Second Drink: Email Surveillance with Ken Jeong
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to your second drink of email surveillance. In our breakdown this week, we have a fantastic interview with Kin Jong. With a pop-in from Joel McHale. Yeah, these were the old days when a bunch of us were all recording at the same time. Yes, and then we'd see people going from one podcast to another. It was a lot of fun.

Well, in this episode, Email Surveillance, we get to see Michael Scott go to his improv class. Oh, it's so delicious. So good. And, you know, when he's in improv class, he turns every scene into a Michael Scarn moment. He pulls out his imaginary gun and he shoots them. Well, in his interview, Ken Jeong shared some really fun stuff about shooting all those scenes.

But I found an interview that Steve did with Janelle Riley for the Screen Actors Foundation where he explained the inspiration for Michael's character always pulling a gun in improv class. It was based on a real person. Yes. Let's listen.

I know in the office Michael Scott was a big fan of improv. His improvs were angry, but he was always pulling a gun. That's actually, that's based on a friend of mine. Oh, is it really? There was a guy at Second City who always used to pull a gun during scenes.

And he knows it. And he'll laugh about it too. But we actually let him, a scene got into the show in Second City because we all agreed we're going to let Ron pull the gun and then we're going to let him kill all of us in the scene. And that's what the scene was. That really made me laugh. It took me back to my improv days. Well, if you're like me and you wanted more scenes from that improv class, there are a lot more in deleted scenes. Let's hear some.

I need to know who shot Johnson! President Johnson. Shut up! Okay! I have a right mind to shoot you right in the head. I killed him, you're right, it was me! Just shut up, I don't want to hear anything more from you! Now listen to what she's saying. Alright, I'll be quiet if we can make some kind of deal. Deal? No deals. Not with Michael Scarn, FBI. Michael Scarn doesn't make deals.

Michael Scarn shoots and then asks questions later. Good. Guess what? Michael Scarn is now alone on stage because he no longer has any scene partners.

I rewatched all these deleted scenes too. And after that moment, he gets in this whole argument with the teacher and the student about how she wasn't doing the scene right. The teacher is trying to like gently suggest that that could have gone another way. Right. And Michael's like, well, it could have gone another way if we wanted to do it not funny, basically. Like that's his whole thing. He's like such a horrible scene partner. Yeah.

Well, there is another deleted scene, which they actually added to the superfan episode where the teacher tells everyone to partner up. But no one wants to partner with Michael. No. He just – why would they? No. So he just keeps shouting out suggestions. And then the teacher keeps suggesting, you know what? Why don't you take a break? It's really funny. All of these scenes, you know, brought me back to my improv days.

I mean, I feel like I've shared with you how we had one guy who would steamroll every scene he was in. So we all just made a pact that in every scene we'd find a way to kill him. Oh, you were Michael skarning him. In reverse. Yeah. But you would, everyone got so creative. There were blow darts, attack of a killer cat.

Well, you know, this is also the episode where Jim is throwing a party at his house and Michael finds out that he's not invited. I know. There's actually a lot of discussion about who is invited and who is going. And Angela, in our breakdown, you mentioned how at 5 minutes and 57 seconds, we see the invite on Michael's computer. We see the invitation. Well...

A new catch. I have a new catch. If you look closely, you can see that the Evite says 14 people have said yes to the Evite and two have not replied. Now, we can only see who said yes, but Pam is not on the list. Has she not replied? Maybe, but Pam has not confirmed her attendance.

Well, lady, I found another nugget that might explain why Pam hasn't RSVP'd yet. I wonder if it's because she didn't know she was RSVPing for one or two people. When we broke down this episode, we were speculating why Roy wasn't at Jim's barbecue. Well, the reason Roy doesn't go is a deleted scene, and it was added to the Superfan episode. It's great. Let's hear it. Hey, babe. Hey. How are you? Good. You look good. Thank you.

Hey, um, I was wondering if it might be okay if I go to Lonnie's poker game tonight? I promise it'll be like the last time for a while. We're supposed to go to the barbecue at Jim's house. Um, could you go without me? Make something up, say I ate something or... Huh? Huh? You're the best. You're the best! I might be late. Okay, don't wake me up because I'm playing ball in the morning. Okay. Alright, bye.

I mean, he starts by telling her she looks great. Did you hear that? How he like butters her up before he ditches her for the night. Then says you're the best. Also, don't wake me up. Yeah. And he has to play ball in the morning. He's busy. He's got a lot going on. And none of it is with Pam. None of it. Well, everyone, that is your second drink for today. And now here is email surveillance.

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.

Welcome, everybody, to the email surveillance episode of Office Ladies. Howdy! It is Season 2, Episode 9, written by Jen Salata, directed by Paul Feig, and we have a special guest in the studio with us today. He played Bill, one of the members of Michael Scott's improv class. It is our first guest!

Ken Jeong! Hey, guys. Thank you so much for having me. We are so excited you are here. You are our second in-studio guest. Yes. You and Creed Bratton, Ken. That is privileged company. So I'm very, very excited to be here. So seriously, thank you. And congrats. Congrats on the success of your podcast. I listened to it, and it's awesome. So thank you for having me. Thanks, Ken. And this is Ken's day off. And I mean, you're a busy, busy person. Yeah.

I can't even get into the Masked Singer and what it means to my children and how much we have to talk about it. That's a whole other subject. Sure, sure. But you're a busy guy, and we appreciate you coming in on your day off. Oh, no. Thank you. Before we get into this episode, you two have known each other for a very long time. When did you first meet?

When did you guys become friends? You did a movie together. I think really, Ken, what crystallized our friendship was your 40th birthday. Was it your 40th birthday, Ken? It was my 40th birthday. Your 40th birthday. Okay. He's twisting in his chair right now. He literally is about to fall out of his chair. I don't know this story. Okay. So, you know, Ken had done The Office, but we didn't work together that day. Our paths never crossed. And then years later, we're on hiatus from The Office, and I am going to be playing this role on a movie called Furry Vengeance.

Brooke Shields was in it. Brendan Fraser. I was such a huge Brendan Fraser fan. Oh, me too. Oh my gosh. We were filming in the middle of nowhere, Massachusetts. Day one. I think we were like two doors apart on our floor. Yeah, I know. We were on the table. I think we were across from each other. We were across the hall. We were across the hall at the Radisson. Oh my gosh. This is so cute. I come out of my room. Ken comes out and I'm like, hey, you picked

the Radisson too. We're the only two actors. Yeah. Only two actors in the Radisson with the crew. So we would, we just would hang out all the time. We were always in the shuttle together. We became pretty fast friends right away. And that first week was Ken's 40th birthday. And here he is away from his family. You were a little sad about it. And we didn't have a car.

Because we were on location. We had the day off. Our day off happened to be his birthday together, him and I. I said, you know what? I'm going to take you out for your birthday. And from the Radisson, there was a – we were sort of up on a hill. And you could see down the hill, down a big, steep hill in this parking lot was a P.F. James. Yeah.

And I said, Ken, I'm taking you to P.F. Chang's for your birthday. Amazing. I don't know why we didn't want to get a cab. I know why. Why? You walked it? We walked it. And it wasn't like it was connected to the car.

At one point, we had to crawl a little bit through a grassy median thing. Remember? It was like the parking lot was separated by a little bit of a grassy knoll. Anyway, we walked down this parking lot. We go into P.F. Chang's at like 11 a.m. There's no one there. We're the first people there. We ate so much and drank a ton of beer, and we were both really buzzed. And now we have to walk up the

And we're like tipsy and we're like, oh my God, this hill sucks on the way back. It was like, dude, I mean.

Okay, you just decided mid-walk, like, hey, I should just exercise. Yeah. And you're, like, walking around the parking lot like you're doing laps. I said, pump your arms, Ken. And then we're literally speedwalking drunk at a Radisson parking lot. Just remember, you're just, there's a hill. I was like, Ken, pump your arms. Come on, pump your arms. Pump your arms. We're going to get a workout. And I was just crying laughing. You were crying laughing so hard. What are we doing? And you turned to me. Come on, Ken, pump.

Okay, I'm taking this off topic. All right, focus. Jenna, how about a summary? In this episode, Michael gains access to everyone's emails and discovers that Jim is hosting a barbecue. Everyone except Michael has been invited. Michael fumes, but Jim holds firm. After attending his weekly improvisation class, Michael crashes the barbecue after all, and Pam suspects Dwight and Angela might be a couple.

Dun, dun, dun. Yes, this is a big episode. This is a big episode. All right, fast fact number one. We always start with fast facts, Ken. Well, Jenna loves a fast fact. Okay. Okay, so don't mess with them. You like my fast facts. I like them too, but it's like you coined the phrase fast fact. Did I not? No.

Oh, Joel McHale's flipping you off. Bad Joel. Do our listeners need some context? Bad Joel. This is Joel McHale, my nemesis on community. So we are in one recording booth and the glass window is facing his. We can see him through the glass and he can see us and he is being offensive and aggressive.

He gave us the bird and then he mooned us. Now he's coming in. Now he's coming in. Lock it. Lock it. I am here with friends, all right? I'm here with people who I love and adore. Guys, my favorite Parks and Rec episode. This is the office, Joel. We're Chris Pratt. No, this is the office. How dare you? This is the show that started it all. And as much as Angela and Jenna are best friends, you and I, if we had a show, we would call ourselves Community Enemies.

because I didn't like you. I never liked you for six seasons. I was over 100 episodes. We barely tolerated each other. And the antipathy has only grown in the last four years. That is true. And here's the thing.

When we saved Ken's career. Stop talking about saving my career. Stop it. Have you ever listened? Stop it. Has he talked about how many? Just knock it off. When you look at his. Knock it off. When you look at his filmography. Stop it. Hangover. Stop it. Hangover 2. How dare you. Hangover 3. How dare you. How about, I mean.

I'm sorry, but you're leaving furry vengeance. That's a movie Angela and I did together right before Community. I can't believe you're saying this on mic. Look, I'm here as a humble day player talking about how I was Bill on email surveillance. I...

is go on record and say I really think Community Enemies is a great podcast. I'd be a good companion. That just happened. That just happened. Will you please do a rewatch of Community with Joel and call it Community Enemies. And just give each other s**t

Yeah. For like an hour. That is. Speaking of, I'm a really big fan of Community. And I remember that we would meet up at all the NBC events because we were on air at the same time. And you had such a funny group of people. And I loved the show. And I would be interested in hearing some behind-the-scenes banter about that.

Yeah, no, it was huge because I think the premiere, I think the first two episodes, I think we followed The Office just to survive on the air on NBC. Because, I mean, The Office, you know, Thursday nights on NBC was the flagship show. And so when we found out that we would,

it would air after The Office. We were always, you know, that was like the anchor for us. And it's funny how you think certain shows like The Office has helped other shows and then, you know, get on the air, stay on the air, and then give actors like myself and unfortunately Joel, you know, a career. And that's been, you know, I'm grateful for mine, you know, but the fans should be regretting Joel. I'm looking at Joel now.

And you can quote me on that. We will. We will. We're going to use that as our promo clip for this episode. Yes. All right. So before we were so rudely interrupted. I know. Before Joel McHale came in and he trashed our desk. He literally trashed. He dumped over a cup of pens. Yeah. He moved our coffee and our tea. I know. I was going to discuss my fast facts. Yes. Fact number one.

This is the first episode from writer Jen Salata. I love Jen Salata. Now, she will go on to write fan favorites such as Beach Games and Benihana Christmas and many more. She also directed several episodes, but this was her first episode as a writer, and we love Jen. One of my favorite memories of Jen, I think more than any other writer, is she would giggle behind the monitor. She would get so tickled.

It's not that it was easy to make her laugh. It was that she was ready to laugh. She was ready to love what you were doing. Mindy was like that, too, I have to say. I just loved her energy on set. I think that helps with the actors, right? Like, just give the performers the talent or confidence, you know? And Jenna's the type of person, because she's so earnest and sincere, that when she does laugh, it's like her whole body gives into it. It's just a sweet, wonderful thing to witness. It really is. It really is.

All right, fast fact number two. Do it. See, they're fast and they're fat. Oh, my God. I'm like slow-like Joe McHale. That's right. All right, we have two big guest stars for this episode. The first is Omi Vedia, who plays the IT specialist Sadiq. Now, he is also the star of this Bollywood movie called Three Idiots. It was a huge smash hit. Like, he's...

just gigantic star from this movie. And then he was also in our episode and our other guest star, Ken Jeong, who is in the room with us now. Well, well, Ken, I,

I did not know you when you got the part on The Office. We met years later. Right, right. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got the part? I used to be a doctor. I used to be a physician. But I really – I was auditioning just like during – like after work or during lunch. And then Allison Jones just took a liking to me and she got me an audition for The Office. And it was –

Keep in mind, I really had no screen credits when she brought me straight into producers. I still remember it vividly. It was an 05, and I had read in front of Jen Salata and Paul Feig, the director of the episode. And...

And I was a huge fan of Paul's from Freaks and Geeks, so I was already just geeking out in The Office. And I'm not saying it because you're my friends and because this is The Office, ladies. It was my favorite show on TV. So – and I'm just a huge BBC Office fan, so I just knew the show inside out and –

So it was really one of the first times, maybe the first time ever I was brought in for a producer's read with the director in the room. And it's funny now because a lot of people, and rightly so, attribute my acting as very over the top and very like on community, very, very just pushing it out and

it's very ironic. Like really, I think my breakthrough role was playing something very understated and with just maybe two lines. And I would basically whisper every line and I improvised a look to camera, even if it wasn't scripted. Nice. And I remember, I still remember where I go like, he told me he couldn't say, but he has a gun. And I just looked straight down the barrel and Paul Feig and Jen laughed so hard at this

Just tiny movement. That little choice. That little choice. And I still remember, like, Paul could not stop laughing. And whenever I see Paul, we still talk about it. And it's still – it's one of those things in an actor's life where sometimes, like –

I've forgotten years of working on community, probably because of Joel. But I remember every single minute of my maybe three hours on The Office. You know, it's just really – it's one of those things, and I'm sure you have that too in your careers, of you just remember your first time and you just know if it's not a watershed event, it's maybe your favorite event. And that's kind of what The Office means to me, yeah. Aw, I love that.

Oh, I love that. Wow. That's such a wonderful thing to share. I love that, Ken. Thank you. Very grateful. Well, I have some fan questions, if you don't mind answering, about your time in the scene. Jason P. asked, once you started shooting the scenes, how much of the improv was actually improv? That's a great question. To my memory, I remember we shot it a few times as scripted, just so we have it, and then

to see Steve Carell and actually, I believe Dee Ryan, who was also in that episode, was a Second City, you know, colleague. I knew Dee Ryan from ImprovOlympic and had performed with her in the Armando Diaz show. Wow. I knew Dee and Wyatt Snack was in that scene. Wyatt Snack, biggest star, Joe Nunez, who I've known. And then also Michael Naughton, who literally

Yes. He's a grand man. Get out. Yes. Okay, wait. So what did... Was there improv? After a couple of... I do remember after a couple of things where it was in the script, he was FBI agent Michael Scarnlake. As soon as the end, when we sit down for the post-mortem of the scene, Steve goes...

I'm sorry, but she was denying me in this whole scene. She was negating me this entire scene. That was not in the script. And they kept arguing back. And she goes, you know what? At least I'm not Jim Carrey all this. And he goes, thank you. And they just had this whole back and forth exchange for literally two minutes. And then she storms out of the room, out of the classroom.

And as if it was scripted, as soon as she had her back turned, Michael Scarn had the gun to the back where it, boom! And I was like, this is like my first big guest star moment or co-star moment. I'm like, I've just never seen this level of genius in my life on a set. It was this improv on top of an improv and –

That right there, I'll just never forget. I have another fan question. This is a weird one, but I have to say I noticed as well. Hannah Benson said, I did notice. Literally everyone in the improv scene has pit stains. Were they not allowed to have air conditionings?

real hot in there? Was it really hot? I mean, Steve. When you guys raise your hands, everyone has a pit stain. Steve has a huge one when he raises his hand. The women. I know. Even the women who usually sweat less. Ken is like laughing so hard. I don't remember any of that. Well, guys, you can go back and look at the episode. When everyone in the improv class raises their hand, it is sweat city. It is a sweaty day. Hannah Benson and Angela and I all noticed, but you don't

No. Terribly warm in the room. No, we shot that in the fall. I just remember it was cold. I had to wear – actually, the wardrobe that I had on the show, that was my own clothes. I believe that. Yeah. I wore my own clothes in the pilot.

Really? Wow. We were a shoestring budget at this time. Yeah, I had my own. I had a ski jacket on. That was my own jacket that I wore to set. I mean, everyone. I was such a greenhorn just not knowing anything. I had even gelled my own hair. You did your own hair. You came ready. I came ready. You showed up dressed and ready to shoot. I came ready like Tootsie, you know? It was like I had everything ready like, yeah.

It was – I was so green. I was so green. I had no idea. What was it like doing that scene with Steve? To this day, it's just something I'll never forget because he was coming out the 40-year-old virgin. And I'd literally just watched him in the movie theater the previous month. And so I'm sharing a scene with Steve.

The biggest star in comedy. You know, he really is a role model to me because he really is just a professional, elegant, classy actor who has no weakness in his game and, you know, either on or off screen. So he's just someone that I just really look up to.

so beautifully said. No, it really was. I mean, he is a role. He's a role model to me too, because it kind of what you're talking about, like you now in life, you are Steve Carell to other young actors who get paired with you. And I always remember, I look back on how Steve treated people. And I think that's how I want to be. If I'm ever in a position where I'm the Steve Carell of a moment, like not Steve Carell, but within a moment, like,

I want to behave like he did. I want to be generous and thoughtful and giving and...

and inviting of this actor who's brand new to the system. I remember talking to him. I had a short-lived sitcom on ABC for a couple years that I created and wrote. And I had run into Steve somewhere, and I'd asked him for advice. And he actually had said, you know, you can't go wrong with just leading by example. Just, hey, if you're not going to act difficult, then nobody's going to act difficult. I remember he told me that. And it was...

Yeah, and I remember thinking about that when, like you said, I had a moment. And I remember thinking to myself, if I work hard, everyone else will work hard. And thank you so much. Are you kidding? Thank you for having me. For coming in. Truly. Really, thank you. Cheers to you guys. Congrats on this. So generous of you to give us your time. The office was my favorite guest star appearance ever. And it's just amazing.

It really just helped jumpstart my career. So thank you. Well, listen, we were not on community, neither of us. But when you and Joel do Community Enemies, we will come on. Yes, you guys will be EPs. We'll just come in and – You'll be giving us notes. We'll storm your room. Yeah, you'll storm the room, give us notes. Hey, maybe a little bit of friendship could show up in this episode. I'm just going to come in and flip off Joel and dump his pins on his lap. Done. Done.

We're the anti-office, me and Joel. This is all class, fun, dignity, and then me and Joel are just like... Your intro can be, you know, we're going to give... Each week, we're going to watch an episode of Community, and we're going to give you all the behind-the-scenes info and trivia that only two people who hate one another can tell you. Yes.

We're going to tell you all the fights. Yeah. All of the. And do a deep dive. All of the tension. Do a deep dive critiquing each other's performance. Performance and lot in life. And like personal. Personal. Personal choices, not just professional. Like physical attacks. Yeah, physical attacks. I know. All right, Kim, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, guys. We're going to take a break and then we'll be back to break down the rest of this episode.

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Okay, we're back. We are back. Thank you, Ken Jeong. And not thank you, Joel McHale. Not thank you, Joel McHale. If you're tracking, and maybe you are, I hope you are.

that we did not do our third fast fact. We did not. And it's a special fast fact. It's special because Angela and I both found our journals. We found our journals that we wrote in after each episode, sometimes during an episode. Yeah. You guys, I have journaled for so long. I have, I found like in setting up my she shed, 12 journals. Oh my gosh, Angela. I had so much to say. I've been journaling

I've been journaling since I could write. I mean, I have journals about my crushes in second grade. I found a journal from college that is like, I'm like, who is this person? I'll tell you what, she was real hung up on a certain fella for a while. In this journal entry, I wrote about this exact episode of The Office. Here's what I wrote. Here's a gem. It rained for three days.

while we were shooting this episode. It takes five days to shoot an episode, and for three of the five days, it rained like downpour heavy rains, apparently. Torrential rain. I noted that our AD Richard had to wear a parka. He's the person who would knock on our trailer doors and get us to come from our trailers across the parking lot onto the stages. It was a little bit of a walk, you guys, and this parking lot would flood. There'd be huge puddles of water. Yes.

And I guess it really caused a problem for hair, makeup, and wardrobe because we would get ready outside in our trailers. And then by the time we got to set, we were drenched.

And I wrote all about it in my journal. I said that we had umbrellas. We each got an umbrella with our name on it. Remember that? Yeah. They would give her a little sticker so that we could keep track. I have to share with you that I often would misplace my umbrella and I would just take someone else's. Angela! And then I would hear Richard on the radio being like, has anyone seen John's umbrella? Anyone? I'd be like, it might be in my trailer. Yeah.

also noted speaking of John that John's birthday was the week that we shot this episode he turned 26 26 yeah oh my lord that's so young I know he and BJ and Mindy were all the youngsters I don't know because the rest of us were all in our 30s and beyond but they were still in their 20s wowzers okay so

I also wrote my journal. Now, I wrote about some things that happen at Jim's party and a few other places in the episode. I'm going to save those, Jenna. Okay. But I will tell you one thing I wrote about. Jenna, we carpooled to work this week.

When we were shooting this episode? Yes, I wrote that we had to go on location. We were very excited because Jim's party, his barbecue, happened at his apartment. And we got to drive to location. And I wrote that you and I carpooled. And we had the best time. I wrote, I was like, we chatted, we sang songs, and you know, we solved the world's problems. That's what I wrote. I do not remember that.

Yeah.

What did we sing, Jenna? What did we sing? I'd love to know. I wish I knew. Sounds of Scranton? Oh, I hope we sang Sounds of Scranton. All right. So let's get into this episode now. We're going to start breaking it down. It starts with the cold open. Yes. So Sadiq is coming to fix an IT problem, right? And Michael looks out his window. He sees him coming. He panics.

Because probably Michael has some growing immaturity to do about how he perceives others. That's how I'm going to say it. That's a good way to put it. He has some maturing to do. So anyway, he freaks out. He wants to turn off the lights and have everyone hide. But do you remember how we couldn't get it coordinated, Jenna? Like we couldn't turn off the lights at the right time. Yes. People should know that in this scene, when Michael runs over to shut off the light switches, those light switches do not actually operate the lights.

The lights are controlled by a grid and a guy who's in charge of them. And so what they would do is they would have someone on a radio who would see when Steve hit the light switch, and then they would radio, go. And then the light switch guy would actually turn off the lights. But...

It didn't always work. So sometimes Steve would hit the switch and the lights would just stay on. Or sometimes they would anticipate too quickly and the lights would go off before he hit the switch. Again, this is one of those moments where I'm like, thank God we didn't have to do any car chases or explosions. It's so true. It seems like the light switch was like really tricky for us. I have to ask you one thing. Okay, so Sadiq from IT is coming to help Michael, right? I just have to say this, Jenna, at 1 minute 26 seconds-

This actually, like, I thought about this for days after watching this episode. Michael says he tried to install the software himself, but it was password protected. Sadiq says that just means you have to enter your password. Does this mean that Sadiq didn't even have to come? If Michael had just entered 1234, that was on the post-it note, had he just entered that, the software would have installed?

I think that's what that means. So that is so, like, if you put that in perspective, Sadiq is probably like this idiot. All he had to do was enter the password I put on a Post-it note and tape to his desktop. It also feels like something that could have been solved with a phone call. Yes. Yes. He definitely did not need to come into the office and be subjected to Michael's cold open. No. Oh, my gosh. So...

At 1 minute 46 seconds, Dwight surprises Michael outside of his office, right? He's demanding to know why the IT guy is there. And of course, Michael doesn't want to tell him because it's going to be revealed that he's there to install software so that Michael can spy on everybody's emails. Right.

Well, I want you to look in the background of this scene. As Steve's coming out the door, he quickly shuts the door behind him. That's because Omi was not there on that day of filming. So he had to quickly shut the door. Yeah, Steve has to shimmy out and then shut the door behind him so that you won't see that the office is actually empty. Oh, look at you with your little behind-the-scenes nugget. Yes. All right, at 2 minutes, 14 seconds, Dwight,

lists off what could possibly happen to Michael so that he might take over the office. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Here are the things that could happen. Okay. Number one, brain aneurysm. Number two, getting hit by a car, a bus, or a train. Number three, poisoned, fall down a well, step on a mine. These are like Dwight has thought this out, you guys. This is what could happen and he'd have to do an immediate takeover. Immediate takeover. And Michael has that great line where he says-

you know what, Dwight? If I step on a mine in Scranton, Pennsylvania, you can have my job. He's so annoyed. Yeah. So the next big scene is kind of in the bullpen when Oscar confronts Michael about spying on everyone's emails. He does it in front of everyone. I loved it whenever Oscar confronted Michael in front of everyone. And he does this throughout the series. And it's just some of my favorite moments of the show. He is

able to take Michael to task like no one else. I think Stanley also does this from time to time, but Stanley is usually more under his breath, right? Like he's a little more to the side about it. Yeah. In this scene, Steve does this never-ending robot bit. Oscar's trying to get a word out and Steve just keeps doing the robot thing

I remember shooting that. So in the script, that was not supposed to go on for that long. That was supposed to just be like a quick little thing. But Steve really dragged it out. And that was an example, I think, of some of his just brilliant comedic timing. I honestly think that Steve would drag things out like that to see when he could get all of us to break. And we would break. We did break in that. He was a little seductive.

little sadistic that way. You'd be like, oh, you haven't broken yet? How about this? Yeah. How about this? Kinsey, I see you going. Just keep going until we fell apart. Well, right after this, then, we have the little aside. Well, the erasing begins, right? The erasing begins. And Dwight says to Angela, if you have any sensitive emails, they need to be deleted immediately. Pam overhears. She calls Jim over. She suspects that they might be a couple.

This is the first moment where we call out that Dwight and Angela might be together. Well, the first moment that anyone in the office has any idea, right? Yes. Yeah. Fan question from Kelsey McGrath. Angela, when did Angela and Rain find out that they were love interests? I mean, I'm not sure if Rain had any heads up before I did, but I found out at the table read.

Really? Yeah. When we sat down to read the script and Oscar- So no one warned you beforehand? No one warned me beforehand. I had no idea. And when we sat down at the table read and we read that their Birkenstocks were bumping, right? I was like, what? What?

Well, I remember there was an audible gasp in the room when we read that. There were times when we would do these table reads where people would be legitimately surprised by plot twists. And this was definitely one of them. This, when we found out Oscar was gay. Yes. Right? Yes. I mean, when we found out Jim and Pam were going to have a baby. Yes. I mean, there were these big moments, but I did not know. And I remember being like, oh, my God. And I definitely don't think...

a lot of the cast members knew because there were real reactions there. Yes. I also, I know we're going back a little bit, but I love that Kevin says he has to delete a lot. A lot. Gross, Kevin. What's going on over there? Pam has a talking head next. Oh, wait. Can I say one thing? Yeah. Jenna, just to go back to Jim and Pam's conversation about Dwight and Angela. Yeah. This happens at 4 minutes, 45 seconds. I want you guys to rewatch the scene again.

Pam is so grossed out. So is Jim. At the idea of Dwight and Angela, they're like, ugh. I'm just like, come on. What's wrong with that? Two people falling in love. Pam is like, ugh, I can't. We are a little over the top about it. They're so grossed out by it. I was like, jeez.

So Pam then goes and has a talking head where she says directly to the documentary film crew, if you see anything, let me know. Oh, yeah. She's like all chummy with the documentary crew. She full on invites them to help. I think this is the first time we see this person.

Moment where someone in the show speaks directly to the character of the documentarian. Right. Who we never see. Right. But yeah. Yeah, I think that Pam and Jim probably are the two people that engage with them the most. I mean, Michael, because he's a showboat, you know? Yeah.

But it's like Pam knows them. That's what it felt like in that moment. Yeah, like they're kind of friends or something. Yeah. All right. So something else in Pam's talking head. At 4 minutes, 57 seconds, I'm tracking the mail cart now. She is, you guys. She's become obsessed with the mail cart. I'm tracking Casual Fridays and the mail cart. And I want you all to know that Meredith comes over to the mail cart behind me during my talking head. Thank you. I'm applauding. I'm applauding Jonah's mail cart tracking. The mail cart got used. Yeah.

And then at five minutes, 12 seconds, there's just this interaction between Pam and Dwight that I love. I actually love Pam and Dwight scenes. They're some of my favorite. Yeah. You are often so like just exasperated by him. And it's one of my favorite things you do as Pam. She comes up to him. Pam's on the case. She's very excited. Detective Pam. She's like, Dwight. So my friend is kind of, you know, into these two girls. And Dwight's like, nice. And your face is like, oh, God. Yep.

At 5 minutes, 41 seconds, we find out that Dwight, as a volunteer sheriff...

goes through everyone's medical records. So that's great. Gross. Gross, Dwight. My gosh. All right, Jenna, I have a thing that I track. You know, it's called old tech. Oh, yeah. What's your old tech track? Guys, I think we should just call this the We Tracked It episode. We Tracked It. We're on the case. We're on the case. Much like Pam, we're on the case. I love me some old tech. And at 5 minutes, 57 seconds, you see the Evite.

And you see, it's like so outdated looking. If you go to Evite now, it's like, it looks like the old Evites of that day and age, if you will. This is the scene where Michael is discovering the Evite, uh,

And he learns that Jim is having a barbecue at his house and he is not invited. He's not invited. He sees the list of people who are invited. And he is sort of looking around. He's using his mouse, right? Yeah. And it all is so old looking. Super old graphic. Yeah. So next, Detective Pam walks up to Angela at the vending machine. Oh, you guys, this is like some of my favorite stuff. I also wrote about this in my journal. I wrote,

you guys, Jenna and I have a scene together. We're so excited. We did get so excited when we had scenes together. We were horrible because then we would just laugh and be idiots once we were in the scene. And they would take forever and people would get like really tired of us. It's true. But we were really excited about this scene. We were...

I ask Angela if she's bringing anyone to the party, and Angela says no. But then Angela buys an extra candy bar. Yeah. Two Baby Ruth bars. Evidence. Dun, dun, dun. Fan question. Michael and Kristen Mulligan want to know, why did you choose Baby Ruth for you and Dwight? Did you, Angela, the person, get to choose what the candy would be, or was it scripted? Usually, Phil Shea, our props guy, would give us a few options.

And they were options that had been cleared because for legal reasons, you have to make sure you can use logos and things like that. So they probably gave us a few options. I actually love Baby Ruth Bars. Yes.

So I guess I want, I'm sure I was like, oh, baby Ruth Barr. And thank goodness, I guess Fran agreed because he had to eat one too. No kidding. Yeah. So I think that's probably how it went down. I want to point out though, you guys, one of the things I love in this scene is that as Pam goes to pick something from the vending machine, I swat her hand away. And I'm like, excuse me. I love it whenever my character would just swat someone away. It's so dismissive.

It just made me laugh. Pam was probably going to buy some of her chips.

Her gross, smelly chips. Okay. Also, Angela, in this scene at six minutes, 47 seconds, there is a really great shot as you're bending down to get the snacks of your ponytail. I know it sounded like I was going to say something else. It's your ponytail. There's a great shot of your ponytail. It's a family show, lady. I know. Yes. You've got like hair wrapped around my own hair. Yeah. Describe it. Okay. This is a classic Kim Ferry thing where even

the ponytails were amazing. She would pull my hair back in this sort of severe ponytail, but then she would leave a big chunk of it out and she would wrap it around the ponytail holder so it looks like my own hair is holding up the ponytail. It's very polished looking. I know! And it's very Angela Martin to do this detail. It's very Angela Martin to do it, but I used to joke with Kim, I would be like, how

early does Angela get up to do these elaborate braids? And also, is she an octopus? Like, how does she get back there? How many, does she have like a mirror behind her head? Like, what does her bathroom look like? How does she do this? I

I have done that ponytail to myself. You have? Because I thought it was so genius. It is not that difficult to pull off. Really? And it looks really good. Well, I am crap with my own hair, so you might have to give me a tutorial. Well, guys, you should check it out if you're looking to spruce up your ponytail. Six minutes, 47 seconds. Fancy pony. Fancy pony. Great ponytail. Well, you know the scene in the kitchen where Steve, as Michael, is eating a cup of noodles? Yes.

And he's confronting the group. He's trying to get us to feel guilty and or invite him to this party that he's not been invited to. John and I had a massive, massive laughing fit during this lunch scene. So much so, you can see I'm eating some yogurt. So much so that I snorted the yogurt up into my nose, which is probably painful. It was a little burny.

Which then caused John to laugh so hard that he was crying. Yeah.

And it was just the two of us. The two of us were having a moment where we could not get it together. You couldn't get it back. You couldn't get it back. We couldn't. I don't know how they had any usable takes. I want you to know, I went and watched the season two bloopers. Okay. You guys, they're on YouTube, and it's really worth it. Can you see us losing it? There's bloopers of this scene, and it is...

It is hilarious. I was cracking up watching you guys. And also, Brian does break in one of them, too. But it's mostly you and John breaking. But the bloopers, the outtakes from this are fantastic. Oh, my gosh. I have to watch those because I...

That was just my memory. I just remembered when I saw the scene how much John and I couldn't stop laughing. Okay, well, look up season two, The Office Bloopers on YouTube because it's really funny. Also, did you notice that there is a community plate of Doritos on the table? Yes, on a paper plate. What's the story there? Someone bought Doritos, put a paper plate in the middle of the table, and then put the Doritos on the plate for us all to eat. I eat some. John eats some. What is that?

I think you guys just shared some Doritos. Yes, we did. I don't think it's that complicated. Have you ever done that in an office? Like when you're eating lunch with people, you're like, hey guys, who wants to split some Doritos? Oh my gosh, Oscar and I shared snacks all the time, Jenna. We would get a bag of chips and we'd share and we would get little paper cups and like split snacks into paper cups.

We also, like, at least once a week would share a Coke. I can't tell you how many times I would walk over to my desk and Oscar would be like, there's half a Coke for you. I'd be like, thanks. And some chips. I think that I'm a person who always wants a full Coke and a full bag of chips. So I have not experienced this thing you're talking about whatsoever.

Well, Oscar Nunez and I shared snacks and sodas every single week. That is adorable. That is adorable. In fact, sometimes I know I'm like going on and on about this. Sometimes one of us would get the Coke and start it, but the other wouldn't be ready. So we'd be like, I put the half Coke in the fridge for you. Like, okay.

So we would know. We'd sort of hide it in the back. This is absolutely adorable. Meanwhile, I'm just over at my desk chugging my full Coke. Your full soda. I had a question for you about this scene. Okay. At 7 minutes, 48 seconds, Pam says, the professors would go to the parties? And Michael goes, yeah, they were the most fun.

Jenna, how did you get through that line? I know you said you were laughing a lot. But like... I didn't get through any line in that scene. That line would be so hard for me to say because it's coming off of him being so ridiculous. Also, the whole time he's eating those dang noodles. So I just...

It was, I have to go back. I want to watch the deleted. Well, what is it? The bloopers. You got to watch the bloopers. At eight minutes, two seconds, you guys, we find out what Jim thinks are the three ingredients for a great party. Number one, three cases of imported beer. Number two, karaoke machine. Number three, do not invite Michael. Yeah. I mean, he's probably not wrong. All right. At eight minutes, 25 seconds, the camera crew helps Pam.

I know. The camera rushes over to her desk and indicates that she should look over to Dwight, who she discovers is eating a Baby Ruth bar, the one that Angela bought. That's right. I have that you are in cahoots. In cahoots. Pam and the cameraman are in cahoots. So first, Pam takes the step of talking directly to the camera crew, and now the camera crew has gotten involved. That's a big deal. I'm surprised that we did this so early in the series because

when I was watching this, we're not that far in for us to be involving the crew like this. People should know that our camera operator was Randall Einhorn. He's also our DP. He went on to direct a bunch of episodes. Mm-hmm.

And I had a really special relationship with Randall. And I remember filming the scene with him. He was really performing for me. He would come over and he'd have a big smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. And he would motion over. He would give me a little thumbs up. So all this interaction was happening. I felt like we were really performing together. And he was playing the character of the camera person. So I just have really fond memories of working with Randall in general.

When Pam would have really emotional scenes, sometimes I would look at him and he would be teared up. No, he's got a big heart and he wears it on his sleeve. And we all got really attached to Randall. And I just think of him as sort of this very charming blue-eyed Terminator. Yeah. Because you guys, you only ever see one of his eyeballs. Yeah.

Because the other eyeball is looking through the lens. The little eyepiece. Yeah. So you see this one blue eye emoting emotion. And you're like, aw, you're like the friendly Terminator. The friendly Terminator. At 9 minutes, 29 seconds, you guys, oh, Jim, you just break my heart all the time.

But he's trying to be sly. He's trying to do that thing where he figures out, is Roy going to come? But he's trying to play it cool. So he's like, yeah, I just, you know, I just need a head count. Yeah. Is Roy going to be there tonight? You know why? It's just because I need to know how many burgers to make. Yeah. I mean, this is the subtext, right? It's nothing else. It's not because I love you and I want you to be in my apartment without your fiancé. Yeah. Wait, is he? Yeah, he's still your fiancé. He is. I know. It's hard to remember, right? Yeah.

Fan question from Juan Martinez. Was Roy really unable to attend the party or did Pam ditch him so she could hang out with Jim? I don't think she ditched him and I don't think she lied to him. Yeah. I think Pam was just as excited that Roy couldn't attend as Jim is. Yeah, I think Roy probably has some dude hangout. He's very kind of a dude dude, right? Yeah.

Yeah. He probably has his thing. And also, Roy wouldn't want to go. I was going to say the last thing Roy wants to do is hang out with any of the Dunder Mifflin employees. He's sort of over it. They have to do enough of that probably for him. So he was, I think, happy to sit this one out. And Pam was like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. And so was Jim. I'm like totally making this up.

But maybe Pam waited kind of till the last minute to tell Roy about the party so that it would be less likely that he could attend. Like, I could see her maybe...

doing that. And I could see her downplaying it like, oh, you know, I don't know. It's the thing I have to go to. Everyone's going. Yes. A hundred percent. It's going to be lame. You know what? If you don't want to go, you don't have to. Yeah, it's fine. I'll go because I feel like I have to, but I don't want you to have to change your plan. I totally get it. I totally get it if you don't want to go. It's okay. This is a hundred percent how that went down, I believe. Yes. All right. So now

Everyone's trying to get out of the office and they're trying to avoid Michael because they all know he's not invited. So people are making up excuses to not hang out with him that night. And Angela, you have a great one. You say charity, bake, drive,

Oh, yeah. I'm sure my character's like horrible at lying. Horrible. Well, a lot of people wrote in to ask if our excuses were scripted or improvised. Angela, was yours scripted or improvised? Mine is a combo. So my scripted line was charity, bake, drive. And then Michael's scripted line was liar. And then Steve improvised, you are a liar. And then I improvised, no, I'm not, as I left. Okay.

And I didn't even look back. And it stayed in. And I think it's great because that's exactly how my character, I think, would have responded. Yes. I just love that Dwight says he has soccer and clarinet practice. Yes. Yes.

I feel like sometimes, I mean, you know, we have young children and sometimes when they're bad at lying, they just sort of list what their activities are. So I sort of feel like Dwight probably growing up had clarinet and soccer practice and he just went to default. Also, as Dwight leaves, he says, see you Monday, Michael. Casual Friday tracker coming at you. No one's dressed casual. No. It's clearly a Friday because he says, see you Monday. Mm-hmm.

None of us are dressed casually, even though we're going to a barbecue after work. Well, people are going to change clothes. Don't you think they're going to go home and freshen up? I don't want to. Listen, it's still not casual Friday. I get it. I get it. We still set up in a previous episode that we have casual Fridays. And yet here it is, a Friday, and none of us are dressed casually. No, you're right. You're right. I'm going to stay on this. Okay. I think you stay on it. Don't worry, everybody. I'm on it. I'm on the mail cart. I'm on casual Friday.

And we will continue to track Mindy's hair. Don't anyone lose sleep over it. We're on it. Oh, I'm, as you know, obsessed with Mindy's hair. I'm obsessed. I have one thing to say before we go to the party. Yeah. And again, this was like the Sadiq moment in the cold open for me. It's something I thought probably way too much about. Wouldn't Jim have known that Michael saw the Evite?

This is the day he gets access to everyone's emails. Jim clearly sent it to everyone's work email. Yeah. Wouldn't he have known? He knows Michael knows, right?

Well, he knows Michael knows by the way Michael is behaving. But you're saying as soon as he got access to the emails, the first thought Jim would have would be, oh, no. The Evite's there. The Evite's sitting in everyone's email. He's going to know. Well, similarly, how did we get all the way to the day of the party before Dwight thinks to mention the party to Michael? There's that scene where...

Dwight starts bringing up the party and Jim shushes him. And he's like, no, no, no, don't say anything. You're telling me, I mean, when did he send out the e-vite? At least a week ago. In that whole week, he didn't have to like keep the shush on Dwight? That didn't bump me as much because I feel like, I don't know. I know, I feel like, listen, guys, this isn't all dudes. But I know from my experience with fellas, they probably aren't going to think about the party till the day of. You know, they're not like, it's not like Dwight is like,

thinking about this party every day. He's got, you know, he's busy. He's busy. He's managing a secret relationship with Angela. Yeah, he's tracking yeast infections in Scranton. Yeah, he's got a lot going on. He's got a lot going on. All right, fair enough. All right, guys, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to a party, a barbecue at Jim's house. We're going to tell you all about it.

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Do you want to lay them out? I don't want to rush you. She's back. She got some food and the sass is back. You guys, before we went to break, Jenna was getting a little lightheaded because she's really hungry. Yeah. So if you notice a tonal shift in this last part of the podcast, it's because we took an actual break during our break and we ate a full lunch. We ate. Jenna and I eat lunch together and it kind of reminds me of how we had lunch every day on the side of the office. I know. I love it.

I love it so much.

And I said, and now I do this podcast with Angela, and we laugh the same way when we do the podcast and when we edit the podcast. And we eat lunch the same way, and now I'm tearing up because we just had one of our lunches. Yeah, that lunch in particular, Jenna, was a good one. And it really reminded me, we navigated nine years of our lives. A lot happened to both of us. Yeah.

we shared a lot at lunch. And some days it was just little tiny things. And then some days we had huge heart to hearts. And Jenna and I just now had a really pretty big heart to heart. Those lunches were like, sometimes they're like a therapy session. They're better than a therapy session because it's your BFF. It's your BFF. That's right. All right. We're back, guys. We're full of

Okay. And I'm going to start with a fan question. Do it. How about that? From Rob Fish. Okay. He says, whose house was used for Jim's barbecue? Because that's right. We're go to this barbecue at Jim's house. So for the house, we shot in a real neighborhood in Northern California. It wasn't a set. It wasn't a set.

And we had to have really unusual shooting hours because it was a night shoot and there was really nighttime outside of the windows. So we usually would shoot from like 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. when we were shooting at Dunder Mifflin. But here we were really shooting more in the evening. Now, if they were shooting into the house, it didn't matter what was outside. They could black out the windows. But for all those shots outside, it was really night. And some nights we stayed past 10 p.m. And you remember we'd get a

We would get a little loopy as of 9 p.m. And this was the first time where we shot offset, like really offset since the Dundies. And we always had a lot of fun when we would do that. Yeah. And also, I remember there wasn't really like a place between scenes for you to go. No. I don't remember our trailers being there. No. I think they couldn't park them in the neighborhood. They were far away, so they would shuttle us in. And so in between scenes, we just really all hung out. Kind of.

In that little living room, kind of. Totally. This leads me to a fan question by Rufio. He said, when you had to go to the bathroom, did you use the actual bathroom in the house or did you go off set?

Because a lot of times you shoot in houses and they'll tape the toilet closed and put a little sign on it and it says, do not use. And you have to go outside. They have like those porta potty things outside. Or they'll rent the house next door and that becomes a holding area for everyone. Yeah. And maybe you can pee in the holding house. I peed in John and Jim's house. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Well, I don't remember the toilet being taped shut. I remember them saying that I could go. And I, like, you know, quickly, I used, there was like a hall bathroom or something. Well, sometimes they would let cast members use the bathrooms in the house, but then they would have porta-potties for the crew, which I always thought was kind of lousy. Well, I know one time it was explained to me by an AD because I was like, well, wait, where's the bathroom everyone's using? And she said to me that they could not afford for us to go too far away.

Oh, that makes sense. And so they often would have a bathroom for the actors a little bit closer. Yeah. Just purely because of timing. Yeah. So just know that so you don't feel as bad. So I don't feel so guilty. Yeah. But it's true. Like you said, our actual trailers were probably a 15-minute van ride away. So they had to create a way for us to go to the bathroom that was a little closer to the set. Yeah.

All right. So when we all get to the party, Jim takes everyone on a tour of his house. Before we go on the tour. Tell me. There is something that I just love little things like this. Did you notice everyone's party attire? Wait. Yes. I have that.

I have that here, too. Can we talk about everyone's casual clothes? Yes. Meredith is dressed like a biker gal with, like, a smoky eye. I have a whole card just for Meredith. Okay. Okay. She has a denim vest. She has a black v-neck.

shows a little bit of midriff. Yeah. Her hair is half up, half down. Oh, boy. She has some very dark, smoky eyeliner and jeans. She looks a little bit like she's ready to go party. It is such a striking difference, I thought, of everybody's, the difference between everybody's casual outfit and their work outfit. The most striking is Meredith. Mm-hmm. For sure. Like, because she wears, like, corduroy jumpers. Oh, yeah. To the office. She dresses kind of like

Kind of like a Raggedy Ann doll. She looks like she's in a potato sack and her hair down, but clearly Party Meredith comes to play. She does.

What about Kevin's hat? Oh, his black. Is it like a fedora hat? Is it? What is that called? It's not a fedora, but it's like a, right? He looks like an old timey, like gangster in like a 1920s movie, right? And he wears it all the time when he's in his band. Yeah, he does. Scrantonicity. Yeah. This is clearly, you know, casually, Kevin has his hat. His go-to look. And Kevin's fiance's there too. Yes. A lot of people asked who,

Who's the blonde woman at the party? Who's the blonde woman at the party? It's Stacey. Stacey. It's Kevin's fiance. And also, you notice Stanley's wife is there as well. She's the brunette woman sitting on the couch next to Stanley. Yes. All right. What about the fact that Phyllis is still dressed in purple?

Yes. She only wears plum, purple, lavender. Very committed to that. What about the fact that Dwight has on Birkenstocks and says that he keeps an extra pair in his car? That's interesting. They look very new. I notice it's an important thing that we establish the shoes that both you and Dwight are wearing in this episode. Later on, you're going to be at the barbecue with Jim, and you're going to complain about getting sap.

I just have so much to complain about. I stepped in sap. I'm a vegetarian. But the whole

And the whole reason they had to write the line that you stepped in sap is so that we can pan down to your shoes because making sure we know what shoes you guys are each wearing is going to become very important later. It is. It is. Paul Feig said, are you ready to bump some Birkenstocks? Hey! Bumping Birkenstocks. That's right. All right. So I want to talk about Jim taking everyone on the tour of his house. Okay. He's so excited. Pam has arrived. She doesn't even have her coat off and he's ready to take her on this tour. Yeah.

And as they're walking down the hallway, first of all, just a side note, as they're walking down the hallway, Jim has a painted circular saw hanging on his wall. Mm-hmm.

That's popular. I mean, my mom has a painted circular saw. My grandfather was really into that. And we have a few saws that are painted. Well, okay, I have seen the long saws painted, sort of like a long landscape. But I have so many questions about that. I have. Is that popular on the East Coast? Because...

You know, being from Missouri and spending a lot of time in Lake Ozark, I've seen plenty of painted saws, but I just wasn't sure where Jim in Scranton, Pennsylvania...

Maybe it was a hand-me-down from a family member because I was given a painted circular saw. Okay. And I had it in my hallway. Okay. And I hung it myself. I sort of like, I sort of balanced it on two nails. Yeah. And I had a friend who was like kind of clumping through my hallway and it fell off. Oh, dear. And they were like, are you trying to kill me? Yeah.

Because I didn't do a great job hanging it. But there you go. Well, I thought it was very interesting. So you can check that out, people who like things in the background. Yeah. So anyway, as they're walking up the steps after they've passed by the saw, Ryan asks if Katie is coming. And this is when we learn that Jim and Katie aren't dating anymore. He said, I haven't talked to her in a while. I know. But fan question from Christina Velodata says,

Ryan asks about Katie. Jim says he hasn't talked to her in a while, so it sounds like they've broken up, but then she's on booze cruise. I think they're on again, off again, because then Ryan in the same conversation says, do you mind if I ask her out? And Jim goes, maybe we won't talk about that right here. Right? He says something like that. Right. So he kind of skirts around the issue. To me, that answer is no, Ryan, no.

Like, don't call her. Like, he didn't say, sure, man, go ahead. Well, when I heard him say that, I interpreted that as being him trying to just protect Katie from Ryan. He might have. Not like I have such strong feelings for her that I don't want you to call her, but more like, um, no, I don't know. I read it as like, uh, yeah, I don't really know what's going on there. And I don't really want to talk about it in front of Pam, but I certainly don't want you asking her out.

Okay. I buy that. Okay. All right. So also here's another fan question, this time from Latamania, who we have heard from before. And by the way, I did look at Latamania's Insta page, and she does amazing fan art of The Office. Oh, I'll check it out. So I'm just going to give a shout out. Guys, go check out Latamania for some amazing Office fan art. How do you spell that, Latamania? It's L-A-D-A-M-A-N-I-A. Okay. We'll check it out. Okay. Okay.

She asked, why does Jim have two of the same poster in his place? This was such a good find. Okay. So around 13 minutes, 14 seconds after the circular saw, they pass by just a pretty generic looking kind of poster.

framed poster picture on the wall. When they get up to Jim's bedroom, the same picture is hanging above one of his bookshelves. Clearly, as we've mentioned, we were on a budget and we ran out of decor. I think they just moved it when they shot it. They moved it. I think they moved it, which I think is very, very funny. There might have been something on the wall they need to cover. Okay, so at this point in the show, we cut from the party back to...

The improv class. Yes. And we're going to see Michael in the improv class for the first time. It's real. He wasn't lying. He really has to go to his improv class. And this is when you find out...

That Michael just gets out a gun and shoots everybody in every scene he does. Yeah. It's brilliant. He's the worst. He's the worst person to improvise with. And he thinks he's hilarious. And the scene when the teacher says, Michael, I want you to give me all the guns you have. Yeah. Is so great. I tried to reach out to Michael Naughton because I did a sketch show with him years ago called Balls Out. Amazing. And he is such a funny guy.

guy. And he played the teacher, right? He played the teacher, Chris. He performs at the Groundlings. You can see him there if you're in Los Angeles. He's also done tons of episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Oh, yeah. So you might recognize him from other things. He's a hilarious actor, but he's currently main stage company at the Groundlings as well. I wonder if people at home understand the genius satire of this improv class. Like as an improviser, were you just dying when you were watching this? I wanted to be in the improv class. I know it wouldn't track for my character, but I was like, oh. And I knew

I knew a bunch of those people and they're such funny, funny people. So now we go back to the party for the scene. The scene. Pam is alone in Jim's bedroom. I have so much to say about this because the preparation that went in to any scene with Jim and Pam, it would bring production to a halt. It really would. They were so...

concerned about getting these scenes right. When Jim and I would have to get in a fight, or if we had to have these moments up on the roof in this bedroom, and we would spend so much time on these. So... It's true. As a cast member... I'm so sorry. When we would see that there was a big pivotal Jim and Pam scene, we'd be like, oh God, are you before it or after it? Oh no. I feel like Phyllis would bring in all of her bills to pay. She'd be like, I'm bringing... I need stuff to do. But

buckle in. We're going to be here a while. Because they're going to just really indulge. Once I became a mom, I didn't mind it. When I saw you guys had a big scene, I'd be like, oh, that means I'm going to go visit my daughter at preschool. Yeah. You'd be like, can I come back for three hours? I have a three-hour break. Well, just know that it was always so important to us to get it right. And I remember having long conversations about this scene. So the words that are written in the scene are of no importance.

We discussed that what was important was that everything we're not saying, the subtext of the scene. This is all about Pam being in Jim's bedroom and sitting on his bed. We had to make sure that we very naturally found a way for Pam to sit on his bed. And she couldn't just walk in the room and sit on the bed. So she had to start by sitting on his night table.

And then we had to put the yearbook in exactly the right place so that when she went to grab it, she would most naturally then sit on his bed. And as I was watching this,

It brought me back to all of those moments early on in dating and in college or whatever when you walk into that person's bedroom for the first time. And you've thought about it for a long time. You've thought about it like, where do they sleep? What does that look like? This is their most intimate room in their house. And...

And John is so perfect. If you notice, as soon as Pam sits down on the bed, John starts shifting in his desk chair. And he looks at her and he immediately looks away. Like the fact that she's just sat on his bed, it's almost too much for him. Not only is this woman he's in love with in his room.

But now she is in this intimate place where she's sitting across from him on his bed, as he has probably hoped and thought about for a long, long time. And here's what I love about our show. And I think that this is why people are in love with Jim and Pam and why they respond to them so well, is because a lot of times in movies and television shows, when people quote unquote fall in love or you have the couple that is going to fall in love,

it seems to kind of be like a lot about sex, right? Like they meet at a bar and then they burst through the door ripping each other's clothes off. That never happens really, right? Like that's not really real. Jim and Pam, this moment of them just being in this bedroom,

Not kissing, not touching, not talking about this stolen moment is more romantic and sexy than that burst through the door ripping each other's clothes off, in my opinion. Well, the stakes are so high. And that's real life. When you really like someone, it's like you can feel your heart beating out of your chest the first time you see them.

What? What?

My character always carried this little black clutch, you know, and it's there on the bed with like a coat. That's what I love too. It's like, it's that thing you go into someone's house when you're in college or even in your 20s starting out, you're like, oh, you know, you go to a party, there's that one guest room or someone's bedroom. Where you throw your coat on the bed. Where you throw your coat. Yes. There's some coats in my bedroom.

purse. I thought it was such a nice touch. Oh, I love that. Looked like a little black clutch. That's my purse, Angela Martin's purse. That's a great detail. Well, I remember in addition to the scene, they spent a lot of time planning Jim's bedroom because it was going to be very revealing. And so our set decorator, Michael Gallenberg, he's our set designer, he was in charge of

Decorating this room under the direction of Paul Feig and Greg Daniels and Jen Salata, who wrote the episode. Fan question, Ricky Caden, or Caden, and Zach McCutcheon both wrote in separately, how much of the stuff in Jim's room was actually John Krasinski's? None. None. Except...

Fan question from Lulu, Katrina, Michael Kemper, and many others. Was that really John Krasinski's yearbook photo? Yes. Yes. Not his yearbook. They made a fake yearbook page where they superimposed his actual yearbook photo.

But there's a lot of interesting stuff in that room. All right, background folks. There's a lot of wonderful little nuggets in Jim's room. I'm sure you noticed. I know I'm probably going to have missed some, but here are some. He has a guitar. Of course he does. Okay, of course he does, but why of course? I don't know. Have we ever seen him play?

play a guitar. I don't know, but I feel like all the guys that I thought were cool in my 20s had a guitar. Well, I get that. They hardly even played. Well, a fan, KelseyVZ7, pointed out that in a later episode, you know when Jim is playing Second Life? His avatar has a guitar slung over his shoulder.

So there's something in Jim that either wishes he played guitar or thought it was cool to play. But we never see him play it, right? No. Correct us, guys, if we're wrong. I don't think we ever see Jim bust out a guitar. He never takes the stage with Scrantonicity. No. No. There's a lava lamp. There's the favor poster.

On his bulletin board. Oh, boy. Okay, I want you to know, we hadn't even released an episode yet. A fan wrote in to me and said, look at Jim's bulletin board. Is that a voodoo doll of Roy? Yes, he has a doll hanging by a noose. Mm-hmm.

In what looks like a warehouse shirt. This is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah. We had another fan write in, Alston Brown, who said, was Jim the Scranton Strangler? This was perhaps evidence. Yes. What is that? Now, listen, I reached out to Michael Gallenberg to ask him about that.

He's on vacation. He's on vacation. We'll have to get it as a follow-up question. We will, because I would love to find out who put that on the corkboard. Yeah, we'll have to put that in our candy bag. Yeah. Also, there's like some kind of sketch of a motorcycle. It looks like a printout. Like what does...

Does Jim... Jim is starting to sound a little bit like a cliche. He has a guitar. He has maybe a motorcycle he wants. Who knows? There's also... It looks like a card. It says son, like maybe his parents. Aw. I know. Did you see that? It was so sweet. There's some photos. There is a little like plaque that says making sense. Okay. What? There's a penguin on his desk.

I do love when you pan across over to Pam, you see his CD player. These are the tech moments that kind of date us. And then he does take work home a little bit because there's a Dunder Mifflin catalog on his desk. Wow.

That's good stuff. And I'm sure there's more I missed, so you guys write in. So now we go back downstairs to the party. Party's going. Everyone's having beer. Now, Omi, who played the IT guy, who's also at the party, he gave an interview where he said that we were drinking real beer.

I don't remember that. And I wrote it on a card, Jenna. I did not drink real beer. I didn't either. Well, I hate beer. So I had a beer bottle filled with water. So I don't remember that either. Yeah, I don't remember any real beer. No. That feels like it would be unusual for our group. Yeah. We weren't that kind of group. I had water. I know that. Okay. In my beer. Alright.

All right. And that's why I said, well, Jesus drank wine. You know, I'm sort of trying to justify it, I guess. But mine was water. Yeah. He did also say in the same interview that they were playing the Xbox 360 and it had games that hadn't been released yet. I remember that. The guys were so excited. They were so excited. That I do remember. But the beer, I don't remember. Okay. Did you notice in the kitchen scene with Kelly, Oscar, and Stanley, where they're talking about paper, I can see it. Kelly's hair is half up, half down. But she's still...

Paisley top. But she is more Mindy. She's like. Oh, she's 100% Mindy. She's now fully Mindy. But. She is. Her wardrobe hasn't caught up. Okay. I feel like at this point her hair has become unfussed. It's, you know, we're not doing that anymore. But now I kind of want to start tracking her wardrobe. Okay, Jenna. Okay. Because I feel like the hair has come down now enough times. I want to see when the wardrobe changes.

There is also a scene during the party that I love because it's just one of these things I love about our show. What? It is a runner. I love a runner that carries over multiple episodes for many years, and Kevin calls Ryan fire guy. Yes. You know? And I just love that. It's stuck. I like that, too. So when the karaoke machine gets going, Phyllis is singing karaoke. It was so sweet. Yeah.

Phyllis was so charming. Do you remember filming that? I do. And I wrote about it in my journal. You really journaled hard on this episode. This was a big journal episode for me. I guess so. Okay. I wrote this. Oh, my gosh. When Phyllis had to do the karaoke scene, we were all losing it. We started laughing so hard. First of all, she had to sing White Snake's Here I Go Again. And she had never even heard of White Snake. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

The production staff got her a copy of the song and she walked around for days listening to it and practicing. She was so cute and she was really nervous, but I thought she was brilliant. That is amazing. I love this image of Phyllis walking around listening to Whitesnake. Incidentally, that album was the first...

record album I ever bought, like actual record album as a teenager was White Snake. And I would listen to it all the time. My first tape cassette I ever bought was REO Speedwagon. Oh. Oh.

Heard it from a friend who heard it from another you've been messing around. Okay, we can't sing anymore. Okay, we can't sing. We can't pay for that. Also, no one wants to hear that. Also, no one wants to hear that. But imagine sweet, adorable Phyllis walking around. Here I go again on my own. With like a headset on. Well, do you remember that music video? Oh, Scammy?

All over the hood of the car. The redheaded lady. Yeah. Just crazy. She did the splits. On a car. Car. On a muscle car. In a dress. Yeah. Okay. You know what? No judgment. Feel yourself. Do it. Now, tell me...

When do you go outside with Dwight? There's a moment where I slip outside, no one notices. And then if you're watching the scene inside, I'm in it on the couch. Yeah. Right? Well, when Michael crashes the party, you're inside, right? I'm inside. That's right. And then all of a sudden, as the party gets going, you don't see me or Dwight. Well, this is what's a little curious for me because Michael crashes the party and

And you're inside. Mm-hmm. And then he starts singing... Islands in the Stream. A duet. Mm-hmm. Jim saves him, which is very charming. And then I just need to point out, by the way, Steve starts to harmonize, like, real well. I know. In that song. I know. It's really pretty great. It's great.

But I also want to point out that when he crashes the party, Jim and Pam are always sitting next to each other at the party. They are. If you track us, we're on some chairs, then we're on the couch together. We are making sure to maximize this party for like maximum next to each other time. You're sitting next to each other. The other thing I noticed throughout the party is that Jim's roommate and his girlfriend are all over each other. They're constantly making out. They're making out or she's sitting on his lap or she has a leg like over his leg. Yeah.

And to say, those two people did not know each other before they started filming. And I mean, what is that job? How do you get, I mean, I would feel so shy if I was, that was my job. I was like, hi, nice to meet you. I guess we're just gonna hang on to each other all day for tonight while we shoot this thing. Back to the scene, Steve and John as Jim and Michael are harmonizing Islands in the Stream. And then in the background...

We go over their shoulder and we slowly push in on Angela's feet and Dwight's feet bumping the Birkenstocks. All right, let's break down this scene for a second. I have to tell you some behind the scenes. Okay, I have some fan questions as well. Well, ask them. Perhaps they'll lead you in. Maybe they're part of my note cards. Well, this is not a fan question. This is a me question.

What are you in? Is it a shed? Is it a doghouse? It seems too small to be a shed and too large to be a doghouse. What is it? It looked like a giant dollhouse that people would buy for their little girl. There was like a ramp of steps that went up to it. It looked like someone had bought this for their little girl to play in, like a fancy dollhouse. Yeah. Well, Angela, I have a fan question now. A-Town and Nat Attack and Brooklyn Jade all want to know,

Was that really Rain and Angela making out or were they just random stunt people wearing the same shoes? And if it was them, did they talk? How did they make it not weird? I mean, yeah, I think we all just want to know. Okay. How did that go down? All right. Okay. So of course it's weird. It's totally weird. It was Rain and I. We did not kiss, guys. We did not make out. In fact, it was really cold out in that dollhouse. So I had on a big thick coat. I had hand warmers.

But they did want to see our Birkenstocks, a bump in. It was a little tricky because we had to time it out perfectly. And we tried different positions of our feet. Here's the thing. Rainn Wilson is 6'3". I am 5'1". So my feet did not hang out of the dollhouse. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, if your bodies were positioned so that you could actually be kissing one another, we would never see your feet. No, no. So we tried our feet in a few different positions so the camera could see them both. We were laying side by side, kind of flipping our feet back and forth. And Paul Feig was like, you guys kind of look like you're doing a sad breaststroke swim or something. He was like, I don't know what you're doing. It looks like you're swimming. So he was like, all right, how do I say this? This is somewhat awkward, Angela, but...

I think you need to lay on your back and straddle rain. I was like, what? And he said, yeah. He said, I'd love to see your little feet wrap around his calves and rub back and forth. In order for me to do this, you guys...

My face was in his chest for you to see my feet. Were you like suffocating? Kind of. I'm imagining like how are you breathing? Rain was also doing sort of like this painful kind of plank move. So he didn't crush you? So he didn't crush me so I could breathe.

do I wrap my feet around his calf? It's kind of awkward. You know why? Your ankles don't bend that way. Your shins don't bend that way. So I was doing this weird on action. Rain would roll over on top of me, do his weird plank move. And one take, it kind of took a long time. He started to shake a little. Oh, dear. All I will say is, Rain, you're a very strong guy, but planking does take a toll on people. Take after take. We did a bunch of takes. Yeah.

Also, my feet were like in this weird position. So we did this every take. And in between takes, we would roll on our backs side by side. We would have these really deep conversations. It was just one of those surreal moments where we were doing the most ridiculously silly thing. And then in between, we talked about like,

I feel like this is the moment where I really became friends with Rain because we talked about where we grew up and our childhoods and like what we believed in and just really had this really huge heart to heart in between this plank straddle foot rubbing of the calf. I did write about this in my journal as well. Okay. And I just said that I was really glad they weren't rolling sound out there. We weren't miked because I was giggling so much whenever we had to rub feet.

Aw. So that kind of is the end of the episode. That ends the episode. There's a little tag where we go back to the improv class. It's a little bit of a flashback. I think that they just loved this monologue, this talking head that Steve gives so much that they had to include it at the end of the episode. But I don't know if you remember this, Angela, that last night when we shot, we stayed till after midnight. It was a really late night. And I also wrote this in my journal.

I said, Steve ordered pizzas for the cast and crew. And we all had like a little bitty, like kind of, I guess, mini party after the party. He ordered Baroni's pizza. Yeah, his favorite. His favorite. It was so good. And that was really cool. I love that we kept journals. Women in our 30s journaling. Yeah.

We were 80 when we were 30. We're almost to our appropriate age. I think so. All right, guys. Thank you so much. We cannot wait. Next week is the Christmas episode. The first Christmas episode. And we have a lot to say. Yankee swap. Thank you so much, Ken Jeong. Joel McHale, not so much. And we'll see you next week. Bye.

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies Second Drink. This episode was initially created in collaboration with Earwolf. Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins and our audio engineer and associate producer is Daniela Silva. Odyssey's executive producers are Jenna Wise-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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