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. Hi, everybody. Hello, are you guys ready for this episode today, Survivorman? Do you have your duct tape? Oh, boy.

Do you have your duct tape in a Ziploc bag full of. What were those peanuts?

I have so many questions about it. Pellets, granola. We don't know. And maybe a knife. Definitely a knife. Definitely always a knife for Survivorman. I forgot to eat breakfast this morning before we got ready to record this podcast, Angela. So right before this moment, I ran downstairs and I ate an egg and a half of an apple it hasn't digested yet. So I feel a little loopy. I feel a little bit like I'm in a good space for this episode.

I I'm a little bit like, you know, hungry.

Yeah. Frazzled, yeah. Do you just have eggs ready to go?

You know, I hard boil an egg first thing when I wake up in the morning I put an egg in my hard boiler, OK? And I just hadn't got back to it. So yeah, I had an egg ready to go. It's part of my morning process.

Things you need to know about Jonah Fisher Eggs Arutz to go. That's right. Add it to your list.

Today is Season four, Episode eleven, written by Steve Carell and directed by Paul Feig.

Hmm. Here is a summary. Give it to me. After Ryan excludes Michael from a corporate wilderness retreat, Michael heads out into the woods for his own survival adventure with nothing but the suit on his back, Dwight secretly keeps watch. Back at the office, Jim tries to revolutionize the office birthday party system and learns that Michael's job is a lot harder than it looks now.

Yeah, and for those of you really paying attention, Jenna just gave us a Dwight.

Did I tell you? Did I kazinsky to pull a Kazinsky Fastback No. One. This episode was written by our very own Steve Carell.

Applause We love you, Steve.

I love you. I reached out because I wanted to hear a little bit about the inspiration for this episode. Here's what Steve told me. He said that he and his wife, Nancy, loved this show called Survivorman. So Steve pitched the idea for this episode because he and Nancy were such fans of the real show. What is Survivorman? I've never seen the show. I mean, I'm guessing the guy's got to go survive somewhere. Oh, Angela, you're going to be so happy when Fastback number two is all about the real Survivorman show.

Give it to me. It was a Canadian TV show starring a real life survival expert and filmmaker, Les Stroud. In each episode, he would be dropped off in a remote location and he would have to survive up to ten days.

He brought little or no food, water or equipment except for his camera equipment because he would film himself. There was no camera crew. But would he bring like a cup? Like, how does he get water? No lady, no equipment. No, no utensil. Correct. Yeah.

Now, they did have safety precautions, like, you know, in this episode how Dwight is kind of watching Michael from afar. Yeah. There was a support team who monitored this guy from a distance just in case he got attacked by a wild animal or something. May we're not going to leave him out there to die. I would not be good at that job, at watching the man or being the man watching the man. I can't I can like you know, I've got to put in my two cents.

How would that work? Explain. Well, like, maybe he starts to go for a bush or something. He shouldn't be touching. Maybe it's the poisonous bush. I don't know.

I start going like I or I pretend to be a bird, but like, it would be like, no, no, not that one. How can you watch someone struggle, I'd be horrible at that. Well, let me say this. He was allowed to scout and study these areas ahead of time with a team of local experts. So he would go in with a survival plan. He would know the local fauna and flora. He would know what things he should eat or shouldn't eat.

Something that Steve said was that he and Nancy noticed that the guy was always doing things like Michael does, like turning a stick into a spear, like he's going to go spear an animal. But he never actually succeeded in actually killing an animal.

So Steve and Nancy had a theory that he just really didn't want to kill any animals because he was a really nice guy, because he never seemed to actually catch any living food to eat. He was the friendly Survivorman.

Yeah. Fastback number three is a location breakdown coming atcha thanks to a fan question from Catalina Rasi, Sidney Weaver, Jason Baret, Sophia Spear and Kate Betteridge. Where did Stephen Rain film The Forest Scenes? I'm going to guess the Los Angeles National Forest. Hmm. I don't think so, no. I mean, unless the Los Angeles National Forest is at the forty four mile marker on the Los Angeles Crest Highway because that's where we shot these scenes were filmed at a picnic site called Charlton Flats.

And we spent one day shooting all of the forest scenes. And that day was, can I get a kento pedia from you, Angela?

Because Kento Pedia gave me this information can come WTO. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Wednesday, October 17th, 2007. That's such a specific antipode of fact. I know. So it was October and that is right when the chill starts to come over Los Angeles.

So some of the stuff where Michael is like it's so hot in the day and then it's cool at night, that's actually really accurate for us here in L.A.. That was life out here, guys.

It's like you leave and you're like hot and then you're freezing in like four hours. You got to layer. Yeah, it's a layering city for sure. Yeah, of course. Our show was set in Scranton, Pennsylvania, so it would have been much colder than we depicted at that time in Scranton for sure. We didn't get the weather right, guys. We got it wrong. We portrayed a nice October day in Southern California. That's all I got, lady.

Well, this whole episode reminded me of Creed Bratton because, you know, Creed's my neighbor. He loves the show alone. It's like a survivalist show. And he got Jaconi into it. And all I can think about when I watch these shows is a I would never make it not because I probably couldn't hunt and fish, but because I get too cold. What would do you in? I would get too cold. I think the lack of sleep whenever I watch shows like Survivor or like people doing extreme camping or survivalist type storyline's, I always think about how they're not getting a sound night's sleep.

And I really need that sleep. I am super cranky, but also I get physical symptoms. When I don't sleep enough, I get a stomach ache, I get a headache, I get like real loopy. So I think it would be the lack of sleep that would do me it.

I can sleep pretty much anywhere. I think I would figure out sleep, but I would just freeze to death or I'd get so cold I would get angry and then I'd quit like I am out of here.

Do everand cold around skirl your guy. Where's my heater. Well, my breakfast is kicking in and but I say we take a break and we'll come back to talk about one of my favorite opening scenes of an episode ever.

Do you mean super sunburned, Toby? Yeah, super happy sunburn, Toby. All right, we'll be back.

We are back and here it is, folks, Toby is holding court in the kitchen, I mean, he is the most lit up you will ever see. Toby, I have to point out something. While Toby is holding court for our background, catch people. At two seconds, you will see the jar of red vines that was in the kitchen for nine seasons. Yes, Primo shot. It's right behind Phyllis.

And I just looked at it and I started cracking up because I feel like those red vines would survive, you know, Armageddon because they were so shellacked and gross. Oh, my gosh. You couldn't eat them. They were like sticks. Yeah. And I remember opening them in season nine and they were the same as season one. It was scary. You know what? They should have taken those out into the woods. They could have used them to build their shelter.

I'm a big red fan. I have to tell you, when I go to the movies, meet you Red Vines or Junior Mints.

Oh, that's OK. Cute. Yeah. So Toby is chatting with Pam, Oscar, Phyllis and Meredith all about this wilderness retreat that he went on with Ryan and some of the other branch managers. We are hanging on his every word. We're laughing.

And you come to find out in this series of talking heads that Michael was not invited on the wilderness retreat.

Three talking heads for the people say the same thing. Phyllis, Toby, you.

Michael wasn't invited. He wasn't invited. Toby was. Michael wasn't.

And the smile on Phyllis face when she says it is amazing. She's so delighted that Michael wasn't invited. There is a delicious talking head that was deleted. It is Ryan in his like office at Corporate and he's saying how he had this idea for the retreat and corporate wouldn't pay for it. And he does that thing where he talks in third person where he's like, OK, Ryan, fix it. Got it. Make it about the environment. He says, make it a green retreat.

Then they pay for it. And then he goes on to say, no one ever does anything for the environment just to help the environment. If someone tells you they have a green initiative, it's a scam.

Oh, my God. And then he's saying that now that he's like the green wonder kid, you know, the green environmentalist, that it's going to impress the ladies of the office. And he purposefully puts a plastic water bottle in the recycle bin by a group of women and they don't even acknowledge them. It's hilarious.

Well, we had a fair question about this scene from Stephanie Pallan, Kathryn LOEs, Zach James and Anthony Battaglia. Paul looks so tan. Does he have special sunburn makeup on to make it look like Toby has been camping? Yes.

Oh, yeah. That was very thought out. They did a test run on his face. They took pictures. They decided if it was too much or too little.

And I remember they even did his forehead. Jenna, like where his hairline is. Yes. They did a great, great job. It really sells it. It looks real.

Well, Michael is so stung by this. Oh, he's devastated. He's seething. He just can't believe that Toby was invited to this over him and Jenna. He starts asking people hypothetically if they would go camping with him in the deleted scenes.

He starts with Pam and it's cut out and I wish it was in. Pam and Jim clearly have two different strategies with Michael, because Pam is like if Michael asked you a hypothetical, you always say no, because his hypothetical could become an actually and you just say no, and then he doesn't make any leeway with you. So he moves on to Jim. But there is a great scene that clearly you and Jim kind of work together to avoid. Michael, to set up what you're about to listen to you guys.

Pam is in Michael's office and he asks her hypothetically, would she go camping with him? She's like now. So he's going to move on to Jim. He's like, is Jim there? She looks at his desk. Jim's not there, but she knows the minute Michael's like, can you send in Dwight? Dwight's going to be put on the tracking of Jim. And so she runs to the break room to tell Jim to, like, hide it.

It's just so hilarious. And here's the clip. Is Jim out there now? Do you send Dwight in here? Yeah, Dwight, Michael wants to see you in his office.

You wanted to see me?

I something very personal I would like to discuss. Would you go find him and send him an airplane? I'm on it. Michael has employed Dwight to track you down. How much time? Well, Jim Michael's office. A couple of minutes, give or take now, Jim.

Oh, my gosh, I love that. How many times was Michael looking for Jim and him and Pam had this covert thing where she's like, Dwight's looking for you. You have five minutes.

It's so good. But, you know, Dwight does find Jim, right? So now Jim is in Michael's office and Michael is asking Jim, hypothetically, would you like to go camping? And Jim, strategy is totally different from Pam's. Jim's, like always say yes. Right. But then have an excuse. And apparently Jim's excuse is always that he's donating blood, which I loved.

I loved Steve's delivery as Michael when he says, how many times can a person give blood? Yeah.

Jim says, Is there a limit? I don't know. I remember John John breaking every single time that Steve, as Michael said, your body only has a certain amount. Yeah. That John would lose it. Do you remember that? I do, because I was in the background at reception. I think at two minutes, nine seconds, you can see John trying not to break. Also, when Michael is talking to Jim about Ryan's lame camping trip that he clearly wanted to go on, he's kind of making fun, that they did s'mores and he's like, hello, I'm Broken Mountain, you know, and this is this moment where I felt like Michael was my mom because my mom would never get the name Brokeback Mountain.

Correct. My mom would probably think it was Broken Mountain. Yes. My mom is always one word off. My mom is the same way. Are we going to be like that, Angela? I think I already am. I feel like we're starting to turn into that. I went to say, like, let's face time the other day, and I said, why don't we Facebook?

There it is. I know that's classic mom brain right there. It's happening. Well, then Michael has a talking head where he explains that when he and Jan had satellite TV, I guess maybe they turned it off because of their money problems.

But yes, this is the thing we love. This is the call back to money, right? Yeah. They're on a budget now. Oscar has given them a budget. I also want to point out that when we get to the dinner party episode and we see Michael's new flat screen TV, just remember that has no satellite television on it as established in this episode. That's great. Anyway, he says that he and Jan used to watch a show called Survivorman, and it's all about this guy who survives in the wild.

And so Michael is going to do this because this is real wilderness adventure. Hmm. So he tells Dwight, I need two things. A roll of duct tape and a knife and I need it thirty minutes or less. And Dwight's like on it. No problem.

I did a little bit of a breakdown of the weaponry in the office.

Oh, there's so much. Dwight goes around the office collecting weapons that he's hidden.

Lady, look at my documentation. You really did document it. There's numbers. They're numbered. How many are there? OK, guess how many weapons are in the office. I'm not talking about what he has in his car because we know he has stuff in the trunk of his car. OK, just guess what he has stashed in the office. How many? Eight. Twenty three. What now? Listen, office fans, if I got it wrong, let me know.

But this is what I tracked and I went back and re watched the negotiation. So ready in the negotiation taped underneath his desk are pepper spray and throwing stars in his desk drawer are nunchuck, a billy club looking thing. And listen, my weapons experts, if I get some of these names wrong, just, you know, you'll let me know.

Then there's also handcuffs, a taser, another throwing star, what looks like to be a whip, brass knuckles and a boomerang that's just in the negotiation. And in this episode under Meredith's desk are like he rolls out a set of like eight different types of knives to pitchfork dagger looking.

Things are behind the water cooler. There's a giant knife in the file cabinets by Kevin's desk. There's a samurai sword in the ceiling over Stanley and Phyllis's desk.

And then finally, he has blow darts in the men's restroom, like in the back of the toilet. What do you call the back of the toilet thing?

The tank. The tank? Yes. So when I added them all up, you guys, I counted twenty three weapons in the office.

It's quite a menagerie of weaponry, a menagerie of weapons. Dwight and I don't know what those pitchfork dagger thingies are called, and I'm sure you guys will let me know. But that's what they look like to me. I don't know what those were either. They seemed like they would be really good for roasting marshmallows, even though I understand they're a weapon. It seemed like a really great triple marshmallow roaster room.

Yeah, I got really interested for whatever reason. In the blow dart gun. Oh, OK, so guess what I have for you, do you have a deep dove on blow dart guns?

I sure do. Oh, let it give it a try. Here it is.

From what I could find, the blow dart seems to have been invented in ancient times and probably in Southeast Asia. They started as bamboo tubes that shot out seeds and clay pellets and then eventually graduated to poison darts. Now, Angela, you might find this interesting because it is believed that it was Indonesian traders that took the blowgun to Japan, South India, Madagascar, and they also popped up in South America, Middle America and the Eastern United States.

Wardo that's Indonesian for. Oh, my goodness, there we go. Dart guns were primarily used for hunting, not combat. I feel like in movies we always see them used in combat scenes, right? Mm hmm. But they were actually a hunting device. The North American Cherokees were known for using them to hunt rabbit and other small creatures and blow guns are still used today. There are even sport blowgun competitions. Angela and some groups are trying to make it an Olympic event.

I would watch that. Yeah, the blow dart event. I'm their lady. Can we go to a blow dart competition? I'm fascinated.

Can we go to a blow dart master and get trained on how to blow dart?

I'm up for all of it. After researching the blow dart, I'm like, bring it on, bring it on. I'll tell you what. One of my improv teams, we had a player who would sometimes hogged the stage and just not leave the stage and take over every scene. So a bunch of us started improv blow darting him.

We just got like like he'd have to pass out.

We just our blow darting him. And since that is very funny, he was the Michael of your class. Yeah. Well, guys, Michael is ready to go. He comes out of his office and he tells Pam that he and Dwight are leaving. Dwight will return later and Michael will be taking a personal day tomorrow and perhaps for the next two days. And Pam is like, do you want me to ask you where you're going? Yeah. And he says, no.

And then he tells her anyway, of course.

Yeah, I noticed Dwight is standing behind Michael this whole speech. He is holding four things. He is holding a camera. Mm hmm. The same camera that we use to make Michael's apology video. Mm hmm. A roll of duct tape. Mm hmm. One of the giant knives and a bag of what?

What is it? What is it? I zoomed in. I took a picture of it. I can't tell. At first I was like, is it peanuts? There's no way it's peanuts. It's also so full. It looks like the pellets you feed your hamster. That's what it looks like to me. It looks like some sort of animal kibble.

I don't know, like he's going to sprinkle around to attract animals.

Well, we never see him eat it. We never see him use what's in the bag. He uses the other three things. I don't know.

We see him only hold the bag of questionmark.

That's right. Also in the scene. I love that Michael announces that when he comes back, he is going to be a completely changed human being.

And then Jim says, that would be great, huh?

So good.

Dwight, of course, has this talking head, which is really funny, where he's like, no, he doesn't believe Michael would survive in the wilderness. Super matter of fact. But lately, I have to point out something at five minutes. Nineteen seconds. What is it? Why are Michael and Dwight in a 2006 or 2007 give or take PT Cruiser? I think we have a car switch.

Is this an extension of Michael's money stuff where he said they traded in both their cars for that portion? Did they get rid of the portion now he is a cruiser. Oh my gosh. We need someone to figure this out. We do. And I looked up the PT Cruiser. This is around the two thousand and seven make with the red interior. I Googled it. Why is Michael having a Chrysler PT Cruiser? I need to know why.

Who could we ask? I don't know, guys.

This is one of those moments where you can see so clearly that we are not the experts of the office. Perhaps there is a really obvious answer for this. Like, remember when I declared that Pam had never used the shredder and then several episodes later, she clearly uses the shredder and take your daughter to work day. It is very possible that we missed why he's driving a PT Cruiser.

Someone tell us. Let us know. This is going to keep. Me up at night and you know how I do with no sleep, let her know. And while they're in this PT Cruiser, Angela Michael is explaining to the camera what's happening. Mm hmm. We are to assume that Michael is being driven to the forest by a serial killer who's going to leave him for dead. But Michael is going to survive the overkill killer, as Dwight calls himself.

Yes.

He says, if I were your serial killer, you would never survive. Hmm. I have a fan question from Elizabeth Congdon and Matthew Lister. In this scene in the car, Dwight takes off his shoe and hits Michael in the head. Was the shoe hit, planned or improvised? And Joey Carr would like to know, was that an actual shoe or did Phil have to make a shoe out of rubber or some other soft material that wouldn't hurt Steve?

I asked Steve about this. Yeah, first of all, it was planned. It was in the script. It was not improv. Steve believes it was a real shoe. He is not sure. I zoomed in on it. It looked like a real shoe. Steve said maybe the reason he can't remember is because it was a real shoe. And so he's going with real shoe.

I zoomed in on it to Jenah. Not only do I think it was a real shoe, I actually think it's Dwight Shoe. I think it came off Ray's foot. It looks exactly like the shoes he wore. Yes. And I can't imagine that Phil Shea was able to make a replica foam shoe that was a real shoe back in the office.

There's some drama, I guess Jim has been put in charge of things because of Michael's absence. And Angela goes up to Jim to talk about ordering a cake for Creed's birthday while she lets him know it's birthday month.

And you guys, we all have birthday month, right? Our birthday month in my family is May. All three kids are born in May. My mother in law's born in May. Two of my sisters are born in May. We call it birthday palooza. Jenna, what's your birthday month? Our birthday month was March when I was growing up. Meet my sister and my mom are all born in March. So we had three birthdays in one month.

I'm telling you, every family has one. And at Dunder Mifflin, this is birthday month. Creed's is today. Oscars is a week after next. Meredith is at the end of the month. We also find out later in this episode from Creed that James was three weeks ago and there's a series of talking heads about birthdays. Angela says, you know what, if this is birthday month, jog back nine months. You know what? That was Valentine's Day.

And then she tells everyone, stagger your sin, stagger your sin so we don't have birthday month. And Jenna Kelly has a talking head about the birthdays. And I'm just going to show you a screen grab because I really need it to just be a surprise. I want you to read I put the subtitles on last night. I want you to read what Kelly says about Pam, because this is a little bit a cliched. Oh, my gosh.

Read out loud what Kelly says about you, Pam lies about her age. That's amazing. There's a great run of talking heads that were deleted, and that's part of Kelly Cooper's. Well, I'll tell you something.

In real life, I am five years older than John Krasinski. Scandalous, I know.

But on the show, our characters were meant to be the same age.

I couldn't tell. So I think they made Jim a little bit older than John and they made Pam a little younger than me.

You met in the middle? Well, I want to point out two things that six minutes, five seconds during this whole conversation between Angela and Jim, which, by the way, this episode was the most Jim and Angela have interacted so far to date. This is the most they've ever had to speak to each other.

Huge Angela storyline, Angela storyline at six minutes. Five seconds, Jenna. This is the return of the puffy elbow sweater. Oh, it's so unattractive.

I'm sorry, lady. Your face, your bangs, your skin is glowing. You look gorgeous. This top is a tragedy.

Why did they buy it in two colors? Remember, I wore it in the beige version of launch party. Yeah, well, it's back now. It's in maroon, so we've got that going. But my plant at reception, people over Jim's shoulder, we see the plant have front reception. It is a blooming plant. Oh, whoa. What it is a pink anthurium, huh.

Blooming blooming plant at front reception. Lady Jim has a big idea that is not going to go over.

Well, it is not. It pisses literally everyone off. Jim suggests that they just do one big party rather than several parties over the course of the month. Angela doesn't like it. No one's going to like this idea. Yeah, you know, I wouldn't have liked that growing up in my family. I don't want to share a birthday with my sister or with my mom in my house. Our tradition was that you got to pick your cake and you got to pick your dinner on your birthday.

And my sister and I like different dinners and different cakes, and it's very similar to what's going to happen in the office. Everybody wants their own little thing. Mm hmm. Next up, we have a Jim talking head that has a wonderful montage that goes along with it of birthday surprises. Angela, we got more mail about this talking head than any talking head I think we've ever had.

Is it about all the different birthday parties? No.

Well, I took a picture because in this montage of all the different birthday parties, there is a moment where we are all just flat out laughing. Oh, yeah, we've completely broken character. And it's when Brian takes the blow up doll and is beating rain over the head with it. They improvised that. That was just them being idiots.

A lot of people wanted to know how much where we actually laughing and all of these clips here, I screamed, grabbed a moment where you can just see me and Ed Helms and Oscar just cracking up.

Look at that. That is not Angela Martin. That is amazing.

I will put that screengrab in stories we had a lot of people write in to point out that Jim says there are thirteen people in the office, but shouldn't there be fourteen? I wrote it out. There's fourteen. But Keith Nichols said, is Jim leaving out Toby on purpose, just like Michael would?

Oh, subconsciously, right. Maybe. Yes, it's fourteen with Toby, thirteen without. Oh, you know, what is interesting to me is that it's clear that Pam knows that this is a horrible idea. She knows it's a disaster. She goes up to Jim and is like, you think this is a good idea? And he's like, I think it's a great one.

And she just kind of smells like no gay. Why does it say anything? I don't know why she doesn't. But Jim does seem a little immovable here, right? He seems a little convinced that he has a great idea. And I think she's like, OK, let's play it out. Let's see how this goes, buddy. But she knows how it's going to go. Maybe she just needs to let him figure it out.

He has to find his own way. I guess so, guys, at this point, Dwight and Michael have arrived in the woods. Michael's blindfolded and he has asked Dwight to lead him into the wilderness. Do you notice how Dwight purposely takes Michael through a bunch of weeds rather than walk him on the clear path?

Yeah, he's like, don't worry. Just some bushes and some thickets when he clearly could have walked around them before removing his blindfold. Dwight also insists on spinning Michael around, which I loved. There are so many deleted scenes of them in the woods. Jenna. What? These men went through that week, I mean, they wrestle each other to the ground, there's just so many scenes like Dwight is doing bird calls, he's hiding, Michael is exploring a ravine, saying absolute nonsense.

He's saying that like, yeah, this ravine was formed when the icebergs really like all this crazy stuff. And I kept thinking, as I watch all this extra footage, what does Michael do with this footage? What does he do with all this? Whoever sees the stuff? I don't know. I think that all the time when I see people doing things like videotaping a fireworks display, you're going to watch that later.

I know you're going to watch that seven minute video of the fireworks. And by the way, while the fireworks are going off, you want to watch your phone screen? They don't get it. Yeah, no.

So Dwight has left Michael on his own. Of course, we know he's secretly watching him and Michael has decided it's getting hot and he takes his knife. I was so worried about his leg the whole time, by the way, that he was going to, like, sever his leg. Me too. He cuts his pants into shorts. He then decides to make a hat out of the extra material. His jacket can be a backpack. He's just saying the craziest things and he has destroyed his pants.

We got a lot of mail about that scene from Jordan. Why Mary Trigg's and Colby Shannon, they wanted to know, was Steve really cutting his pants? Was the costume rigged in some way? I reached out to Steve because like you, Angela, I was very nervous. It looked very real. Yeah. And Steve said the costume was not rigged. He cut his pants with a real knife.

Shut up. He said it was in hindsight, it was a truly stupid thing to do. He kind of can't believe that he did it. I cannot believe this. We would have a frickin safety meeting for a lit candle. And now Steve is cutting his pants open in the middle of nowhere.

By the way, if he did cut his leg, they were far from anything. Yeah, Steve really likes this moment, though. He said it makes them laugh because in the movie Castaway, Tom Hanks does this. And that's kind of where he got the idea. But Tom Hanks does it after he's been on the deserted island for like two years. Yeah, and Michael does that after thirty five minutes.

Oh, listen, lady, I think we should take a break.

And when we come back, we're going to discuss some cake drama.

Oh, I can't wait. I still can't believe he cut his own pants with that knife.

I know he specifically told me he did not use stunt legs. Oh my stunt legs or no stunt legs, no stunt knife and no tearaway clothes. That was all real.

We are back and we have cake wars, cake wars at Dunder Mifflin and not the fun kind where they decorate a great cake. Exactly.

No, everyone wants their own cake. Meredith. It's like, listen, I want devil's food cake. Jim's like, no problem. And then this ticks off creed. Creed is like it is my actual birthday. Like Meredith doesn't get to pick the cake. I don't like devil's food cake. I want peach pie. I absolutely love Jim and Kriegstein together. It's done and this very different style. It looks totally different from any other scene. It's uptight and close creed, super intense.

It reminds me of like Aaron Sorkin kind of moment where it's like dialog back and forth and he's like, listen, televangelists for Creed, so know what it means.

Can I say something controversial? What, you don't like Aaron Sorkin? I love Aaron Sorkin. I don't like peach pie. Oh, I don't like any kind of peach in a dessert. No, I love every other cobbler. I love berry cobbler, apples, whatever you want to throw in there. No peaches for me. I don't know what it is. If it's a peach, I want it to stay a peach and I want to eat it as a peach.

I'm not interested in it being desert aside. What is that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what that is. I mean, do you like like do they do peach jam. I don't want peach as a jam.

OK, what else. Strongly you feel about it.

I have very Angela Martin ask feelings about how peaches are to be prepared. Can I share something with you. But ok Gina this is a snarky moment for me. I'm going to share it with you and everyone listening.

OK, my whole entire life I'm a summer birthday. So when I was growing up, they would like have the birthday celebration of whoever at school. It was their birthday, right. There'd be like some kind of birthday snack or you wear a birthday crown or whatever it was that your classroom did, right?

Yeah, I never got one. So I had a summer birthday. And guess what, guys? If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, there was no like this is for all the birthday celebration, they give a crap. You had a summer birthday, you didn't get any kind of celebration at school. Nowadays, if you have a summer birthday, they do a little thing for the kids with the summer birthdays. Not when I was growing up.

Cut to our time on the office nine years to nine years. I watched all of you guys get a birthday cake. I watched the whole entire cast and crew gather around and clap and sing Happy Birthday and take pictures. And Peter and Vartan would make a special cake for the birthday person.

Nine years. Yeah. We never shot the office in June, did we? Angela never shot the office in June. Guess who never got the office birthday cake. Oh, no, me. Oh gosh. I never got it. Oh no, I never got it.

I remember like around season eight, they rolled out a cake for someone. Everyone's clapping and singing. And I literally said out loud, no one ever did this for me.

Oh, no. Hey. So bitter and someone else was like, yeah, I have a summer birthday, where is our summer birthday cake? Did they ever do it? No, I have never gotten a birthday cake at school or work. This is my cry me a river. But what I see these scenes, I just remember, like, being like, yeah, well, where's my cake?

Oh, my God, lady, I'm so sorry. You're right. I enjoyed many a March birthday cake by Peter and Martin with the candles.

Sometimes they would do a photo cake and put some sweet personal photo on it to I have multiple photos I took of other people and their cakes. No, we also did it for the crew members.

I know. Yeah. Some summer birthdays. So well. So listen, I turned 50 in June. I expect an office lady's birthday cake and a song and applause.

OK, done. Did you get that? Sam, Cassie. Cody, for once in my life I want to work birthday. You know what, Angela? I promise we will not take a vacation the week of your birthday just so that we are forced to celebrate it. I want to work on my birthday. Yeah, that's the other thing. Everyone else is like, dude, at least you were like on vacation for your birthday. I was stuck at work.

At least I got a cake.

I want to work on my birthday and I want a cake.

We'll make that happen for you this year, I promise. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Should we talk about Andy's cake demand? Yes. He wants a Fudgie the whale ice cream cake and pizza rolls and mushroom caps.

Oh, lady, do you remember the Fudgie the Whale? Do you remember this on set? It was a big deal. I do, because it's a special cake brand. Yes, it's Carvell. Right. And I had never heard of Fudgie the Whale, which I remember a few of the crew and cast were like, Are you kidding me? You've never heard of Fudgie the Whale? But it was an East Coast thing.

I'd never heard of it. It's totally an East Coast thing. Well, last night, somebody might have done what she likes to call a mini dove.

Oh, you mini dived Fudgie the whale.

I mean, that does sound inappropriate, but I like it. There you go. All right. Here's everything you need to know about Fudgie the Whale. Carvelle was founded by Tom Kaval, who, by the way, is fascinating. That would be a whole other deep dove about his life and how he really gave birth to like this whole franchise ice cream phenomenon. But here's the famous story. It's on their websites and multiple places online. Legend has it.

Tom Carvel had an ice cream truck that broke down in his ice cream, started to melt. So he was really trying quickly to sell off all this ice cream before it melted. And he found that the customers actually liked it soft. So he was like, wait a second. And he started serving soft serve ice cream and no one else was doing that.

Oh, and so it became a whole thing, right. He developed a soft serve ice cream machine. He even patented. He sold it to other franchises. This man, Jenna, he was a boss lady. He was a boss dude. He was a boss. Daddy, there we go. He was a boss, daddy.

And he started the very first Carvell ice cream shop on the exact spot where his truck broke down. That is boss daddy.

So there are Carvell stores there. Franchise. There is one now in Los Angeles. Jenna, really there used to not be, but there is one now in Los Angeles. And they became famous for a few cakes in the seventies. They created this cake called the Cookie Puss. Oh boy. I know the Hug Me Bear.

And then Fudgie the Whale followed in June of nineteen seventy seven. He was all Tom Carville's idea. He was like, We need a cake for Father's Day, I want it to be a whale and I want the slogan to say for a whale of a dad.

Oh my God, I am loving so much about this. I looked up the expression I'd never heard of this. A whale of a something.

I don't know if you've heard of that expression. I hadn't. But that was an expression and it referred to a very great amount of something. Ah, a very good thing. So to be a whale of a dad was you were a great dad, right? Fudgie the Whale was so successful they kept the mold and talk about reuse repurpose at Christmas time they flipped Fudgie the Whale on its head and made his tail like the Santa hat and made him into a Santa.

And to this day you can still get Fudgie the Whale and you can also get a female Fudgie the Whale. They'll give her pink piping and like eyelashes and a little bow. And more than 50000 fudgie the whale ice cream cakes are sold every year. All the cakes come with two layers of chocolate and vanilla separated by a layer of what they call crunches. They don't tell you what's in their crunchy recipe and you can customize it with favorite flavors and a different type of center.

And there you have it. That's Fudgie the Whale. But I have one other thing I want to play you, Tom. Harbel himself would do all the jingles and commercials for Fudgie the Oil. No way. Yeah. All right, John, here is Tom Kaval talking about Fudgie the Whale for their ad.

Oh, oh, oh. That's a whale of a real story. And this year, your little Neila makes a lot of nuts for you without Joshua Tree people. What do you want to sing for you to wait to a real dad anywhere in the Caribbean territory? You call him the phone number. And here to help you. I don't want to tip my hand too much. Am I going to get a Fudgie the Whale for my fiftieth birthday? How could we not get you a Fudgie the Whale now?

Oh, my God, I am so excited already. I want to eat one of those so bad now that you've described it.

I know I went on Carville's website. There's so many cool looking cakes. They do a lot more now. I'm not going to lie. The cookie puss is kind of odd looking. What is it, a cat? I took a picture of it. Here were their first three cakes that were like their famous cakes. OK, I can't wait for you to see this. This is the cookie puss.

Oh, well, it has a full ice cream cone as a nose. Yeah. And then on its cheeks, it has little arms drawn on. It has cookies for eyes are the arms. What's the puss part. Is it meant to be a cat. I don't know. I don't understand what it is. Here's the best part for St. Patrick's Day. You can get a cookie opus, the Irish version.

I don't understand it. I want to eat it. I don't know. I went real deep under the Carville site, but I'm very excited. I want to fudgie the whale for my fiftieth birthday done.

I can't wait. I don't remember it being on set. Isn't that funny? I remember everyone talking about it and I remember people saying, what is it? But I don't remember ever having one. I totally remember it. I mean, my character didn't eat it, but I remember Ed eating it in the scene. Wow.

Well, when we eat your cake for your birthday, it's going to be all new to me.

The lady, should we go back out into the wilderness?

Oh, definitely. We should. I have a crew catch at thirteen minutes. Fifteen seconds. Or would you catch you can see our cinematographer Randall Einhorn's hand come into frame and brush some tree branches away that we're probably going to hit his camera. He's walking behind Dwight. Oh, Jenna.

That's a great catch. I didn't see that. What's the time code? Thirteen minutes. Fifteen seconds. I was not the only person to catch it, but I want to say that I saw it before I saw our mail. But Tim Wong, Jonah T, Adi H and Kiona Rahbar also wrote in about Randall's hand. Well, great job, guys. Great job.

We also had Jasper Anders and Morgan Eldridge write in to ask what did Phil Shay use for the bird eggs that Dwight finds and cooks? They kind of look like they might be small potatoes.

Guess what? When they were small potatoes, really teeny tiny potatoes meant to look like eggs, I totally thought they were eggs.

But I was trying to think, what kind of bird makes a nest like that up in a tree? Well, what what many birds, so many birds, that was such a big mess, though, like those eggs look like a bird that would like lay them on the ground to me.

Or I I mean, I guess what or maybe they're the eggs of a bird that would nest really a pie.

Exactly. They didn't look like the type of eggs that you could just reach with your hand. I think you would either find them on the ground or they'd be up on a cliff top.

I think that that's a good way to say it. Wait, wait, wait. You said what kind of bird lays eggs at a tree? I was confused, but I see your point now and I hear it, and I think it's a good point. Thank you. I need to talk about this shot of Michael singing Happy Birthday, because it is just wonderful.

Oh, Michael has just made a spear, the teeniest, tiniest spear on the end of a very crooked stick.

I want to point out that he made a spear when he has an amazing knife, like you would think he would attach the knife to the end of the stick with his duct tape, with his duct tape. He might have used all his duct tape to fashion his tent out of his pants. That's coming up, I guess.

But, yeah, there's this shot that pulls so far back. And what's amazing about it to me is, guys, Steve was really in the middle of nowhere and our crew was far back, as this shot reveals. Yeah, I thought it was a beautiful shot. I also love these moments when Michael remembers things like sprinkles, like Creed's birthday, you know, and he sings a song and he's like, Happy birthday, buddy. Yeah. These are those very sweet Michael moments.

This shot also made me think about how Steve Carell wrote this episode. He wrote himself a very difficult shoot day in the wood he did where he gets tackled by Dwight. Oh, my gosh. If I were writing an episode for myself, I would make it pajama day at the office where we all wear our pajamas and there are no stunts.

I would write a very different episode. So I applaud Steve for really going for it in the name of comedy. Back in the office we have bitching in the break room. Oh, I love the everyone is in the break room and they are complaining about Jim's new birthday ordinance and it's just a gripe fest.

Look what I wrote as part of the scene.

I've never had a cake at work for my birthday.

Wow. Because everyone was griping about the cakes and the birthdays. Angela, this episode really triggered you. Apparently so. Right about this time, Jim walks in and xrayed delivers some major Sarsae oh, crede sass.

Some real, real good, passive aggressive souse from Creed. And right after some real serious Creed's ass, Jim is going to have to deal with Toby. Oh, this is such a good scene.

It's so good. And you see in Jim's eyes, oh, my God, Michael, I get it.

Yeah, he has a talking head where he says, you know, Toby is sometimes a bit much. Yeah, I know. Well, listen, Toby, his birthday is not right now and he's piling on Jim. He says, I'd really like to be included because when we did celebrate my birthday, it was in the parking lot at four fifty eight pm. And so Toby would now like to be included.

Jonah, I'm either Toby of this moment today. No, I'm either Toby.

Am I like I know it's not my birthday but I to be included. Am I the Toby. Well you're not asking us to throw you a party on someone else's birthday. You're just saying this year don't skip my f ing birthday just because it's in the summer. I think it's very different. Thank you. Jim agrees to just add Toby to the mix. And Angela overhears this. She's so furious.

She's like, you can't go willy nilly with all of this, Jim. You know, we already have several cakes and a pie and mushroom caps and and Toby's like, I'm allergic to mushrooms.

Well, that's the last straw. Jim storms out of his office and he says conference room and Pam's like five minutes. And he's like, yes, conference room, five minutes. And he's like, no. I mean, no, we're going to deal with this right here. I have something to point out in the scene. It's a little background catch car. Both Crede and Meredith have a free game open on their computer. I have a little background catch in the scene as well at seventeen minutes.

Thirty six seconds. I am leaning up against Michael's doorframe, standing next to Toby and you can see the beginning of my baby belly.

Oh, my gosh. Are you serious? I am serious. And I watched this episode with my daughter and I didn't say anything to her. And as she was watching it with me, we got to the scene and she said, Mom, is this when you were pregnant with me?

And I said, it was. Look, Jenna, oh, my gosh, and you have your hands in front of your stomach to kind of try to hide it, but I thought I could kind of see it earlier in the episode. When you have your first seen walking up to Jim's desk, really, they tried to position you a little bit behind his computer screen, but maybe because I know I felt like I had a belly spot. Well, this will be the beginning of the belly tracking because we had to get really creative over the next few weeks.

I'm ready to head back out to the forest, Angela, OK, because I have a lot to say about the scene where Michael finds some mushrooms growing under a tree and he starts to eat them and Dwight tackles him and forces them out of his mouth. It's pretty amazing. It's so great. I had to know more about these mushrooms. What did you find out? According to Dunder Pedia, the species of mushroom that Michael was about to eat are called Hifa Loma Faster Killara.

I'm sure I got that wrong. I would never be able to say that they are more commonly known as the clustered wood lover. Take a deep dove on these mushrooms. I'm guessing they grow on wood. They do.

It is a type of mushroom and they grow on rotten trees, stumps or trunk's. The taste is very bitter if you eat them raw, but they are not bitter. If you cook them, they are poisonous either way, cooked or raw.

Why would anyone cook them? If they're poisonous, how do we even know what they taste like?

I'll tell you, because a common poisoning technique would be to cook these mushrooms with nonpoisonous mushrooms and then feed them to your enemy.

And it's sort of like an undetectable way to poison someone to death. So morbid.

So clearly this has been done. Yeah. Did you see the movie Phantom Thread starring Daniel Day Lewis? Because this is a plot point in the movie.

No. And if you tell me to watch it, I'm going to watch the first fifteen minutes of it.

Well, you're going to miss the mushrooms because they happen later. Let me tell you what. Here's what happens to you if you eat these mushrooms, diarrhea, OK, nausea, vomiting, convulsions, impaired vision, paralysis, collapse.

Yes, it can take up to five to ten hours before you get symptoms. Now, most of the time the symptoms will resolve themselves after a few days.

But you get real sick. But they can cause death if you eat too many. So, guys, spoiler alert, Phantom Threat is an amazing movie. Everyone should watch it. I'm not going to watch it as if anyone's ever going to take my movie recommendations again. I did watch this one all the way through twice. I loved it so much. Stop listening here for ten seconds if you don't want me to spoil the movie for you. But someone gets poisoned with mushrooms.

Do they have a little towel by their coffeepot? No, but they have a wonderful English kitchen that looks like it's really fun to cook in. So there is some great shots of a great kitchen. I'll be sure and check out the shots. The kitchen. Oh my God.

You let John work go, Angela.

Let it go. Maybe once you get your kaval cake, you'll forgive me once I join everyone who's ever celebrated their birthday at work or school. Anyway, that is the download on the mushrooms. Well, you know the scene where Dwight tackles Michael to the ground. Yeah, there was much more of this in the deleted scenes. There is a great talking head where Michael's like, you know, when Dwight tackled me to the ground and was fishing the mushrooms out of my mouth with his finger like this, it is like when Dwight had his finger in my mouth, he said, I laid back and I looked at the sky and the birds were chirping and there were clouds and it was so beautiful.

And then I vomited because it was really gross.

It's really funny that he had this sort of beautiful moment while Dwight was trying to fish the mushrooms out of his mouth.

I have to ask, is that talking head, is he wearing his torn up clothes or is he wearing Dwight's sweatshirt? No, it would have been like a wrap up talking head about his day. And he was in his office with the Battlestar Galactica sweatshirt.

Well, I love this idea that his clothes are tattered. He's probably vomited on them. And Dwight has to give him this rescue sweatshirt that was in his trunk.

Well, Jonah, I want you to know at eighteen minutes thirty one seconds when Dwight and Michael come back and they walk in the party and Michael immediately starts hitting those high notes. Right. He doesn't miss a beat. The camera pans the. Conference room and Toby, Pam, Angela and Oscar are all standing together and they are smiling so big and I thought, oh my God, Toby and Angela are happy to see Michael and Oscar. Yeah. Like, I expect Pam to smile at them, you know, but the fact that Toby and Angela were relieved to see Michael, well, they did not enjoy Jim being in charge.

No, we had a fan catch in this scene, Angela, OK, from Andrea Andreotti, who would like to know who made the peach cobbler for Creed because it's in a Pyrex dish. It's clearly homemade. Did Angela go home and make this cobbler because she is so dedicated to throwing the perfect birthday party?

So, listen, I thought about this, too, and I think Angela did. I think when Creed said to Jim, tell Angela it's for Creed, she'll know what to do. Angela went home and made his favorite peach cobbler pie. I'm impressed. Mm hmm. Well, at 18 minutes, 56 seconds, you guys, there is a great shot of the Fudgie the whale cake.

Oh, so there you go.

It was there proof of Fudgie, proof of Fudgie and Ginna. As we're wrapping up the scene, Jim and Michael have this fantastic moment where Jim is like I tried to do all of their parties on one day and Michael is like, oh, yeah, I did that.

Yeah. Rookie mistake. You'll figure it out.

This scene is so beautiful. It's this glimpse into Michael where he's kind of talking to appear. Right. He's always managed to bring us are always wanting to be in that position of status to us. But here he is talking manager, our manager to Jim.

It's amazing. It's so great. And it's such a human moment. You know, Jim's like, I'm not going to be here in ten years. And Michael's like, yeah, that's what I said. So as we close out this episode, I thought we could hear just the final end of Jim and Michael singing together. Sam, can you play that? Sure, glad you're back. You are relieved. You have no idea. So what'd I miss?

Well, I tried to put all birthdays together at once. Terrible idea. Yeah, OK, I did that rookie mistake. You did no harm. No. Let's wait 10 years. You'll figure it out. Well, I'll be here in 10 years, but that's what I said. Devastation, but yeah. That's what he said. I never know, let's just say it. I say stuff like that, you know, to lighten the tension when things sort of get hard.

That's what she said. High life. Yeah, really good. Bravo, my young lord.

I have a question. Yeah, is Michael finally eating what was in the bag, huh?

It sounds like he's eating nuts. Yeah, I looked at it and it's like I can't tell what they are. Little pretzel bites. You know, what they look like. If you get a Chex mix, there are these little stubby pretzel bite things. Hmm. I don't know. Or they look like slivered almonds or pecans. It's such a mystery.

But as I watched that lovely scene that I absolutely love, I was wondering, what is he eating?

I'd forgotten about it. Well, I have to go back and look. Oh, well, you guys, that was Survivorman. I don't think I'd make it out in the woods. I do think I'd make it a party planning. I'd make sure everyone had their damn cake.

Next week, we have the deposition that has some of my favorite scenes of all time. Brilliant.

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for sending in your questions and your comments. We love it.

We love you guys. Everyone send Angela a cake on it, no doubt. Oh, my gosh. All right. Bye. Good bye. Thank you for listening to all this, ladies office ladies, this produced by earhole Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Cody Fisher. Our producer is Kasey Gerkin. Our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Boubakeur. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

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