teachers,

waitresses, and nurses.

Well, I will tell you, we talked about how hard we laughed in this scene, but 11 minutes, 22 seconds is when you can see us breaking.

If you're looking for it, that's when Michael crawls on top of Meredith.

Well, now we can go back to the office and we are going to find Dwight

telling Angela some bad news.

And she's anxious to see him.

She wants to know how it went.

You can just tell.

And then he's like, hey, monkey.

And she's like, any problems?

Well, you left the TV on and your cat is dead.

And

my character's like, what?

And he's like, Sparkles, the white one, is dead.

Yeah, he gets the name wrong.

It's bad.

It is bad.

This will not end well.

Angela, you get so very immediately emotional and not in a funny way.

Like, this is one of the ways that our show allowed characters to be real people because

Angela, the character, really loved her cat and she is heartbroken.

And you see that real pain here from your character.

How did you gear up for this scene?

Well, Greg told me, he said, you know, Angela Martin, hearing this news will be devastated.

And I need you to play out the beats of hearing news that kind of destroys you in the moment, you know, and I feel like we've all had moments in our lives where we've gotten that phone call with some bad news, you know, unfortunately.

And I just sort of

thought about a few of those moments where, you know, at first you're just in total shock.

where you're not really sure what you heard.

Yeah.

And then it's like someone slaps you in the face with the information.

And then you're trying to make sense of it, but you can't make sense of it.

It's the unthinkable.

And it doesn't make sense.

And your body is doing all of that.

You're in shock.

You're sad.

Your body, your mind is trying to make it right, but you can't make it right.

You can't figure it out.

You don't understand why it happened.

And I was just.

trying to process through all of that.

And

yeah, that's what I did.

Did you have to do a a lot of takes of that scene?

Do you remember?

No, I didn't.

I was thankful for that.

In the next scene, your character is still crying.

She's standing at reception with Pam, and you look like you've been crying for a long time.

What did you do to get there, to start the scene in a place like that?

You know, I'm chatty.

So my instinct would be, I'm standing by reception with you, would be to be hanging out, you know, being part of the bullpen.

So one of the things I did was I went around the the corner by the elevators by myself in between takes, and I did not hang out.

And I just tried to stay in sort of that sad space.

And,

and also, the makeup department, they wanted my eyes to really look like I had balled my eyes out.

And they did.

So, I had to get myself back in that emotional place and get sad again.

And also, the makeup department, Kenneth Paul, who did my makeup, did like this type of eyeliner that really made the inside, it was like on the, in the inside of your eye, reddish pink.

So my eyes, my eyes looked the part, and then emotionally I got there.

Your eyes looked like you had three margaritas yesterday.

Maybe

that's what I, that should have been my prep instead of eyeliner and sad thoughts.

Yeah.

No, what happened was Laverne just showed Kenneth Paul a picture of me from the previous day and was like, make her look like that.

No, but in all seriousness, Angela, when I was watching these series of scenes where your character is really, really

devastated over the death of Sprinkles,

I was just so beyond impressed with your performance and your range and your believability.

It was just, this is just great, great work.

Aw, thanks.

I appreciate that.

I really appreciated Greg writing the storyline for me and I got to do all these things, you know, and,

you know, his take as a director was always to try to keep it as honest as possible.

Yeah.

Well, there's another really great moment in this scene and

we actually had a fan write in.

Katie Harwick said,

I think we need to give a shout out to Michael when Angela's cat dies.

Not only did he know her name, but he was overcome with grief.

He cares so much for his employees, and it was just just such a sweet moment to me.

But I do have to ask, do you think he was truly sad or did he just see this as a distraction from hitting Meredith that everyone could talk about instead?

I personally think he was very distraught about sprinkles.

Well, I agree.

This happens at 12 minutes, 41 seconds, and it is one of my favorite endearing moments of Michael.

Now, maybe because it's personal for me, because, you know, I played Angela Martin.

I knew how much she loved her cats.

But Michael, it's like that moment when the trick-or-treaters come to his house and you see his joy.

It's like that moment when he shows up to Pam's art show.

Michael really saw these people as his family.

So Michael knew Angela's love of Sprinkles.

Of course, he did.

And he was gutted to hear that Sprinkles died.

The way he puts his hand up to his face and he kind of collapses into the wall and he's like, oh, shoot.

I'm sorry angela i mean could it get any worse he's feeling all of that he really feels bad

and now he gets sprinkles name right the first time and then he makes a big speech and calls her prinkle so you know he does that's right he says

so many bad things have happened today

the computer crashes from porn meredith accident and now prinkles were cursed this seals the deal.

To him, that's it.

The office is cursed, and now he's got to figure out how to break this curse.

Yes, but he does say, I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.

It's like he thinks they're two separate words.

Well, we had a fan question about that line from Jessica Williard and Lauren Corwin.

They said, that line makes me laugh every time

who wrote this joke.

I was curious too.

Did you you find out?

I did.

It was Gene Stepnitsky.

Gene, hilarious.

Yeah, I asked Greg and he said, I'm pretty sure it was Gene or Lee.

I reached out to those guys.

Gene said, yes, it was me.

He remembers.

They were in a group, and this talking head leads to a commercial break.

And they needed a button.

They needed a little button at the end of this talking head so that they could go to commercial.

And he said they were just trying trying to come up with something.

And all of a sudden, he said, he shouted out, I've got it.

This might be stupid, but how about this?

And he pitched that line.

And it is so genius.

It is such a good line.

And I hear that line quoted all the time.

It is a Michael Scott classic line.

It is.

It's true.

Well, speaking of classic Michael Scott, we're now going to move into one of Michael's conference room meetings.

This is an epic conference room meeting.

We were in this this conference room all freaking

day.

We got loopy.

We got punchy.

I'm going to tell you where we flat out lost it.

It's so good.

Yeah.

I also remember that they very specifically did not seat Jim and Pam next to one another.

This was part of Jim and Pam's supposed like way of deflecting that we're dating.

Yeah.

And I remember that you have to just be sad and kind of cry through this scene and that I didn't want to chat you up too much because I knew you had to stay in that space.

And I did.

I did.

I really stayed sad until the end when Steve made me break into laughter.

So Michael in the scene is questioning his employees.

He feels like someone must have done something to get this curse, right?

Like, have they violated an ancient Indian burial ground?

And then, you know, he wants to know what everyone's religious beliefs are.

Which Toby says, Michael, we can't, you can't do that.

You can't discuss that.

Michael calls Toby Satan repeatedly in this scene.

One, because he won a week of free pizzas.

So he's like, I don't think there's a curse.

And Michael's like, okay, Satan.

So he goes around the room.

Pam and Daryl are both Presbyterians.

They high five.

Phyllis has this great line where she says, I'm a Lutheran and Bob is a Unitarian, keeps things spicy.

Mm-hmm.

Creed said he's been a follower in a cult and a leader in a cult.

The followers have more fun, but the leaders make more money.

But Michael has decided he thinks

maybe we should do an animal sacrifice.

Yes.

You know?

That's going to do it.

Maybe that would help.

Yeah.

And then he starts naming animals,

but they don't exist.

I wrote them down.

He suggests that we sacrifice an animal that has the body of a walrus

and the head of a sea lion

or

the body of an egret with the head of a meercat,

or

maybe one that has the head of a monkey with the antlers of a reindeer and the body of

a porcupine.

Okay, Jenna, when Steve started this runner, they just let him go.

Do you remember this?

Yeah.

He just started improvising different animal combinations.

We didn't know what was going to come out of the guy's mouth.

We all started dropping like flies, cracking up.

And the other thing is he would say it with such seriousness.

And this was the comedy killer.

The long pauses.

He takes such a long pause before he says,

body of a porcupine?

Yes.

We were on the floor.

We were on the floor.

I am not in any background shots while he's doing these animal combinations because I couldn't keep it together.

And at 18 minutes, 11 seconds, you can see Craig Robinson covering his face.

I saw it.

I remember that.

We were losing it.

It was so

funny.

And they let him go for a long time.

I mean, you are not seeing all of it.

He went for so long.

And I remember we were cracking up and we were just like, get it.

Like, as a group, we were like, no, get it together.

These are too good.

We can't ruin these well while all this is happening at the office Dwight has gone to visit Meredith and

he has this talking head where he's saying as he's sitting next to her

that sometimes the best thing to do is to put an animal out of its misery he's a farmer yeah You could power a small fan for two days with the amount of electricity Meredith is hooked up to.

I have to say, please, if you go back to rewatch this episode, during this speech by Dwight

next to Meredith's bedside, please look at the woman in the bed on the other side.

Okay?

Over Dwight's shoulder.

That's all I'm going to say.

Just enjoy that performance the next time you watch this scene.

It's wonderful.

Oh my God, Jenna.

When we were all crammed around Kate's bed, that woman was there.

I swear,

that woman, it was like she was a real patient.

She let out some kind of noise, and I thought we were all going to shit our pants.

She was a background actor,

but it was, she was so real.

She literally, while we were standing there one time, went,

like, I think they told her to maybe make a moaning sound.

Yeah.

And her interpretation of that, we went loopy.

Well, watch her in the background of the scene because she's excellent so now the doctor comes in and dwight has some questions for him and you and i both know that this is our writer justin spitzer

yes creator of some of your favorite dwightisms justin spitzer and the creator of the show superstore well i reached out to justin and he told me that he got this role after reading the part in the table read

that he made Greg laugh which Paul Lieberstein has shared that this would happen they wouldn't have some of the the roles cast and they would have writers read them.

And

if a writer read a part, get ready because Greg, there was a good chance Greg was going to put you in the show.

Well, he also told me that the look he gives to camera was actually him misunderstanding a piece of direction from Greg.

That Greg did not intend him to like perform that line to the camera as like a little joke.

Like, oh, so that's where it went.

He's talking about Meredith's uterus.

Yeah.

But Greg left it in.

I liked it.

I liked it too, but he said that was not the intention.

That was a mistake.

Well, we learn in this scene that Meredith

has been bitten by a bat, which we knew, but not only by a bat, but recently by a raccoon and a rat.

What the hell, Meredith?

What is she doing?

Honestly, a few of those animals could just live in her van.

Meredith's van.

Well, when Dwight comes back from the hospital, he fills fills Michael in on all of this.

He says,

you know, it turns out Meredith had been exposed to rabies.

Michael's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

And that going to the hospital might have saved her life because she got a rabies vaccine.

That is all Michael needed to hear.

He hit her with a car and saved her life.

Yes.

Now he also says in this scene, Dwight says the only way to treat rabies is to start treatment before the symptoms start.

Well, I looked it up.

Mm-hmm.

This is true.

Did you know, Angela, that nearly 100% of people who develop symptoms die from rabies?

Die.

It cannot be cured once you get it.

I did not know that.

Yes, so this is why you have to seek treatment immediately if you are ever bitten by an animal.

And a lot of animals can carry rabies, but since I looked it up, I'll let you know that in the United States, the most likely way to transmit rabies is through bats, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and skunks.

In Africa and Southeast Asia, it is stray dogs.

I mean, what about monkeys?

There's parts of like Indonesia, like if you go up to Ubud, like there's monkeys.

If you get bitten by any animal, just go.

Go get a rabies vaccine.

It also.

What about squirrels?

yes, any animal.

If any animal bites you, I'm just telling you the animals that are most likely to carry rabies in these locations, but any animal can give it to you.

Is a mongoose on the list?

Is a mongoose any animal?

I'm just messing with you, but it's been really fun.

Well, listen, here is the thing that I found most interesting.

This is from the Mayo Clinic website.

Here's what it says.

Okay.

If you wake up in the morning

and there's a bat in your room,

you should assume you've been bitten

because a bat can bite you without waking you up.

It also said: if you find a bat by a person who can't tell you that they've been bitten like a child or an impaired adult, assume they have also been bitten and go get a rabies vaccine.

Because once you show symptoms, there is no cure.

Well, I was watching an episode of Our Planet, and they were talking about these baby seals.

And they're vampire bats that go and try to just suck their blood.

And they can hop.

They hop around.

The seals are the bats?

The bats!

They jump.

I'm going to send you a video.

They hop and they are blood suckers.

They hop and bite.

They hop and bite.

Yeah.

Well,

there you go, guys.

There you go.

That's your rabies

cheat sheet.

That's everything you ever wanted to know about rabies.

Basically, if you get bit by an animal, that's what I learned.

Get that raby shot.

Good.

Oh, yes.

That was the takeaway I was hoping for.

Well, there you go.

Well, Michael is thrilled to find out that he has saved Meredith's life.

Oh, yeah.

He walks into the bullpen.

He declares that the curse has been broken.

Turns out there is a God.

Everything is great.

But who is Jesus' dad?

Yeah, he's not sure, I guess.

And meanwhile, Kevin, you know, has been on the case this whole episode trying to figure out if Jim and Pam are dating.

He's positive that they are, but it's the end of the day.

And he's like, you know what?

I guess they're not together.

And now they probably never will be.

And it's too bad because they're like PB and J.

Pam Beasley and Jim.

Yeah.

And that was an inside joke because at this point, fans of the show had started calling Jim and Pam Jam.

Yes.

They had mashed our names as Jam.

And so it was this funny thing that Kevin would call us PB and J and not Jam.

A little nod to the fans.

A little nod.

Well, you know what?

We see Pam leave for the day.

She gets in her car.

She drives away.

She's by herself.

Clearly, the documentary crew is as suspicious as Kevin because they follow her as she drives off.

It made me wonder, my gosh, how long do they follow us after we leave work?

Well, I don't think you should be that worried because Pam doesn't drive very far.

I was like, Pam, do better.

You drove like four car lengths and then you pulled over.

And then what?

Are you going to just leave your car there?

Your car is not that far from work and you're just going to leave it?

No, I'm not going to leave it.

I'm going to pick up Jim.

I think they could have done better.

Well, you know what?

This is the street we could get a permit for, and we couldn't block off the whole street.

This is as far as I was allowed to drive.

But it's true.

I pull over.

And then Greg wanted to kind of further the misdirect.

So he directed me to put my head down on the steering wheel.

Like maybe Pam pulled off the side of the road because she was just having kind of an emotional moment.

And maybe you'd find out what that was or why that was, that she was sad or something like that.

But of course, what happens is Jim comes over, he gets in the car,

they share a kiss, and then they drive away.

Well, I loved this little moment that we got to see.

I will say this.

The way you slumped on the steering wheel, I did not think you were overcome with emotion.

I thought you were awkwardly trying trying to hide.

I'm going to say when I watched that back, it's one of my worst acting moments on the show.

I thought you were trying to hide.

The idea was

that I was sort of like, oh, what a day.

I needed to pull over because, oh, what a day this has been.

I need a moment to collect myself.

I mean, it didn't work.

I don't think it worked.

You thought I was trying to hide.

I thought it worked because I thought Pam was trying to possibly cover her face from anyone of her coworkers who might be leaving since she didn't pull very far away from the building.

Well, that's what I thought.

It was strange.

It was strange.

But there you go.

And on the DVDs, guys, there is a very interesting extra

feature.

There is a rabies PSA.

It is Steve looking like Steve.

Cute jeans, buttoned down.

He has normal Steve hair, but he's sort of delivering it more like Michael, but he's Steve.

I don't know.

It's like it was written for Michael, but it's delivered by Steve.

It's a rabies PSA.

Remember those things on NBC?

Yeah.

Like the more, you know, bing, bing, bang, bing, or whatever.

Yes.

And he's giving a few like tips about rabies.

And then he says

rabies kills nearly 4,000 Americans every 1,000 years.

Well, here's an interesting fact that I found, Angela.

What?

Which is that

the day after this episode aired, this episode aired on September 27, 2007,

the next day

was the first annual World Rabies Day.

It was a global health day

to raise awareness of rabies.

So do you think NBC had Steve do a PSA?

I don't know.

I don't know.

But what a weird, crazy thing.

Yes.

And guys, if you get bit, get that rabies shot.

I hope I made that clear in today's episode.

I got it.

I hope you also learned maybe don't drink three margaritas before you have a real early call time.

Aspiring actors, maybe you can learn that from me today as well.

Jenna, you're giving all kinds of gems today.

So many gems.

Well, thank you.

You're welcome.

Here's the takeaway from me today:

save the boring emails, and then no one will hack you.

That's right.

Oh, there we go, guys.

That was Fun Run part one.

We'll be back next week with Fun Run Part Two, where we actually run.

Oh man, do we?

All right, guys, have a great week.

Bye.

Hi.

Are you still here?

Bye.

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.

Office Ladies is produced by Erwolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey.

Our producer is Cody Fisher.

Our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer.

And our associate producer is Ainsley Bubico.

Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

For ad-free versions of Office Ladies, go to stitcherpremium.com.

For a free one-month trial of Stitcher Premium, use code Office.

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