Paper Airplane
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We are getting ready to plan some travel for the holidays, and so we've started to look on Airbnb. We love to stay at an Airbnb because when you travel with children and your family, it is nice to have a kitchen. It's nice to have you all in one area. You know, I've talked about this before, a family of five,

It's a little tougher. Like we can't all pile in one hotel room. Yeah. So it's nice to have some space. And we love an Airbnb. We found an Airbnb that was literally down the block from Lee's brother's house. Yeah. It was amazing. We could walk in between the two houses, but then we all had our own space.

I really like being able to get up in the morning and have a cup of coffee and eat breakfast, and I'm not in a public space. I don't have to go get fully dressed to go down to breakfast. Right, yes. Or find breakfast. Airbnb offers the perfect accommodation, whether you're traveling with friends, family, or on your own.

consider Airbnb for your next adventure. So I have to tell you what I just bought at Macy's. What? Do you remember how I went to that fancy Emmys party? Yeah. I didn't really have time to go and you know how people get a stylist and they go all out with all the fancy stuff. Yeah.

I went to Macy's because I wanted a pop of jewelry that would be a little bit of a dazzler. Yep. Right? You would not believe the sale they are having. They are having 30% to 75% off of fine jewelry, plus an extra 20% off if you use code SPARKLE.

This is a sale you're not going to want to miss, especially with the holidays coming up. Shop Macy's Fine Jewelry Sale in-store or at macys.com from October 18th through the 27th. Get 30% to 75% off their selection of fine jewelry and an extra 20% off with code SPARKLE. It's a huge savings, and I just want to say this is a good time to do some early holiday shopping. Yep.

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.

Hello. Hey, good morning. Good morning. Today we're talking about a pretty fantastic episode. It's Paper Plane. I had forgotten about it. It's Paper Airplane. You know what?

Paper plane is that's the drink I like so much. That's the cocktail. Is it really? Yeah. Cocktail. It's called a paper plane. And you know what? I think I'm a lady who would really like a cocktail right now. And that's why I said it. It's been a morning already.

It has. The entire city of New York helped me get here today because we are recording in different places today. Yes, this is the beauty of podcasting. When we are in two different cities, we can still do the podcast and I love it. We can't tell you why we're in two different cities right now or why we're doing this podcast right now, which is a little off our recording schedule, but we're doing it because Angela Kinsey...

Has the most exciting news of all time. I'm so excited for you. This is a bucket list item that you're going to be doing. This is a bucket list item. My mom is over the moon. That's a hint for you guys. It's a job that my mom and sisters are really tickled about. And so am I. I'm tickled about. So I'm in my closet at 7 a.m. my time. And Jenna is in New York City at the Odyssey Studios at 10 a.m. her time.

Cassie is in Florida. That's right. You got Florida Cassie today. At 10 a.m. her time.

And we have the Odyssey engineer, Sean, helping us out as we pull this all together. Thank you, guys. And the entire city of New York that helped me get here when my train wouldn't stop at my station. Lots of people gave me directions. So thank you, New Yorkers. And we're here to talk about Paper Airplane, which is season nine, episode 21, written by Warren Lieberstein and Halstead Sullivan and directed by Jesse Peretz.

How about a summary? You got it. Here it is. The Scranton branch competes in a paper airplane competition, revealing Aaron's competitive side and Dwight's softer side.

Andy has his first acting gig and receives on-set support from Daryl. Meanwhile, Jim and Pam continue working on their marriage. Thank you for saying that. I see your support and I appreciate you doing it. And that's my truth. I see what you're doing. Well played. Fast fact number one, this episode was written by Warren Lieberstein and Halstead Sullivan and

And guess what? We reached out to them and they gave us some wonderful tidbits about this episode. They always come through. I love them.

And the very first question that I had to ask was, where did you get the idea for a paper airplane contest? Because I just loved it. Yeah. It reminded me of early days, right? Like Office Olympics. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, Warren said that Halstead had the idea of a paper airplane contest. He said years prior, the writers were brainstorming for an episode and they wanted the focus to

to be maybe various ways in which paper could potentially hurt or kill someone. This was their pitch session. And so they had some ideas like, oh, what about a paper cut to the neck? Or maybe Dwight is making a serrated knife out of paper. Oh, gosh. Someone even pitched that it was discovered that the Scranton Strangler used Dunder Mifflin paper to fashion a rope to strangle his victims. Yeah.

Eventually, they settled on a paper airplane contest and Halstead confirmed that he did pitch this idea way back in season five when they joined the writers room. He said it just sat on a card on the wall all the way until season nine.

Halstead said that when he was in law school in Boston, he saw a local news report about a paper airplane contest at MIT. And they had all these crazy looking planes made by insanely smart engineering students, and they would fly really far and do a bunch of tricks. So when they were looking for story ideas about paper, he thought it seemed pretty natural that a paper company would sponsor a paper airplane contest. I mean, I believe it. Right? It feels like a no brainer.

He also said that when they got to season nine, they started pitching on storylines to further the Dwight-Angela story. And they really liked how this paper airplane contest paired with Dwight and Angela's arc. They loved this idea that Angela had fallen on hard times, that she really needed this money, and that Dwight might try to somehow help her win. Well, we asked them lots of other questions, and we're going to be sharing their answers throughout the episode.

Now, fast fact number two, new director alert, Jesse Peretz. It was fun to have a new director energy here near the end of the show. And here's a little fun fact about Jesse. He was one of the founding members of the Cambridge, Massachusetts rock band, The Lemonheads.

He was the bass player. Did you find that in your digging? Because I didn't know that when we filmed this, I probably would have been a little bit dorkier around him. You know, more dorky than I normally am. I didn't know this at the time either. You know why? We weren't ladies that Googled back then. We were not. The deep diving parts of ourselves have been brought out through this podcast. Because there was Google. Yes, there was Google.

It's like part of my brain still thinks this Google phenomenon happened just like the other day. I know, just like a few years ago. Just a few years ago.

Well, I guess he left the band right before their breakthrough album, but he continued to work with them as a photographer and a music video director. And he went on to direct videos for the Foo Fighters, where he actually won a Grammy for best music video for Learn to Fly. And he's directed a bunch of other music videos, and now he directs film and television. But I thought maybe, just because it's fun, we might want to listen to an audio clip of the Lemonhead song, Into Your Arms. I

I mean, it is a Saturday after all for us. I know. I need a paper plane. Let's go. It's nice. I like it. I like it. All right. I'm going to let that song move us to fast fact number three. It's a fan question from Marie K. in Elmira, New York. Marie says, Jenna, I hope you have a deep dive on paper airplanes. I need to know what the furthest recorded distance a paper airplane has flown is.

Oh, Marie, I just want you to know how tickled this question made Jenna. She was like, well, let me research. You were very excited. You told me you have some fun deep dive facts. I do. Marie, I'm going to start by telling you the furthest recorded distance that a paper airplane has traveled.

But I had so much fun researching paper airplanes, and I have so much to say about them. I'm going to have to sprinkle them in throughout the show. Well, I'm excited. Let's go. Let's hear them. All right. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the farthest flight by a paper aircraft was achieved in December 2022 in Indiana by Dylan Rubel, Nathan Erickson, and Garrett Jensen.

It flew 290 feet or just over 96 yards. So a football field is 120 yards. This went almost a football field. Thank you. I need the visual reference. Thank you. I did that for you. That was very far. Very far. And here's something I learned when I was deep diving paper airplanes is that these paper airplane people who try to break these records, they tend to work in groups of three.

So there's someone who designs the plane, someone who folds it, and then someone who throws it. And all three people get the record. Wow. These guys spent more than 400 hours over a six-month period perfecting their designs. It took 20 minutes to fold the design, and they used a single sheet of paper.

In fact, there's rules. I was going to say, is there a rule? Is it like you can only have one piece of paper? You can't have add-ons? Like, what are the rules? That's right. The maximum size paper allowed is A4. And the maximum paper density is 100 grams slash M squared. Here's the thing. There's more rules. Oh. You cannot use any glue.

You cannot cut the paper. You cannot tear the paper. Kevin, you're out. You're out, Kevin. I know. However, you can use one small piece of clear tape. It can be 25 millimeters by 30 millimeters.

Interesting. Also, in order to count for the record, you have to throw the plane indoors behind a starting line. So you can't have any extra wind in your sails. If your foot crosses the line, you will be disqualified. So where were they that they threw this paper airplane?

Over a football field and they were indoors. I looked at a number of videos and they have sort of like these giant indoor stadiums or warehouses. Oh. And that's where they set up these record-breaking contests. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Well, I think we should take a break. But like I said, everyone, I think you're going to want to stick around because there are way more paper airplane facts coming at you today. And you're not going to want to miss them. You are not going to want to miss them. And guess what? I met and worked with the professional paper airplane people. More on that.

No one's going to be with us after the break. I should have said I brought in paper planes for us to sample. Then everyone would stay. And now I'm mad I didn't. Oh, gosh. Well, I can't wait to hear more about it. We'll be right back. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. You all know we love Squarespace. It is what we use to build our own website for office ladies. Here's the thing. It's an all-in-one website platform.

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It starts at front reception with Clark and Toby coming in. Toby has an eye patch on, and Clark says, the champions are arriving to the office. And then he goes up to Erin. He's like taunting her. He's like, did you get good sleep last night? Because I'm going to be haunting you in your nightmares. And she's like, oh, yeah. Erin, already out of the gate, is like...

Really aggressive. She has an intensity we have not seen before. That's right. This is true. This is when Dwight is going to explain that they're having a branch-wide paper airplane contest. It's sponsored by Wirehammer Paper Company. And it's a tactic to get Dunder Mifflin to sell more of their paper. I'll have you know the company Wirehammer is not real. Matt Flynn made the logo for us and Phil Shea made the fakie reams of paper.

Nellie has a talking head where she says there are six brave aviators that are competing, relying on skill, showmanship, and utter confusion. And as she's saying this, there's a montage of Kevin throwing a paper airplane. Then Dwight is trying to knock an apple off the top of Nate's head with a paper airplane. And then Creed just throws a cantaloupe. Like, no reason. Like, it's a paper airplane contest, and Creed chunks a cantaloupe. What's happening, Creed?

Well, inspired by Creed's cantaloupe throwing, I thought you might like to know the most paper airplanes thrown into a watermelon in one minute. Wait, I'm sorry. You throw a paper airplane into an open, like a cut open watermelon? I guess so. It's a Guinness Book of World Records. How did this become, how? How? Like what, I feel like these are the things from like someone had a few beers. Yeah. Here's the answer. The answer is 13. Okay.

You can throw 13 paper airplanes into a watermelon. In one minute. And then inspired by Dwight trying to knock the apple off Nate's head, I thought you might like to know the most consecutive times a paper airplane has hit a target. Yes, I do want to know this one. 13 again. Same. 13 and 13. Okay. Well, those are facts you can now forget because you'll never need to use them.

I was wondering when I would bring up, do you know that you can throw paper airplanes into an open watermelon and it's in the Guinness Book of Records? Like when is that? Is that coming up at a cocktail party? Now it might. It might. What if someone served watermelon and you're really at a loss for what to say? You need some small talk. You could say, you know, I know something about watermelons. I sure do.

You can throw a paper airplane into them. Okay. Where are we? Well, Pam's going to throw her airplane. We're coming up on a stunt. This is a stunt, you guys. It is. Safety meeting. Mm-hmm. Paper airplane traveling at a person. Pam is going to throw her plane just as Toby wanders into her flight path. And she hits him right in the eye. And she's like, why didn't you say you were crossing? But didn't he, lady? Did he? Yeah.

He did. He says, hey, I left my glasses down here somewhere crossing through. Beep, beep. He says, beep, beep. Then she throws it and he goes, ow. And she says, I didn't see you. You should have yelled crossing.

And Toby's like, I'm sorry. And I'm like, oh my, he did. He literally said. He mumbled it. He Toby'd it though. He like swallowed it while he was, I'm crossing, beep, beep. I heard the beep, beep. And I went back and I was like, he totally said it. If you're playing golf, you don't go, four, beep, beep. You're like, four. You know what I'm saying? I know, but I thought the beep, beep. Make your presence known, Toby. Okay. All right.

We got a fan question from Ryan S. in Massachusetts who said, in the cold open when Pam throws her plane, is that CGI special effects? Or did Jenna really have to practice throwing a paper plane right into Paul's eye?

Well, Ryan, I really did throw a paper airplane, but the part where it hit Toby was visual effects. So here's what we did. This was three different shots that we put all together. So the first thing we did was an angle on me throwing a plane. Then we shot a paper airplane flying through the air that was thrown by a professional, not by me.

Toward nothing. Toby was not standing there. And then we filmed Toby reacting as if he had gotten hit with a paper airplane that he was not hit with. And then we combine all the shots together and it makes it look like he's getting hit in the eye. Did that make sense? It did make sense. You know, Halstead shared with us that even though it seems like a fairly simple moment, it took two full days to shoot this.

So crazy. Crazy. And he also went on to say, I think Pam flying a plane into Toby's eye was one of the first scenes shot. And I remember Jenna saying, I think this is incredibly broad, which let's face it, it's true. Well, because originally, originally they got.

They gave Paul an airplane to like hold between his fingers as if it was stabbing him in the eye. I remember that. And I was like, guys, that looks ridiculously broad. I think it became a blooper moment. It did. And then they decided to take that part out. You just see it hits him and falls on the ground. Well, we will share the bloopers in our stories, but here it is for you to hear. Oh, how's it look?

What should he do? It looks ridiculously broad. And we are laughing so hard because it did. He had a cartoonish plane stuck to his head to look like it's coming out of his eye. It looked ridiculous. Yes. Thankfully, we changed it. But I guess after the paper airplane hits Toby and lands on the ground, Pam is like, so is this my spot? And she's out of the contest. I thought that was very funny.

She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, your eye. Is this where I landed? Well, now they're down to an elite eight. Well, seven and Toby. I want to say Nellie's commentary, her little bits she does are so funny throughout the whole thing. I loved her little outfit, her little referee outfit. I know. It's looking very cute. I loved that choice.

And you know what? This would be a special project. This is her domain. Yes. Now we're going to start Andy's storyline. And I have to do some applause for Ed Helms. He was so hilarious in this episode. I really enjoyed his performance. What's happening is he's running lines with Daryl.

And, you know, he's going way too big and way too broad for whatever this script is. Daryl's saying things like, there's no exclamation point. It's not acidic, like the things he's talking about. And this is when we find out that last week, Andy got an agent, and this week, a movie, the HRPDC Chemical Handling Protocols Industrial. And you know what? Andy's like, you never know. Could be seen by...

Brad Pitt's brother. And then next thing I know, I'm in Moneyballs 2. So, you know, my first acting job was an industrial, just like Andy. My first paid acting job in Los Angeles where I had lines. You know, my first acting job was as an extra on the Jurassic Park ride at Universal Studios where I was doused with water for about 12 hours. Oh, gosh. But my first speaking role was in an industrial. Oh, gosh.

Yeah. It was for the UCLA medical facility, and it was a sex education video.

for uh patients upon their release from the hospital what kind of things did you have to say i was a girl and i was going on a date and um my sister says to me as i'm getting ready to leave she says well have fun on your date i hope you have protection and i say protection protection from what

And she says, from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, come here. And she's a nurse. She's dressed like a nurse. And she talks about sexually transmitted diseases and various disease. I mostly listen very earnestly to.

And then at the end, I say something along the lines of, well, now I feel prepared for my date. Like what? This first date is high stakes. Also, like it's just coffee. Like it's going to be fine. And were you like Andy? Were you like, this is my moment?

I have arrived. I was very prepared. I knew all my lines. I knew how I was going to react to all of the diseases. I was paid $100 and I did my own hair and makeup.

Well, very similar to Andy. He's going to do his own hair and makeup. It's in a deleted scene. We'll get to it. I'm going to share it. But you know, I remember one of my first big auditions that I was so excited about was an industrial for Ford motor cars event.

Where I would be in a lab coat. The audition, they actually had us read off a teleprompter because they wanted to see if you could do that because there was going to be a lot of that. And I talked about like the new engine and the words coming out of my mouth. I didn't even understand them. And I'm sure no one believed it. I was saying things like, you know, it has twin independent variable camshaft timing. I was like, I did not get the part, you guys. I did not get it.

But it cracked me up that this was Andy's storyline. And I love that Halstead shared this. He said, we knew at the beginning of many actors' careers, they could get cast in commercials or corporate industrial films. We thought it would be really funny to see Andy get cast in an industrial film, which was super dry and boring, but that Andy would treat it as if it was an Oscar-winning performance. I mean, we all did. This is all true. We all did.

Oh, it took me right back to that Ford industrial. Well, I guess all of this is just to say that this is a very accurate depiction of a new actor getting their first role. Yes. Well done. Oh boy, now we're going to move into the Jim and Pam storyline. Oh gosh, this made me cringe. There were times where I was really cringing because...

It felt like this forced exercise that they were really trying to get behind. But man. Pam is really difficult in this episode, isn't she? Like, I feel like Jim is being a better team player here. And Pam is, you can see how closed off she is. I mean, later she's going to have

a talking head about it, but... Her truth is she's not ready to forgive him. That's her truth. And she's doing these exercises and it seems like he's really trying. So yeah, you do feel her bumping up against that effort, you know? But have you ever been in that situation before where like, when the other person is finally acknowledging that the situation is shitty and they're trying, your first response is kind of like...

Too little too late, buddy. Because you haven't been angry yet. You haven't gotten to be mad yet. And so I think that's where Pam is. Pam's like finally has permission. She's being seen and she needs to start by being mad. Yeah. But the first thing she's going to do is get an apple from the vending machine. And that was scripted. That was scripted. I noticed that I got an apple and I was like, that's so weird. We almost never got fruit. Yeah.

But it was scripted that Pam was getting an apple and Jim comes and sees her in the break room and they're doing this, you know, couples therapy speak. Yeah.

Yes, they're expressing how much they appreciate one another. And then they have a joint talking head where we find out that they're doing couples therapy. They want to find every opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate one another's sacrifices. And also they have to use the word opportunity for things that they're not super happy about. This made me laugh because I rebrand things like this.

To my kids, like things my kids maybe don't want to do, I call them an experiment. I'll be like, hey, kids, I'm experimenting with a new vegetable for dinner tonight. Or I'll be like, hey, as an experiment, I think we're going to have you guys do the dishes every night this week as an experiment. But I also do that to myself. I'll be like, I'm experimenting with taking a walk every day. And then I'm going to analyze how that made my body feel at the end of the week.

Somehow, like if I brand it as an experiment, kind of like how they're saying things are opportunities. Opportunities. Yeah. It is funny. It's very, I think, parenting thing to do because I know like sometimes like if our kids are frustrated with like, oh, we got a new school schedule. You know, they're getting their schedules. It's high school. And sometimes the classes don't line up the way they wanted. And I'm like, well, you know what? That's information. Yeah.

You just got some information. So I say that. Or if like someone is maybe not like as friendly as they had hoped or, you know, whatever it is at school. I'm like, well, that's information you just learned. I say information. Yeah.

And then it just makes me think of how all these years, all the extra talking heads were called candy bag. The candy bag. You know, we've talked about this, Jenna, and I was always like, oh, it's the candy bag. And Greg was like, I called it that. So maybe you guys wouldn't be annoyed. I thought, what would my kids like? Oh, a candy bag. Yeah.

That's right. If it was called the extra work bag, we'd be like, oh, get out the candy bag. It's so true. There's fun treats in here for you guys. Sorry you have to stay another half an hour. Well, Warren and Halstead said this storyline was based on the experience of one of the writers who had shared about doing couples therapy. This writer helped them come up with all these exercises. Warren said that one particular phrase really tickled him. It was the I appreciate you.

He said this was something he felt like he'd started to see a lot of NBA athletes say in interviews. And he always felt like it was sort of a subtle code for I hate this or I hate you. Oh, I appreciate that question. I appreciate that. I appreciate you asking me about that. Yeah.

Well, lady, I have to tell you, when I was looking up this episode, you know, we do all the things. We go back in time. We read the shooting draft. We look at the call sheets. And I always check my digital clutter. And what a treasure trove. I could not believe it. Apparently, the week we filmed this, you and I took our cameras.

I took tons of pictures in the warehouse. These are pictures, lady, I have never seen. Not even for our book. I found an old email account. Oh my gosh. I forgot about. And you, I found an email from you to this old email account. And I was like, oh my gosh.

And I was able to get into it. And there's all of these photos, lady. No, of this episode and more? This episode and more. And in particular, you and I were like, oh, we've got to document everything. Yes, I remember that. As we were getting to these last kind of six, seven episodes, we started bringing our camera to work again. Yes. A good camera, like not just our phone. So many pictures. I have started folders now.

And also I found an email from Greg and I wanted to read it to you. Okay. So this was on February 13th, 2013, 1.31 p.m. You know I like to know the time stamp. You do. It goes back to my travel journaling.

He wrote,

Last time we attracted 5,000 fans from as far away as Ireland. Please let me know if this could be something you could welcome into your schedule. Also, side note, I want to save all of your desks together. And I think it would make it more special if you wrote a note in the bottom of your desk drawer. Anybody want to do that? Best, Greg. So we all wrote in our desk drawers. Yeah. And I don't think Greg got our desks.

I don't think he did either. After all of that, I remember they wouldn't let him have them. Yeah. Which is a real bummer. And that trip to Scranton ended up getting pushed till later. We didn't film episodes there. But I forgot that we signed our desk drawers for Greg. Every time we go into our digital clutter and we find these emails from Greg and they say, dear brilliant cast, I get a little choked up because that's how he started all of his emails to us and how he continues to

to write emails to us. To this day. Yeah. Well, anyway, that was just a little moment back in time. Well, that made me like very nostalgic. I know. Let's see. Where are we? Oh, Andy is going to announce his new job to the whole bullpen. And he's going to tell Oscar that he's going to use Oscar's recent breakup with the senator to

for inspiration if he needs to get emotional. And Oscar's like, why don't you just use your own life? Aaron just broke up with you. And he's like, hey, too raw, buddy. All right? Not cool.

Well, next, Nellie is going to enter with a wrap from Wirehammer Paper, and he's carrying a giant check. I love a giant check. I would love to win a giant check. Doesn't everyone want a giant check handed to them sometimes? I would love to present a giant check, receive a giant check. And then where do you take the giant check? Do you take it to the bank? I've wondered this my whole life. Who do you hand the giant check to? Do you have to sign the back of it? What happens? No.

movie Happy Gilmore he has all those giant checks in his back seat of his car because he keeps winning them at the golf tournaments and

And I don't know. I think this is a universal thing. Yeah. Does anyone know what you do with the giant check? Will you tell us if you've won one? I want to take it to the bank. Me too. I want to walk in with it and like awkwardly try to open the door and fit through it with my giant check and then walk up to the teller and try to wedge it in the little hole where you put your money in. I know. All of these things. I know. I think it's why they're so popular. Yeah.

We all want one. We want the big chick. This is when they're going to announce the $2,000 cash prize, which apparently no one knew about because Nellie forgot to tell them.

This changes everything. The whole bullpen flips out. They're like, $2,000? Why didn't you tell us? And she's like, I did. I'm sure I did. And then immediately she's like, nope, I forgot. Well, the guest star playing Robert from Wirehammer Paper was Todd Aaron Brotzi. And he most recently appeared in Lessons in Chemistry and Curb Your Enthusiasm. And he had recurring roles on Arrested Development and Veep. And you'll see him. He's downstairs with us during the contest.

Yeah. He's overseeing the whole thing. Up next is an Angela talking head, and I have quite a bit to share about it. I have quite a bit to share about it, and it got a fan mail flurry. Where do we begin? Oh, wow. Why don't we start with me reading exactly what it said? Okay. Okay. So there is a montage happening underneath this talking head of Angela in her apartment with her cats and a very upset Phillip. Okay.

And Angela says, me? Oh, I'm fine. I mean, sure, times are leaner now that I'm separated from the senator, but my new studio apartment is just fine for me and Philip and Tinky and Crinklepuss and Bandit 2 and Pollock Baggins and Lady Aragon and their 10 kittens.

I had a chance with Dwight, but I didn't take it. And if I went back now, when I'm broke and he just inherited a farm, I'd be one of those gold-digging tramps you read about that try to bag a farmer. Okay, I have so many things to say. Number one, isn't there a reality show where you try to bag a farmer? It's a show where there's like handsome bachelor farmers. Farmers?

Sean is nodding yes. Sean, have you seen Marry a Farmer? What's it called? I think it's called Farmer Needs a Wife. I haven't seen it. Oh, my God. Yes, Farmer Needs a Wife. That's it. So I didn't know. I know there's one where you try to date a fireman. Is there one like that? I haven't heard of that one. Sean, anything? Date a fireman? He doesn't know. Okay. Maybe not. Okay. Okay.

What's with all the cat names? I need to talk about them. Did these even come up in our contest with Billie Eilish? No, they did not. Paulick Baggins. Crinklepuss. Tinky. Hey, now, there's something we need to discuss, and it's big time. What is it? There are two Lord of the Rings references in these cat names. Is Angela Martin a Lord of the Rings fan? I think so. Paulick Baggins.

based on Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit. Okay. Hello. I'll take your word for it. I have so many things to say about this. We're going to need to spend some time here. Studio apartment, fine. Why no bed? Why a couch? How about you and Phillip...

Sleep in a bed together. I don't know. This apartment was really surprising to me. They built it over on our warehouse set, and they really wanted to show that Angela was going through some lean financial times. It was described like this in the shooting draft. Angela, forcing a smile, holds a screaming Philip as she shows the camera a studio apartment with a futon, a crib, and a few appliances. Eleven cats wander around.

She tries to put Philip down for a second in his crib and continue with the tour, but then notices to her alarm that three cats have immediately laid down on his warm body, covering his face. She snatches the baby back up. Well, this brings me to our fan mail flurry.

It begins with Jen C. in Mason City, Iowa, who says,

Also, doesn't Angela seem like the type to have been saving every penny her entire life? The only thing she has ever splurged on was Princess Lady, and that was with the money from selling Andy's engagement ring. I just can't with this storyline every time I get to it. Am I the only one who has a hard time with this? Jen, no. Allie P. from Rexburg, Idaho also has a hard time with it and said this.

Before Angela got married, it seemed like she did pretty well for herself and lived comfortably. Logistically, she should be making more due to raises and such, so why is she suddenly unable to support herself? Do you think it was just the added cost of a child and everything that comes with that? Also, did Angela tell Robert that Philip may not be his son, or is he just abandoning a child he believes to be his own?

He should be paying some sort of child support since it appears they have officially divorced. I'm sure this was just a way for the writers to get Angela and Oscar back to being friends. But what is going on here? They would both love to hear your thoughts, Angela. Oh, I have so many similar thoughts, ladies. One of the things I do want to share is in the shooting draft,

Angela's talking head was slightly longer. Okay. And she had a line where she said, I guess I should have read that prenup a little closer before signing it. That would have helped so much to explain what was going on. Yes. So I guess there was a prenup and who knows what all it said, but Angela did not pay close attention to it and she just signed it.

And that in itself doesn't even seem like her. No. She's a very thorough person. But maybe she was just so, you know, kind of dazzled by the idea of being a senator's wife in her mind. Right? Sure. And then the only other thing I can think of is that, you know, starting fresh again and getting an apartment and first and last month's rent and having a child like that, maybe she is starting out smaller than what she used to have.

And as far as the senator, I have my own little backstory that I've never shared. Oh, that I gave myself to help all of it make sense and ring true for me is that Angela and the senator know that Philip was not his all along. They always knew it. I believe that.

And they never discussed it, but I think they had very, very little intimacy in their marriage. And not to get too detailed, but I think there might have never been a true insemination. Yes. There you go.

Right. Like it would be impossible for it to be his baby. And I think they both knew it and they were okay with it because they were going to raise this child together. And now that they're not, the Senator isn't invested. Yeah.

The other thing I thought of was just that based on everything we saw at the press conference, I think Angela wanted to get away from the senator very quickly. And sometimes you are going to take first place available, you know? And so this is what she could get her hands on quickly. Yeah. She wanted out of there. And yeah. Yeah.

Well, I haven't shared my biggest thing yet about this scene. Oh, what is it? Well, I'm so delighted to share this because it was such a warm, cozy memory for me. But when I was looking through my digital clutter, and I had remembered this the minute I watched the episode, I was like, oh, yeah.

And I went to my digital clutter to look for it. The day we filmed the scene, my daughter, Isabel, came to set for lunch. Now, she was almost five years old at this time. She knew everyone on set. You know, Jenna, they all doted on her. Our cast and crew were so lovely to our families. And I had a camera rehearsal for this scene. And Matt Stone was like, Isabel, do you want to pretend to be your mommy's baby in this scene?

Because Isabel knew we played make-believe. That's what mommy did for her job, you know? And Isabel was very excited, and she took it very seriously. She was like, yes. Yes.

And then we did the rehearsal and I blocked it with Isabel, not with the actual baby. We wanted that baby to rest as much as it could, right? Yes. And Matt filmed the blocking rehearsal and gave it to me and I have it. I'm going to put it in stories, but it just made me so happy to see it and just have this memory. I'm going to show it to you. There's no audio, lady.

Because it was just camera rehearsal. Right. But here, you got to see it. Oh, my goodness. She's doing such a good job. She just has her head on your shoulder. She's pretending to be my baby. Oh, and you even put her in the crib.

She pretends to like have her little stuffed animal. Isn't that so cute? So sweet. How fun that Isabel has that too. I know. I know. That's so sweet. So anyway, I was texting with Matt Stone about it yesterday and he totally remembered filming it as well. And, um,

I was so thankful that I had it. Well, lady, we had a fan question from Aaron H. in Denton, Texas, who wanted all the details on how you did the scene with the baby and the cats in the crib. Oh, yeah. And Steve Burgess shared, and I'm sure you remember, interesting fact that.

The shot of baby Philip in the crib covered by cats is not a real baby. It's an animatronic baby. You can tell. I'm sorry, but you can see the arms. You can see the arms moved in a very rigid motion. And if you pause it and then replay it, it's like, yes, it's a little bit Chuck E. Cheese. Yes, it's Chuck E. Cheese meets that American Sniper movie. Yeah.

With that fake baby. But of course, of course they weren't going to have the cats on a real baby. A real baby. Of course not. Well, why don't we take a break and when we come back, we're going to hear how Dwight is feeling about Angela right now. It's very sweet. It is. We want these two together. We're rooting for them.

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We are back and Dwight has a talking head. He says, you know, I offered myself to Angela and she turned me down. And there is some flashback footage of

We're going to see this again later in the episode. The documentary crew is really editing in some previous footage. Yeah, this is happening now. And then Dwight says, you know, but I'm with Esther now and she's younger, she's sturdier, and she's more comfortable with the scent of a manured field, which let's be honest, Angela was just indifferent.

At best. At best. Yeah. At best indifferent. Now Clark is going to approach Aaron and Pete. They're making their paper airplanes and Aaron aggressively shoos him away. And she's going to explain that growing up in an orphanage, she had to fight other kids for everything. And she's very, very competitive. But she's worried about Pete seeing this side of her. Yeah. I have a paper airplane fact. Oh, great. I have a deleted scene. Oh.

Oh, well, National Paper Airplane Day. Did you know there was one? There is. I don't doubt it. I feel like there's a hashtag national blank day. Insert the theme for everything now. It is May 26th. Oh. So there truly is a day for everything. And if you want to throw a paper airplane, throw it on May 26th. Let's see.

Oh, I want to share this deleted scene, you guys. Let's hear it. Well, what would have come next after this Aaron talking head is...

was a driving scene between Daryl and Andy. And I love a good driving scene. It's in the deleted scenes. And I want to share it with you. Basically, they're on the way to the commercial shoot and Andy is kind of doing some prep in the car. He's hairspring his hair. He's looking in the mirror. And anyway, it's really fun. You got to hear it. Andy, you couldn't have done that before. I want to look good.

Amazing.

And I want you to know Craig Robinson is so funny from the minute he gets in that car to all of his reactions at the laboratory. But what cracked me up, Jenna, watching it is when he says, hey, if they ask you about what we're like on set, tell them how we're always laughing all the time, you know. And it was kind of funny because whenever we would do press junkets as a cast,

One of the questions we got asked every single time was like, who's the prankster? Who's making everyone laugh on set? It's true. I felt like this was like our writer's nod to like these same questions we would always get.

Well, I don't want to tell everybody in Hollywood what to do. But if you want Craig Robinson to be really funny in your project, put him in a car because I think he really shines in all the driving scenes. Like when he's with Michael and Holly, when he and I had our driving scene, his show, Killing It, they spend a lot of time in a car. They sure do. And he is very funny in a car, everybody. Yeah. I don't know what it is.

Well, Daryl and Andy are going to arrive to this project and Carla is there. Carla seems a little interested in Daryl. She's like, hey, are you in this paper documentary as well? Do you need an agent? And Andy's like, no, no, no, no, no. He doesn't act. And then Daryl has this throwaway line. He says, well, I was in the whiz in high school. That was not in the script. I don't know if they just found that on the day. Oh, that's so fun.

I loved this next scene. Carla is going to show Andy that he's got a chair because all her actors get chairs. I thought this was very funny since not a single one of us ever had a chair on the office. We did not have. Never got a chair. A director's chair. No. But it is really funny. I loved it when she said, all my actors sit. Yes, exactly. Very proudly. I want you to know Halstead said that they did shoot in an actual laboratory.

Yes. This is an actual laboratory. We got a fan question about it. Sarah M. in Victoria, Canada said, I'm a PhD student specializing in immunology, and I spend a significant amount of time in a lab. And when I see lab scenes in TV shows or movies, they tend to look far from realistic. Yeah.

incredibly pristine and perfectly organized. However, in this particular episode, I was genuinely impressed as it was evident to me that the lab where Andy shot the laboratory safety video looked like a real working laboratory. Well, Sarah, we did shoot in a real lab. Steve Burgess said that there were no special safety issues at the lab, but there were some areas that were off-limits.

It wasn't because anything like top secret was happening, but they just didn't want us to mess their things up because they were a real lab.

Steve said that we had our normal safety meetings, but we added one thing to the lab, which were some fakie bubbling beakers in the background. So fakie beakers. Fakie beakers, real lab. That's right. Oh, I also want to give a guest star shout out to Kate Comer. She's the woman who comes up to take Andy's photo. Yes, it's very funny.

And Andy thinks, oh, it's starting, the paparazzi. And she's like, we just need a picture of your hair in case we burn it. Yes.

This is something we had to do every day on the office several times a day. They're called continuity photos. Everyone takes them. Hair and makeup take them. Wardrobe takes them. Props take them. And you have to pose. And sometimes you have to give a profile, the back of your head, your hands. Oh, when Kim Ferry would do the complicated braids, she would have to take all these photos of the back of my head so that the braids matched every day.

And they would print these out and then they would put them in these elaborate binders. And every once in a while, oh, talk about, you know how Toby's so excited to get out a binder? Talk about how excited hair and makeup was when we would have to go back to a previous episode and reshoot something or create extra footage. They had the binder with the hair and the makeup. Yes. She would go in, she'd be like, I got it. You want to recreate season five? Yes.

Episode 13, scene 4A. And she'd flip to the page and there all of our hair would be. And she would be like, Angela, you were half up, half down. Jenna, you were in a ponytail. Lady, part of my digital clutter and photos from this episode, I took a lot of our crew.

You did? Yeah. So I have hair and makeup backstage, you know, at their tables. And I have our crew all in the warehouse as we were figuring out the paper airplane scenes. I'll put all of them in stories. It just, I just love seeing everyone.

Well, speaking of the warehouse, the competition is underway, and it's going to start with Kevin versus Angela. Yeah, Kevin has a pretty fancy-looking plane, and Dwight questions it. He's looking out for Angela. He's like, you made that paper airplane? And Brian's performance is so great right here. Like, he literally, it's like he manifests a sweat. Kevin's like, well, sort of. And then we find out that Kevin bought it online. Yeah.

Yeah. So they call for a refold. He has to refold and you're going to see him at like a table and he's been folding planes forever trying to make a plane. Guess what? Facts coming your way. Paper airplane facts inspired by this moment. Do you know what the most paper airplanes made in one hour is? In one hour?

Someone made 12,026 paper airplanes, which is about one every 3.3 seconds. Do you think the person that did that has like little special like bandages on their fingers? Like how my mom has that little rubber thing you put on your finger when you're sewing? You must. Because the paper cuts, I feel like, are all over the place. Yeah. Also, I mean...

What is the quality of a paper airplane that you made in 3.3 seconds? I don't know. There's no quality control here. It's just volume. I also found out that the fastest time to fold and then throw a paper airplane. So in this case, you actually had to make like a flyable device. So fold and throw, the fastest time is 7.03 seconds.

Seven seconds? Yeah. 7.03. You would fold and then throw it and it flew. That...

is the fastest time. That's crazy. And so that's why I'm like, okay, if the most paper airplanes made in one hour was like a little over 12,000, they're having to fold like these paper airplanes in 3.3 seconds. But in order to fold and throw one that flies, the fastest is seven seconds. I'm thinking a lot of those 12,000 airplanes were not flight worthy. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I think.

Similar to Kevin's pile, which looks like a bunch of just randomly folded paper and maybe 20% look like airplanes. I don't know. Yeah. He's struggling. I asked Warren and Halstead if there were any deleted scenes that they wish could have made it in this episode. And Halstead shared a talking head that they wrote. It's in the shooting draft.

And it is really funny. I'm going to read it. It's Dwight, and he's just called Kevin out that Kevin did not make that paper airplane. And here was a talking head. Dwight says, there is no way he built that plane. I once watched him spend 20 minutes trying to put an envelope into a letter. You heard me. You heard me.

Anyway, that cracked me up too. That's pretty great. Well, something we should mention is that Angela has taken notice of Dwight's behavior here. Yeah. She has a talking head. She does. She says to camera, was Dwight rooting for me? Hmm. I hadn't noticed. Mm-hmm. Yeah. She's very delighted by this. She sure is. Back in the bullpen, Jim has brought Pam a cup of tea, which she appreciates. She does. She does.

He shares that the truth is he was going in the kitchen anyway because he felt like a cup of tea for himself. And then Pam shares her truth, which is she actually switched to coffee back in March, but she still appreciates the gesture. Yeah. So there was a talking head here that they cut. Jim was going to say something like, wow, she switched to coffee.

And then he was going to pause and say something like, but she still likes mixed berries, right? Like he was going to reference the mixed berries yogurt. I know. You know, when I saw this scene, it really hit me. I was like, this is significant. You don't know her morning drink. Like you are so disconnected from one another. Yeah.

That you don't know this big piece of information that's a part of her every day. You know what I mean? This is the everyday intimacy. And it is missing from Jim and Pam's life. And I would say I think it's the very small little things in life.

That's how you know someone truly. It's very easy to know the big things, you know, but it's the very small intimate things that separate a relationship. Yes, exactly. Well, that's just good writing, right? I know. It's just really good writing. Really, really good writing. Well, speaking of really good writing that didn't make it in, back at the laboratory, there was a scene that would have gone here.

And Andy, because it's an industrial shoot, had to do his own hair and makeup, Jenna. Mm-hmm. What does Andy know about hair and makeup? He knows the world of the theater. Oh, boy. He does full stage makeup. He penciled in his eyebrows. He has on white eyeshadow. He has on that orange kind of base, you know, like that heavy foundation. Yeah. With bright red, like, blushed cheeks. Yeah.

Well, they need to see you from the back row, from the balcony. And you have those harsh lights on you on the theater, you know?

Oh, my gosh. He walks into the laboratory in his lab coat with this stage makeup. Everyone's reactions are hilarious. And I wanted you to hear the clip. It's in deleted scenes. I cannot wait. Ta-da! Meet the lab assistant. What's with the clown face? It's professional stage makeup. Keeps you from washing out under the harsh lights. I learned it when I was Nakey Poo in the Mikado. Andrew Bernard?

What's on your face? A little bit of grease paint, governor. Lashes sold separately. Um, I'm gonna need him to take this off immediately, okay? Okay. Question, is it too dark? Because this is Trinidad. I also have Brazilian matador or man of Athens. How about no makeup at all? No makeup. No makeup, great. I can do that. But, question, new to the area, is there a makeup remover store nearby? Uh, you'll just use soap.

Wow. Yeah. I love it. Halstead said when Ed said man of Athens, it made everyone crack up. Well, I have a guest star shout out.

I bet I know who it is. Yes, I know you do. It's the producer on set. He was played by an old improv friend of mine and Warren's, Pete Holney. Pete has been in so many movies and television shows. You can catch him in Criminal Minds right now. He was in Jury Duty by our very own Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stepnitsky.

He's in Monsters Season 2 on Netflix. If you're a fan of the movie Elf, Pete and his real twin brother, Patrick Holney, are the twin elves in the movie. And Warren shared with me that it was really a really fun shoot day for him because Pete was there and they'd known each other for so long and that he was always pitching Pete for roles on The Office. And so he was so glad it finally worked out.

And I reached out to Pete and lady, he has a really sweet story about Alison Jones. And I thought you should hear it. Okay. An interesting thing is like, uh, casting directors remember actors if they're good. And when you audition for things and you don't get the part,

The amazing thing is, is that the casting director's mind has to remember actors. And when things come up, they remember them. So Allison Jones, who is the casting director of the show, remembered me from, I don't know, auditioning the first time. But the weird thing was, is that she did something different.

wonderful to me once I was at the Grove which is like a big shopping mall here in Los Angeles in Farmer's Market and I was going up an escalator and I just heard this voice yelling Peter Peter Holney and I was like who the hell is screaming my name and all these people are like looking around seeing who the hell this Peter Holney is and I look down and as the escalator is going up

Um, I'm going down and I see this woman waving frantically. And I looked at her like, who are you? I can't even put my brain. Couldn't process it. And she goes, it's me, Alison Jones from casting. And then all of a sudden, as she was going up, I was going down. She just kind of disappeared.

And I was just dumbstruck. I didn't know what to do because I've never been cast by her yet. And I was just amazed that she remembered me. And I was like, oh, my God, Alison Jones knows my name, knows my face and and said my last name correctly. And I just thought that was just a wonderful. I mean, all day long, I was walking around with my head up high, gone. All right. All right, Hollywood.

You guys think I'm something special.

I love Allison. I do too. Can't you just see her yelling, hey? I mean, she is just a wonderful person. I just love that story and wanted to share that side of her with everyone that we know. Yes, I love that. And here's Pete's story about how this role came to be for him. I was flying home to Chicago for Christmas with my kids and my lovely wife, and we just landed and

And out of nowhere, I got a call from my agent and they said, hey, you just booked the office. And I kind of laughed. I go, ha, I'm in Chicago. You know that. I booked out. Allison Jones just called up and said, she wants to book you. Well, I'm in Chicago. We just landed and I'm building a snowman with my daughter, Sophia, because they've never seen snow before because they live in LA. Anyways, so they were like, you need to either do this or just decline it.

So I thought for a minute as I put like the carrot into the snowman's face, well, I'm not going to let this opportunity pass me by. I guess my Christmas vacation is going to be put on hold because I'm flying back to be on the office. That day, I think I booked a flight and got there the next morning.

And it was just amazing because those kind of things never happen. You don't just usually book a job without even auditioning for it. But Alison Jones just remembered me and gave me the part.

Well, that is really special when you're just like, hey, you got the role. You're like, what? Yeah, you're like a role I didn't even know was happening. It existed. Yeah. And Warren told me he was really happy because when you have an episode that is your episode that you wrote, you are in direct communication with the director.

And that doesn't normally happen when it's not your episode. You don't really go to the director, right? You don't pitch anything. But because it was his episode, he was able to talk directly to Jesse and say, we've got this great guy and really push that through for Pete.

Well, I'll tell you what, as an actor, if you want to get a job, just leave town. Well, that's true. Any time. Yes. If as soon as your friend tells you they're getting married out of town, you're going to book a job. It happened with me and you, Angela. Yeah. When you and Josh set your wedding date, I was like, I'm so excited. I'm going to be there the whole week with you as you get ready. Yeah.

Booked a movie with Ben Stiller. Yep. Was in Montreal. Flew in the morning of your wedding. I did tell them I have to be at this wedding. I was so thankful. And I was like, oh, my God, you're going to be so tired. But you got there. But it's true. It's true. I mean, you and I had some plans beforehand.

This next week, and I booked a job. You booked a job, and here we are. Here we are on a Saturday morning with Cassie. Oh, my gosh. Thank you, ladies. It's how it goes. Leave town, and you'll book a job. Yep. Well, let's see. They're going to start rolling on Andy, and he's making a number of strange choices.

Yes. First, he's going to smile really big the whole time. Yep. And the producer's like, what are you doing? Why are you smiling? And then the director's like, just do it like you're doing like a news anchor, you know, like you're telling the news. You're delivering the news. Say it straight. Oh, my gosh, lady. And that's when we get Ed Helms.

Doing Tom Brokaw. Finally. Amazing. It makes it on the show what he's been doing behind the scenes for us all these years. Yes, this bit that we all loved. And lady, I had to play it. We have to hear it. Let's hear it.

This video is to demonstrate the HPRDC chemical handling protocols. It's Tom Brokaw. It's a newscaster. Come on. Who is it? Tom Brokaw. And Daryl's look behind. I know. He's like, oh, man. I wanted to mention that the other gentleman in these scenes playing the director is John Phillips.

He recently co-wrote the film No Hard Feelings, which was directed by our very own Gene Stepnitsky. It was also produced by my manager, Naomi Odenkirk, and Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in this movie in 2024. It also won the People's Choice Award for Comedy Movie of the Year. Nice. I know. And

Also, finally for this scene, I have to read this fan catch from Tom F. in Wolverhampton, UK. Because Tom said, I have been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting to submit this from the first episodes of your wonderful podcast. Tom spotted a continuity thing, and Tom said I haven't spotted a single other thing, unlike many of your other contributors.

So I'm really hoping that I'm the person who saw this one. Oh my gosh, what is it? Here's what he saw. Tom says, when being filmed, Andy repeatedly calls the company HPRDC, but the company badge that he's wearing says HRPDC. So Andy is getting the letters wrong when he speaks.

Tom said, is this Ed misreading the script? Or did the props and graphics department create the wrong label? Or was it scripted that he say it wrong? Well, that is a fantastic question. Well, Tom, I'm going to the shooting draft. And here is how it read in the shooting draft. Andy was supposed to say, this video is to demonstrate the HPRDC chemical handling protocol.

Okay, so I don't know why his badge says HRPDC. Which one is correct? We don't know. Did we get to the bottom of it or did we mom detective it? I think we mom detectived this one. We confirm that Ed said his line correctly. Yes. And we know that the badge doesn't match the line, but we don't know if it was a mistake or...

Or we'll never know. We'll never know. We tried, Tom. Back in the warehouse, next up is Clark versus Aaron. Aaron's plane flies so far, she's really pumped. And then she goes at Clark really hard, calling him piggy, oinking in his face. Even Pete is like, Aaron, you need to relax. And Clark is like, we still got to work together, so... Yeah. Yeah.

You know, there was even more in deleted scenes. Aaron would have yelled off camera. Let's get this cotton picking show on the road, mother. Oh, boy. Yeah. Scripted shot. Wow. Yeah. Wow. They were really showing Aaron's competitive side. And they were also clocking the fact that Pete was like, what is going on?

Well, Phyllis and Dwight are up next. Angela heckles Phyllis. Dwight wins. Angela is very happy. But ooh, plot twist. Esther has arrived. Yeah, Esther has arrived full of energy. And she runs over to Dwight, gives him a big victory kiss. Angela's not happy about that. She says she plucked the chickens extra fast so she could come support him.

We got a lot of fan questions, Angela, about the paper airplanes. We're going to get into a lot of scenes now of the paper airplane throwing. People wanted to know, were the paper airplanes photoshopped? And Jenny M. from Katy, Texas said, did Phil Shea have to make all those paper airplanes? Were they CGI? Did we throw them ourselves? How was this done?

Well, I can tell you, I remembered immediately when I rewatched this, I even called you about it, Jenna. I was like, remember the professional paper airplane fellows they brought in? These guys came and made these airplanes. They were works of art, really. And I'm going to point out later the moment where mine actually went far because my real reaction is very honest. But yeah, I remember these guys. They were set up.

In the warehouse, they had folded all these planes. They did show us kind of this arm motion to make. You can see the people that win kind of have a similar arm motion, you know?

Yep. Dwight and Angela and Aaron, we kind of throw them the same way. So I know there were real paper airplanes, but I also know they had to zhuzh it a little in editing. Yeah. I mean, the answer is they're not CGI airplanes. They're all real. Yeah. And, you know, the cast members are really throwing them. If you ever see an airplane...

going somewhere and it's just the airplane, that was probably thrown by someone else, one of the professionals, you know, so that it would hit a certain mark. But it was a lot of fun. I mean, to throw a paper airplane that you know is good. It is. And you know, I don't know if you remember this, Jenna, but we all made a paper airplane ourselves.

And I threw my paper airplane and it went nowhere. It like nosedived. And then I threw one of the ones they made and it was like astonishing. It flew almost the whole entire length of the warehouse. In fact, I feel like they had to tone it down a little. They're like, make them not go so far, guys. You're making them too good. Yeah. All right. Next up, let's go to Andy's eyeball. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy's going to find out that the next scene requires him to hold his eyelids open and flesh out his eyes as a way of demonstrating what happens if you get a chemical in your eye. You have to use the eyewash station. And we should say he didn't have to have any chemicals put in his eye. He was simply just going to rinse his eyes out with water. Yes. But Andy does not like...

Eye stuff. There was a scene earlier where he's confronted with Toby's gooey eye and he can't even take it. He's not comfortable doing his own stunts. He wonders if there's going to be CGI water that they're going to add in later. And they're like, no, you just have to do this. Well, in the episode, we're going to go back to the paper airplane contest. But why don't we stay here with Andy and his eyes?

Well, you know, Halstead shared with us that they knew Ed was great at physical comedy and freaking out. You know, in the episode he and Warren wrote, Cafe Disco, there's this scene at the end where Kelly starts to pierce Andy's ear and he starts to yell and they cut away. So they knew that Ed playing Andy freaked out was going to be a home run. Nice.

Well, we got some fan questions about the eyewash scene. Evie L. from Texas said, did Ed Helms really put his eye in the eyewash? The answer is yes. Yeah.

Steve Burgess said this was a real eyewash station. We changed the signage to avoid any clearance issues, but that's what they look like. And our special effects guys fed it water that was a distilled sterile water, so they knew that it would be safe for Ed. But he really did it.

And it's so funny. I mean, Daryl is there and Andy puts his face into this water and the whole time he is screaming. And then he sits up and they're like, that was great. We can take out the screams and post. So, so good. I know. He's so funny. And Carla is very pleased. Carla is like, kid can act. Loved that line too. Me too.

The kid can act. Get him a chair. Yeah, my actors sit. Well, now it's time for Toby and Angela to face off. Angela's going to go first and has a fantastic throw. And if you go to 12 minutes and 39 seconds, that sort of yelp slash squeal that I make, I'm like, ah!

Yes. It was real because I was so excited because I got to use one of those professional paper airplanes and it went really far. That's my real reaction. I really threw that and that's where it landed. Well, I couldn't help but notice how long your plane stayed in the air. And it's about 4.5 seconds. Thank you. I mean, I should say thank you, professional paper airplane people.

Well, I'll have you know that in addition to a contest for how far your plane can go, there's also a world record for the longest flight time. So how long it stays in the air. That makes sense to me. And that record is currently held by Takua Toda from Japan. It was set in December 2010. Wow.

And this paper plane stayed in the air for 29.2 seconds. Wow. At first, I thought you were going to say 29 minutes, and I was about to fall out of my chair. My goodness. I was like, what? That's impressive, though. Yes. Yes.

But, I mean, to get a sense of how long that plane flew, if you're watching this scene and you're watching Angela's airplane, imagine if that scene went on five times longer. It's almost the same amount of time that Jim and Pam were silent on Booze Cruise. That's right. That was like 21 seconds. Mm-hmm. It's longer. It's longer. The longest airplane flew longer than Jim and Pam's moment of silence. Mm-hmm.

Oh, I hope we didn't ruin that scene for people. Now when they go back to watch that, they're going to imagine a paper airplane flying through the air. Sorry. Here's the thing. With Jenna and I doing this rewatch and watching these episodes so many times, it's the office just lives in us now. It lives in my brain. We relate everything back to like an episode. We're probably so annoying to be around. Well, it's Toby's turn now, and he's just already defeated. He just...

Crumples it up and he bails, basically. So Angela wins. Dwight applauds. He's very happy. And Esther clocks this. She says, why are we happy for that little woman? And then Dwight says, you know, I pity her because she could have had everything and she lost it all. Yeah. And now we're going to see Dwight face off against Erin. And guess who wins? Dwight! Ellie Kemper's reaction to losing.

I had to watch this scene over and over and over when she kicks that box and her foot gets stuck and then she loses her shoe and all the popcorn. Yes. It was so funny. And she's just like, I'm just really mad right now. I'm just really mad right now. I'm angry. And

Like, clearly that wasn't supposed to happen. I don't think her foot was meant to break that box. I don't think she was meant to lose her shoe. And the two of them hold it together so well. It's beautiful. It is. And I just loved what Warren and Halstead shared with us about how important this story is for the Aaron and Pete relationship that Pete is now starting to question it. He's like, maybe we're not the right fit. Yeah.

Well, they said they were starting to think that Pete and Aaron would not end up together. Yes. And so they had to show a way that maybe they weren't compatible. That's right. Well, now we're back at Jim and Pam and Clark's desk clump. And Jim and Pam are continuing to speak in their therapy speak.

And it's becoming more passive aggressive. And Clark is like, hey, are you guys high? Because if you're high, can you pass me some? And they're like, no, we're not high. Yeah. This is when Pam is going to have her talking head where she says, I just wish we'd started this exercise six months ago because my heart feels just blocked up right now. Yeah. I felt that when she said it. I felt it. I did, too.

I want you to know that there was more to this talking head. She would have gone on to say, I want to believe talking like robots will help, although robots aren't really known for their emotional connections. And are you ready for this, Angela? No, I'm not. This is what Pam would have said next. Well, I guess R2-D2 and C-3PO were pretty attached. Is that where we're headed?

She would have made a Star Wars reference. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings in one episode. Come on. Oh, it looks like Pam and Angela could be bonding over their love of sci-fi films. That's a scene I want to see. I want to see the two of them in the break room talking sci-fi. Mm-hmm.

Kevin is still working really hard on paper airplanes. There is a whole table of airplanes, and now he's gluing stuff. He's pasting things together. It's such a mess. This is like crafting gone wrong. This scene is completely unnecessary for the plot of this episode, but it is an absolute delight. It is a display of beautiful comic timing, both physical and physical.

Oral? Is that a type of comedy? Oral comedy? I guess it is. Anyway, all of his timing is beautiful. I really enjoyed this moment. It's now time for the final round. It is Angela versus Dwight. Dwight had a talking head that was deleted, and he talks about why he doesn't need the money, but Angela does, and I thought you should hear it.

I don't need this win. I've got a lucrative job, an enormous farm, and this building. Angela has nothing but a child who, while adorable, won't bring in revenue for another five or six years. That's so interesting. It's very shrewd, isn't it, that he thinks Philip is going to be working in five years? It is, but he's, you know, yeah. He has an interesting way of attaching value to things. Well, Angela's first throw is terrible.

And then Dwight fumbles his on purpose. Esther clocks this. It's said in the script, Esther sees Dwight do this and is jealous. Yes, that's what it said in the shooting draft. And then she goes over to Angela and she's very patronizing and says, you know, they want her to win. They know she needs this money. So use it wisely. And then Esther strokes sort of the back of Angela's hair. That was not scripted. Nora improvised that.

And then I reacted and improvised as Angela would react, which is horrified that this woman has touched her hair. It was so fun. When Nora did it, we were like, okay, you've got to keep doing that. And then Angela goes over to Dwight and she says, do not tank this. Like she doesn't want his pity.

Well, at first, she's very delighted by the gesture. But when Esther gets involved, she's like, no, her pride comes out. That's right. Angela is going to go up to Dwight now and says, do not take this throw.

And so he throws and it goes far. And then she purposely tanks hers. I loved this moment because Nora had improvised touching the back of my hair. We knew I had to touch her head somehow. Yeah. But she's so much taller than me. So Angela goes up to Esther and says, I guess you guys needed the money more than me. And then I improvise. Huh.

Use it wisely. And I touched her forehead and hair and I saunter off very pridefully. So that was a really fun back and forth that I got to have with Nora. I love that she did that. And then I love that I got to have that response. Well, I loved this whole moment. I really didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know anything.

if Dwight was going to find a way to let Angela win. But all of it was just so in character for you guys. And I think that's what I liked about it. I also love Angela's talking head when she's like, you know what? Dwight showed weakness today and I don't need it. I don't need his pity. I have my dignity. And as she's saying it, she's stealing all the toilet paper from the bathroom. It did say in the script that even as she walks out with all that toilet paper, she's holding her head high.

Yes, I read that too. Well, that's the end of our paper airplane storyline. And just to wrap things up, I thought y'all might like to know that the largest flying paper airplane is a 53-pound paper glider that flew 59 feet. It has a wingspan of 60 feet, a length of 17 feet. And it was constructed in Germany in 2013 by a team of 16 university students and employees.

A larger paper airplane was built in Fitchburg, USA in 2018, but it was not able to fly. Ah, yes. And that concludes your paper airplane tidbits. I loved them. Thank you very much. The next scene made me tear up and I was not expecting it. I was sort of surprised. I hadn't seen this episode since it aired and...

This whole Jim and Pam ending really got me, lady. You know, Jim is going to tell Pam that he's sorry that he has to go. It's time for him to go back to Philly. But he thinks they should keep working at this because they're making progress. And he kind of does that thing where he looks back, but she doesn't. And then he leaves. And then she looks towards the door, but he's already left. And then she sees that he left his umbrella. And she hesitates for a second and decides to try to catch him to give it to him.

Well, that scene at the desk where Jim comes really close to Pam, I remember when we were shooting this, that this is the first time that our characters had been in one another's intimate personal space in a really long time. Yeah. And not only was he in her sort of close proximity, but he was gentle. He kneeled down. He was next to her. He was being earnest. There was

a connection between the two of them in that moment that we haven't seen in many episodes. He was being Jim. Yeah. He was being old Jim. All of the posturing of athlete was gone. And he was being the guy that she fell in love with. That's right. And it was very moving to me. And it was hard for me to not kind of melt in that moment as Pam, you know, because she's wanted this for a really long time. Yeah.

So this was a really fun scene to play. It had a lot of levels.

And then it leads to the scene in the parking lot. Pam decides to run out and give Jim his umbrella. And he hugs her. And I wrote this to you, Jenna. We were trading texts. I said, Jim hugs Pam like she's the last life preserver on the Titanic. I know. He grabbed onto her. He does. And this is just such a beautiful scene. Pam is resistant at first, and he just will not let her go until later.

She breaks down that wall and she hugs him back and they kiss and they say, I love you. I teared up. I know. And they have this flashback to their wedding of Jim's brother, you know, reading from Corinthians.

And, you know, that footage didn't exist. We had to bring Blake Robbins in and set up the church, just that one corner of the church. And he had to do that reading. We shot that just for this episode. All the other footage was footage that we already had from that episode. But this was really beautiful. You know, we had a fan question from Marie R. in Omaha, Nebraska, who said, in the last scene where Jim and Pam hug and then kiss and remember their wedding,

I noticed that it was in the parking lot where Jim first professed his love for Pam on casino night. Was this intentional or just a coincidence? Marie, this was intentional. Yeah. It's there. It's happening in the same spot. This is such a wonderful bookends for their story. Kind of the first moment that Jim said, I'm in love with you. And then here in the parking lot again to save the marriage. Just really beautiful writing. Yeah.

And we talked about this too, Angela. You see in that moment the way John Krasinski as Jim swoops down to get to Pam's level for that hug. That is a classic John Krasinski hugging move.

We've talked about this before. He gives the best hugs. He gives such great hugs. He is just like that cozy blanket that makes you feel better. I know. I just love now that he's a dad and has little girls because I know he hugs them like that. You know? I know. I'm like, oh.

Same thing. That's the hug you want. That's the hug that makes everything feel like it's going to be okay. Yes. And it is that kind of hug. When he gives you a hug, it is like, oh my gosh, what was that bad day that I was having? Everything's going to be fine. And that's how the episode ends, everybody. I mean, we have a lot of thank yous for this one. It was such a joy to rewatch. Thanks again to Steve Burgess for the call sheets.

and answering our questions. You know, I really loved hearing from Warren and Halstead on this. One of the things they shared that I wanted to mention but forgot in the moment was they said they loved writing for Daryl and Andy for that friendship. Yeah. And you really see it in this. I didn't bring it up, but I loved the

pep talk that Daryl gave Andy when he said, Andy Bernard can't squirt water in his eye and act like it doesn't freak him out, but you know who can? Older male lab assistant number one. And Andy says, do you believe in me? And Daryl says, I believe I want to go home. Yeah, that was so good. Anyway, Warren and Halstead just said they loved writing for those two. And thank you, Warren and Halstead, for sharing everything you did about all the different storylines and the behind-the-scenes details.

I also want to thank my friend Pete Holney for sending in his audio clip. I love his stories. And I wanted to give a shout out. Pete said that him and his brother, you know, they were the twin elves and elf. Yep. They do Christmas parties, lady, and corporate hootenannies. And I'll share in stories. If you want the two twin elves from Elf, they'll come to your party. That is so fun.

I know. They have the costumes and everything. What a good idea. Well, I want to give a shout out to Halstead, who's got two exciting projects coming up I think everyone should be on the lookout for. The first is How to Die Alone, starring Natasha Rothwell, which will premiere on Hulu on September 13th. And the other is a college comedy called Overcompensating, and it's starring Benito Skinner, a.k.a. Benny Drama from Instagram, and that will premiere on Amazon sometime next year.

Well, there you go. Thank you guys so much for sending in your questions and comments. We love you. Big thank you to Jenna and Cassie and Sean for recording on a Saturday morning so I can go do this fun project I can't wait to share about. Yeah, of course. And when we're back together, we should do a paper airplane contest. Yes. Let's do it. But we have to fold them ourselves, Cassie. We can't get any pros coming in. I'll get the rules, okay? Okay. All right, everyone. Have a great week.

See you next time. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins. Our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubbico. Odyssey's executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Leah Reese-Dennis. Office Ladies is mixed and mastered by Chris Basil. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

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