Employee Transfer

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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 Rewatch podcast just for you.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, Michael. Michael.
Bless his heart. You guys, today it's Employee Transfer.
It is season five, episode six, written by Anthony Farrell and directed by Dave Rogers.

Speaker 1 We have lots to say. There was a really good DVD commentary.
I didn't do any deep dives, though. What? I'm sorry.
In advance for anyone who likes them, and you're welcome to people who hate them.

Speaker 1 I might need a minute. No deep dives.
I have a summary. I know you have a summary and fast facts, but we also reached out to a ton of people.
So we have lots of good trivia. We did.
That is very true.

Speaker 1 I will give you my summary. Do it.
Pam is embarrassed when no one else at corporate wears a costume on Halloween. That is the worst.
It was so funny.

Speaker 1 It was so funny to do, and it gets me every time.

Speaker 1 Holly and Michael deal with Holly's transfer to the Nashua branch. Remember when David Wallace last week saw them kissing after the auction? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. He was like, I'm not having another Jan and Michael on my hands.
No, no depositions. Not on my watch.
No. Also, Dwight tries to get under Andy's skin by applying to Cornell.

Speaker 1 I love that storyline. Same.

Speaker 1 And finally, Pam is going to team up with Jim's brothers to play a prank on Jim.

Speaker 1 Telling you those Halberts and the pranks. You know how I feel about pranks.
I know how you feel about them in real life. The same as how I feel about tickling.
I know, but Pam is like, sign me up.

Speaker 1 Let's prank away. I know.
Pam loves a prank. That's why Pam married Jim.
That's right. Jenna would not marry Jim.
No. because there'd be too much pranking.

Speaker 1 All right. Fast fact number one, new writer alert, Anthony Farrell.
Yeah. Anthony was with us for season five.
He is a writer and a comedian.

Speaker 1 This was the first episode that he wrote for the show, but I didn't know this till I looked it up. The first thing he wrote was actually the Kevin's Lone webisodes.
That's right.

Speaker 1 He wrote a series of webisodes and some of our writers got to break off and do that. I would have loved to done that.
I would have loved to have written a webisode.

Speaker 1 I feel like you had a lot of freedom on the webisodes. Yeah, you did.
They were pretty fun, which reminds me, we should break down the webisodes sometime.

Speaker 1 I mean, you don't even have to make it into a question. We definitely should.
The accountants, the webisodes, want an Emmy. An Emmy.
I'm so jealous that you have an actual Emmy. I know, lady.

Speaker 1 In your house. I know.
It's very pointy. Yeah, those wings are pointy.
It's pointy. Angela, do you want to share that we got in touch with Anthony? Yes, we were emailing with Anthony.

Speaker 1 We had the wrong email. Aaron Scherr to the rescue.
Thank you, Aaron. Thank you, Aaron.
Got us in touch. It was so great to reconnect with him.

Speaker 1 He and his family are back in Toronto where he's from, and they're doing awesome. He shared with me that he is the showrunner for a show called The Parker Andersons slash Amelia Parker.

Speaker 1 And it's actually two shows about the same characters from two different perspectives. I love that.
It's so cool. He shared a lot of stuff with us.

Speaker 1 We're going to sprinkle it through the episode, but one of the things he said was before he got the office, he was a comedian, but he still needed that day job.

Speaker 1 And he was working at Countrywide Home Loans.

Speaker 1 And he was so excited when he got the job as writer on the office because it meant he could quit countrywide home loans. He quit like.
the day before he started in the writer's room, right?

Speaker 1 He was working crazy. Yeah, he was working at countrywide home loans.
And then literally like the next day was like, I'm going to go right now on a TV show.

Speaker 1 But all of that experience paid off because he was often called on in the writer's room to pitch like those very minutia office space storylines. And he sent us in audio clips.

Speaker 1 We'll share those and some other trivia he gave us. It's interesting because actually not a lot of our writers had real office work experience.
So he was a find. This was awesome

Speaker 1 to have him in there. Great perspective.
All right. Fast fact number two, new director alert.
Yes, our very own Dave Rogers, our editor. Yeah.

Speaker 1 If you guys haven't listened to his extended interview in our revisited episode, you should check it out because he is an amazing person and knows so much about the show.

Speaker 1 I dare say, I don't know if anyone else knows the show as well as him. You should dare to say that.
I dare say it then. Say it.
I dare say it. She said it.
I said it.

Speaker 1 We were also able to get in touch with Dave. He shared with me that he was so nervous to direct.
Very excited, but he had a ton of anxiety. He said he had a panic attack

Speaker 1 the night before filming, but he just pushed through. I was really curious, like, what the most challenging thing was coming from editing and then directing.
Oh, that's a good question.

Speaker 1 He said the toughest thing about this episode was that there were so many locations. There were these multiple storylines.
Michael had this huge emotional journey to go on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And a physical journey. Yes.
He said that the most challenging thing for him was just the pace of shooting.

Speaker 1 And he said it's like there's one thing if you have a ton of scenes in the bullpen and you have to make your day, but it's a whole other thing if after you finish a scene, you have to pick up the entire crew and all the gear and move to another place and reset up because that eats up so much of your on-camera shoot time.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But he did feel that coming from editing gave him an advantage because he just knew inherently the kind of stuff that got used on the show.

Speaker 1 He had watched so many directors do shots that were just never going to make it in. Right.
So he said he was able to be really, really efficient. And he got to edit this episode.
Oh, that's great.

Speaker 1 Cause how hard would it be as an editor to then direct and then give it away? I know, right? Yeah, I would think.

Speaker 1 He said that Dean Holland assembled a few scenes and then Dave took over and he did a full assembly. He did like a director's cut and he said not much changed.
I doubt doubt it.

Speaker 1 And he was really, really proud that basically it was his director's cut that went to air. Nice.
Well, I have more stuff from Dave too. So you can share that.

Speaker 1 My fast fact number three is fun facts about Nashua. Let's hear that.
I mean, Holly has to go live in Nashua. Don't we want to know more about it? I do.
Good.

Speaker 1 I'm going to tell you. Okay.

Speaker 1 Holly is lucky because Nashua was named the best place to live in America two times in an annual survey by Money magazine, and it is the only city to ever win that ranking twice. Holy crap, Nashua!

Speaker 1 It was in 1987 and 1998. Going strong at the end of the 90s.
Really? What else you got? Russian dressing. Originated in Nashua? Yeah.
The salad dressing, the Russian dressing. No.
What?

Speaker 1 You said you didn't have any deep dives. You were fooling.
This is a mini deep dive on Nashua. Okay, you're right.
It kind of is.

Speaker 1 And also on Russian dressing, it was created by a grocer named James Colburn. He started mixing it up.
It looks like around 1910. Okay.

Speaker 1 And he started selling it at his grocery store under the name Colburn's Mayonnaise Salad Dressing. Well, that's not a catchy title, so I can see why they had to zhuzh it up.

Speaker 1 Soon he started manufacturing it on a bigger scale and shipping it around to other places. And he got so rich that he was able to retire

Speaker 1 in 1924. Wow.
So just 14 years of selling this salad dressing. And he was like,

Speaker 1 peace out. Should we make a salad dressing? What's our salad dressing? What would be in it? What do you like in a salad dressing, lady? You had me at mayonnaise.

Speaker 1 Okay, so we'll do some kind of mayo-based salad dressing.

Speaker 1 I also like lemon. Do those mix? I don't know.
I don't know because I was going to say maybe like a spicy mustard. Oh.

Speaker 1 Because I know they do a honey mustard salad dressing, but has anyone paired a spicy mustard with a mayo yet? Probably. We need to cut this out.

Speaker 1 We need to cut this out because we're on to something and we'll never do it and someone else will and then we'll be mad for the rest of our lives.

Speaker 1 Office ladies, but we need to give it a really long clunky name. Office ladies creamy mayonnaise spicy mustard delight.
Yes. And then later.

Speaker 1 It's got to go on the end. I don't care what it is.
Later, we'll call it like Dutch dressing. We'll just pick a country.
Denmark dressing. We'll just pick a random country.
Pick a country. Okay.

Speaker 1 This is the formula. Oh, okay.
And then we'll retire in 14 years. Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. My final fun fact about Nashua is also about Amy Ryan.
Her character in Gone, Baby, Gone. Yeah.
She is being interrogated

Speaker 1 about a possible drug deal. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And she admits. that she did in fact make a drug run to Nashua.
No.

Speaker 1 And she made $150,000 on this drug run. Amy, what is it? All your roles lead back to Nashua.
I don't know. Love it.
I now need to Google Nashua.

Speaker 1 Why? I already told you everything you need to do. There's only three things I know about Nashua, and I've told you what they are.
Well, I need to Google image Nashua. It's really cute.

Speaker 1 I'm a big fan of the Google image button, guys.

Speaker 1 The button. Like I say it like it's an actual button on my computer.
I would love it if it was a button on my computer. Less clicking.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 Before we get into

Speaker 1 like computers for old people.

Speaker 1 Before we get into employee transfer, I want to share that there is another great DVD commentary for this episode from our crew.

Speaker 1 And I want to let them introduce themselves because I'm going to be bringing up some of the trivia they share. Here is the DVD crew commentary for this episode.
Am I going to cry again?

Speaker 2 By the way, I'm Dave Rogers. I'm an Emmy Award-winning editor on the show, and this is my directorial debut.
And to my left here is...

Speaker 3 I'm Kyle Alexander, location manager for the show.

Speaker 4 I'm Anthony Farrell, writer of this fantastic episode.

Speaker 1 I'm Veda Samari, the script supervisor. I've been on the show for 99 episodes now.

Speaker 2 And I'm Philip Shea, the property master and I have also been on the show since first season.

Speaker 3 I'm Chuck Canzaneri and this was my first full year as a production assistant on the funniest show on TV.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, I love it. I know.
I love hearing their voices.

Speaker 1 So whenever there's a crew commentary, I just want to let them introduce themselves because it just brings back so many feelings just hearing their voices.

Speaker 1 When Dave introduced himself as the Emmy winning editor,

Speaker 1 it reminded me, Angela, that we were at that awards show. Remember, we read off the people.

Speaker 1 We co-presented. Yes.

Speaker 1 And then we got to give the Emmy to our own editors, and then we partied all night with them. That was so much fun.
That was one of the most fun award shows. Absolutely.
Yeah. Without a doubt.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So that is who does the DVD commentary for this episode. I'll sprinkle in tidbits they share.
And then also, you guys, the bloopers for this episode are some of my most favorite of all bloopers.

Speaker 1 And you can't find them online. You know, they're not all there.
So the bonus for this episode on the DVD box set is so great.

Speaker 1 I wish all of the driving scenes had been left in because they are all gold. I am bummed because I have every DVD set for every season except this one.
What?

Speaker 1 I don't know where my season five DVD went. Oh, lady.
I know. Well, while we take a break, maybe I'll order that DVD, Ange.
Yeah. So I can watch these bloopers.
These bloopers are my favorite.

Speaker 1 Some of my absolute favorites. All right.
I'll do it. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 All right, we are back and you guys, it is Halloween at Dunder Mifflin. It sure is.
This is our Halloween cold open. Not through the rest of the episode, just in the cold open.
Well, we found out why.

Speaker 1 Let's play Anthony's first clip. He talks all about it.

Speaker 4 The show was initially, the entire episode was supposed to be Halloween. So everyone was in their costumes for the entire episode.
So Andy was a kitten initially.

Speaker 4 I think, and the whole B story with Dwight being in the Cornell sweater, that was his costume, an accidental costume initially. And that's where that story came from.

Speaker 4 So costume-wise, we had a thing where once we decided we were going to just put the Halloween stuff in the cold open,

Speaker 4 we rewrote the cold open, and that was mostly led by Lee and Gene. And that's where the idea for the three Jokers came from.

Speaker 4 That was obviously a situation that year with that costume being super popular. And they just totally made the most of that situation.
It was amazing.

Speaker 4 The Charlie Chapman thing, that was actually a full

Speaker 1 runner for you, Jenna.

Speaker 4 We had initially in the first draft where you were going to be, it was Halloween all day.

Speaker 4 So it was just going to be you running around the New York office as the only person dressed for Halloween, trying not to look like Hitler. And it was a fun little runner for you.

Speaker 4 But I think the story we got eventually with Jim's brothers and that beautiful thing with, you know, you taking the heat like that around them and having that nice little moment.

Speaker 4 I think that that to me felt more right. And I love that we ended up going there with the story.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It was going to be a whole Halloween episode and then they changed it up.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Anthony shared in the DVD that all those Halloween costumes would actually be distracting from all the other storylines. Uh-huh.
So they just made it the cold open.

Speaker 1 And I have a costume breakdown. Oh, good, because I have some good details about some of the costumes.
Okay. What's everyone wearing, Angela? So we have the scripts thanks to Jamesopedia.

Speaker 1 So per the script, here are some details. Stanley, in the script, it says, is wearing a creature from the Black Lagoon rubber mask with his regular suit.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Creed, per the script, is an amazing joker from Batman, whereas Kevin is a, quote, lame joker.

Speaker 1 And in the script, it says Dwight is also a joker. Kelly is Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City.
Ryan is Gordon Gecko from Wall Street. Very fitting for Ryan.

Speaker 1 Oscar is Uncle Sam. Meredith, a cheerleader.
Phyllis is Raggedy Ann. Andy, per the script, it says he's dressed as a cat with whiskers on his face.

Speaker 1 Angela has brought back her cat costume. Yes.
Always a classic. And Jim is just wearing a name tag that says Dave.

Speaker 1 And of course, Pam, the solo Halloween costume wearer at Corporate, is dressed as Charlie Chaplin. Yes.
I reached out to our wardrobe designer, Alicia Raycraft. Oh, great.

Speaker 1 So starting this season, Alicia took over for Carrie Bennett.

Speaker 1 Alicia was amazing, particularly, I think, at building wardrobe from scratch.

Speaker 1 My memories of her when I would visit her in the wardrobe trailer were that she always had like one of those fabric mannequins with like swatches on it. pinned on it or on her wall.

Speaker 1 I am telling you, she was always pinning something to something. Yes.
And then standing back and looking at it and then moving a swatch here up and down.

Speaker 1 She said that with this episode, she had to really ride the line of designing wardrobe,

Speaker 1 but also making sure that the costumes look like things that we could have put together ourselves. Right.
The idea is that if Kevin is going to dress like the Joker, it'd be Kevin's effort.

Speaker 1 It'd be like something Kevin had to put together. Yes.
Like you said, the script said that Creed's Joker was supposed to be the best version of the Joker. Kevin's was supposed to be lame.

Speaker 1 And they're the Dark Knight Joker. Yes, that's what Alicia said.
They were supposed to be based on the Heath Ledger Joker.

Speaker 1 And so she had a picture and she made a shopping list and she still had her shopping list. Stop it.

Speaker 1 I love her. This is what it said.
They had to go shop for a vest with a high-neck center front, green for Creed, not for Kevin. Because Creed got it right and Kevin didn't.
Correct.

Speaker 1 They needed a gray or dark lilac pattern shirt, green or olive tie with a pattern, pinstripe navy pants, pleated for Kevin, but flat front for Creed,

Speaker 1 Argyle socks, black Oxford shoes for Creed, but Kevin is to wear his regular character shoes.

Speaker 1 She said the overall direction in shopping for Kevin was that all of the clothes they purchased should look like they came from his closet.

Speaker 1 And the direction for Creed was that Creed went out and picked it out specifically for Halloween. Yeah.
But for Dwight, she said they went with a nod to the Jack Nicholson version of the Joker.

Speaker 1 I thought something was different when I re-watched it because the way they drew the smile

Speaker 1 did not look like the Heath Ledger Joker. That's how they were like, how do we do three Jokers, but it's not all the same costume or the same look.

Speaker 1 But she also shared with me that she brought in a rack of clothes and that Rain really put together his costume from everything she had bought, which tracks with when we talked to Carrie.

Speaker 1 And Carrie Bennett said that Rain was always really invested in what his character wore. That's awesome.
So let's see what's next. We got a lot of questions about Andy's kitten costume.

Speaker 1 A lot of people wrote in to say they thought it looked a little bit like

Speaker 1 my favorite was Katie L said it looks like an off-brand rum tum tugger costume from the musical Cats.

Speaker 1 She said, In my mind, I like to think Andy was in a school production of cats and he still had his costume.

Speaker 1 Katie L, you would be right on there. Dave told me that Greg was very involved in Ed's costume.
Really?

Speaker 1 Yes, that he wanted it to look like it was from the musical Cats, and he went over the top to please Angela. Right.
He was not just going to draw whiskers on his face, guys.

Speaker 1 Alicia said she showed Greg a bunch of photos from the Broadway Musical of Cats, and Greg picked his favorites, but she did not base this cat on any one character. It was a meld.

Speaker 1 She built that whole costume from scratch. She bought a Unitard and hand-painted it.
She used to do textile painting. I mean, that's amazing.
And then she found another email that she shared with me.

Speaker 1 It was an email to her crew detailing how to build the little like fur diaper thing that he's wearing.

Speaker 1 What is it? Right? Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 It looks like fur underwear. And there's also like a rope belt and a tail.
And oh my goodness. Yes.

Speaker 1 She said, please make a loincloth using a fong or small brief underwear as a base and then swatch phelps wool crepe and heavy knits on top and please get faux fur for some gloves

Speaker 1 so amazing so that is how she put together all of those costumes which were really amazing and i remember my costume we did like Pam went to a store and rented a tux, basically.

Speaker 1 Well, I took a lot of photos this day. I have some great ones of you and Rain.

Speaker 1 you guys were hanging out by your trailer i was walking by you guys in my cat costume and i see rain as the joker talking to jenna as charlie chaplin just casually hanging out and so i took pictures they're some of my favorite well i think he put that one in his book i gave it to him yeah that's from me i loved this episode angela because i had been away for a very long time at pratt but you know the corporate offices were over on the warehouse set we never got to see you but you did on this day.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And I got to participate in the Halloween, which was always one of my favorite things on our show.
And I would have been really bummed if I didn't get to see everybody in their costumes.

Speaker 1 But I got to be in hair makeup. And we were in there a long time.
Me, not so long, but oh my gosh, Ed had to come in really early. Yeah.
And so did Phyllis. Like, there was a lot of makeup there.

Speaker 1 And my hair was not easy to wash out, I'll tell you that. Are your eyebrows? I felt bad for your poor eyebrows.
Yeah, it was a real grease paint. They They shellact you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I have a few little background catches for this cold open. I want you guys to know that at 44 seconds, when Kevin is annoyed that Creed is such a good joker, he brushes past me and knocks me over.

Speaker 1 This was like a little running bit Brian and I would have that if Kevin bumped into Angela, she'd go flying. It was like our own personal bit that cracked us up to no end.

Speaker 1 When he did it, one of my cat ears fell forward and didn't come back up. And I could feel it laying on top of my head.
And I was trying not to laugh.

Speaker 1 And if you go to 44 seconds, you'll see that Angela's ear flops forward. I want you to know that three people that I reached out to on this episode pointed out that moment to me.
I know. I know.

Speaker 1 They talked about it in the commentary, too. I think it's gone down in the lore of this episode.
I know.

Speaker 1 And then the other thing was, you guys, they really let Ed as that cat play around and mess with John. And in one take,

Speaker 1 Ed as Andy came up to Jim and rubbed on his leg, like kind of rubbed on him like a cat.

Speaker 1 And the two of them lost it. It's in the bloopers, but they had a lot of fun with that.
One of my favorite moments is when Andy, it says in the script, Andy walks back to his desk smugly.

Speaker 1 And Ed's like sachet in that cat costume cracked me up. You guys know we love this fake elevator in our lobby, the Dunder Mifflin lobby.
Yeah. We've talked about it.

Speaker 1 Two wooden doors and a guy pulling a rope on the side. And they add all the sound effects later.

Speaker 1 They add it all in well in the script when rain as dwight arrives in the joker outfit he just was supposed to hop in the elevator and he was supposed to a la the joker say and here we go and the doors would shut uh-huh but it was just kind of falling flat so they came up with this alt about the magic trick of the pencil disappearing yeah and it wasn't really working still and so anthony pitched what if the doors close as he's saying the line and then he opens them back up to finish the sentence and they said they played around with this for a bit with the doors opening and closing, which you and I know means that there was someone working that pulley really hard.

Speaker 1 And that's how they found this moment. And I thought that was really fun.
That is awesome. Those things that happened on the fly like that in the moment, I love to hear about.

Speaker 1 Now it's time to get into the episode. We're down in the warehouse.
They are loading up a big truck so that they can take Holly to Nashua. Yes.
We got a fan question. Okay.

Speaker 1 That is very funny to me. Two people.
Okay. Ian O and Mary S.
wrote in to say, did Holly live in the warehouse?

Speaker 1 Isn't it odd that this road trip started from the office rather than from her home? This is such a good catch.

Speaker 1 It's true. Where is this stuff coming from?

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, I guess we have to justify it that like they went to her apartment, packed it up, but then why did they drive to the warehouse? Why not just leave?

Speaker 1 This piggybacks very nicely on a question that I had along with Aaron S. and Amanda E.
What is Holly wearing on the day she is moving? She is dressed in her work clothes, same as Pam driving to Pratt.

Speaker 1 I know. What is that? Michael Einstein's casualty.

Speaker 1 He's got his little casual little

Speaker 1 jappy jacket. Yes.
Also, they pointed out, I don't think it looks like she had any intention of helping move any of her own belongings. She is not dressed for a move.
No, she's not.

Speaker 1 Why couldn't she be casual? What's happening? I thought these were good catches.

Speaker 1 You know, I talked to Dave about this and he said that during the prep for this episode, they brought him a bunch of trucks to look at and they were all giant 18-wheeler moving trucks.

Speaker 1 And he was like, how am I going to film with that? How do I tow it? What am I doing? But he said he loves this truck that they found. It looked really realistic.

Speaker 1 He also just loved that the back was open because then when you got shots that, you know, the farther shots of them going down the road, it just like you really felt the move

Speaker 1 because you could see her bed. You could see the stuff.
Right. They said that they wanted the table hanging off the front, like in the bubble wrap.
I love it. I loved it too.
Phil Props.

Speaker 1 You know, we love Phil Props. He shared that Anthony and Dave really wanted Michael to have packed all kinds of crazy things for the road trip.

Speaker 1 Like him and Holly are little kids, like the the finger puppets and the cats in the cradle and the movies to watch. You guys, a lot of those are in the deleted scenes.

Speaker 1 Of them doing it in the van. And my absolute favorite is the two of them.
The windows are down and they're watching a movie and they are pissing themselves laughing.

Speaker 1 They are laughing so hard and Daryl looks miserable and Daryl takes a hard turn on purpose and the laptop that's playing the movie goes flying out the window. I remember that.
It is so funny.

Speaker 1 I am so bummed it didn't make it in. Dave said they spent three hours on that gag and finally had to just let it go.

Speaker 1 They said every time Craig turned, the computer would slide and never go out the window. It only went out the window one time.

Speaker 1 Oh my god. But it's in the bloopers on the DVD and it's so funny.
We had a fan catch. from a couple of people, from Erica S.
and Mary S. And I have to say they're making a good point.
What?

Speaker 1 So it's said repeatedly in Goodbye Toby that, you know, she's coming in to train for this new position and that they only allowed one day for training.

Speaker 1 And when she's on the Ferris wheel with Michael, she talks about how she was unable to be promoted at her former company, former company. Right, right.

Speaker 1 But then in this episode, it says she's being transferred back to Nashua

Speaker 1 as if she's been a Dunder Mifflin employee all along. I don't know, guys.
I mean, I think they caught a continuity error there. Oh, yeah.
Here's one of the things I was curious about.

Speaker 1 Why would Daryl agree to drive Michael and Holly, be in a car with Michael and Holly for seven hours? Well, there was a talking head in the script that didn't make it in. That explained this.

Speaker 1 Daryl said, I'm driving them up for five times what I would have made at work. I thought I made a good deal.
Then I realized I'm going to be trapped in a truck with Michael all day.

Speaker 1 But he did earn a lot of money. So Michael paid him is why.
They paid him, yeah. Okay, that does make more sense.
Well, Michael is not the only person who's leaving for the day.

Speaker 1 Jim comes walking out of the building. He's saying goodbye to them, right?

Speaker 1 And we find out that Jim is going to go to New York and he's going to have lunch with Pam and his two brothers. So we set up that storyline.

Speaker 1 And I'm bringing this up because at three minutes, 24 seconds, Jim is holding the keychain that he got in the Yankee Swap Christmas party from Oscar back in season two.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, what a great tiny detail! Yeah, I love that. Phil Shea.
Phil Shea, man.

Speaker 1 Well, as Jim and Michael are having this little scene in the parking lot, Holly would have said goodbye to everyone in the bullpen. It was a deleted scene.
Jenna, I laughed so hard in this scene.

Speaker 1 I was really glad. I'm way deep behind the partition.

Speaker 1 It's a series of people saying goodbye to her, but my absolute favorite was Oscar.

Speaker 1 Oscar Nunez is so good at like being the character that reigns on your parade, but he's just being reasonable,

Speaker 1 right? Yes. So he's like, you know, well, good luck.
And she's like, well, I won't be that far. And then he goes on to say all of this, and he just slowly, slowly reigns on her parade.

Speaker 1 Can you play it?

Speaker 5 We'll miss you.

Speaker 1 Oh, well, I'll be around.

Speaker 5 It's in a seven-hour drive.

Speaker 1 Well, it's not that bad. But if if I'm really Jones waiting to see you guys, I can always fly.

Speaker 5 I don't know if it'll be shorter to fly.

Speaker 5 You have to drive to Boston, right? That's an hour and a half. Get to an hour before the flight.
Now you're up two and a half hours. The flight to Philadelphia is an hour 15.

Speaker 5 It's another two and a half hour drive to Scranton. Assuming there's no traffic.

Speaker 1 Well, I can't say goodbye. Okay.

Speaker 1 It made me laugh.

Speaker 1 I just wanted to say goodbye. Right, right.
But, like, she's trying to make, like, it's not going to be that bad. And he's like, well, I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 Like, that person, Oscar was so good at being that person. So it keeps coming up in this episode that it is seven hours from Scranton to Nashua.
Did you Google it? It's not true. How far is it?

Speaker 1 Less than five. What?

Speaker 1 It's such a big difference. Why didn't anyone look that up? I write those words.
No, but it's only like four hours and 45 minutes. Are you kidding me? I'm not kidding you.
What rails were they taking?

Speaker 1 Are there new freeways? There were some like fan theories that it took them seven hours in that big truck, but that's not how we present it in this episode.

Speaker 1 We present it like, how are they ever going to see each other? Like, Holly says, even if you leave right after work, Michael, you won't even get here till after midnight.

Speaker 1 And then we'll just have one day together. And you'll have to go back, but it's not true.
They really scared themselves. I mean, at four hours, they're in the middle of nowhere.
That's how we sell it.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Oh, wow.
I know. So anyway, I just wanted to say that I also did check the train schedule.
For a reason I can't explain. It takes over 12 hours on the train.

Speaker 1 Maybe our writers check the train schedule. I don't know.
A lot of stops, though, I guess. My gosh.
Yeah. I know.
Are you checking my work? You got your phone out. She is checking my work.

Speaker 1 I am not checking. What do you think? I don't know how to Google Scranton to Nashua.

Speaker 1 No, I'm very after all of my great information I've given you about rabies. Can I tell you something right now? What?

Speaker 1 I'm doing it too. We're both Googling Scranton to Nashua.

Speaker 1 There it is, five hours. It's 311 miles.
Done. You know what's amazing is that a lot of people have written about this.
I know. There's a whole Reddit thread.
I know. I'm looking at the Reddit thread.

Speaker 1 See? Okay. Well,

Speaker 1 this shouldn't have broken them up. It really shouldn't have.
They should have picked a further branch. Okay.
Well, all right.

Speaker 1 Speaking of all of these driving scenes, should we get into it a little bit? We'll come back. Stuff is happening back at the office with Dwight and Ambi, but we'll get back to it.

Speaker 1 Should we do the driving? Let's do it. Let's get to the driving.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Life is a highway.

Speaker 1 I won't ride it all night long.

Speaker 1 If you're going my way,

Speaker 1 I won't ride it. Drive it all in

Speaker 1 something all night long. Okay.
Tom Cochran. According to Jamesopedia, they had two days and a little more, like two days and a half to shoot the driving scenes.

Speaker 1 They shot mostly on the 118 freeway, a little bit on Burbank Boulevard. That's how we made it look like the East Coast.
Some tidbits from Dave Rogers.

Speaker 1 They filmed this using lipstick cameras in the car and for the most part used a tow car. So they had a big old truck that pulled the truck.
Craig was not actually driving.

Speaker 1 So Dave told me that it was over 100 degrees

Speaker 1 the days they were shooting. 104 is what they said in the commentary.
And he, Randall Einhorn, our DP, Paul Fieg, and Veda had to sit in the back of the tow car.

Speaker 1 Under a tent. Yes, like a black box tent where they could see monitors showing them what was happening inside the car.

Speaker 1 They had little walkie-talkies so that they could talk to Amy and Steve and Craig.

Speaker 1 He said Paul Feig started removing layers of his suit because, you know, Paul used to wear like a three-piece suit every day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He said they were really jealous because Randall Einhorn wore the cooling vest. Yes.
Yeah. The cooling vest that Steve Carell had worn.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Veda said inside the tent with five monitors, all the heat was trapped in there. She said it felt like it it was 200 degrees in there.
Dave sent me some pictures. Oh no, were they like all melting?

Speaker 1 They were.

Speaker 1 They looked so hot. It was crazy.
Yeah, so they are driving. They are singing the song over and over again.
Over and over.

Speaker 1 And then, of course, in the deleted scenes, you guys, they're pulling things out of that bag, Michael packed and doing things.

Speaker 1 And then one of the things they do is they just start doing like kissing push-ups. Oh my gosh, Daryl's face.
They put their lips to each other and they're going one and two and three Oh,

Speaker 1 like that.

Speaker 1 It's so good. And that didn't make it in.
But they're driving Daryl crazy. But then they start to realize this is far.

Speaker 1 It's starting to hit them. Michael wants to save the day.
He's like, stop right now. We're halfway.
There's got to be an amazing bed and breakfast right here. Yeah, it's where we'll meet.

Speaker 1 It's going to be so. We'll meet in the middle.
So they pull off the road. There's nothing.
They're in the woods. Kyle, our location manager, shared this.

Speaker 1 He said, when they went tech scouting, they found this location kind of like off the side of the road. They were like, oh, this will be perfect.

Speaker 1 But then they found out another production was filming just a little ways down the way in the same area.

Speaker 1 He didn't say who it was, but he said, normally this wouldn't concern us because we would film in our little nook, they would film in their nook, and we'd be fine.

Speaker 1 He said, but then we found out they were filming a live band all day.

Speaker 1 And he said, we couldn't have a live band. So we had to find a whole new location.
And this spot was actually in Griffith Park. Oh, wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's so funny when you said another show was filming there. I assumed it was like a murder show or 24 or something.
Right. Because who else needs just like to be out in the weird woods?

Speaker 1 Maybe a teen rom-com. I guess so with a live band.
Right. Here's another little thing I caught, Jenna.

Speaker 1 At nine minutes, 53 seconds, while Michael and Holly are having this heart-to-heart in in the car, Daryl's getting gas, right? Yeah, did you see what the front license plate said?

Speaker 1 No, it just says Rock 107. The license plate on the truck? Yes, on the front of the truck says Rock 107.
Oh, a radio station.

Speaker 1 Is there a Rock 107 in Scranton? Yes. Oh my gosh.
It plays classic rock. Of course it does, Sam.

Speaker 1 Life is a highway.

Speaker 1 I won't ride it all night. Rock 107.
Yeah, baby. Although, I suppose actually these are all coming off of Michael's mixed CD that he made for the trip.

Speaker 1 Life is a highway. Now, we all know I made your Scranton mixed CD.
Sounds of Scranton. I would have put this on there because it was just a mix of classic rock.

Speaker 1 You know who would have appreciated my CD? Michael Scott. Michael Scott.
Jenna Fisher and Michael Scott. Yes.
Hanging out.

Speaker 1 So while Daryl is getting gas, you know, Michael says that he's dated four women in the last 10 years and Holly surpasses them all.

Speaker 1 Well, Veda, our scriptee, shared that the last 10 years was an improv from Steve. Oh,

Speaker 1 it made it so much better, I have to say.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 Everything about that when she thinks he means four people in the last year and he says in the last 10 years, kind of at the same time. Yeah.
I was like, oh, Michael. I know.

Speaker 1 I love you so much, Michael. And they were were ad-libbing right there.
Aw, all of it really breaks my heart. And because as they're getting closer, you can really see Holly shutting down.

Speaker 1 Oh, she starts crying while the song is playing. And Amy Ryan crushed that.
I know. That was so good.
Well, Dave talked about this. He said, you know, he really wanted a three-shot.

Speaker 1 He wanted to see Michael and Holly having this moment. Michael begging Holly, no, don't do this.
We don't need to break up. And Daryl just making a random phone call.

Speaker 1 Like, does he need to talk to anyone? Someone. Yes.
And he wanted to see all of that at the same time. I mean, it's not an easy shot, but Dave was like, no, no, no.
I want to see all three of them.

Speaker 1 You had to see all three of them. Yeah.
It only works that way. Because he said it's like two scenes happening at the same time.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe we should take a break from the car because we need to cover what's happening back at the office. Oh, yeah.
Dwight is applying for Cornell, you guys. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And also, Pam's about to have lunch with Jim's brothers. There's a lot to talk about.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Well, it's holiday time, which means shopping and hosting and gifting. And you know what?

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Speaker 1 Dwight arrives to work.

Speaker 1 He is wearing a Cornell sweatshirt. Over his mustard shirt.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You want to know why he's wearing that sweatshirt? Because he's applying to Cornell. That's right.

Speaker 1 Yes. I mean, did he know how to go after Andy or what? Oh, what does Andy covet? That Cornell diploma.
My favorite thing is when you see Andy fuming in the back of Dwight's talking head.

Speaker 1 When he's wobbling his chair back and forth. So good.
So good. I have a little Phil Props tidbit about this talking head.
Dwight is holding up a coffee mug that also says Cornell. Yep.

Speaker 1 Well, this was sort of a last-minute pitch from Dave. He really wanted to pump up the Cornell merch.
Okay. So he was like, what if he's holding something? They made that mug in two hours.
What?

Speaker 1 Our props department. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. So that he could have it in this talking head.

Speaker 1 You know, I've seen that happen on set sometimes where there'll be an actor and they're supposed to carry a briefcase. Yeah.
For example.

Speaker 1 And the props team will come up during the rehearsal of the scene on the day we're lighting, we're getting ready to shoot. And they show the actor three briefcase options

Speaker 1 and then the actor says oh no no I imagined it would be like a distressed leather maybe it was my father's that they passed down to me and the props person you just see them just having a heart attack, basically.

Speaker 1 And I feel like the actor and directors, producers, the writer of the episode, they might all have a thought last minute like that on what this prop should look like.

Speaker 1 And the props person is like, always, without fail, they're always like, oh yeah, yeah, okay. No problem.
We'll get that.

Speaker 1 And then I know that they take like a van to some warehouse and they go through a giant shelf of all these briefcases to try to find the thing that the actor talked about.

Speaker 1 Or they run across the parking lot

Speaker 1 and like try to get something printed in the moment. I have such a memory of Phil running.
across the parking lot. My only memories of Phil are that he is running.

Speaker 1 Running are like fast walking and talking. Hey, Phil, hey, how's it going?

Speaker 1 No, I'm just, I got to make a coffee mug. I'm going to print out a thing and we're going to get that.
We're going to get that made. Yep.
Can't wait. Yeah.
Props are amazing.

Speaker 1 Props department kicking butt. Well, throughout all of this, Dwight is just winding Andy up.
They've got that scene in the kitchen. Dwight has clearly done his research.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 After that scene in the kitchen, there's a deleted scene of Andy in the parking lot going off to his dad. Like, I died, dad, I'm going to get him.
Like, he's like, so mad.

Speaker 1 One of my favorite scenes is the one with Dwight at his desk where he's got all this merch. There's like a pennant hanging from the ceiling.

Speaker 1 And then he reaches into his drawer and he gets out a Cornell bobblehead. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Andy loses it. He's like, that's big red bear.

Speaker 1 Well, I asked Phil Shea if that was a real Cornell bobblehead or if we had to make it. And he said it was real.

Speaker 1 Throughout all these years of the show, because Andy had gone to school at Cornell, he made contacts at the school, particularly the Cornell bookstore. And that is where he got the bobblehead.

Speaker 1 He said Claudia, Sandra, Peggy, and Patricia are the ladies at Cornell that would always help him out whenever we had a storyline that required some Cornell merch.

Speaker 1 There's going to be a really good one coming up, and I can't wait to share it in a future episode. Thank you, ladies.
I love that Phil had all his people. He had all his people everywhere.

Speaker 1 Well, I have a little thing to share about that Cornell bobblehead as well. So it was not the first choice.
What was the first choice?

Speaker 1 So to ratchet Andy up, Dwight was going to have his cell phone ringtone be the Cornell fight song. Ooh, that's a good idea.
Yeah. But then when they heard it, it just didn't quite work in the moment.

Speaker 1 It was just like too much set up. And so they felt like the bobblehead was just like this quick, like boom.

Speaker 1 I now have the Cornell merch on my desk. Well, I like the personal connection to Angela and the bobbleheads as well.
Side by side. Yes.
So I like that choice for that reason.

Speaker 1 Well, it almost was give my regards to Davy, which is the Cornell fight song playing on Dwight's cell phone. You know the scene where Andy confronts Dwight? outside of the bathroom

Speaker 1 and Dwight starts asking Andy what a cavella group he should join

Speaker 1 at Cornell the Harmoniacs or the Do-Ray Migos. Yes.
I looked it up.

Speaker 1 According to the Cornell Acapella Advisory Council, there is a Cornell a cappella advisory council. Amazing.

Speaker 1 There are not any current a cappella groups with those names, but I'm not sure about when we filmed. Aca what? Aka, let me tell you.
Veda said that Rain was improvising quite a bit in this moment. Oh.

Speaker 1 Some was scripted and then he just started going off. I see.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And also Anthony shared that he pitched that Stanley should be the first person to come out of the bathroom to kind of throw Andy off because Andy's so ready. And then Stanley comes out and he's like,

Speaker 1 and then he has to get his energy back up for Dwight. I love that little moment.
Great detail.

Speaker 1 All of this is going to lead to a delicious scene in the conference room because Andy informs Dwight, guess who is conducting your interview?

Speaker 1 He's contacted Cornell and he's going to do the interview. Yeah.
And Dwight's like, bring it on. I love this conference room scene so much.
I love it so much.

Speaker 1 Dave shared that this conference room scene between Dwight and Andy was his first day of filming. What? Yes.
And he loved that because it was so contained, right?

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, yes. Right? And he said it was about a 10 to 11 page scene.
That's a huge scene. Yes, a lot of people asked, was this scripted or improvised? It was almost all scripted.

Speaker 1 It was almost all scripted, but Veda said that they did let Rain and Ed really play around, especially with the role model name pitches.

Speaker 1 And these guys kept laughing. They were breaking so hard in this scene.
In the end, Dwight says his role models are Dane Cook, Jack Bauer, and Eli Whitney. But in the script, they're different.

Speaker 1 And there's many takes of these names being different. But there was one big part of this scene that was improvised, and Anthony talks about it.
It's so good.

Speaker 4 That scene that we had in the conference room where they were

Speaker 4 the double interview, as it were, that was always like, it had always been in there as a fun scene for the two of them to square off at the end of that episode.

Speaker 4 I do remember there was a moment where it was either Rain or Ed started pulling the table, and I just, I was just like, oh, we've got to do that more.

Speaker 4 So I talked to Dave, Dave Rogers who was directing his first episode of the office and he's directed a thousand things since because he's freaking amazing I remember talking to him I was like they've got to just let him play with that table let him pull let him pull it back and forth like let him struggle with that and see what happens and I think we got that was the only take I think we did of that where Rain just pulls it all the way to the wall and thanks him for coming it just that whole you know Those characters are all about all about conflict, all about power shifts and that whole dynamic just felt it felt like the right place to end up with those characters.

Speaker 4 And so that was a nice little bit of improv that we got to enhance on the day.

Speaker 1 I feel like Dave must have been so excited after this first shoot day. Yeah.
To get that table tugging moment, to get this whole scene. These guys are so good in it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He had to have been fired up. You would think so.
I mean, the biggest stuff was ahead of him, but at least he had that first day in the conference room. Well, you know, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 Dave shared with me the last thing we shot for this episode was was the Halloween Cold Open. That was the last day of Shot.
Oh, wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He said we needed time to get all those costumes and everything organized. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Should we talk about what's going on with Jim and Pam during all of this now? Yes.

Speaker 1 So we know that they're going to have lunch with Jim's brothers, but what we find out is that Pam gets to the restaurant early. Yeah.
She wants to do a prank. Because she wants them to like her.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 She's like going to be the fun sister-in-law. Jenna, do you have a guest star breakdown? You know, I do.
Pete Halpert was played by Tug Coker and Tom Halpert was played by Blake Robbins.

Speaker 1 They were super tall. Very tall.
There's a reason for that. John Krasinski has two very tall brothers in real life and they thought this would be a fun nod to his family.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was able to get in touch with Tug, by the way. And oh my gosh, I could not love this guy more.

Speaker 1 I mean, we had such a fun time shooting together, and I had so much fun reminiscing with him about this.

Speaker 1 He told me that the audition notice for this episode, it said it was looking for actors who were six foot one or taller, preferably with brown hair, but it did not reveal that you would be playing Jim Helpert's brother.

Speaker 1 Huh. And when he got to the audition, he said, first of all, he's six foot five.
And when he got to the audition, Allison Jones said, you look like you could play John Krasinski's brother.

Speaker 1 That's what she said. And he was like, oh, I'm going to be playing a helper.

Speaker 1 That was his first clue. He read with Allison's associate, Ben Harris.
And the next day, he got a call that he'd gotten the part.

Speaker 1 Well, I definitely felt like these guys looked like they could be John's brothers. And you know, John's brothers in real life are super tall.
They're like 6'8 or something.

Speaker 1 They're like the tallest family. Isn't John the short one? Yes.
And John is 6'3. Yeah, and he's the shorty.

Speaker 1 That is so crazy. Well, Tug said, here's the thing that happens when you're a really tall actor.
You usually have to bring your own clothes.

Speaker 1 Listen, Tug, that's what happens when you're a really short actor, too. Angela can relate.
He said, that is his own suit and those are his own shoes. I believe it.

Speaker 1 He's pretty sure that Blake wore his own clothes in the scene as well.

Speaker 1 So you know this first scene at the restaurant, Angela, where Pam has met them early and she's pitching her idea for what the prank could be.

Speaker 1 She says her ring, she put it in her little apron, she left it. She's going to throw another girl under the bus.
This whole drama, she lost her engagement ring.

Speaker 1 And they're like, oh, we have a better idea. Their idea is that they're going to dog Pam about her career choice as an artist.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And they said, let's do the same thing we did to Jim's girlfriend in high school. What the heck, guys? What is your pattern here?

Speaker 1 Oh, our bit is we make the girls that Jim's dating feel crappy about themselves. I know.
What the heck? I know. They said in the DVD commentary that they wanted Jim's brothers to be bad at pranking.

Speaker 1 Like they're like the less sophisticated prankers of the family. Jim is better at pranking.
They're kind of lame at it. So most of this stuff was scripted in the restaurant.

Speaker 1 We did not have a lot of time, actually, to play around, but Tug reminded me that we did improvise the very end of this scene. He said, Jenna, I'm pretty sure you improvised that line.

Speaker 1 So not the ring thing then.

Speaker 1 And then the two of of them are like no no no this is better this is better and i check the script and he's right the scene had actually been meant to end sooner that sounds like you in real life by the way that sounds like something you would say maybe so i feel like we've ordered lunch together and i've gone back and forth about an appetizer and you've said so not the dip then we're not doing the dip just to clarify

Speaker 1 well dave shared that you guys filmed this restaurant scene the day after labor day oh tuesday in september September. I thought that was a fun little detail to know.

Speaker 1 And Kyle, the locations manager, said that this restaurant was called E3rd. Mm-hmm.
And it was on the east side of downtown L.A.

Speaker 1 They were really trying to get this area to double as Brooklyn, where Pam was attending Pratt. I think they did a good job.
Yeah. Well, the restaurant was a steakhouse.

Speaker 1 And in the next scene where you see that we're eating

Speaker 1 after Jim has arrived, we got to just pick off the menu. Oh, so you're really eating the restaurant food? Yeah.
Oh, that's so lucky. I know.
Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 1 Well, Tug said he remembers it very clearly because it was the very first time he had to eat in a scene. And when they gave him the menu, he thought his character would order steak at a steakhouse.

Speaker 1 And that John Krasinski said, oh, dude, you're going to regret that choice. You're going to be eating cold steak.
for several hours. And Tug was like, what do you mean? I'm going to eat steak.

Speaker 1 And that's what my character would eat. And he said, John ordered a salad

Speaker 1 and like a little protein on the side. And that's what I ordered as well.
Well, Tug said that his concern about ordering a salad was that he didn't want any food to fall on him during the scene.

Speaker 1 He was like, this is the first time I'm eating an acting. I think steak, I can get it on the fork.
I can get it in my mouth. Well, steak is definitely easier to eat than salad.

Speaker 1 Well, Tug pointed out to me, and I didn't notice it the first time I watched it. But he said it's burned in his brain because this is the scene that was on his acting reel for years and years.

Speaker 1 So at 12 minutes, 25 seconds, John is struggling with this bite of salad. You can see it.
I saw that too. He's having a very hard time getting this piece of lettuce in his mouth.

Speaker 1 And then if you watch closely, one leaf misses his mouth and falls into his lap, which was exactly Tug's fear that if Tug had been eating salad, he would have missed his mouth.

Speaker 1 He was then glad he had ordered that steak and had to eat it for hours. John, as I rewatched that, I thought, thought, that's a really big, aggressive bite of lettuce.
Like, he really went for it.

Speaker 1 He did. You know, sometimes when you're eating salad in a scene, you don't realize what you've got on the fork, and then you just have to commit to it.

Speaker 1 And that was on Tug's Reel. So he watched it over and over.
Over and over again, he watched that piece of lettuce fall. So, you know, their dinner starts out pretty sweet, right?

Speaker 1 Jim is holding up a photo of his niece,

Speaker 1 right? Yeah. So you feel like this is going to be nice.
It's pre-prank. The prank hasn't started yet.
The prank hasn't started yet.

Speaker 1 The photo that John is holding up is our set medic, Patrice King's daughter. Aw, yeah, Phil shared that.
Phil would do that, you guys.

Speaker 1 This scene also has the moment where all of us at the end of the scene give a look to camera. And it's such a cool moment.

Speaker 1 Tug said he remembers Dave Roger giving him the direction to check in with the camera throughout the scene.

Speaker 1 And this was like so crazy to him because, you know, he'd never been in a project where you were allowed to look down the lens like that. But I love this moment.

Speaker 1 I love the look that he gives the camera, and you just go around the table, and we all give this little look to camera about this prank that is not going well. Not going well.

Speaker 1 Dave talked about it a little bit. He said he wanted the brothers to look to camera to just give that subtle hint that their maneurisms were similar to Jim, that they would check in like that.

Speaker 1 At eight minutes, 33 seconds, Pete gives a solo look to camera.

Speaker 1 And at 12 minutes, 31 seconds, Tom gives a Jim kind of shrug to camera. I loved that one.
I thought that was so good. Well, as this prank continues, it is really getting under Pam's skin.

Speaker 1 Like, she is getting very flustered. I think particularly when he suggests that she pay the bill by drawing on the napkin.

Speaker 1 Jenna, if you need a boost, listen to the DVD commentary because Veda said she was so impressed with your performance.

Speaker 1 Aw, she said, you know, the way this was scripted is tough because Pam has to want to be on board to be pranked, but then also start clocking, like, hey, that's kind of a dig.

Speaker 1 Okay, you're kind of going too far. And she said, Jenna did such an amazing job.
It was really sweet. Veda was showing you some love.
That's really sweet.

Speaker 1 Well, it was kind of a fine line because everything that Veda said, part of this storyline was also meant to further Pam's insecurity. about the idea of being an artist.

Speaker 1 Oh, and you know, because this is something that that she wants, but Pam is not a person with a lot of certainty all the time. And this was supposed to play on that.

Speaker 1 It was a lot for Pam to go to art school. It really was.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so this is meant to kind of discourage her momentum. Oh, that makes me sad.
Yeah. I know, I know.
I have to say, it was so nice reconnecting with Tug about these scenes.

Speaker 1 You know, he said he's still in touch with Blake. He still gets recognized for having been on the show.

Speaker 1 Something he told me that I thought was really special was that the day this episode aired, Dave Rogers called him personally, complimented his performance, and told him, hey, I wanted you to know that the bulk of the brothers scenes made it into the episode.

Speaker 1 And so when you see it tonight, it's there. That is so nice.
No one does that. That was so nice of Dave.
No one does that.

Speaker 1 And Tug said, you know, I'd done a ton of guest roles and sometimes you tell your whole family to watch it and they watch it and your whole part has been reduced to one line. All the time.

Speaker 1 He said, so he was so excited. He called his friends and family and he was like, yes, yes, watch the show.
I'm really on it. And the show was a big deal at the time.

Speaker 1 This was a big deal to him and his friends and family that he had been on it. So Dave Rogers, you are a gem.
Tug, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 I want you guys to know that you can catch him on a show called Now We're Talking. It is a scripted comedy series, and he co-created it, produced it, and stars in it.

Speaker 1 And it was nominated for a WGA award. It's produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter's company, Spring Hill.
But Office fans, if you check it out, you might see some office alums on there.

Speaker 1 They've got Malcolm Barrett and Andy Buckley pop up on the show. Nice.
So definitely check it out because this guy is amazing. Tug, thank you so much.
So we finish out this Jim and Pam storyline.

Speaker 1 They're leaving the restaurant. The two of them are walking down the street.
And Pam's like, that's not exactly how I had that going. Yeah.
Like I had a whole different prank. And she tells it to him.

Speaker 1 And then Jenna, Veda shared that you ad-libbed the end. The line about him being bald.
You ad-libbed. How about we prank him on Thanksgiving about him being bald? That was all you.

Speaker 1 I was really proud of that line. I thought that was funny.
Yeah, it was really funny. So you had some improvs in this one, lady.
I did. I really did.

Speaker 1 Now I think we should wrap up this Michael and Holly storyline because they've arrived at Holly's charming little house in Nashua. I know.

Speaker 1 Anthony said in the script he wanted it to be a basement apartment. Oh.
But he was like, but we don't really have basement apartments here.

Speaker 1 So they found this little house in Angelino Heights. Oh, isn't it so cute? I thought it was so cute.
It brought up a lot of questions for me, though. Okay.

Speaker 1 If Holly was in Nashua and she had to move her whole life and all her stuff and get rid of her house slash apartment that she had been living in and move to Scranton, she was only in Scranton for I think like less than two months.

Speaker 1 And now she has to move all the way back and it was kind of breaking my heart for her. I was glad they picked a cute location because I was thinking, oh my gosh, she just left this city.

Speaker 1 But then I thought it tracks that she would know where to get a cute place if she was from there. Right.
Maybe it's even her old place. Maybe it is.
It's super cute. Super cute.

Speaker 1 Also, Per Dave, they were really stressed about losing light and they were going to be losing some of the crew because they were going to leave to go film the Jim and Pam proposal scene with Ken Kwapis.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So we would do this sometimes. We filmed the Jim Pam proposal during this this episode's week of filming.
Right, because they had to build the whole thing.

Speaker 1 Sometimes the schedule just got wonky like that. So Dave was really on a time crunch here to get this filmed.
Well, Michael decides he's not going to stay. He had planned to stay for the weekend.

Speaker 1 I guess to help her unpack, it seems pretty clear that they're going to break up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because of the seven-hour drive that's really

Speaker 1 four hours.

Speaker 1 Four and a half. They could have totally done it.
They could have done it. I wanted to go into the TV and tell them.

Speaker 1 But Anthony said that he wrote dialogue here for them saying goodbye and how, well, maybe I'll see you or maybe we'll go in this and that.

Speaker 1 And then in the moment, Amy and Steve just did this really big, long, lingering hug.

Speaker 1 And Dave was like, that's it. Yeah.
They don't need to have the dialogue. That hug tells you everything.

Speaker 1 We had a lot of mail. Oh, yeah.
From Chris W, Chelsea C, Hamlin H, and many others, just asking a couple of questions.

Speaker 1 Number one, how was Michael planning to get back to Scranton if he and Holly hadn't broken up? Right. Neither of them have a car.
That was the other thing. Did Holly not bring a car to Nashua?

Speaker 1 What did she do with her car? Did she leave it in Scranton? I don't know. They didn't tow it.
I noticed. I looked for it.

Speaker 1 Poor Holly has just gotten dropped off with all her stuff, a mattress in like, you know, plastic wrap. No one is helping her unpack and she has no car and she's dressed for work.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's how we leave Holly in Nashua. I know.

Speaker 1 This whole storyline ends with such an amazing scene. of Michael and Daryl in the car driving back.
Dave was really stressed because like you said, they were losing light.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he said Randall, our camera operator, was going, come on, we got to get this now. We got to get it now.
The sun was setting, but didn't it make for such a beautiful backdrop? Yes.

Speaker 1 It just meant that they didn't get a lot of takes. They had to nail it.
Anthony said he loved that it was getting dark because you really got the sense that they spent the whole day together.

Speaker 1 I liked that too. Dave told me this is his favorite scene from the episode.
Anthony said the same thing. Yeah, Anthony was very excited because this was his pitch and his idea.

Speaker 1 He talks about it right here.

Speaker 4 Yeah, this is my first ever episode of television that was written and got onto TV. So it holds a very near and dear place in my heart, this one.

Speaker 4 All the stuff with the breakup and, oh, the thing with,

Speaker 4 oh my God, of course, the scene at the end where Michael's singing the blues. That's a special moment for me in particular because I do remember pitching that in the room.

Speaker 4 And it's one of those things as a writer, so many things you pitch, they might end up in other people's scripts, but they might.

Speaker 4 end up in your script and you're just trying to tell the story the best way you can and every once in a while you get a situation where something you pitched is in your script and it ends up being on the show, and you feel like, oh, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 So, that whole blues moment at the end when Michael Scott just doesn't get it, but still has the cathartic moment he needs at the end of that.

Speaker 4 I thought, I remember pitching that in the room and thinking, oh, that'll be fun to get to do. And then I got to write the episode, and then I got to watch it happen.

Speaker 4 And it was getting dark, and it was just the perfect little moment for us. And I just remember feeling like I have the best job in the world.

Speaker 1 I know those scenes. Well, I just love that.
There is something so special about seeing your idea fully realized.

Speaker 1 And I just love that he shared that. Well, lady, we have one last scene.
We do. You know, we don't really ever find out exactly how this Cornell interview application thing wraps up.

Speaker 1 I assume he doesn't get in, but that was never really the point. The point of this storyline was really Angela.
Angela was the point. This was Dwight was performing for her.
Right.

Speaker 1 And he's he's winding Andy up because he is jealous. That's right.
Well, there was a whole runner.

Speaker 1 There were scenes between Angela and Andy where Andy's all worked up and Angela's trying to calm him down. And then Angela goes to Dwight and is like, what the heck?

Speaker 1 Here's one of those deleted scenes.

Speaker 1 Why are you doing this to Andy?

Speaker 6 You once told me that Andy and I had different strengths.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 6 he can't do what I can do. I can get into Cornell, but he doesn't know how to make food and shelter from a golden retriever.

Speaker 1 Even if you do somehow get in, that's not going to make me leave Andy.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 6 but it'll make you respect him less.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's true.

Speaker 1 Oh, I love that it stayed in. I know, because Dwight does get what he wants, right? Yeah.
I think Andy unravels in front of Angela, and whether Dwight gets into Cornell or not, she didn't care for it.

Speaker 1 No, not at all. And now we have this tag where Andy's going to pay back Dwight.
But of course, it's just so embarrassing. In fact, at 20 minutes, 51 seconds is one of my most popular memes.
What?

Speaker 1 When you're rolling your eyes? Yes. Andy walks in dressed as a farmer with no shirt on and beats.
And my character rolls her eyes and then puts her head into her hand. Oh.

Speaker 1 We had a fan question. People wanted to know, did Rain actually take a bite out of a beat at the end of the the episode? Yes, he did.
And that was improvised. Yes.

Speaker 1 And Veda said he did it in the last take. Very smart, Rain, if you're going to do it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was scripted that Andy tries to bite the beet and that line about, oh, you're supposed to cook it first, that was in the script.

Speaker 1 But the button of Dwight being able to bite a beat, that was all Rain. All Rain Wilson.

Speaker 1 You guys, that was employee transfer. Yes.

Speaker 1 And we want to give a huge thanks to all the people who helped gather information on this episode. It was a bunch of people.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you to James Carey, Dave Rogers, Alicia Raycraft, Phil Shea, Anthony Farrell, and Tug Corker for sharing your memories. One final shout out for Tug.
He and his wife own a wine bar.

Speaker 1 It's Santa Monica Angela. It's called Esther's.
He's invited us to come down and grab some wine and cheese with them. Tug, we are there, right?

Speaker 1 Well, he and his wife also do a podcast together called The Long Finish. You can find them on Instagram at The Long Finish.
Here's what they do.

Speaker 1 They open a bottle of wine and they discuss their life as they work together and raise three kids. He has a three-week old baby.
Tug. Right? Bless your heart.
Right? You're in the weeds.

Speaker 1 They are in the weeds, but they still do this podcast about their life together. And Tug, we're coming to have wine with you guys.
We sure are.

Speaker 1 And you guys, if you haven't watched the bloopers for this one, they're a must-watch. Go to the DVD box set.
They're so good. I'm so jealous I don't have this one.
We got to get it for you. I know.

Speaker 1 Well, you guys, sometimes life is a highway and you got to ride it all night long.

Speaker 1 We'll see you next week. See you next week.
And this song will be in your head forever now. You know it.
If you're going my way, way,

Speaker 1 you've been driving all night long.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey.
Our show is executive produced by Cody Fisher. Our producer is Cassie Jerkins.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 For a free one-month trial of Stitcher Premium, use code Office.

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