I'm Jenna Fischer, and I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on the office together and we're best friends and now we're doing the ultimate office rewash 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 where the office ladies. It is season for season four, Holy gold. I come early, it's fun run, it's fun. Run part one. That's right, because Fun Run was an hour long episode.

So once again, we're going to break it down into two parts. Today is fun. Run part one. Written by Greg Daniels, directed by Greg Daniels, so much happens in front run, it needs to be two episodes. It really does. Oh, for sure.

For sure. Here is a summary of just part one. Yeah, read it. Yeah, let's. OK, Michael accidentally hits Merideth with his car and breaks her pelvis.

There's so much there already. Already. He gets the whole gang to visit her in the hospital and later discovers she may also have rabies.

Angela asked Dwight to give medicine to her cat sprinkles while she visits Meredith in the hospital, but when Dwight returns, he announces that Sprinkles is dead and he put sprinkles in the freezer in the freezer.

Also, your television was on.

My television was on and Sprinkles is in the freezer.

Meanwhile, everyone wants to know if Jim and Pam are dating. They insist they're not. They say they're just friends. But Kevin is not convinced. Kevin really has a bee in his bonnet about it. Yeah.

Why does Kevin care so much? I don't know.

He's obsessed because this episode begins so dramatically. We felt like we needed to speak with the woman at the center of this episode.

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

So, guys, Kate chatted with us. Sam, will you play the interview?

Kate Flannery is here today, you guys with her tiny teacup? Hi, Kate, how are you? How are you guys doing? It's nice to see you. We have to get a picture of you with that teacup. Cody, will you take a picture?

Not tiny. It's a regular sized teacup. What's tiny about that? I don't believe you. It looks tiny.

It's a regular. Oh, my gosh. And you have a little cup and saucer here. I do, guys. Kate Flannery is one of the classiest gals. Her home is spectacular. It is decorated like it's out of Architectural Digest. It is. Every little thing is amazing. And I am not surprised at all that you look so put together and you're having your tea in a proper cup and saucer.

Oh, my gosh. Wait, sorry. My phone caught you calling me. Just getting a call. Sorry. Take it on air. Take it on air. Who is it. Let's talk to them. I think it was a potential spam so I hung up on them.

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

I'm sorry you guys. I can't. It's so good to see you. Don't we spent every day together for nine years.

I know. Oh my God. I know. It was so much like a real office job in that respect. Just like really I was at our desks and the fluorescent light, I mean, that has a real effect on you and the snacks.

Come on. That was the best spread. Oh, God. We had the best, best food ever.

It's all my dad ever talked about all the years that he visited. And I would pepper him with questions about.

So Steve Carell ate lunch with us today. Wasn't that great. And he was like, did you see the steak like that?

It was always about the food bill. Kansi Oh, Kate, it's so good to see you. And Jenna, you guys. You go, Kate. We always like to start by asking people how they came to be on the office.

I actually auditioned for the pilot for the part of Jan Allison Jones said, I think you're really right for the show, but I don't know if this is your part. So clearly, they went a different way with Lauren.

And lo and behold, you guys shot the pilot. I remember that summer I was doing a sketch show once a week that was timed. It was a two minute sketch. So literally at two minutes the lights would go out. It was this live show. And in Hollywood, at the theater on Melrose with the school, one of the Sklar brothers, Randy, was doing a sketch right before me. Say he's like, have you been watching that British show The Office?

I'm so obsessed with it. He was like the first person, really? Tell me about it. I was like, Yeah, I've seen a little because you got to watch the whole thing. So I kind of got obsessed. And then come September, late August, early September, I had an audition. I couldn't make the first one because I was in Chicago with my aunt and then I just came. I figured the part was going to get taken.

And they had another session a few days later. And I went in and I read and I remember Alison Jones had no makeup. And like usually in L.A., you know, that means like, you know, mascara, some foundation, it might mean something.

It never really means no makeup.

And they're like little shoes. Little had a box of tissues. She's like, no makeup. Wipe it off, get off right away. And then I just remember there are a few actresses that I knew from Chicago that were there and I felt like they booked everything. I'm like, I'm never going to get this. But I just remember that room was Ken Copus and Greg and Allison Jones and I'm sure Paul leadership. I'm sure, you know, make sure I'm sure all the the producers were there, the writer producers.

It was like the most unique experience I think I've ever had in an audition. And then I when I came out, I got home and then Allison told me to go to Gowa and do it again, do it one more time and do less.

Less. Let's do less. And then by the time I got home from there, I found out that I got the part.

What, you booked it on the drive home girl? I did this phone so I didn't know to every actor's dream you didn't have a cell phone, so you didn't know those were the days, man. Like, yeah. What you couldn't they could get a hold of you. You found out at home I was playing hard to get on the drive home. Wow. Well, Kate, I was so excited because when you walked on the set that day, Kate and I had been doing an improv show called Bitch Planet, all chick improv, all chick improv.

And we'd been doing that for years. And then all of a sudden, my good friend was going to be sitting, like, right behind me for years. That was just amazing.

Who knew when when four people were in our audience on a Sunday night for our show at ten o'clock.

Kate, do you remember what your audition scene was?

Yeah, it was from the alliance. It was the whole reaction to the surprise party and Michael reading the birthday card and insulting Meredith like crazy.

Yes. Amazing. That was so awesome.

So awesome. So awkward. So awful. So awful.

Happy birthday. Happy birthday.

Well, Kate, we've talked a lot on the show about how one. We were filming in that bullpen, we were all in the scene, and so we were all each other's background and that's very unique. It's not like that on a lot of shows, right? Yeah. So we've sort of talked about the things we did in the background.

We talked about how Felix looked at Gates. Remember, she looked at Gates, right. For her White House for years.

I remember they told us they told me when I took the job that I was supposed to bring paperwork because they really wanted us to be looking like we were working. And I loved that suggestion. I thought it was so like it's so method because then no one is suddenly acting like they're working, they're actually working and the camera catches them, which makes so much more sense. So I actually brought my taxes the first season I was going to see Kate.

I have a memory of you opening your mail. And like I did, I did. I brought a bag of stuff. And I think I also like snuck reading a book, which is kind of like a thing that people do it in an office anyway sometimes.

Well, especially Meredith. Well, I don't know. Does Meredith read a lot? Maybe not.

I got into solitaire. Clearly, that was like my main background choice for so much, but that was so much because the back of my head wasn't so much of it that I. I can't my screen was caught all the time on my computer. So I would just rather than like go to some file at the last minute, I would just dump into solitaire because I knew I could just get right back into it. And I thought it was a funny thing for Meredith to be multitasking all the time with the game, too.

Well, you became really, really good at it, actually created I would have many, many a competition and I whipped his ass.

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

No, you know, I don't remember that specifically, but I did bring some I used to write down my grocery list a lot. I was constantly or just general to do lists.

I would do I would journal, you know, but with a paper. And I had so funny. Now, Jenna, you and I had a little system that we created. Do you remember you remember this. You have to up.

It's one of my fondest memory y why we had specific boxes of other people's real life paperwork. Yes.

Fill Shea bought like medical records. It was bizarre. And these. Yeah. Receipts and I had this whole system where I was I was stapling and I had a whole, I think certain things that would match and then I would bring them to you. And then you would approve or disapprove sign of this whole. Oh my God, it was fantastic.

It was amazing. And it was very specific. My favorite thing about it, Kate, was that we would do this in the deep, deep, deep background when no one would appreciate it. It was really just for us and we would never break character and we would argue. Not with each other, but sort of like with the system. Yes. Yes, we were like these yes. These alphanumeric characters that don't match any of the forms and are impossible to input into the computer.

We had this whole like thing we were mad at at corporate that we would do we did the greatest job in the world.

This is the cutest thing that I. How was it the. Isn't that what you guys, all these years, I didn't know I, I didn't know you guys were doing this. Do you know what Oscar Nunez would do with these health records? Oscar would find one that had something really peculiar and he'd circle it and highlight it, make it very important. And he would hand it to me in the middle of a scene with great authority. And it would say something like.

Bulbous pass on eyelid, probably stye recommended to drain of the pus, and I'd be like, Oh my God, if I'm reading this in the background of a scene, we were so respectful, though obviously we never gave away anybody's name or medical condition on the show.

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

I think we did it to the forms. I literally think we did, because I remember sometimes there were a little bit, but not everything. Not ever. Ever.

Yeah, I do remember addresses being blacked out. But anyway, guys, it was sort of creepy to know that you could buy old medical records in those days. I'm sure now they're all computerized. And also the dates were from like three decades ago. It was like there's a lot of stuff from the 1960s. Yeah. The 80s was a big. Yeah, yeah.

So I love I love how we're trying to reassure people when the truth is we clearly had things we shouldn't have had. Oh my God. Let's keep let's keep trying to justify why it was OK. Well it's fine. It's fine.

What happened at Dunder Mifflin. Stayed at Dunder Mifflin. We did not. And that's right. The material.

But I will say what I loved about that and the the realness of the paperwork, it kept it just kept everything. It was like a little focus for the lens. Yeah.

One of my favorite things was they had stacks and stacks of some type of timecode documentation from these offices.

And they were on really thin, like like almost like the pages of a Bible thin know. And then they had all the little carbon slides in them.

And I would sometimes smell the carpet smell. It's like the smell of like a Sharpie.

I like this is the e true Hollywood story right now. Angela, what getting you and I was sniffing the carbon in the background. Sometimes this is how you got into character.

I don't know. Well, you know, it's funny because Ken Coppice would do that thing, you know, like the general tone at the beginning when he would come. And this was all part of it, just like actually, you know, filming us, working, just working and being like, you know, who are you working? It's funny. People have asked me, like, how did you stay in character whenever I feel like those were our desks.

So the crew really wasn't allowed to sit at our desks. So it was it was it really did feel like an office job in that respect, like you would literally walk in to set and just go right to your desk. It was kind of like focusing in specific and really wonderful. And it kept all of us in the game.

And we did.

You know what? I wouldn't sit at anybody else's who like, I would never just go sit down and fill this chair.

Oh, right. That was like her space.

Sometimes rain would sit at my desk to talk fantasy football with Brian. Right. And I would have to come kick him out of my seat.

But I just I just had such respect for the process. Like, I just feel like the focus was always in the right place for our show.

Yeah. Yeah.

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

And that was very important to me. I was always very conscious of that.

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

I mean, holy cow, Kate, you get hit by a car, you get hit by a car. What was your first thought when you read this book?

I literally said, does she live? I literally said, just married live. I said it right away. And then, like, I've been reading later that, like, there's been articles saying that one of the writers decided that, you know, they wanted to pitch that Meredith didn't live and then they thought that was too dark. Greg thought it was too dark for Michael to have killed one of their employees.

Yeah. How do you come back from that? Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But I was like but I remember, like, I was so conscious of it because I was like, I know this isn't a soap opera like this could be it.

But the first time we shot it, literally, they played it almost like Meredith was a speed bump that he just like went over because like you were laying on the ground and he rolled over you.

I was underneath the wheel literally. We finished shooting the episode. And then I think two weeks later, Dave Rogers, our Emmy winning editor, had an idea for an insert shot that he thought was so much more interesting than what we had shot, which was Meredith hitting the glass. And he asked, are you Kent Zbornak to try it out and show it to me like Kent did it? Do you think you do it? I mean, he obviously did not know me because I would have said yes.

And I totally want to say yes. I was going to say you would say, yeah, I would have. But season one, I remember, Greg, there was a shot of Dwight and Michael dressed like Crockett and Tubbs from Miami Vice from the Green Party. You remember that?

Yes. Yes. And they had me dress up like Madonna. And I remember it was like it was like maybe my second week there. And I was like, oh, OK, I'll be Madonna, whatever. I'm like. They really went for it.

I mean, I was, I was like nineteen eighty seven Madonna. I was wearing like a bustier. It was nuts.

I was just in the background and I thought. There was something about that, it was like my responsibility to do whatever as full out as possible. I don't know, I was like kind of up for anything because I remember Greg saying, is it OK if you do this? And I was like, sure. Of course.

So that that started the whole Meredith saga being for Madonna is all right. But I actually felt like it was so much fun to do the physical comedy because I have such a good time. Do I have always had a good time doing that? My my whole career. But like, this was so up another level for sure. So literally when we went to shoot it, we had to shoot it again and Steve wasn't available. So Dan Balz, who was RPA, who was so young at the time, he had Steve's jacket on and shirt.

So it was his hand that they would cut from. And it was it's such a quick swipe like, you know, so wait, Dan was driving?

Well, he was just in the car, in the stationary. I started in the center of the hood. I had to roll up to the glass and then roll off the car onto a giant mat.

And you sort of had to like with force roll into that windshield on your own. You sort of slammed your body into the windshield and then slowly rolled off of it onto a mat in the parking lot.

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

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, OK, come with me and do some jumping jacks. He was like doing jumping jacks with me just to get me really loose. I love Greg so much.

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

It's funny, I just recently saw Dave Rodgers sent me an outtake and another take that they didn't use. And I actually did an extra spin in there, which I actually thought was a little funnier. But I'm just so used to watching the one thing. I think it just caught me by surprise.

So, wait, there is a take of you out in the universe where you roll you flip forward twice into the windshield. No, once in the washer. But then I flip twice off the car.

So it's like it's insane. It's insane.

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

And I'm telling you, after we shot that, I remember they were using it in the promos for the episode because it was the first episode of Season four Fun Run. I remember Joaquin Phoenix canceled at the last minute for The Tonight Show. So they asked me basically because of the promo, it was so much fun, like they actually want to be on The Tonight Show. So that was the first time I did that. That was so awesome.

Well, Kate, Kate, you're just like a rock star. I mean, I have to ask you, though, if you're rolling with force into a windshield over and over and rolling off where you saw did you like we had to match what we shot before because they weren't sure about the before if they were going to see us before.

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

Yeah. Kindergarten teacher.

And I remember the Emmys were like the next week and I was so bruised. How do you like body makeup.

Yeah, because I think if they knew they were going to do the stunt that way, they probably would have padded you out, dressed you accordingly. All right. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. That's crazy. Well, Kate, you did so many stunts on the show.

Was this your favorite? I think so. This was my favorite.

I also loved being so weird. I was on top of the men's room stall. When Dwight comes, I was planking. Meredith spanking. Yes. Dwight comes in with a fire extinguisher and just blows her off into the stall. Yeah, we use the real men's room. We're video village where the guests were that those two baths. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they put like this weird flimflam mattress on top and I was like, fingers crossed. I don't go the other way because there was nothing on the other side because I had to balance.

It was so crazy. Yeah. And it was really the room. I'm like, OK, this hopefully I don't land too hard because then I'm going to hit the toilet. It's so bizarre.

But I want to give some props to your athleticism. I know that Angela has often OK, we go for Miami.

We go here we go. No, it's OK.

I'm not going back to that. And I just did. But came you are amazingly athletic.

I mean, and doing all these stunts, it doesn't surprise me. I mean, we know that you were on Dancing with the Stars and you were amazing, but you also did your lounge show The Lampshades for years and years and years. And I remember coming to see you and that. And you do this. Deep squat repeatedly, oh, and you kick your leg up and I was like, oh my gosh, I feel like they got so lucky with you as Meredith because you were qualified for these stunts.

That's so sweet. I feel like for me, too, it was empowering. Like I did not do the stunt with my hair on fire. I did do all the stuff in the parking lot of Moroccan Christmas. I just didn't.

You did the bat. That was crazy and you really sold it so crazy.

And then I didn't actually shave my head. I had a bald cap for that. So I feel like those are the two.

Like, I'm like, OK, but I think I think it's OK that you let your hair be, you know what I'm saying? No, I think I was disappointed, though. He was like the first time I was like, nope, not doing that. Like.

Well, can we talk a little bit about the moment in this episode where we're all in the hospital, we've all come to see you. I my memory of this was it was so hard to get through those scenes without laughing. In fact, you see us break or actually break in the episode.

That was fun. Run. Yeah. What are your memories of shooting in the hospital?

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

I loved it when you were like, do not the plug, don't pull any plug.

Oh, my God. I remember the take when Steve just as an apology, trying to get an apology out of me. And I won't apologize. I won't apologize. And so he just decides to climb into the bed with me.

And I feel like I had a slight delayed reaction. But I'm like, well, I just started screaming because I'm like, well, we were also surprised because he improvised that.

And you even see all of us, we sort of like freeze. And then we're like, Michael.

Yeah, yeah. It really took us by surprise. Totally, totally.

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

What do you have? What are you looking for? So I have Meredith's purse.

I always wore it, like, you know, like a saddle. Yeah, yeah. You Stachel that.

And I left everything in it that was still in there. So this is why I still had the marriage union of Pamela Morgan Beesly and James Duncan Halpert.

Is that our wedding? Yes, it's the program. So this is what I did. Our wedding, the wedding party and the wedding party. Yes. This is what I showed on some good news with John Krasinski when we when we did our our wedding day. Oh, my God, that's crazy. That is so that you would just tucked it in your purse and you still have it. Did we would do that though. We would get prop purses and like if we had props, we would just put them in our hotel and I have.

Oh my gosh, what else do I have in here? I think I have do you have some old sides?

I would always do outside, but I also have I've Sweeney Todd from when Andy was performing in that theater. Wow.

And I have a Church of Angels, Cecilia Marie Halpert, when she got christened Cece's christening.

Oh, my gosh. Amazing.

Well, Kate, fans love Meredith. And, you know, we're going to be hitting you up. We've got a few more episodes to cover before we're done here, before we say goodbye. Is there anything we can share with everyone, like where to find you, what you're up to?

Yes, I will. On Instagram at the real Kate Flannery, on Twitter, at Kate Flannery.

I go to a little Robin place once a week, but I'm actually doing some charity work for Philabundance, which is the biggest food bank in Philadelphia. That's my hometown. I'm working with MMR, which is there, the big radio station there. We have the big morning show with Preston and Steve, and I've been doing this show for years and it's literally like five minutes from my dad's house, like, I will roll out of bed. And if I'm in town, I and I occasionally sometimes let a four letter word slip.

So they literally have a button on their panel that says the Flanary button, because there's a four second five second rule, those FCC cash. It's crazy. But anyway, I love these guys so much and they're making such a difference. Philabundance is they're doing a huge push. They always do it right before Thanksgiving. But this year is even bigger because of the pandemic and because so many families are in need and there's so many businesses that are not happening and that we have to wait until we can all be together again and we will be together again.

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

That is so great. And we should have mentioned that you were from Pennsylvania. Yes. And that your family, your dad had a bar in Philly. What was the name of the bar?

Landry's Tavern. He was up all night trying to figure out a name. I just getting my grandfather's. Well, Kate, we love that you are giving back to Philly like that, and we'll definitely, you know, we'll put in our socials where people can find that would be awesome.

Thank you so much, you guys. I love you. So good to see you, too. Thank you so much. It was amazing. You have to come back. I would love to.

Oh, we are back, Angela. That was so great talking with Kate. She looks beautiful, stunning. We have been talking to a lot of people through Zoome for our podcast. And most people show up like a hot mess. Not Kate Flannery. No, she looked amazing. And Kate, that was so fun. And we can't thank you enough and we have a lot to cover.

We better get into it. Yes.

Let's break down this episode, lady. First of all, Joan, I would like to share with you what you were doing this week that we filmed this. Are you ready?

OK, someone went digging into old e-mails.

Oh, I'm kind of scared.

Don't be scared. Although I could burn it to the ground, but so could you. Oh, dear. OK, on July 31st, 2007, the whole cast got an email from Kent Zbornak that said, Hey, I'm all for this Friday, August 3rd. Here's our schedule for the day eight. Forty five a.m. check in with the NBC Universal Studios harassment seminar. This will be located on stage three, 9:00 a.m. harassment seminar, mandatory attendance, 10:00 a.m. costume fittings, wardrobe trailer, 11:00 a.m. table read episode.

Fun run in the writers trailer. Neun Cast Physical's. Is that the end of the email? Please call if you have any questions, Kent. Oh, that's it, that's it. I thought it was first of all, I thought this was an interesting perspective that you saw what a day would be like as we Prepon episode.

It is your your build up to like. Would you like to know what you were doing? I guess I just wasn't expecting the answer to be you attended a harassment seminar and got a physical.

I mean, I just thought, no, what was I doing? I can't wait to find out. I mean, I have to say I wouldn't pick this day to redo if a genie in a bottle ever gave me a wish. OK, OK.

Well, I just thought this was a very interesting perspective, eh. It shows what we had to do to start a new season and also be we filmed Fun Run Part one and part two in August. OK, this part of the episode were inside. But folks, we're going to be running outside. It's August. I just think I just think it's interesting perspective, Jenna. I love it.

It's great. I just thought you were going to let me in on something more exciting, that's all, than then my cast physical, I don't know. And my wardrobe fitting. I was very excited.

Clearly, I was very excited to find this email from Ken. Well, I'm glad you saved it, because that's a keeper.

No, you're gonna want to you shut it. Scrapbook that you shut it.

What would Dwight say? Zipper lid.

I probably deleted that email because I like to keep a tidy inbox. I love that you saved it.

I think I know it. How about we get into this episode, all right, we start off with Michael eating some cereal. Yeah. And at nine seconds, my background, folks, you can see that red pot basket thing that fell out of Jan's box and she was leaving corporate. No, you're kidding me. It's sitting right there. Oh, my gosh, I love that so much. Yeah, she's put her things around the condo.

Well, we had a big fan catch at this moment for Mohanna, a Robert F. Christine Jay, Adrian Gibbs, Chelsea Warren and many others who wrote in to say that Michael is eating cereal from Wegmans. And Wegmans is a local. East Coast grocery store, they wanted to know whose idea was it to feature these Wegmans products? That would be Phil Shane. Yeah, I was going to say it had to be Phil show. He was so great about doing that kind of research.

But how in the world did Phil Shay get Wegmans, Raisin Bran and Wegmann soy milk? I have no idea. I'm impressed. Listen, Phil Shea is the guy that knows a guy. He's got a guy Phil show, he's got a guy, he's got a guy on the ground in Scranton going to the Wegmans in Scranton, which, by the way, I looked it up, is open seven days a week from 6:00 a.m. to midnight and is located at one three one five Cold Spring Road.

There you go, folks. If you want to eat the Raisin Bran that Michael is eating, that's where you can get it.

Add it to your Dunder Mifflin Scranton tour. Exactly.

Well, then Michael enters the bedroom to reveal that Jan is still sleeping. She's probably going to sleep for another few hours.

He says you can really see what she's doing to the condo in this. I mean, she has set up a vanity. There's a giant mirror, there's a clothes rack. I see two tall, enormous like candle things.

There's a pink chair. But guess what? There's not. Well, Michael's little bed that he sleeps on during dinner party at the end of the bed, the bench at the foot of the bed that he says he sleeps on is not there yet.

I noticed that as well. Well, maybe I'll email you about it someday.

Maybe Kent sent us. You can delete it because you like you like a tidy box.

Oh, my gosh, you're so mad at me about this email thing. But I like when you listen back. When you listen back, Angela, I want you to hear, like, the anticipation that you built this. I'm going to do it for you. I have an email that I found that is going to tell you what you were doing this week.

I have it. I'm going to tell you.

And then you were like, I could burn you to the ground with some of my emails. And I'm like, what is she going to say? And then, like you said, wait. Forty five a.m., check in for sexual harassment seminar. And I was like, wait, what? Oh, that's where this is going. Oh, about you said, oh, should I be scared. And I said, no. I mean I have the ones that can burn it down.

So do you. But not this one. Clearly not this one.

Clearly not this one. This week you complied with your job and its requirements.

Well, your new nickname is Tidy Box. So enjoy. You know, that's another word for vagina. I know.

Hence the double entendre, though. You say that. Oh, good Lord Toybox.

OK, we. What's happened to us? Well, we've been friends a long time.

That's what's happened. All right. I love it. Well, Michael's in his car now. He's excited, you guys. He is a talking head. He thinks it's going to be a good year. Jana's home gym is back. Ryan is a corporate and he enjoyed a rock in the sales team. He feels blessed.

He does. He also is not paying attention. And then, bam, when he hits Meredith with his car. And we talked about this with Kate. What an amazing and exciting way to start the season.

I have to say, I was surprised even when I watched it, I was like, oh, God. Well, remember in her interview when Kate said that her first thought was, oh, my gosh, does Meredith live? And she heard that maybe there were some writers who had pitched that they kill Meredith.

Do you know who they were? I got to the bottom of it. Oh, no. This is probably a better email.

I was emailing with Greg Daniels and Justin Spitzer, and they told me that. Yes. They spent one evening pitching on this idea that maybe Meredith died, but it's more than that. It's not just that Meredith died.

What Greg told me that, first of all, the idea was that they would shoot this as a spy shot so they would not have a camera inside the car with Michael.

It would just be a spy shot of him arriving at work for the day with the talking head as a voiceover, OK. He said that the pitch was that Michael would accidentally hit Meredith with this car and then thinking that no one could see him. He didn't want to leave any witnesses. And so in one pitch, he backed over her to make sure she was dead. Oh, good Lord. Justin told me that there was a pitch that Michael would go into his trunk and get one of those antitheft devices called the club and then club her to death and then hide her body.

Were they on drugs or were they on drugs? I mean, seriously, that is the end of the show. You there's no coming back. What were they thinking?

That's what Greg said. Greg said, of course, we could never do this, but it was a pitch that was discussed for some time. And he said there were a few writers who were fighting for it. They were fighting for Michael to. Accidentally and then purposely do Meridith, then I need names, he wouldn't give me the names, I need names because I need to do a mental check on them.

Holy cow. So, yeah, I that's what I found out. There was a moment where they were pitching that maybe Meredith doesn't make it. How craziness, craziness. Also, I definitely don't want to know any of their late night pictures on Angela. OK, thanks. OK.

All right. Well, let's get into this episode. There's a lot to discuss. We start out with Jim and Pam talking to the IT guy because Pam crashed the computers looking for some celebrity sex tape.

Yeah, we got a lot of mail about this. I did a little bit of a mini deep dive. Well, let's see.

Lydia Lind, Meagan Harrison, Mary Newberry and Chris RHOA. All wrote in to say, It seems out of character for Pam to purchase the celebrity sex tape. Did your script say whose celebrity sex tape Pam clicked on, or did you ever come up with your own idea of who it might be? OK, Jenna, I think I know what the writers were hinting at here, because I Googled, by the way, be careful Googling this. I Googled Celebrity Sex Tape 2007.

Yes. And the first thing that comes up is Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend were vacationing and made a video and that got leaked and it was released March of 2007. And there was a ton of, like, chatter. You know, just everyone was talking about it. Right. And I think when the writers thought of this story idea, that's what they were thinking of. I don't have I don't have proof of that. But this was written in around June of 2007.

And that had happened in March. Yes.

So it was in the zeitgeist. But I don't think Pam would click on that, like, is she. I don't think people be getting here. Maybe she's just trying to be coy or I don't know already or something.

It definitely shocked me when she said it. And also she's at work. She's up front reception. She's going to watch this and shut down the whole computer grid. I don't know.

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

OK, well, now Jim has a talking head. He talks about how he broke up with Karen. And it was really awkward because she came back and she said she wasn't going anywhere. And you can see Karen is letting him have it there in the kitchen. And as they're going at it, Phyllis and Angela, shoot.

Pam, a very dodgy look. Yeah. Two minutes. Ten seconds. Judge Phyllis and Angela. Oh, my gosh. Phyllis, Angela combo SACE combo says that's a lot of staff. And but he said, you know, Karen said she wasn't going anywhere. But then the next day her desk was cleared off and he's single and looking.

Yeah, he wrapped that up quickly. You know, this was a highly anticipated episode because we had this big cliffhanger from the last season of Jim asking Pam on a date. And here now, Jim saying he's single, Pam has the talking head where she says, oh yeah, we went to dinner a few times. We we talked through his breakup, but we're just good friends. And it's it's really nice to be friends again.

Well, I'm with Kevin. I'm with Kevin. Are you kidding me? Yeah, Kevin's not having it.

This was also a fun talking head for Kevin and Oscar because it starts with Kevin and then reveals Oscar when when Kevin's like, right. And he's like, well, there's no evidence of intimacy and, you know, but they are both in very good moods.

We had a couple of fan questions about this plot point. OK, Julia Johnson and Madeline Nelson noticed Pam has a big change to her hair and wardrobe. Is it because she's dating Jim now? And was there a lot of discussion about these changes? Oh, yes. Well, her hair is very different. Yes. No more clipped back hair. Crunchie hair. Yes. This change was a huge discussion. Pam is also not wearing her traditional button down shirt and her little cardigan.

She's wearing this cutesy little sweater with a little kind of bow that ties on the side, a very, very flirtatious shade of beige.

Yes, I noticed that, too. I was like, well, even we don't go too far. You get me the cutest beige sweater you can find. Well, it was a big discussion. We couldn't have this giant transformation. Greg did not want that moment from those movies where the sort of nerdy girl with the glasses falls in love and then after she falls in love, she's got a gorgeous blowout and doesn't need her glasses anymore. You know, that whole story that we saw a million times growing up, it was called Kelly Kapoor.

It was called Kelly before. You can only do that with one character. So we met our limit, but we did imagine that this new relationship would possibly affect him and how she looked and her desire to make an effort that maybe she didn't have a desire to make. Before I get this, I mean, don't you remember, Angela, in your young love phases with someone new that you're dating, you give a little extra Zhuge, right?

Yeah, of course. We had a big fan catch regarding Pam's wardrobe. This came from Meagan Robinson, Steph Baldwin, Laura Roldan, Haley McMurtry and Kelly and MYM, they all noticed that Pam's necklace changes in this episode. You know what it is now? What?

She's a butterfly fly butterfly. You're not the worm anymore. Fly, I think you mean caterpillar.

Caterpillar. Squishy thing, you're not that's great, you're a beautiful flying in the wind.

Yes, she has. Metamorphosis, yeah, into a beautiful butterfly. That's right, no longer the unicorn, now the butterfly, Jim and Pam at three minutes are discussing their separate weekend plans in front of Kevin. It's making him crazy, right? Because he's not buying it. Yeah. Pam says, you know, maybe she'll go to the flea market at the Drive-In.

Guys, I'll look this up. There is a flea market at an old Drive-In. And it was actually the Reader's Choice Award for Best Flea Market. It's located at the famous Circle Drive in in the Circle Flea Fair. It's the largest flea market and farmer's market in northeastern Pennsylvania. So that is one hundred percent believable that Pam would be going.

Yes.

And Jim says he's going to go mountain biking at Montage Mountain. Well, I look that up and and correct me if I'm wrong, folks in Pennsylvania, but Montage Mountain has, you know, ski runs, but you can't mountain bike on it unless there's some trails I don't know about.

I actually found an online petition from April of 2019 of folks wanting to mountain bike on Montage Mountain. But you can't. And there's an online petition because people want to. Wow. Sorry, sorry, I had to do a local deep dive. Well, you know what? Perhaps that's the evidence that Jim and Pam. Are not actually having separate plans that weekend. Hmm, because he would know if Kevin knew that there was no mountain biking on Montage Mountain.

He would know Kevin doesn't know that because he's not Atlético now. But Jim knows that that's Jim got it wrong. Well, now Michael arrives and he breaks the news that Meredith has been hit by a car. Yeah, yeah. You know, luckily, he was there, yeah, and he drove her to the hospital, he said the doctors did the best they could. They did everything they could to save her life. Mm hmm. And she's going to be OK.

Yeah, and is like, why the hell would you say it like that, who talks like that? It's so good. I love that line from Stanley so much. Leslie is so good in that delivery. He's so good. And I loved it when Andy's like, well, who hit her? And then Michael was like, kind of a good news, bad news there. I was able to be on the scene so quickly because I was in the car that hit her.

And Jim's like, oh, no.

Yeah, Jim's like. Who was driving the car? And that's what Pam is like, oh, Michael. Oh, Michael. At four minutes, four seconds, there's a reaction shot of everyone. And the accountants are all sort of standing together. Guys, the return of the flu.

Laughs Oh, is it a fluffy blouse in an accountant stack?

It's a fluffy blouse and an accountant clump. This is more of a clump than a stack. All right, Jenna, you can also see that over the summer I got bang. Oh, yes. And and Camporee had to try to style my hair, but I think I have sort of stylish bangs. Oh, yeah. Well, there you go now.

Well, now we are moving into Michael's office. Dwight is trying to make Michael feel better by explaining it's going to be fine. I mean, it's only Meredith, but Michael is upset because he thinks everyone thinks he might be a murderer or they were looking at him like he was a murderer. Can you imagine if some of the writers had had their way?

I know. No kidding. Gosh. Well, now Pam is going to go around the office, she thinks everyone should visit Meredith and she's collecting money so they can buy her flowers.

Yes, but Angela says she can't go because Sprinkles is sick. Mm hmm. And Angela needs to go home at lunch to give sprinkles some medicine and eat lunch with her cat.

Yeah. And you guys there are wonderful deleted talking heads from this episode. So many characters have great talking heads. But this is a talking head that would have happened right before Pam walked over to Angela. And I have to read it to you because it's so funny to me. Angela has the talking head that says, I've had sprinkles for six years. I adopted her when I graduated from accounting school. I knew the kind of life I wanted, one with the companionship and unpredictable good times only a cat offers.

Hmm. The unpredictable good times Akat offers. You know, cats really do offer unpredictable good times, Creed Bratton has texted me this sentence and unpredictable, a good time, only a get offers.

Crede texted me that the other day. I love that so yes, so Angela has that talking head and that you didn't get to see and it really sort of builds up like this is like more than a cat to her. I mean, we already know that, but without him.

Suggests that Angela like Chicago and that she's like ditching on her party planning committee duties, Angelas TechEd Sam, can I get a Pam s Pam?

Yeah. We had some people write in page banker Lauren Korwin, they just wrote in all caps, Major Pam SACE at five minutes, 35 seconds.

Yeah, I agree you guys, Pam says count your other cats, keep her company. And Angela's like, there's bad blood. Jealousy's clicks.

What's happening at this woman's house? I have to tell you something about this scene. This was what I thought you were going to tell me when you said that I had written you an email about this episode, why and about what I was doing this week.

Why, lady, I was really, really hung over when we shot this scene, like, super hung over.

And if you look at me in this scene compared to every other scene, you can see it on my face. I am like I am gray. I'm kind of green. Why my eyes are puffy. I will never forget it. So the night before this shoot, I went to a Mexican restaurant and I was with a friend who ordered a margarita.

OK, I had never really had a margarita before.

Oh, no way. Yes. Yes, it's true. I we've talked about this. I did not have a lot of experience with drinking. I just you know, I had a cosmopolitan I had to research drinking in order to play drunk P.M. So I took a sip of it. Yeah. And I was like, this is delicious. I love this drink.

And then I had three three three over the course of this dinner.

I then, you know, lady, this scene was the first scene of the next day, we had a super early call time and I was really feeling it like I didn't I had not had enough time to recover from my three margaritas.

Oh, yeah. My call times were routinely like five a.m., five thirty.

So you were you were sweating tequila? I was. It's so I thought when you said earlier that you had an email from me about what I was doing this week. I was like, oh my gosh, did I write Angela about those margaritas? Sorry to disappoint you. Had a mandatory physical table read and a sexual harassment seminar. Exactly. Anyway, that's my little that's my little tidbit. Every time I see the scene, I'm reminded of the night that I first drank three margaritas.

Well, now I'll always remember it. So now Michael has to call Ryan because Ryan is his boss and tell him he hit Meredith on company property and with his company car.

Yeah. And Ryan is such a badass bossiness.

He's clearly he's like and being the boss and talking to Michael this way. Well, and then we go to the Ryan talking head and Ryan has a new look.

Oh, he's got his like. His what do you call that it's not a beard, it's like a the permanent stubble. Yeah, it's like a five o'clock shadow, but it's a choice.

It's a choice. Yeah. Yeah. And his hair's all slicked back. He's got like kind of a Gordon Gecko thing going on. Yeah. He looks like he should be in the show succession. That's what he looks like.

Yes. Right.

And he has the same kind of like cheesy attitude is like some people keep calling me, you know, wonder kid, you know, not really sure what that means. Well, I guess I do know what it means is. Oh, it's so cringe. Yeah, it's great. This is we're going to get a glimpse now of what this new dynamic is going to be like. Well, then we have a scene that I love Angela, because it's a Dwight and Angela secret scene.

Remember the people in the office? We don't know you're dating. Right? So you guys are still kind of like a secret couple. Whenever you want to talk to each other, you have to go be, like, weirdly secretive about it. Yeah.

I mean, I guess only Jim knows, right? And Pam and Pam have Jim and Pam hopefully talked about it at this point, we still don't know. You would think so, lady.

I had a long speech where I talk about all of sprinkles medications, and I did that thing like you did on beach games. I learned it backwards and forwards so that I could say it just effortlessly, you know, but but here it is. Sam, can you play that clip? So what you need me to do?

I read it out. There's a diabetes shot role. The insulin in your hands don't shake it. She gets an ACE inhibitor with her meal. You have to put her right in front of the dish or she won't see it because of the cataracts mix, one capsule of omega fatty acid and with her kidney medicine. And you want to give that to her 15 minutes after she's eaten and there's a fungal cream because she has this infection under her tail. So you're going to have to lift her tail and put the cream right at the base of her tail.

I love that you memorized it, Angela, because when I watched that, I wondered, I thought the answer was yes, because you delivered it like you knew. And if you had a cat that was sick, you would know. Right? You wouldn't be searching for that information. You would know it. Oh, yeah. And they had the props department had given me this blue note pad with all of the different steps written out, but not in the same order.

Not exactly. So like actually if I looked at the notepad, it would have messed me up. But I saved the notepad with all of sprinkles medications. And it's the one I hand Dwight in the scene. He's holding it. I saved it.

I never tore off that first page and I still have it. And the whole notepad is unused in that first page just has all of sprinkles like medicines and how to care for her. Oh, my gosh. Oh, look. Wait. Oh, I took a picture of it. Do you want to see. Yeah. OK, here, that is amazing. But that's not your handwriting.

No, no, no, it's not my handwriting. Someone in the props department wrote that out.

Wow. We have to post that on the pod. Will post it on the pod. OK, uncle's medication going on the pod.

Well, we got a fan question from Tracy Prescott who said this. I am a cat focused veterinarian in Atlanta. And I was wondering if an actual doctor of veterinary medicine was consulted about sprinkles medical needs because Anjali's list of medications and treatments she gave to Dwight were very realistic.

Oh, that's fantastic. Well, Greg told me that he had the writer's assistants, Nate Fetterman and Jonathan Hughes, do research into the accurate cat medicines, and that is why that list of medicines is so realistic.

Well, good job, writers, assistants. That's right. Well, listen, before we go on, maybe we should take a break, because coming up, Michael is going to try to, I don't know, right this wrong.

He's going to try. It's not going to go well. It never does. No. All right.

We'll be back. All right, we are back and Angela Michael has gone into the break room in an attempt to rally everyone to plant a tree in honor of Meredith, but do you know what I titled the scene? You are always titling scenes and I have titled what?

John eats popcorn. Oh, my gosh. Did you notice he was eating popcorn through this whole scene? Not carrots, not baby carrots, but popcorn. And the way he's eating it, it's so. It's so delicate with you trying not to crunch too loudly, I think he was trying not to be a problem for sound, but he was clearly hungry because he eats it through the whole scene.

Oh, my God, was this the year we got that little popcorn maker by Kraft Services? It must have been this must have been the first week with the popcorn, maybe we went a little crazy for popcorn and then the sound department, I think, said, OK, guys, I remember it went away. Yeah, but we were excited about it.

Well, he's eating popcorn and this whole scene. And it's also in the scene that Pam explains to Michael, you know, we're just going to go visit Meridith. We're going to go in shifts so we don't overwhelm her. But Michael is like, no, we're all going together at the same time. I'll drive.

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

And Kevin's like, I. I don't believe it. I know. Well, then Michael has a talking head and he says, you know, I have flaws. You know what? So sue me. And he's like, no, no, no, don't sue me. But Jenna, there was an adult to this talking head and it's in the deleted scenes and it made me laugh so hard. And it's also in the bloopers. And Steve couldn't get through it.

He kept laughing. What is it?

OK, this is this is it. There's one tape. Clearly, he got through it because it's in the deleted scenes. He says, I am not a bad guy. I am a good guy who runs over women with this car. Why am I having such a hard time getting my message across? Oh, my gosh, that is funny. And the way Steve does it is so good.

That's good. I have to go watch that. Yeah, you have to. Well, we don't find out exactly how they get there, but the entire gang does arrive at the hospital. Michael has a whole bunch of balloons and the entire gang minus Dwight.

That's right, because Dwight has gone to take care of sprinkles. Everyone gathers around Meredith's bed and we talked about this scene with Kate about how Steve improvised crawling on top of her in that one moment, he's like trying to give her a hug. It's pretty amazing. Pretty great.

There is a deleted scene from this moment where Crede, as they're exiting, just grabs all her meds out of the little plastic cups. They're sitting on her tray. Oh, and Crede just pockets all her meds. Of course he does.

Well, I had a favorite moment from the scene and I wanted to ask you about it because I think maybe you improvised it when Michael is trying to get Meredith to forgive him, he says. That she should think about the Bible because it says that forgiveness is next to godliness and you mutter that's cleanliness, I did improvise that.

Oh, I also wanted to mention in this scene the nurse who is an improv person from IoE. Her name is Sylvia Maclure.

Well, I looked at her IMDB and I found this very interesting, in addition to playing a nurse on the office, she has also played a doctor on Young and the Restless Dexter and Intelligence, a nurse in Night of the Dead and a receptionist nurse on the unit. So she's played a lot of nurses and doctors, and incidentally, she's also twice been cast as a nun. That is very interesting, like sort of a it's like a weird typecasting.

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

Have you ever played a nurse or doctor? Yes, actually, I played a pediatric nurse in this movie called The Promotion.

I played a doctor on an episode of Monk. Mm hmm. And I played a sexy nurse briefly in one of our Halloween episodes of The Office.

What were you most often typecast as for auditions before the office, before the office, quirky, quirky gal, what's up?

Like, quirky, quirky, fun neighbor. Quirky neighbor.

Yeah, yeah I was I got a lot of just the schoolteachers. Waitresses and nurses. Well, I will tell you, we talked about how hard we laughed in the scene, but 11 minutes twenty two seconds is when you can see us breaking if you're looking for it. That's when Michael crawls on top of.

Well, now we can go back to the office and we are going to find Dwight. Telling Angela some bad news and she's anxious to see them. She wants to know how it went. You can just tell and then he's like a monkey and she's like, any problems? Well, you left the TV on and your cat is dead.

And my aunt, my character's like, what? And he's like, sparkles.

The white one is dead. Yeah. He gets the name wrong. It's bad. It is bad. This will not end well.

Angela, Yuki's so very immediately emotional and not in a funny way like this is one of the ways that our show allowed characters to be real people because. Angela, the character, really loved her cat and she is heartbroken and you see that real pain here from your character, how did you gear up for this scene?

Well, Greg told me, he said, you know, Angela Martin hearing this news will be devastated. And I need you to play out the beats of hearing news that kind of destroys you in the moment. You know, and I feel like we've all had moments in our lives where we've gotten that phone call with some bad news, you know, unfortunately. And I just sort of. I thought about a few of those moments where, you know, at first you're just in total shock, where you're not really sure what you heard.

Yeah, and then it's like someone slaps you in the face with the information. And then you're trying to make sense of it, but you can't make sense of it. It's the unthinkable and it doesn't make sense and your body is doing all of that. You're in shock. You're sad. Your body, your mind is trying to make it right, but you can't make it right. You can't figure it out. You don't understand why it happened.

And I was just trying to process through all of that and. Yeah, that's what I did. You have to do a lot of takes of that scene, do you remember? No, I didn't. I was thankful for that in the next scene. Your character is still crying. She's standing at reception with Pam. And you look like you've been crying for a long time.

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

You know, I'm chatty, so my instinct would be I'm standing by. Reception with you would be to be hanging out, you know, being part of the bullpen. So one of the things I did was I went around the corner by the elevators, by myself in between takes. And I did not hang out. And I just tried to stay in sort of that sad space. And and also the the makeup department, they wanted my eyes to really look like I had bawled my eyes out and they did.

So I had to get myself back in that emotional place and get sad again. And also the makeup department.

Kenneth Paul, who did my makeup, did like this type of eyeliner that really made the inside, it was like on the inside of your eye, reddish pink. So my eyes my eyes looked the part and then emotionally, I got there.

Your eyes looked like you had three margaritas yesterday.

Maybe, maybe that's what I that should have been my prep instead of eyeliner and said, yeah, no, what happened was Laverne just showed Kenneth Paul a picture of me from the previous day and was like, make her look like that.

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

Devastated over the death of sprinkles. I was just so beyond impressed with your performance and your range and your believability.

It was just this is just great, great work.

Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. I really appreciated Greg writing the story line for me. And I got to do all these things, you know, and and, you know, his take as a director was always to try to keep it as honest as possible. Well, there's another really great moment in the scene, and we actually had a fan right in Katy Hardwick said, I think we need to give a shout out to Michael when Angela's cat dies.

Not only did he know her name, but he was overcome with grief. He cares so much for his employees. And it was just such a sweet moment to me. But I do have to ask, do you think he was truly sad or did he just see this as a distraction from hitting Meredith that everyone could talk about instead? I personally think he was very distraught about Sprinkel. Well, I agree.

This happens at 12 minutes, 41 seconds. And it is one of my favorite endearing moments of Michael. Now, maybe because it's personal for me because, you know, I played Angela Martin. I knew how much she loved her cats. But Michael, it's like that moment when the trick or treaters come to his house and you see his joy. It's like that moment when he shows up to Pam's art show. Yeah, Michael really saw these people as his family.

So Michael knew Angela's love of sprinkles. Of course he did.

And he was gutted to hear that sprinkles died the way he puts his hand up to his face and he kind of collapses into the wall and he's like, oh, shoot, I'm sorry, Angela.

I mean, could it get any worse? He's feeling all of that. He really feels bad. And now he gets sprinkles name right the first time and then he makes a big speech and calls are sprinkles. So, you know, he does.

That's right. He says so many bad things have happened today. The computer crashes from porn, married the accident and now sprinkles work first.

This seals the deal to him. That's it.

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

Yes, but he does say I'm not superstitious, but I am a little suspicious. It's like he thinks they're two separate words. Well, we had a fan question about that line from Jessica Williard and Lauren Corwin. They said that line makes me laugh every time. Who wrote this joke, I was curious, too, did you find out I did.

It was Gene Stup Netsky Gene hilarious. Yeah, I asked Greg and he said, I'm pretty sure it was Gene or Lee. I reached out to those guys. Gene said, yes, it was me. He remembers they were in a group and this talking head leads to a commercial break and they needed a button, they needed a little button at the end of this talking head so that they could go to commercial. And he said they were just trying to come up with something.

And all of a sudden he said, he shouted out, I've got it. This might be stupid, but how about this? And he pitched that line. And it is so genius. It is such a good line. And I hear that line quoted all the time.

It is a Michael Scott classic line. It is. It's true. Well, speaking of classic Michael Scott, we're now going to move in to one of Michael's conference room meetings.

This is an epic conference room meeting. We were in this conference room all frickin day. We got Luppi, we got Punchy. I'm going to tell you where we flat out lost it.

It's so good. Yeah.

I also remember that they very specifically did not seat Jim and Pam next to one another. This was part of Jim and Pam's supposedly like way of deflecting that we're dating. Yeah. And I remember that you have to just be sad and kind of cry through the scene and that I didn't want to chat you up too much because I knew you had to stay in that space.

And I did. I did. I really stayed sad until the end when Steve made me break into laughter. So Michael in the scene is questioning his employees. He feels like someone must have done something to get this curse right. Like have they violated an ancient Indian burial ground? And then, you know, he wants to know what everyone's religious beliefs are, which Toby says, Michael, we can't you can't do that.

You can't discuss that.

Michael calls Toby Satan repeatedly in the scene one because he won a week of free pizza. So he's like, I don't think there's a curse. And Michael is like, OK, Satan. So he goes around the room. Pam and Daryl are both Presbyterians. They high five. Phyllis has this great line where she says, I'm a Lutheran and Bob is a Unitarian. Keeps things spicy.

Mm hmm. CRETZ That he's been a follower in a cult and a leader and a cult. Followers have more fun, but the leaders make more money. But Michael has decided he thinks maybe we should do an animal sacrifice. Yes. You know, that's going to do. And maybe that would help. Yeah. And then he starts naming animals, but they don't exist. I wrote them down. He suggests that we sacrifice an animal that has the body of a walrus.

And the head of a sea lion. Or. The body of an egret with the head of a meerkat. Or. Maybe one that has the head of a monkey with the antlers of a reindeer and the body of. A porcupine. OK, Jenna, when Steve started this runner, they just let him go. Do you remember this? Yeah, he just started improvising different animal combinations. We didn't know what was going to come out of the guy's mouth.

We all started dropping like flies, cracking up. And the other thing is he would see it with such seriousness. And this was the comedy killer. The long pauses. He takes such a long pause before he says.

Body of a porcupine. Yes, we were on the floor. We were on the floor. I am not in any background shots while he's doing these animal combinations because I couldn't keep it together. And at 18 minutes, 11 seconds, you can see Craig Robinson covering his face.

I saw it.

I remember that we were losing it. It was so funny and they let him go for a long time, I mean, you are not seeing all of it.

He went for so long and I I remember we were crying. We were just like as a group, we're like, no, get it together. These are too good. We can't ruin these.

Well, while all this is happening at the office, Dwight has gone to visit Meredith and he has this talking head where he's saying as he's sitting next to her, that sometimes the best thing to do is to put an animal out of its misery.

He's a farmer. Yeah, you could power a small fan for two days with the amount of electricity Meredith is hooked up to.

I have to say, please, if you go back to read, watch this episode during this speech by Dwight next to Meredith's bedside, please look at the woman in the bed on the other side. OK, over Dwight's shoulder.

That's all I'm going to say, just enjoy that performance the next time you watch the scene. It's wonderful.

Oh my God. When we were all crammed around Kate's bed, that woman was there. I swear that woman, it was like she was a real patient.

She let out some kind of noise and I thought we were all going to shit her pants. She was a background actor. But it was she was so real, she literally, while we were standing there one time, what? Well, like I think they told her to maybe make a moaning sound.

Yeah. In her interpretation of that, we went loopy.

Well, watch her in the background of the scene because she's excellent. So now the doctor comes in and Dwight has some questions for him. And you and I both know that this is our writer, Justin Spitzer. Yes.

Creator of some of your favorite Dwight isms, Justin Spitzer and the creator of the show Superstore.

Well, I reached out to Justin and he told me that he got this role after reading the part in the table read. That he made Greg laugh, which Paul Lieberstein has shared, that this would happen, they wouldn't have some of the roles cast and they would have writers read them. And if a writer read a part, get ready. Because, Greg, there was a good chance Greg was going to put you in the show.

Well, he also told me that the look he gives to camera was actually him misunderstanding a piece of direction from Greg that Greg did not intend him to, like, perform that line to the camera as like a little joke like, oh, so that's where it went. He's talking about Meredith's uterus. Yeah. But Greg left it in, I liked it, I liked it, too, but he said that was not the intention, that was a mistake.

Well, we learn in this scene that Meredith has been bitten by a bat, which we knew, but not only by a bat, but recently by a raccoon and a rat. What the hell, Meredith? What is she doing?

Honestly, a few of those animals could just live in her van, Meredith's van. Well, when Dwight comes back from the hospital, he feels Michael in on all of this, he says. You know, it turns out Meredith had been exposed to rabies, Michaels, like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And that going to the hospital might have saved her life because she got a rabies vaccine. That is all Michael needed to hear.

He hit her with a car and saved her life. Yes, now he also says in the scene, Dwights says the only way to treat rabies is to start treatment before the symptoms start. Well, I looked it up. Mm hmm. This is true. Did you know, Angela, that nearly 100 percent of people who develop symptoms die from rabies? Dye, it cannot be cured once you get it. I did not know that. Yes.

So this is why you have to seek treatment immediately if you are ever bitten by an animal and a lot of animals can carry rabies. But since I looked it up, I'll let you know that in the United States, the most likely way to transmit rabies is through bats, coyotes, foxes, raccoons and skunks. In Africa and Southeast Asia, it is stray dogs. I mean, what about monkeys? There's there's parts of like Indonesia, like if you go up to Ubud, like there's monkeys all over the place.

Right. If you get bitten by any animal, just go go get a rabies vaccine. It also. What about scared? Yes, any animal, if any animal bites you, I'm just telling you, the animals that are most likely to carry rabies in these locations, but any animal can can give it to you.

The mongoose homilist. Is a mongoose, any animal? I'm just messing with you, but it's been really fun. Well, listen, here is the thing that I found most interesting. This is from the Mayo Clinic website. Here's what it says. If you wake up in the morning, OK, and there's a bat in your room, OK? You should assume you've been bitten because a bat can bite you without waking you up. It also said if you find a bat by a person who can't tell you that they've been bitten like a child or an impaired adult, I assume they have also been bitten.

And go get a rabies vaccine, because once you show symptoms, there is no cure. Well, I was watching an episode of our planet and they were talking about these baby seals and there are vampire bats that go and try to just suck their blood and they can hop. They, Hopper reveals, are the babatz. They jump, I'm going to send you a video. They hop and they they are bloodsuckers. They hop and bite. They hop and bite.

Yeah, well well, there you go, guys, there you go, that's your rabies cheat sheet. That's everything you ever wanted to know about rape.

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

Oh, yes. That was the take away I was hoping for. There you go. Well, Michael is thrilled to find out that he has saved Meredith's life. Oh, yeah. He walks into the bullpen. He declares that the curse has been broken. Turns out there is a God. Everything is great, but who is Jesus's dad? Yeah, he's not sure, I guess. And meanwhile, Kevin, you know, has been on the case this whole episode trying to figure out if Jim and Pam are dating, he's positive that they are.

But it's the end of the day. And he's like, you know what, I guess they're not together. And now they probably never will be. And it's too bad because they're like P.B. and J. Pam Beasley and Jim. Yeah, and that was an inside joke because at this point, fans of the show had started calling Jim and Pam Jim. Yes, they had matched our names as Jim. And so it was this funny thing that Kevin would call us PB and J and not James.

A little nod to the fans, a little nod.

Well, you know what?

We see Pam leave for the day. She gets in her car, she drives away. She's by herself. Clearly, the documentary crew is as suspicious as Kevin because they follow her as she drives off, it made me wonder, my gosh, how long do they follow us after we leave work?

Well, I don't think you should be that worried because Pam doesn't drive very far. I was like, Pam, do better. You drove like four car lengths and then you pulled over. And then what? Are you going to just leave your car there? Does your your car is not that far from work and you're just going to leave it?

No, I'm not going to leave it. I'm going to pick up Jim. I think they could have done better.

Well, you know what this is, this is the street we could get a permit for and we couldn't block off the whole street. This is as far as I was allowed to drive. Well, but it's true.

I pull over and then Greg wanted to kind of further the misdirect. So he directed me to put my head down on the steering wheel, like maybe Pam pulled off the side of the road because she was just having kind of an emotional moment and maybe you'd find out what that was or why that was, that she was sad or something like that. But of course, what happens is Jim comes over, he gets in the car, they share a kiss, and then they drive away.

Well, I.

I loved this little moment that we got to see. I will say this the way you slumped on the steering wheel, I did not think you were overcome with emotion.

I thought you were awkwardly trying to hide.

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

I thought you were trying to hide. I the idea was that I was sort of like, oh, what a day I needed to pull over because, oh, what a day this has been.

I need a moment to collect myself. I mean, it didn't work. I don't think it worked. You thought I was trying to hide it mithering?

Well, I thought it worked because I thought Pam was trying to possibly cover her face from any one of her co-workers who might be leaving since she didn't pull very far away from the building.

Well, that's what I thought. It was strange. It was strange. But there you go. And on the DVD, guys, there is a very interesting extra feature. There is a rabies PSA. It is Steve looking like Steve. Cute jeans button down. He has normal Steve hair, but he's sort of delivering it more like Michael. But he's Steve. I don't know. It's like it was written for Michael, but it's delivered by Steve.

It's a rabies PSA. Remember those things on NBC? Yeah.

The You Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing or whatever. Yes. And he's giving a few, like, tips about rabies. And then he says. Rabies kills nearly 4000 Americans every one years. Well, here's an interesting fact that I found Angela Hunt, which is that the day after this episode aired, this episode aired on September 27th, 2007. The next day was the first annual World Rabies Day, it was a global health day to raise awareness of rabies.

So do you think NBC had Steve do a PSA? I don't know. I don't know. But what a weird, crazy thing, yes. And guys, if you get bit, get that rabies shot. I hope I made that clear in today's. I got it.

I hope you also learned maybe don't drink three margaritas before you have a real early call time aspiring actors. Maybe you can learn that from me today as well.

Jenna, you're giving all kinds of gems today. So many gems. Well, thank you. You're welcome.

Here's the take away from me today. Save the boring emails and then no one will hack you.

That's right. Oh, there we go, guys. That was fun. Run part one. We'll be back next week with fun. Run part two where we actually run.

Oh, man. Do we. All right, guys, have a great week. Hi. Why are you still here? Why? Thank you for listening to office ladies Office Ladies is produced by Airball Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. Our producer is Cody Fischer, our sound engineer is Sam Kiffer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Butko. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad free versions of Office Ladies, go to Stitcher premium dot com for a free one month trial of Stitcher Premium Use Code Officer.