Grief Counseling
Office Ladies- 2,146 views
- 17 Jun 2020
What do we know about this week? We know that this week, we are breaking down Grief Counseling. We start this episode with some real life bird trouble, and we get some special audio treats from Mindy Kaling and the episode writer herself, Jen Celotta. Then we dig into chip rankings, we clear up a fan theory around Ed Trucks death, and we find out who's been moving the conference table. Finally, we get a writer's room deep dive on Dwights absorbed twin speech, and Jenna learns to not touch melons in France. Amen!
Audio excerpt courtesy Penguin Random House Audio from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling, narrated by the author. © 2011 by Mindy Kaling, ℗ 2011 Penguin Random House LLC
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That Stitcher premium dot com promo code office. I'm Jenna Fischer. I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on the office together and we're best friend 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. Hi, everybody. Hello. Welcome to office, ladies. I am so excited about this episode.
It's so good, right? Yeah. And we we reached out to lots of folks, so we have some fun, fun stuff. This is grief counseling. And guys, if we can get you depressed by the end of this podcast, we've done our job.
Oh, Michael. It's Season three, Episode four, written by Jen Salada and directed by Roger Night Guard. Jen Salata is one of my favorite people. Jenna 100 percent. She is just such a delight and was so much fun on set because she would always crack up. Oh yeah. She was one of our worst laughters, which made her the best. Laughter.
Yeah. Jenna, you know what I'd love right now? I hope it's a summary.
It's a summary. All right. Here it is. Michael finds out that his former boss. Ed Truck, was decapitated in a self-induced drunk driving accident. Nobody seems upset, though, or certainly not upset enough, which causes Michael to question if anyone would care about his death. Of course, he doesn't know that that's what he's worried about here.
He doesn't understand, really the depths of his sadness. Yes. He wants everyone to love him and be sad for him if he wasn't around. Yeah. Make a fuss about him. Well, first, he leads everyone in some grief counselling, but then later he forces everyone to participate in a bird funeral. Meanwhile, over in Stamford, Jim is put in charge of supervising Karen for the day, but decides to put their work on hold so they can search for her favorite bag of chips.
Oh, we're gonna have so much to say about that. This is a really odd tangent, and I don't mean to take this really weird, really do it. General, why was re watching this episode? I hear a commotion outside of my. That's what she said now.
And a squirrel is eating. Oh, a little bird. That's worse than what I thought you were gonna say. Yeah. And so I was like, wait, what's eating? What's eating? I start filming it. I have video of me filming the squirrel. And in the background you can hear grief counseling and a bird funeral. It's like. It was so crazy. But apparently squirrels are like they're like an opportunist. You know, if there's a little bird's nest, they go for a baby bird.
They do it. Squirrels are terrible. Everyone thinks they're so cute because of their fluffy tails, but they're awful. Look at everybody. Squirrels carry more disease than rats. Look it up. OK. Sorry, but it just was kind of crazy that I was watching an episode that had a bird funeral and then I saw a squirrel attack. A bird.
It was crazy. Yeah. OK. How do we get back from that. Hit me was from Fastback. All right. Fastback. Number one. This episode was written by Jen Salada. We said that. And Angela reached out to Jen for this episode. Yes.
Jen and I traded e-mails and texts and she was so much fun to talk to about this episode. She was so excited to share information. And so she sent in a whole bunch of audio clips that we are going to play and she is going to come back as a full, awesome guest for maybe two episodes coming up.
Boo boo. We're trying to figure out scheduling and whatnot, but she is in and I cannot wait.
Well, let's play her. Hello, audio clip, Sam. OK.
Hey, guys, it's Jen. I miss you. I'm loving your podcast. I am learning so much. I had no idea of the drama behind the scenes of booze cruise where you were floating away at sea. Angela with Phyllis and Rain and Brian. Amazing.
Anyway, I'm loving it and I'm going to answer some grief counseling questions, so I'll send them in separate audio files.
Isn't it nice to hear her voice change? I love her voice. I find her voice really soothing. Now, listen, we were chatting back and forth and I was listening to her voice a lot. And Jen, I think you have real good podcasts.
I know. Jen, are you doing voice over work like I buy anything you're selling with your voice.
Ah, just call me and talk to me at the end of my day. Just leave me a message every day. Just kind of telling me what you did. Yeah, I will listen to that as I like do the dishes. I agree. And Angela, in one of the clips that Jen sent, she explains a little bit about the process of writing this episode for her, right. Yeah. It's so it's so fascinating. Sam, can you play it?
Enjoy Jen's voice, everyone.
One thing about this episode that really stuck with me personally was it was a thrill because it was hard to tell stories on other shows about characters going through internal things. And in this case with Michael, it was even more than that because this character was going through something internal and he was unaware of it, which made it really exciting to write because I love internal stories, but it also made it kind of difficult to explain at times. And I remember that I created a little chart where it said, here's what Michael is doing and saying in the scene.
And then in bold under it, I wrote what was actually happening to Michael underneath it all. And of course, Steve got it all intuitively. And he's a genius who is such a treat to be able to write and tell that kind of story. And then, Jenna, to have you be aware of what it was that was going on with Michael, to have Pam sort of sense it and see it and fix it without it being spoken was just such a delight as a writer.
Isn't that amazing? I love it. I love that she had like a secret notes and charts in her script about the emotional journey of characters.
Yeah, I find all of that so interesting, just like the writers process and what she wrote and how then it it ended up playing, you know. Oh, my gosh, Angela, it's really something. What she was tracking, she was tracking tracking Michael's emotional journey. She tracked it. All right. Well, we are going to hear more from Jen throughout the episode. So, Jenny, why don't you fast fact me, OK? I'm calling fast.
Fact number two, the big fight. Oh, you did a shoulder shimmy. I know. Are you tricked?
I'm in Mindy Keeling's book. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? She writes a chapter about working on the office and being a writer and also being a performer. And she said in her book that she and Greg Daniels got into such a huge fight during this episode. Yeah. That she stormed off the set. She kicked his car. Yes.
Good, I forgot about that. But rather than have me read you the passage, Angela, wouldn't you rather hear it in Mendy's voice? Yes. Well, guess what? Well, there's an audio book. Oh. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Hit play. Sam, I want to hear it. All right. Here is the clip from the audio book of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns. It's published by Penguin Random House, LLC and read by Mindy Kaling.
I tend to fight with Greg the most. My friend and fellow office writer Steve Hili believes it is because I am emotional and intuitive. And Greg is more cerebral and logical, or as I like to think of it. I am a sensitive poet and Greg is a mean robot. Our fighting is legendary one time late at night. Our script coordinator Shawn and our head writer Danny both brought in their dogs and upon seeing each other, they got into a violent barking fight.
Paul Lieberstein glanced over and joked. Oh, I thought that was just Greg and Mindy. What do we fight about? I wish I could say they were big, smart philosophical issues about writing or comedy, but sometimes they're as small as if we do that called Open where Kevin Demps Attarian of Chili on himself. I will quit the show. We did that called Evan, by the way, and it was a hit. And I'm still working at the show.
I can get a little theatrical. Which makes sense because after all, I came up through the theater, said in my studio's Masterpiece Theater voice, I will tell you about the worst fight we ever had. In a very heated rewrite session for the Season three episode, grief counseling. I was arguing with Greg so much, he finally said in front of all twelve writers, if you're conures is what I'm doing here, you can just go home. Mindy.
Greg never sends anyone home or even hints at it. Greg is the kind of guy who is so agreeable. I frequently find him on our studio lot, embroiled in some long, boring conversation with a random person while his lunch is getting cold and has to go container. And he's a boss. I would never talk to anyone if I was the boss. I would only talk to my attorney and my psychic. So anyway, my very nice boss had just hugely reprimanded me, Greg, suggesting I go home and thus I adjusted.
My attitude was the harshest he'd ever been to anyone in three years. I'd been on the show. There was silence. No one looked at me. People pretended to be absorbed in their phones. One writer didn't even have a phone. He just pretended to be absorbed in his hand. I was so embarrassed and angry that I got up, stomped out of the room. Still a 24 pack of bottled water from the production office. Kick the bumper of Greg's car and left the studio.
Is that amazing? It's amazing. I love the diesel that she took a twenty four pack of water.
Oh, I'm leaving. I am leaving, but I'm going to be hydrated. Well, isn't she goes on to say that after this she went to a nail salon to get a pedicure. And the woman asked her, oh, do you have the day off? And Mindy was like, no, my boss threw me out of work. And the woman was like, Oh, you got fired. And that's when Mindy was like, Oh, wait, wait.
What do you hear? And she drove back to work and she told everyone she'd been in the bathroom. But Angela, she did keep that water. Good for you, man. Her book is so fantastic. I own this book. It is hilarious. It is a great read. Mindy, thank you so much for letting us use a little excerpt from it. And you have to come on the show. And she is.
Guys, because I took Sidor and she's coming on.
She's coming. We won't say when, but it's happening it soon. You guys, if you're looking for entertainment right now, give it a try. The audio book is available on the Penguin House audio Web site and SoundCloud dot com. And thank you to Penguin Random House for letting us play the clip. I love knowing that this was going on in the backdrop of us filming this episode. You're kicking a car. You're taking on water. Jen Cirlot is on set, cracking up.
What is happening in the writers room?
Should we move on to fast fact number three? I mean, I don't know how you beat one and two, but go for it.
Well, I'm not sure I will, but I got a little scoop from Ken to Pedia about this episode. You all right? On the first shoot day of this episode, Kent reminded me that we had our big Season three photo shoot for NBC, where we did a big cast photo shoot. We did individual photos all in character. And since there weren't a lot of scenes happening in the break room, that's what we use for the photo shoot. I don't know if you remember it, Angela.
I do. They set up a desk and then they would switch out the props on the desk and we would take single photos. Again, I have this very stern single photo of me holding a pencil and a pad of paper with a drawing on it that I have never felt properly represents the character of Pam, because I think I look like I think I look like a teacher who's ready to scold you in this photo.
As opposed to a woman going through a life altering journey of love and expression.
I have a photo of me looking very stern in a sort of a severe ponytail, and I'm holding up a card with a cat on it.
Well, then they took the desks away and they loaded the break room with paper boxes and we all posed in front of them. Do you remember that one? I do, because it was actually a very small space. And when they got us all in there, they then couldn't figure out how to get us all in the photo. Yeah. We were so jam packed. So they had tiered these boxes like a little pyramid. And guess who had to crawl up to the deputy top and is at the very top.
And really, I just look like a very tiny floating head in the way back of the photo.
It's me.
Well, then they moved us all over to the warehouse. Do you remember this? And they made it rain paper on us. They blew paper in a giant fan. This was a little insane because it took I mean, I can't even remember how many times to blow the paper. Yeah, I have a great photo from this day. I don't know who took it, actually, but it's in between whenever they blew the paper in the air than they'd have to stop and reset it.
Yeah, they'd have to pick up all the paper from the ground. Yeah. And then someone would have to bring it back and toss it back in the air. Right. So it was like a 20 minute turnaround between these setups and in between the setups we all had to just stay there in the warehouse. We're like on the loading dock area. Yeah, right. Yeah. And I'm in my skirt and my blouse, my severe ponytail and I squat down lady like in a skirt.
You know how you can tuck your skirt up in your leg and squat down so you're not ruining the mystery for anyone? Sure.
I it sure like your work shirt. I squat down in my Angela Martin outfit to talk to Paul Lieberstein. So there's this great photo of everyone sort of milling about in between this paper setup and I'm squatting down so completely out of character talking to Paul. I love it.
Well, it was really crazy because we would have to shoot these whole episodes. But then also, like when they would be setting up a new scene, we would run off to the warehouse and take pictures with the paper coming down on us.
Yeah, it was bizarre. Super, super bizarre. And yeah, when Kent wrote me in and reminded me of that, it all kind of came flooding back like. Oh yeah. How weird that was. Yeah. Well, listen, should we take a break and then get into this episode. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. We'll be right back.
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Ladies, get help today. Go to better help dot.com slash office ladies. All right, so we're back. We are in the bullpen. That's what we would call the big main room where, you know, Mike would always come out and talk to everyone. And he is doing a bit. Guys, he has got a bit. He has stacked up some boxes of paper, Jenna. Now that I remember that we're doing the photo shoot. I feel like those were the boxes that were in the break room that we took pictures on.
I'm not even kidding. They very may well have been. So Michael's doing that classic, like stairs or escalator bit. You know, where you stack up a bunch of stuff and then you slowly just kind of crouch down. And Dwight thinks it is the funniest thing he's ever seen. Oh, Rheins reaction is like if you showed that to a five year old. Yeah, yeah. Utter glee. And just this is the best joke he's ever seen.
Ever seen. It is. And also he's laughing as if he's never heard of it. Yeah. This is all new. Made it. He made it to be an adult man and has never seen the fake stares bit.
But, you know, I think, you know, in this episode, Pam is a little bit of the Jim. Pam has taken on the jokester role, right? Yeah. So Ryan and Kevin join in and they ask him to get little things like a pen, you know. But then Pam shown a little bit of Pam Sass is like, how about a cup of coffee? Like, you give me a cup of coffee.
And Michael's like, well, I have a lot to say about this cold open and oh, I want to hear it, first of all. This was not the original cold open in the script.
Somebody has the original script. I've got a shooting draft of grief counseling. Let's hear it. The original cold open was in Stamford and it involved. Yeah. And it involved a co-worker of Jim wanting him to look at photos of her baby.
Oh. Oh, I saw this in a deleted scene. And yes, she gets really put out with him because she shows him a picture of her husband and the baby in the bathtub. And Jim is like finds it off. Putting is like, oh, God, they're in the bathtub. And she's like, oh, you know what? Come back to me when you have kids, OK? He gets really mad at them. Oh, this was the original cold open.
This cold open was added later. And we shot it at the end of the week because it was an ad and we had all those boxes. We had all those boxes from our photos. You. Oh my gosh. I wonder if they were inspired. They were like, wait. I know all these boxes just stacked in the middle of the soundstage.
We got it. Yeah. A lot of people wrote in and said, oh, my gosh, how many takes did you guys do of this cold open? Because if you notice, Steve looks like he's like sweaty when he's ready and more coffee, his white hat off. He is so tired. Kent told me we did 10 t o 10 times. And every time we did a take, Steve went up and down the stairs three times. Oh, my God.
So he did that 30 times. He was getting like a major like all of those like your quads, says the person who never works out.
What are those called?
He was getting like really some quod and glue plot and glue. And then he had to crawl around anywhere. Poor guy. And Kent also told me that we actually did six different camera setups for the scene because they had to move the camera in different places to do the shot when he's crawling, when he goes inside the kitchen for his talking head, which is technically part of that. So, yeah. But he he walked up and down the stairs 30 times.
Oh, my gosh, Steve. Your butt. Yes. Difference of four. Well, I have two two little things in this opening scene. First of all, at 51 seconds, I think Angel Book kind of smiles. Oh, when Pam says get a cup of coffee, actually kind of has a smile. Like there is a brief moment where I think she's on your side. I just wanted that to be touched a minute. Oh.
And then I have a great fan catch at one minute. Twenty seven seconds. Ready for this? Yeah. Kelly and Chloe Harrigan and Shannon Rojansky. They wrote in and they noticed that when Michael returns from the kitchen, when he's crawling on the ground, that that is Jim's coffee mug.
That's the coffee mug that Jim always uses. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Isn't that a great catch? And I was like, I wonder if that was a little nod to Jim so that Jim's presence got to be in Scranton for a low moment. I love that. Great catch, guys. Great catch. All right. So then we move into Michael's office and he's on the phone with Jan, who informs him that they have lost Ed truck.
And then Michael's like, well, I have his number somewhere. I can find it for you. Yeah.
And she's like, no, Michael. Ed Truck has died. He goes out into the room. He breaks the news to everybody. Kelly rushes up, gives them a hug. Oh, we have a special appearance by Kelly's extensions and her bangs. They make national appearance. They are hugging Michael. Yeah. Him some comfort. And then Michael approaches Pam for a little awkward hug. So awkward. And, lady, I have a track moment. I'm tracking it.
I'm driving a truck. And, you know, I love to track the plants at front reception. Are there more new plan? Well, whatever happens to it, they make an appearance and then we never see them again at three minutes. Twenty nine seconds. I am pretty sure that's the succulent.
We have a succulent, succulent alert, succulent alert at front resumption. We'll probably never see it again. But when Michael hugs Pam awkwardly, you get a nice shot, but succulent. I'm not kidding. I really need to start a spreadsheet, a really complex spreadsheet.
All the things we're tracking. Well, next, we move over to the Stamford office and a staff meeting becomes very awkward when Josh is super sexist and condescending to Karen.
Oh, he he was he sort of just totally done us trash.
I know. Yeah, seriously. And then he puts Jim in charge of her for the day. Oh, gross. Oh, my gosh. Is this just like is this is like a physical representation of mansplaining. I feel like yeah. You know, it's just. Jane, I know you check in on that. Yeah. When you oversee that, Janet, you check in on that and she's like, Yeah. They all things. Yeah, thanks.
Well, we had a fan catch from Brandon. He says at three minutes and 42 seconds when Karen is flipping through her stack of papers. I think I see a page from the script in her note. Oh. Oh, no. Brandon catch. You do. I froze it. Oh yeah. She's got a little script page. I used to do that, remember. And we used to hide pages in our notebooks. I used to keep them in a drawer like in-between takes.
I would open my drawer and I would be like, okay, wait. Did I get it? Did I get it to get it? And then I shut my drawer again. Yes. We had scripts hidden everywhere on that set that we could just peek at between scenes to make sure we were like on our lines or if we wanted to like, prep right before. I mean, obviously we had worked on them and we knew our lines. But when you're doing a bunch, you take sometimes you're like, oh, wait, crap.
What was that? And you just want to do a quick peek. But also, you know, they would have their writers draft and then we would read it at a table read, and then they would make a bunch of changes. And they would start on Monday with what was called the shooting draft. And that's what I have. I have a bunch of shooting drafts leftover, but every single morning we would arrive to work and there would be a stack of new pages.
And they were rewritten scenes just for that day.
They would hand you the pages sometimes that morning and be like, okay, here we go, guys. These are changes for the day. You better believe we were hiden pages in our desks and notebooks. But yes, Brandon, you saw one that that just tickled me because I felt so true.
But a good catch. Okay, so now at four minutes. Two seconds, Karen is really disappointed, you guys, because the chips that she likes. They're not in the vending machine. But I think Jim felt bad at the way Josh treated her. And he now wants to make amends. Right. He wants to try to help her find these potato chips. And this whole scene about Karen and her potato chips just got me thinking about Rashid as breakfast order.
OK. Do you remember her breakfast order? No. OK, well, we often were in hair and makeup together at the same time. And I texted her because I was like Rashid. I totally just had this memory of your breakfast order. Here was the great thing about our caterer, Sergio. First of all, he was amazing. But if your order became kind of popular, if other people liked it, you would get your name on the menu.
Yeah, he would. You would walk up to the truck to order breakfast in the morning, the food truck, and you could order a Rasheeda. Angela sighs Because I always wanted everything half portion because big portions were big and I'm a little person. So I'd always say, can I have half of that? So they started calling it Angela sighs. So here's what the Rasheeda was. And Sergio I ran into Sergio a while back because I was working on a Netflix show and he was the caterer for it, for Mindy Show.
Never have I ever. He was a caterer. Yeah. Mindy hired him, which was fantastic. We had a little mini office reunion. And here's the Rasheeda, which you can still order from Sergio. Ready? Yes. A corn tortilla, poached egg, black beans, avocado, turkey, bacon. Tallulah on the side. And I was texting with Richard about it. She's like, I don't even know how I functioned after eating that. Like, why should I just kind of taken a nap?
But that's the Rasheeda and. But I don't get that. Angela sighs If I'm not that. Yeah. I'd like the receipt. Angela sighs Please. Oh, my gosh. That brought back so many memories. Molly Neke wrote in to say, guys, you can see her favorite chips in the vending machine slot. Be one. Okay, so there's a row of potato chips in the vending machine, but apparently those aren't the ones that Karen wants.
Yes. Karen wants salt and vinegar, potato chips. I did a mini deep dive on Herr's potato chips and Philadelphia magazine did a ranking of all the Herr's potato chips and salt and vinegar was their number one chip. So it might make sense that it was hard to find because it's there. It's the number one chip close behind was cheddar horseradish, Pam's favorite sour cream and onion was number four. Our favorite is their barbecue chips. I love their Herr's barbecue chips.
I don't know where that is in the round the ranking. OK. I'm sorry I didn't look that one up. But I do have a script catch for you as well. We're not done talking about this yet in the shooting draft of the script. Her favorite chips were going to be Salsa Verde Doritos. Wow.
So here we go. We're going back to Scranton. And Crede is in Michael's office with Dwight and Michael, and he tells them that Ed was decapitated. And I was like, what? And he goes, Yeah, he was fine down the road he'd been drinking and I guess he ran into a semi truck, right. And was decapitated. Angela, we got a lot of mail about this scene with Creed. OK, there is a very, very big debate online over whether or not Creed, the character, is making it up that Ed was decapitated or if it's the truth, the truth within the show.
And, you know, create told some crazy stories both on camera and off camera. So I can see where this sort of like controversy, if you will, around Creed's retelling of this. Is it true?
Is it not? Fiona, Danielle, Kelly, Danny McKenzie, Adam and Valerie, they all said, how did Creed know the details of Ed Trucks death if Michael was the first to know from corporate? So their theory is that Creed's making it up because there's no possible way for him to know more details than Michael. And then Maria pointed out that Crede lies later in another episode and says that Dwight was decapitated. That's in the episode, The Returns.
So she's like, maybe Crede is just obsessed with decapitation because he's a weird character. I don't know. Well, here's the thing. I love that you guys were all writing back and forth about this. I think that because Creed knew and he actually knew, Ed, maybe there was someone he called, but we decided, hey, let's go to the source. Let's ask Jen Salada. Was this story made up by Creed, the character, or was it truth in the sort of scope of the show?
Did this really happen? So here's what Jen had to say.
Did Ed Truck really get decapitated? Sadly for Ed Truck. He did really get decapitated. It sounds like a crede story, but it actually was a true story in the world of our show. There's no ed truck, and he didn't really lose his head. However, in the world of the office, he did get to decapitated for real. I think it was Greg that came up with the decapitation. I can't quite remember and Greg can't remember. But I remember spending a lot of time talking about the way Michael's former boss would die and how it had to be something very sudden and jarring so that it could be a shock to Michael Scott system that he could just freak out one day because he's just living his life and going into the office and then all of a sudden he could be dead.
So that's I think that is where the decapitation came from. Unfortunately, I also can't remember who came up with his cap as dictated from his head. I feel like it wasn't me because I would have been really proud of it. If it was me, and I'd remember that. But but yeah, the decapitation was real. Fred Track. Saria Track.
There you have it. Ed Truck really got decapitated. Crede actually got some facts that Michael didn't know.
This is. Yeah, this is good.
Like Slippery Slope with Creed. And let me tell you, this is true in real life. And this character. He'll say something and you're like, that's not true. And then it's 100 percent true. And then he'll say something else. And it's total B.S.. Yes. Yeah. Come to the world of greed. That is true. Well, after this, Michael decides to break the news to the whole office. I love the little couplet. I just loved it.
I watched it over and over of Michael being like, I don't know how to tell you this.
And then Dwight is my ED truck was decapitated. Hey, guess what? Is like you said, you know how to say it. You say you don't know how to say. Dwight is so literal.
Right. So literal. Oh my God. It made me laugh so hard to.
Well, lady, I want to talk about something in the scene because at five minutes, 38 seconds, I wrote down Angela's face.
Why do I feel like in this moment you have what I would consider to be a quintessential Angela reaction? You made so many sour faces on our show and they are so funny to me because I never see you make these faces in real life. They are so not your personality, but they have been turned into. Meems, you are known for this just disapproving look. But it's like it's just funny to me because in real life, you are nothing like this.
You know, people write in and say, oh, you have resting bitch face. You've heard that expression, right? Are you deaf? But now they're just calling it resting. Angela Martin face resting.
Angela face. But this is cracking me up right now, like in a whole different way, because I am doing this show called Be Aushev. You know, I'm hosting this family cooking competition, lady.
You know, I know this. We watch it. We watch it religiously. My kids love this show, you guys. It's a cooking show. It's on Disney. Plus, you have to watch it. It's families cooking and competing. And Angeles, the host. And it is just the sweetest, most uplifting, most just pure fun.
Oh, that is so sweet. Here's the thing my family's doing. So you're saying that you froze on my face making the sour face?
Yeah. My family keeps doing, like, freezing the screen when I'm making the weirdest faces, I guess, and be our chef.
I have learned that I talk really animated and I move my hands around and it's like, I'm Jim Carrey.
My kids think I look crazy. Most of the time on being a chef. And their favorite thing now is to screen, grab it and text me.
I'm loving it. And Angela, I have to say this. Last Friday when it came on, I was like, guys, guys, we're going to watch beer, chef. And Angela's on. And my daughter goes, You really love Angela. Oh, she is your best friend.
And I said, She is my best. Oh, that is so sweet. I know what I know. OK. So yes, I make weird faces. Everybody make weird faces while we're talking about my weird faces.
Jenna in the scene where Dwight asked Angela to put his head on ice. Right. Oh, yes. Okay. This is around five minutes, 44 seconds right at the top of the. Scene. I'm getting something out of the vending machine. Did you notice my jacket? Yeah, lady, I have the same time code. Five minutes, 44 seconds, I wrote Angela Wardrobe. What's up? What is up?
Well, you're a very odd short sleeved jacket. What is this item? It is a short it's a it's a of be purchased. Or was this made for you? Now I think someone purchased it or found it in a warehouse like NBC.
But it is a short sleeve pin striped, kind of like a dress jacket. And I jokingly called it to wardrobe my Janet Jackson jacket because do you remember, I loved Janet Jackson.
And do you remember Rhythm Nation, her album, Rhythm Nation? OK, watch the music video of the song. All right. She is wearing this pin striped jacket course. Mine was short sleeve. Hers was like regular. But we jokingly called this to the wardrobe department.
My Janet Jackson check it. I don't know. It was so weird. It was weird. It was. It was like short sleeve. Whoever designed it. But it's like your short sleeve blouse is peeking out underneath your short sleeved jacket. It's an odd IT design mess.
It's a total mess, but it makes it makes me laugh to look back on it.
It a little bit reminds me of something that you might see on Project Runway when they had to, like, make a jacket out of another jacket. But like, reimagined the jacket, reimagined the jacket, and they just made it a short sleeve jacket.
And they were voted off.
Yeah. All right, guys. So then we have a pretty adorable Dwight talking head where he says that he wants to be frozen when he dies, even if they have to do it in pieces, even if he is decapitated. He wants to be frozen because he will wake up stronger than ever and he will have been able to use that time to figure out how he died and how he could have better defended himself now. Now he's had it through, he's thought through Angela talking heads.
Angela does not want to participate in this.
I want to know. So now Michael is on the phone with Jan and he really doesn't understand why they have a day honoring Martin Luther King when he didn't even work at Dunder Mifflin. Yeah. But Ed Truck Ed Truck sat at his same desk and has died. And Jahns like, okay, listen, do you want to just give everyone the day off? And he's like, you don't get these people. They wouldn't want that now. They don't want to go home.
What they want is a robot statue of Ed truck. The eyes light up. Yeah, that's what they want. Well, we had a fan question here from Sierra. When Michael is on the phone with Jan and has an article with a picture of himself and Ed on the desk in front of him. He slowly drags the corner of an envelope down to cover Ed's head. You know, because he then decapitated. Was that scripted? Yes. That action was scripted.
It was in the script. And then, of course, you see, they made the camera, made sure to capture it.
So smart, so smart, so thought out. Well, I really thought Dwight's drawing of the robot with the six foot extension cord to the wall so it couldn't attack him. I thought that was fantastic. And so Smy when I wanted to know who drew it. But we probably don't know Dewey.
We don't know. We had fan questions about that, too. And and I tried to find out, but I couldn't get the answer for you. I'm sorry, sir.
I don't think it was Ray. Drew it in the back just quickly on a notepad. I'm sure. But I feel I feel like I can say with 99 percent certainty it was not rain. I feel like rain might have doodled on it during the scene. But the original drawing was not rain. Yes. OK. Now we have to go back over to Stanford. I actually texted Ed Helms. I said, Ed, you just made me do the snort.
Laugh so hard because here we are. Jim and Karen are still trying to find these chips. They're having a hard time. But Jim's like, we're not gonna quit. And she's like, I'm not a quitter. And then Andy's like, what? What's the game? What are we playing? And then if they do, we can't find the chips. And he's like, did you check the vending machine? Like, oh, no. Actually, we check the fax machine and you see how pissed off Andy gets at them because he knows he knows they're being smart asses and he just looks at them so seriously and goes.
Did you check your butt?
Don't made me laugh out loud. It made me laugh so hard. I, like, watched it twice.
Back to back. So I was like, oh, my God. And then I texted Ed that, Ed, you are so funny in this scene. I texted him the line and he was like we were like trading texts about it, just cracking up.
Well, that line is in the script. I went and looked. I had to know. But I don't know if you noticed in this scene. Seven minutes. Thirty five seconds. The smile Post-it is gone from Jim's computer. You've been tracking that persistently. I've been tracking it, Gary. And I don't know if you notice. I mean, he's acting more like Jim now, right? Like he's got a little thing. He's dazzling a lady with his charm.
He told you that he's getting more comfortable? Yeah, he's more comfortable. And he has an adventure within work. Right. That's kind of like this is a boring job to Jim. So he always has to find a distraction to get them through the day.
Jim's the guy who makes work more fun. Yeah, right. With his little things like this that he does. So he's he's back to his old ways back at the Scranton branch.
Michael is just obsessed. Now he just can't stop thinking about add truck, and he's really starting to internalize it about himself. Right. Like, what if I are gone? No one cares here. No one cares. And he decides that they probably need some grief counseling. Mm hmm. They're in denial.
Yeah. Yeah. He he wants us to know the stages of grief. And he feels like it's his job to take us through them. He doesn't know if he can get us all the way to acceptance, but if he can get us depressed, he will have done his job. Sister. Great line. It's such a good line.
I have a really great little tidbit right here. What is it? OK, so. In the deleted scenes, Toby is actually a trained grief counselor. OK, yes. And so, you know, Dwight's like Toby should probably lead us through this. He's a trained grief counselor. And Toby starts to walk them through the steps. They're in the conference room. And Michael's like, oh, you're ruining everything. It's going to take me for ever to undo what you've done.
And of course, Toby was being perfectly normal and appropriate. Right. Yes. Michael's like, you're ruining it. And this whole scene is in the conference room taking place around the conference table. Everyone's sitting there. And Michael's like, that's it. I'm going to have to fix everything. You've ruined. Toby. Ryan, Dwight, take the conference table out. We're gonna take a five minute break while they reset. And we're coming back in here.
And I'm going to lead you in grief counseling. And I about fell out of my chair because in my knowledge, that is the first time we have ever referenced the dang conference table. Oh, my gosh. Now we know who's always moving it. It's Dwight and Ryan, Dwight and Ryan where they put it. I don't know. But we don't know. It was the first time I ever heard Michael say, OK. Let's get the conference table out of here.
Yes.
Acknowledging that the conference table can be removed and replaced on a whim. How do they get it out of the doorway? I don't know.
They probably have to take it apart. But Michael's like, we're gonna take five to ten minute break and when we get back in here, we're gonna get down to it. And then the next scene is them with the little ball that they're about to toss around. But that's a deleted scene that sets it up.
I love that. I love that. Well, listen, why don't we take a break and then when we come back, we will meet Michael in the conference room for some some of his grief counseling, MIA and maybe some good maybe Roy will stop by who knows?
He might because Pam might need a little break as well. All right. Be right back.
And we're back. Here we are. Angela, what did you do during the break? I went and got an ice tea. Jenna and I said hi to my husband. And I walked up, I guess, behind him kind of quietly, and I scared the crap out of him.
I was like I was like, why does he give me so do gold?
I feel like I don't know why it's spooking him. Makes me laugh so hard. I got a cup of coffee and then I put the sheets from the washer into the dryer and I'm all excited that I'm podcasting and doing the laundry at the same time because, you know, I love a good multitasking.
Oh yeah. Oh, I have laundry going, lady. I started going, oh, it's going OK. It's also I find that when I do laundry I can't podcast in my closet because you can hear the dryer shirt on the days I do laundry I podcast in my shed.
There you go. There you go. Make it work. Podcast. Take from home. I'm in my pajamas. I never said that at the beginning.
Oh, I know. I didn't. I didn't say anything. But I notice I did my hair though. I don't know what that says about me. Oh, my hair is done. I feel good even if I'm still in my pajamas. There you go. All right, guys, we are back in the conference room. And Michael is going to lead us in some grief exercises. It involves taking a ball. Mm hmm. And when you have the ball, you can talk about a moment of grief in your life.
Michael goes for Hearst. Yeah, of course. Michael goes first and he talks about Ed Truck Angela when he says his feelings about Ed Truck. It's so good. He goes on and on. I ask them to pull a clip so that we could all listen to it together.
Oh, God, I'm so happy about this, because I wrote in my journal that in this scene, this particular like moment, we could not get through. And lady, it's not in the script. This was, I think, an improvisation by Steve. Oh, my God. Okay, well, there's one line I'm not going to say it yet. Let's listen to it. There's one line that I wrote in my journal. We all disintegrated.
So.
Oh, my God. Wait. Hold on. What is it, baby? Cindy got a bird. Oh, OK.
Hold. OK. I'll be right back. OK.
He got one of the doves here. And what's happening. Got a bird.
Sunny is their cat. So here's the thing. This this podcast started with me telling about a squirrel that ate a bird. And now their cat just got a bird. I'm telling you, this is the bird funeral. Podcast. OK. OK. I'm so sorry. And then what happened? You guys, we got a grocery delivery and Sonny shot out the door and I guess caught a bird right in my driveway that we're doing this episode right now.
And you had a squirrel eating your bird when you were prepping squirrel eating a bird. Now your cat is like, attacked a bird. OK. But listen, it's good news. I have good news. We caught Sunny. We wrestled him to the ground. We got the bird out of his mouth and it's a pretty big bird. And he was unharmed. Oh, the bird with Save the bird. The bird. OK. Michael would be so happy.
What's going to happen next week for the initiation?
I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to be initiated. Jenna. No. No, I don't want to. Oh, please bring that over here. I don't want any. Okay. All right. Well, that was crazy. And so sorry. I can't I can't believe this is all happening in grief counseling, but let's. OK, where were we? All right.
Let's play this clip of Michael talking about his grief of Ed truck. I lost a truck and it feels like somebody took my heart and dropped it into a bucket of boiling tears. And at the same time, somebody else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer. And then a third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grease bone and I'm crying and nobody can hear me because I am terribly, terribly. Terribly alone. Angela, can I guess the line that we couldn't get through?
Yeah. Is it frozen sledgehammer? I put I put every one of us broke when he said his soul was getting hit in the crotch with a frozen sledge hammer. Yes, yes.
When I wrote my journal, I said we could not keep it together, OK? I said, that's not in the script. I don't know if he was handed that rewrite on the day, but it feels like that's a Steve. That's a Steve improv.
I feel like man made man man that God is good though. Oh, man, that is so good. Well, then Roy walks in. There's a problem with Pam's car. Can she come down to the parking lot and take a look at it? Oh, yeah. So there is an extended scene of this in the deleted scenes.
So if you thought it was awkward enough, their conversation by the car, there's it's extended and even more awkward. Jonah, here's my question for you. How did Roy know that she was stuck in the conference room? How how did he know there was grief counseling? How. Oh, OK, I think you're implying that she called Roy and told him about. I'm just saying, how did he know? How did he know? OK, I have a take on it.
I think Michael called Daryl down in the warehouse and said, bring everyone up for some grief counselling. And Daryl was like, no, no.
Well, that that would explain it. Yes, that would explain it.
We had a fan question from Alexa Porter. Was there ever talk of putting Pam and Roy back together or was it all just a setup to mess with our feelings? Well, there was talk in the writers room that maybe Roy could win Pam back. Remember, David Denman was made a series regular for season three. Yeah. So he's going to be making a lot of appearances this season. I can tell you guys nothing was decided at this point about what would happen with Jim and Pam, what would happen with Pam and Roy?
They were feeling it out week to week. I totally remember that. I also remember it was constantly said that maybe maybe in the series of the office. Jim and Pam would not end up together in the end, but would instead lead one another to their actual true loves. There was it had not been decided right now that Jim and Pam were one another's true loves. When you just said that I got angry, I was like, no, Jim and Pam end up together.
No.
Well, I think maybe that's why the writing of their characters felt so authentic, because the writers were figuring out their relationship at the same time that Jim and Pam were.
Yes. Or were as an audience. We feel that like what will happen, we don't know. These are two people on journeys trying to find themselves and hopefully that leads them back to each other.
Mm hmm. Exactly. All right. So while Pam and Roy are out in the parking lot, I'm sure Pam was really hoping that she's gonna come back to the conference room and the grief counseling is almost over. But no, they waited for her because they were all very until they left. They waited for her. Yes. There is a great scene on the DVD. It's a deleted scene. And Michael is trying to get everyone to loosen up.
Right. For the grief counseling. He's like, hey, guys, take your jackets off. Loosen your ties. Take off your shoes. Ladies, let your hair down. And Angela goes, I don't think Kevin should take off his shoes.
And. And Kevin gets really annoyed. And then he has a talking head that he says, All right, listen. I have hyperhidrosis. OK? So we find out that he has this disease that makes your feet sweat really, really badly. So I guess he's been taking his shoes off over in accounting. I love this little tidbit. I'm sad it didn't make it in. Well, this explains why when Pam walks into the room, Kevin's feet are up on her chair and his shoes are all.
Yes. People wrote in and asked about that.
It's because in the deleted scene, Michael is getting everyone to loosen up. And we find out that Kevin has. How do you say it? Hyperhidrosis, Angela.
I love that. That's a good catch. That's a good catch. Good tip. Tidbit, tidbit. It's a Kinsey tidbit. All right. So when Pam does finally get back, they begin again. And Dwight is the first one to share.
Who? Oh, this is one of my favorite things. And Dwight shares that he was supposed to have a twin, but he absorbed the twin in utero. All right. We had a man question from a writer, Jolly. Did Rainn Wilson make the hole absorbing twin thing up or was it scripted? Well, first of all, I will tell you, it is not in the script, but I don't know if rain made it out. But in the script, Dwight was supposed to say this.
He was supposed to say in the blizzard of ninety seven, 97, 12, Truitt's died in the basement of our house. They drank beer cider that had already turned. President McKinley declared it a national emergency. Now, my favorite thing about that is that clearly it's not nineteen ninety seven. It's like eighteen ninety.
Yeah. Yeah, I guess.
But that was originally Dwight's grief share. So here's the thing. I reached out to Jentz a lot about this, and this is maybe one of my favorite text threads of all time. This is what tickled me so much, is that Jen Salata, Jenna. She's one of our people. She's a deep diver. She has a deep. The minute I asked her, she went on a deep dive for the whole afternoon. Ready. So I say, okay.
Jen, Dwight's speech about absorbing his twin is not in the script. Was that an improper did you tell him on the day she goes, oh, my God. I don't remember. Oh, my God. I love that speech. And sadly, it wasn't mine. I'm gonna start texting people. Please hold.
This all happened throughout the day. She said I texted rain. Rain actually thinks it was an AWALT pitched from Paul. Jen said, here's a side note. I had a friend that reabsorbed his twin, but I definitely didn't come up with the strength of a baby. She said, I'm going to check with Paul where that part came from. Please hold. She text Paul. Paul says he thinks it was Justin Spitzer. Hold one second. Now, texting Justin.
Justin was another one of our writers. This is what Justin texted Jen back. I still remember that because it was early season three. And I was so nervous about proving myself, I guess. Yes, I came up with it. But the thing that really sold it to me was the last line about him having the strength of a grown man plus a baby. And that was something that Paul Lieberstein added after. So I think he deserves a fair amount of credit as well.
So I'm giving that a slow clap, slow to a big clap. Yes. Wow. It was a two hander that Paul and Justin pitched.
I love that we got to the bottom of that mystery because it is one of my all time favorite Dwight isms. Also, guys, Justin Spitzer is the creator of the show Superstore.
Justin is so talented. He's so talent. I love him. Love him anyway. I think the only place to go from here is back to our grief circle.
And we need to hear from some other. OK. So we're back into the grief counseling scene. And Stanley has just refused. He is not going to participate now. Chunks that ball back at Michael. Hey. Yeah, you heard about that. But Pam agrees to participate and she's going to share a story about her family. But it's clearly just the synopsis for the movie Million Dollar Baby. Yeah. I mean, again, Pam is now the gym.
She's the jokester. Yes. And then Ryan joins in and he shares a story that is very clearly The Lion King. I mean, he says the word maphosa. I mean, come on. But then Kevin catches on and he's tickled. He wants to participate. He wants to play the game. But he goes too broad, too, on the nose. And he basically breaks down Weekend at Bernie's.
And Michael's like, what? Hold up. That's a movie. And he gets really ticked off.
Angela, you know what that sound means? I do. We get a lot of questions about different behind the scenes moments on the office. And we always try our best to give you the real deal.
Just like our friends at State Farm. If you want to know how much you can save on your auto insurance by bundling it with your home policy, they will always give you the answers you need when you need them. So we teamed up with State Farm to give you the real deal behind your favorite episodes of The Office. This week's question comes from Trystan Holmes.
When everyone is in the conference room from Miko's counseling session in the case improvised, maybe they were mentioned or were they scripted?
This is such a good question, Tristin. You were not alone. Several people wrote in about this and wanted to know if these movie plots were improvised or maybe how many other movie ideas were pitched. Jenna? To my knowledge, they were all scripted. That's how I remember it.
Yes, I looked these up in the shooting draft and Pams Million Dollar Baby story. And Kevin's Weekend at Bernie's Story are both in the script. However, Ryan's fake movie story is different. Yes, in the script he talks about Thelma and Louise, which is what he says. He says, My mom's sister, Thelma, died last year. She was with her friend named Lou. See? A cop was trying to pull them over. And I guess the brakes must have not been working because they ended up driving over a cliff and it was a total shock to everyone.
OK, well, we wanted to get to the bottom of this, so we reached out to the source, the writer of this episode, Jen Salada. And this is what she had to say for the movies and the grief counseling session.
I was really excited. It was really fun to think about. I went off on script and needed to find a way that everybody would sit there with Michael Scott and not share their own personal stories of huge loss because it just didn't seem like they would do that. So I thought they should share movies, plotlines, as if they were their own lives. And I came up with Million Dollar Baby for you, Jennifer Pam, and then also for Kevin Weekend at Bernie's and for Ryan.
I had a different one. I think B.J. came up with The Lion King. I don't quite remember, but I think it was B.J. and I love that one. The one I had I actually found my first draft of the script I had Ryan. I'll read you the line. It's not as good as The Lion King one, but I have Ryan say this is almost too horrible to talk about. But I had a cousin who was a big city lawyer and he was visiting an Amish town not far from here, and he was smothered to death in their grain silo.
And then I had Michael say, oh, that must have made you really sad. Did it? And Ryan says, yes. So I think that was a witness. So I had Ryan's from witness. I wish I could remember some of the other ones because I feel like we had other ones that we pitched on. But those were the ones from my first draft. And then, of course, the Lion King Circle of Life was fantastic. And Ryan saying it'll take about an hour and a half to tell.
It was like, it's such a great line.
That is amazing. By the way, my college roommate and I used to watch witness and we would say to each other all the time. Be careful out among them, English.
Thank you. It's my movie. Well, from Witness, but is not while Ginna, that Ryan's. Ryan's movie went through three versions, it was witness. And then it was, I guess, Thelma and Louise, according to your script. But The Lion King is what made it in the show.
Yeah. Clearly, they had a lot of Alz for these movie plots, but all of them were scripted guys. All of them written by our awesome writers. We did not improvise that stuff. Love that. Love that little tidbit. John, Salada. And there you have it. Thank you, Trystan, for your question. When you want the real deal on the office. Were your ladies when you want the real deal on insurance like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
If you want to submit questions about a future episode, just head over to office. Ladies, dot com slash real deal. And if we pick your question to be our real deal question on the show, we will send you a swag bag of fun stuff, including an office lady's hoodie and a signed office lady's mug. So, guys, Michael gets pretty upset that people are not taking this seriously. You know, he says the guy who used to do his job and sit at his desk has died and no one cares.
Yeah. And Toby tries to talk him down and tries to explain that this is just life and that this morning he saw a bird fly into the window downstairs and die. Michael freaks out. Oh, my gosh.
Toby. Toby, what are you thinking? He totally attaches to that. Now, Michael's grief for Ed is somehow wrapped into this bird. It's gonna be a whole thing. Yeah. He runs downstairs. He freaks out. He wants to see if the bird is alive. I had a fan catch here from Kendra at 14 minutes, 33 seconds when Michael runs through the front door to get the bird. He runs past the security desk. And the security guard is not Hank.
Oh, good catch.
Yeah. Different security guard. Hank took a personal day, you guys. I guess so. Well, Michael attempts to resuscitate the bird in the kitchen. Angela, you're not pleased. So Michael is determined to save this bird. He brings it into the kitchen. Angela Martin is not pleased. She was like, no, that shouldn't be in here. Get it out. Well, she is not pleased. And Angela, she's not wrong. Thank you.
Thank you, Jenna. You're welcome. You're welcome. We had a fan question from Ellie Freedlander. She wants to know, was that a real dead bird? No, no, no, Ellie. It was a fake bird. I reached out to Phil. He told me that he found three dead fake bird options and presented them to Jenn. Roger, our director, and Greg, they chose the one that you see in the show. And Angela, I have to say, when he texted me back that he presented the three dead birds, I imagined in my head that they were on a silver tray because remember, Phil would always present you your props on a silver tray.
Yes. Yes. And I was just imagining it. I wrote and I said, Phil, where are they? On a silver tray. And he said, you know, me too.
Well, this is these are the moments in our show where I'm like, Hey, babe, how was your day? What would you do today? Well, I had to find three fake dead birds. Yeah, a scar like like when Greg goes home and his wife Susie is like, hey, hon, how'd it go shooting today? He's like, great. I picked a dead bird. Yeah, I liked the yellow one. I made my dead bird selection.
Yes, exactly. Well, Michael then tells the staff. Attention, attention. We are holding a funeral for this bird at four p.m. in the parking lot. Be there. It's on Jenna.
Now, I think it's time to check back in on Jim and Karen. Oh, yes. Have they found the chips? Where are they? Where are they in their search for this? Very hard to find potato chip bag. That's actually in the vending machine. That might be the of that is in the vending machine. That, according to a fan catch, is BE1 in the vending machine.
It's right there waiting for the. Well, Karen kind of impresses Jim because she decides to call Montreal the Montreal factory to see if they have them. And she speaks French. May we. May we. A lot of people wrote in about this. Brianna Bullard and many, many others want to know, does Rashida Jones actually know French? So I texted Rasheeda since we're already texting about her breakfast order.
She's probably like Angel. What's up? I think this is what she said. She goes, No. At this time I didn't know French. I worked really hard on that line. But a few years later, I ended up going to France to do a French immersion school in the south of France. Maybe this scene was the beginning. And it got me inspired. Wow, that's crazy. She did not speak French, but now she does.
Yes. I was like, I want to go to a French immersion class in the south of France. That sounds amazing. Same. Same. I took French in high school. You did? Oh, I have a story about that, actually. Yeah. And I tell this real quickly. Yeah. I took French in high school from Sister Landry. I went to a Catholic school. Sister Landry was my French teacher. And I dreamed I told you guys this before.
I dreamed from the time I was a little girl that I would one day go to Paris. And then in my 30s, that finally happened, of course, at this point. I was now very far from my French training. Couldn't really speak French, but Lee and I. We went to a little farmers' market. And I guess in France you don't touch the fruit. Oh, okay. You don't select your own produce. You point to it or you trust the person selling the produce to select the best pieces for you.
I didn't know this. OK. Oh, my gosh. I would have been I pick up things. I found bomb ice Yalom. No, lady. Don't do it. If you go to a farmer's market in France, here's my hot tip for you. Don't not touch Anello, Malroux. Don't fall in melon. The melon in France. OK, go now. All through this trip, we've been going to restaurants and we'd been going to tourist places and I was just fumbling with my French.
I couldn't get anything out. I could read the menus, but I couldn't order anything. I was. I thought I was going to really help us, but I couldn't help us. But here we are. We're at this little market. I have done the faux pas. I believe that's French. The faux pas of touching the fruit. And this woman turns to her co-worker and goes off on me. She in French is calling me like kind of like they're dumb.
The mirror. Yeah. Basically, whatever it was, just these Americans come here and they touch her fruit. She was like going, OK. In French I. I was this mixture of just like embarrassed but also felt like I'm sorry. How was I supposed to know that I'm I'm a nice person. I might not know that person. I'm sorry I picked up that banana. And Angela, this fluent French, spilled out of my mouth at this woman and in French, I suddenly had the command to say, I'm so sorry.
But in neither United States, we pick our own fruit. I didn't know about your custom. I apologize, but you don't need to say nasty things about me. And the look on her face was like, oh. Because she certainly didn't think that the fruit touching American could speak French or understand French. And by the way, I didn't know that I had such a command of the language until I was insulted in a farmer's market in Paris. And then your superpower came out.
Yes. You know how like some some superheroes, their power doesn't come through until they're in crisis?
I was like a mom lifting a car off her, maybe. Exactly. All right. So now we're back at Dunder Mifflin and Kelly is crying by the copier in the annex. Yeah. She is in tears. Michael thinks he's finally made a breakthrough until she reveals that she's really crying about her plans with Ryan. I have a question about the scene. Okay. What is up with this second copier in the annex? Is it always there? I have never seen it before.
What is happening? I think they just rolled it in from the bullpen for the scene. I feel like they did.
And they did it because in the background in the break room, Dwight is in there. You can see him over Kelly's shoulder trying to shove this bird into an empty soda can. I feel like that's why they had to put the copier there to combine these two moments to have a reason for Michael to be back there. Right. And for him to see over his shoulder and all of that. Exactly. That copier did not live there in that hallway.
They just shake. Yeah. Yeah, I did not think so.
I feel like I will track this. It's going to be a soft track, but I am going to look for this copier more. I think it should be a very soft track because I, I would be bold enough to say I think it might be the only time it's in the annex. I know that I said so. That's setting myself up for some fan mail of like Angela. Actually in season eight. But I'm just saying, I don't I don't think that copier visits the annex very often.
Guys, if you're watching another episode and you see that copier right to us, you can go to our Web site. Office ladies. Scarman, submit questions or comments or write to us at office. Ladies at your will. Fuck em. Here we go. We want to know. We want to know. All right. But this leads us into one of my favorite, Dwight talking heads, where he explains he's justifying why is he shoving this bird into a can?
And it's because he grew up on a farm. Yeah. And guys, they reburied his grandfather in an old oil drum. OK, hold on. I mean, the same the same grandfather that it was buried in the suit that he wore. Like what's happening? How many times is this guy been brought up out of the ground? This is one of my favorite things about our show. Teresa S. also loves it. She wrote in to say, In Casino Night.
Dwight says that his grandfather was buried in the tuxedo he's wearing. Yeah. And in grief counseling. He said his grandfather was reburied in an oil drenched, reburied. She wrote reburied happen. What is the story behind Dwights grandfather? Was he Exuma? For some reason. And did Dwight take the tuxedo off his dead grandfather? Yeah. For reburying him and then did not like it. Then he folded them up and tried to shove them in a drum.
Theresa, that's exactly what it sounds like. This is some of my favorite writing on our show. In that moment in Casino Night when Dwight just says he's wearing a tuxedo, my grandfather was buried in it. That's it. We say no more about it. And then three episodes later, he's like, when my grandfather was reburied. And it's like slowly it's all coming together, sort of, sort of not completely. There's one of my favorite bits of how our show is written.
So now we're at reception. Right. And Pam has prepared this really beautiful box for the bird funeral. I mean, it is amazing the attention to detail. She asked Dwight if he would perhaps want to play a song. She's like, do you have your recorder? He's like, always, always has way. Always. And.
And, you know, Pam has this really sweet talking ad where she's like, well, you know what? I didn't anticipate I'd be throwing a bird funeral today, but you never know. Working here. That's right. We had a fan question from Andrew, as did Jenna make the box for the bird funeral herself or was that a Phil QEI creation? Either way, how was it constructed? Well, guys, I did not make it. Phil Shea made it.
He said he actually made a few options and presented them again to Gene and Roger and Greg. They picked the one that they liked. And then Phil had to make multiples of it because, you know, it gets set on fire. Yeah. So he had to make a whole bunch of those. I looked it up in the script and it was described in the script. So here's what Phil had to go off of. It said it is a hollowed out tissue box with tissue padding in the center for the bird to lie on.
And the outside is decorated in tissue paper and has a tiny little toothpick cross.
My favorite part are the the handles, the handles made out of the pencils. So that was a Phil addition. That was just Phil.. Yeah. Yeah. He needed to make sure that tiny bird casket had little bars for his the pallbearers.
That the pallbearers. Yes. We are going to wrap things up in Stamford now. Guys, Jim found the chips. He left them on her desk. He's quite pleased with himself. Yeah. I really wanted my mom to record a sting that said flirty Jim. But we we couldn't we couldn't get it together.
All we'll be seen drove people crazy. I went back and looked at some of the comments from when this area. Oh, here is what they said. DTMF said. I feel kind of weird about Jim and Karin, but Hartman said the Karen thing. Why? Oh, why am I liking it? But I am.
Well, I remember people freaking out about it. Well, Kealy said, Jim and Karen have great chemistry and Mandy said, OK, I'm sorry, I can't believe there are actually people out there who are OK with Jim hooking up with Karen. That's what I remember. But Kim E said this. Jim likes to buy chips for all his ladies. And I'm with you, Kim. As Pam, I'm like, oh, is this what you do?
You just find all the girls their favorite chips. Yeah. That's his game. Are we saying that right? Oh, is that you and I? I'm 100 percent sure. Down we are. Sam's giving us an advantage. That's his game. All right. Should we go to this bird funeral? Angela, I can't wait.
Please take me there. Well, we're out in the driveway, really next to the warehouse. This was an actual parking lot that we used, and it was right next to the warehouse. And that's where we filmed this. Michael is very moved by Pam.
Beautiful coffin. It starts with Pam saying a few words about the bird. But we we slowly realized that Pam is speaking about the bird, but she's speaking to Michael about his feelings about death and loss and about his aloneness.
She talks a lot about how just because the bird was alone doesn't mean he was unloved, that he was very loved and respected by the other birds. And then she sings a song. I was very surprised by this for Pam. She really put herself out there. She sings on the wings of Love. She's accompanied by Dwight on the recorder. Michael is very moved. He's holding hands. He's swaying. He's tearing up.
We've got a lot of questions about this scene. Richard H. Really covers them all. He says, Did Rain already know how to play the recorder? Did Jenna sing the entire song or did the singing and where the scene was cut? He also wanted to know, did we rehearse our duet? Here's what I can tell you. Yes. Ray knew how to play the recorder. Remember, he played it and take your daughter to work. Day is actually very good.
But listen to all of the instruments that rain can play in real life. Angela.
He can play the recorder, piano, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, guitar, drums, xylophone, bells and a little tuba and baritone.
What are you, a one man band?
I knew you could play the bassoon because your book, The Bassoon King, is great. So I knew that. But I didn't know you were a walking one man show.
Suffice it to say, Ray knew his stuff and we did rehearse. But just a little bit, right before the scene, Rain and I practiced separately. I had listen to the song over and over again to memorize the words. I had to sing the first verse through the chorus. That's what I had to do over and over again. I was so nervous. Well, I thought you did fantastic. Thank you. I have a fan question from the scene, Jenna.
OK, so Chelsea wrote in and said, was Angela's a man improvised. A lot of people wrote it about this because it was so quick after. Yeah, I was done talking. People want to know if I improvised that. No, that was scripted. And folks wanted to know why did Angela do it? And I said, I think personally, the direction that, you know, they gave me was that Angela had had enough of this Schrade, this bird funeral.
Pam had gone on and on enough a man. I went, I'm done. And that's that's how you finish it. Yes. And then I'm finished. Hey, man, stop talking.
Yes, exactly. Speaking of a script, I have a script catch. OK, so, you know, in the scene, we set the box on fire in the shooting draft of the script. We buried the bird. There was a scene where Michael and Dwight are digging a hole outside. And then we all gather around this hole. And it got changed to fire. But I don't know why. I think maybe, Angela, there was really no grass in this area that we shot.
We had no there. There was a hedge with maybe like, I don't know, three feet of dirt. Like, yeah, there was I mean, not even there is a deleted scene where Michael and Dwight are trying to dig a hole there. And then the business on the other side yells at them and they run away. Oh, OK. Well, there you go. Well, we had another fan question about this fire. Then Clara Johnson wants to know, did you actually set the bird on fire?
Yes, real fire. Fake bird. Kent told me they had to hire a special effects guy to oversee the fire and the extinguishing, and they had to get a special permit to be allowed to set the fire. And he said, we did three takes, three takes the fire. And Phil told me, though. The special effects guys were worried that the fake dead bird might give off toxic fumes when it burned. So we they actually took it out of the box and just put a wad of toilet paper in there.
Oh, not toilet paper. I now, too. Now, too soon, Angela, too soon. And then finally, we had a fan catch from Peter Kay. He said, I noticed the box was burned in some shredded paper. Could this be further evidence that Pam does use the shredder? Oh, look at that. Nice one, Peter. It would appear so. Well, you know, Jen actually left us a really great message about this scene.
And she was talking about the fact that we never got to shoot outside. And when we did, everyone would get really excited. And she explains a little bit about that. So, Sam, can you play that?
One thing that I remember from the grief counseling episode is that when I went to the sound mix, they were showing us the playback of the episode. And it was still a little bit unusual when the characters went outside. It was still a little bit of a treat. So we get to this bird funeral scene and our characters are outside.
And I just remember hearing a kind of an enormous amount of birds.
And I think that it was because we were outside, it was because we had a bird funeral. It was so exciting for the amazing sound people who do a fantastic job to put a lot of bird noises in, because for the longest time when we're inside the office, they're just putting dot matrix printer sounds and just faxes, an old fashioned office noises. So it must have been such a treat and a field day to be able to go outside and hear birds and especially on theme with the funeral.
So I remember in a slight exaggeration, but it sounded a little bit like Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds when they first when I first heard the playback for the Bird funeral, but they quickly made a wonderful adjustment and it was the right amount of outside birds.
I love that. I love that our sound mixer has got so excited, they put like hundreds of birds and they're like, okay, guys, they're not many birds outside. Let's go. Let's dial it back. Yes, yes. Oh, what good insight from Jan this week. Yes. Thank you so much, Jens. A lot of for sending in those clips and for texting me. You are amazing. We so appreciate it. And thank you, Rasheeda, for letting me bug you about all kinds of random things yesterday.
And also Phil Shay and Kanza Baunach. Thank you guys for helping us make this podcast so great. And thanks so much to Mindy Kaling for letting us take a clip from your book. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me and other concerns? It's hilarious. We love you, Mindy.
So there you have it, guys. That's the grief counseling episode. Did we do it? Are we leaving you depressed? I hope not. I hope not. And hopefully next week we won't have any more dead birds to tell you about in our lives. Stay safe out there flying friends. Stay safe out there, everyone. We love you. Thank you for listening to. Office Lady's Office Ladies is produced by your won't.
Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. Our producer is Cody Fisher, our sound engineer, Sam Kiefer. And our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton for ad free versions of the show and our bonus episodes. Candy Bag. Go to Stitcher premium dot com for free. One month trial of Stitcher Premium Use Code Office.