Office Ladies - A Look Back on Company Picnic

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

It’s Thanksgiving break and what better way to spend it than reminiscing on another great Michael and Holly episode? Take a look back when all the branches of Dunder Mifflin gathered for a company-wide picnic. Michael reconnects with Holly and the Scranton branch come together to slay at volleyball until Pam and Jim discover some very surprising news. The ladies break down why this episode needed “special business performers,” Angela reveals some epic volleyball moves and Jenna shares how the big season finale news was kept under wraps. So grab your soup snake and enjoy this very special episode! Happy Thanksgiving!  Link to Jennie Tan’s “Company Picnic” write-up on “Office Tally”: https://www.officetally.com/the-office-company-picnic   Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestionFollow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPodCheck out Office Ladies Merch at Podswag: https://www.podswag.com/collections/office-ladies

I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on The Office together. And we're best friends. And now we're doing the Ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you. Each week we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you. We're The Office, ladies. Angela Kinsey. Jenna Fisher. I think I have a meta moment. Because today. Yeah. In the world. Yeah. The 100th episode of Office, ladies, podcast came out. Yes. And now here we are recording our podcast about the 100th episode of The Office. That's very meta. And our ages almost equal 100. Oh, well, why do you have to throw that in there? I don't

know. I was looking for more hundreds. All right. Well, we should get into this episode. We have so much to cover. We do. This is going to be a long one. That's what she said. She said. It's Company Picnic, season five, episode 28, written by Jen Salata and Pauline Burstein, directed by the dearest man on the planet, Ken Quapas. Summary, it's the Dunder Mifflin Company Picnic. All of them are there. All the branches. Yes. In their own special t-shirts that have their branch name on them. Oh, I have it, lady. We'll get to it. Well, the Scranton branch is going to compete against the other branches in a company-wide volleyball tournament. Meanwhile, Michael and Holly reunite to perform a comedy skit where they accidentally

reveal some confidential information to the crowd. David Wallace, why would you tell Michael Scott anything of that magnitude and expect him to keep it quiet? When David introduces their skit, one of my favorite lines is when he says, I have not seen this. I have not seen this. Yeah. Finally, Dwight is going to defend Angela's honor. Till Rolf. Yeah. Yeah. And ultimately, an ankle injury is going to send Pam to the hospital where she and Jim get some surprising news. So sweet. I love this episode. Fast fact number one, Company Picnic was the 100th episode of The Office. Yes. This was a very big deal for the network because it meant our show was now eligible for syndication. Which I didn't even know

what that meant. I thought maybe we should explain it. Okay, do. Because I remember when we hit 100, I was like, what's all the hullabaloo? Yeah, sure. We hit 100. That's cool. I know. We'll go out to dinner or something. No. No. For the network, super big. They all showed up to the set. They did. They brought a cake. It was as big as a poker table. It was humongous. It was. That's what she said. That's what she said. They brought champagne. But we couldn't drink it. No, because we had to go back to work. We actually only had 15 minutes with the cake all said and told. It was on our lunch break. So if you wanted to eat, we had 30 minutes photo with the cake and then we had to run out the door. Well, I remember

Greg gave a very nice speech. He did. About what the 100 episodes had meant to him. Entertainment tonight was there. All the press was there. I mean, this was a super big deal. Let's tell you why. When a show hits 100 episodes and goes into syndication, it means that the network can now start selling the show in a package to different places where they can rerun it. So it doesn't just run on NBC anymore. It gets on all the cable networks. Like Comedy Central, how it reruns on Comedy Central. Right. And guys, remember, this predates all streaming. Yes. So this was all kind of a cable thing. But this meant big money for the network. I didn't know that, but it makes sense because these other places pay them

to have it. Yes. But what I think a lot of people don't know is that the actors do not cash in on this unless they are what is called profit participants. Oh yeah. And guess what? We weren't. We were not. Now our union SAG does negotiate a small fee for syndicated reruns. So it's very fun. You get checks and they're great. They're great, but they have you guys this like cascading tier. So you get a check and you're like, whoop, whoop. Then the next one's a little lower, then it's a little lower, then it's a little lower, then it's a little lower, and then it's for like $2. Well, you know that bar that they have called residuals in Burbank? Yes. This is a famous bar, you guys. Yeah. So there's this bar called residuals.

And if you're an actor and you bring in a residual check that's under a dollar, they'll give you a free drink and then they tack your check up on the wall. Yeah. I have a friend of mine who saved a residual check for, I think it was 17 cents. And I put it on his bulletin board. Lady, I got one for 21 cents. It costs more money to mail it to me, probably and to print it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah, they were able to make a lot of money selling the show to cable. And then eventually you guys, I mean, you know, they were able to sell it to all the streamers. Yeah. I guess we should probably say the actors don't get a big payout for that either. That money goes to the profit participants. See, the word

profit participant is something I had never heard of. And as it turns out, if you're one of those folks, that is Lushataki. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It sure is. Angela, you found out the inspiration for our hundredth episode while listening to the DVD commentary. Will you share? I will. I'm officially part of Fast Facts number one, folks. Oh, yeah. Here's the thing. If you love really good DVD commentaries, this is one not to miss of the office box set because Ken Coapas and Paul Lieberstein and Jen Salata share so many great details. They are the only three people on this commentary. And I really enjoyed it. Paul shared that the idea for the company picnic, they had it at the very beginning of season five. They

always knew that they would be working towards this episode. Wow. And Jen shared that they wanted to bring all of the branches together. They researched company picnics. This delighted me because I just imagined Jen googling company picnics. She was a lady who googled. I was going to say, like, that would have been us. We would have been like, wait, let's research what people do. And one of the things that came up was a volleyball tournament. So they thought that would be fun. And Paul said he thought it was a great way to bring everyone back together, all the different branches, all the different characters for this big one hundredth episode. The only characters you don't see that were in the world of the

show really were Jan. But it doesn't make sense for Jan to come back. Yes. And Karen. Yes, we got mail about that. Where was Karen? And Jen Salata did an interview where she said Rashida Jones was filming Parks and Recreation and they couldn't get her for a whole week of work to be at this picnic. And then they realized, wait, she would be on maternity leave. So they tracked her story wise as being on maternity leave. And that's why she wasn't there. Well, that worked out perfect. While the volleyball was a great idea, Ken did share that it was a logistical nightmare because they started filming and they were trying to keep with the rules of volleyball, which

means the teams trade sides depending on score or whatever. But they just had to bail. They had to bail because it just got too complicated. And Jen said she had this memory of looking over at Ken and he had a clipboard and he had little quarter and he was tracing this coin with a pencil and placing it and mapping out where everyone was going to stand and who was serving and who was playing what position because it was so complex to shoot. I thought it was interesting that they chose volleyball. Any company picnic I've ever been to, it's usually softball. But I do see how people are really spread out in softball. So I guess that makes sense to me. But I mean, I can't even imagine.

Jen and Paul shared this other thing. Jen said that her and Paul, as they wrote this episode, they thought that each team had nine players. And so they wrote the whole script with each team having nine players. And then they got to the production meeting. And in the production meeting, someone was like, you know, on volleyball teams, you have six players on the court, not nine. And Paul and them were like, what? But yeah, so they had to change that like immediately. And I have more fun tidbits from the three of them in the commentary I'll sprinkle through the episode. All right, Angela, great job on that Fast Facts.

Oh, thank you. Really enjoyed that. Thanks so much. You told me, you were like, Jenna, there's some great stuff about the inspiration behind the episode. And I said, I'm holding a spot for you up in Fast Facts, lady. You did. All right, Fast Facts number two is a location breakdown. Now, the signs hanging in this episode say that this picnic is being held at the Meadows in upstate New York. I could not find

any information on this or if this is a real place. Faky place. Perhaps. Does anyone know? Please comment on Office Ladies Pod. If you've ever been to a park called the Meadows in upstate New York, I'd love to know. Fan question. Rayon from Pakistan would like to know where did we actually film this episode? Well, we filmed at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu Canyon. It is a beautiful location. It's kind of nestled into the side of this canyon in the Malibu Mountains. Did you know it has its own water source from a spring on the property?

I didn't know that, but I know a lot of people get married there. I've been to a wedding there. You know what? Randy Cordray knew about this location because he had been the best man at a wedding there. And when the script came up, he remembered it and suggested it to our locations manager, Kyle Alexander. And they scouted it and they all agreed it was perfect. So now, Angela, you mentioned how Ken Quapas said like this was a logistically difficult shoot. Randy said this was a very difficult episode to pull off logistically from a production

side because we had so many people. So many people and we were in the middle of a canyon. He said we had to hire additional crew, including multiple medics. And we had hydration stations and sunscreen stations and Sergio and Alan, our caterers. They had to triple their staff. They had three lines to serve lunch, like three buffet lines. And then Peter and Vartan at Craft Service, they also had three stations instead of one. It was a lot of concern about being able to feed everybody because all the background food, people were told not to eat. Yeah, it was fakie food. It was real food, but it had been at various temperatures that made it sort of unsafe to

eat. So if you watch the episode, you might notice no one eats anything off of their plates of food. Check it out. Vartan said there was probably like 250 people there. Guess what my fast fact number three is, lady? What? I'll tell you. We had 14 guest actors, our regular cast, and 185 background performers for this episode. Also, I thought this was interesting. Some of the background performers were called special business performers.

Special business? You know what their special business was? Volleyball? Yeah, playing volleyball for hours on end. Lady, were you ever a background performer? You know it. That's how I earned my SAG card. Yeah.

Same. Did you have any special business listed on your background performer resume? Yes, I did. What was your special business? That I could speak Indonesian. Oh. Mm-hmm. My special business was waterskiing, bowling, and animal handling.

Oh, I also put I could play tennis and roller skate. Yeah. Those are a big deal. Yeah, that's a big deal. I was on 90210. Did you have to do any of your special business? I didn't. I was one of Tori's spelling sorority sisters, but I did pass the ballots of a voting, a sorority voting session, too. I handed them to Tori.

Oh, you got to interact. I was a, yes, briefly. I said nothing. I just handed some paper to her. I was an extra on the movie Pleasantville, starring Reese Witherspoon and Toby McGuire, and I had to play a teenager, and that was really fun because I got to dress up in old-timey clothes the whole time, but check this out. They came into the extras-holding area because they needed three couples to make out in the backseat of a car. They were going to pan across all these different couples making out until they got to the car with the lead actors.

Were you part of the make-out couples? No. You would have become a featured extra if you did it, and you got a bump in pay, but I felt too shy, so I didn't volunteer. But Lady, we had a very special background performer on this episode of The Office, and it was Jenny Tan, who runs the fan website, OfficeTelly.com. Yes. We had all become friends with her, and she was invited to spend the entire week with us getting an exclusive look at the finale, and they asked her to be an extra. And Lady,

she documented all five days of shooting this episode on OfficeTelly.com. It is still there, and she has tons of photos. Amazing. She also gave this amazing breakdown of what it was like to be a background performer on Company Picnic. Oh, my gosh. Are you going to share? Yes. You guys, Jenny was sort of someone who made a community for The Office online before anyone

was doing that. Before social media. Before social media, and she was there for the show, providing this community in our earliest days, when we didn't even know the future of the show, and it meant a lot to all of us. And we would reach out to her and give her exclusive tips or content or photos that she would post on the website, and it became kind of the hub. Yeah. And this was before Networks did any kind of social media or website for any of

their shows, and our show had this presence because of Jenny. And so her documenting of our show is very extensive, and it's all still there on OfficeTelly.com. There's all these exclusive interviews. It's amazing. She said you could really tell the people who were professional background artists because they would bring tons of gear, like rolling luggage, filled with what she said, quote, outerwear for every possible weather condition, chairs, water, snacks, something to read. It's like, you know, when you go to the beach and you see people, like, come with the wagon

full of stuff or at the soccer game, that's a professional background performer. Oh, yeah. I remember doing background work, and there was a guy that had a backpack that was a chair. Yes. And you could open the backpack, and there was stuff inside, or you could unfold it and sit in it. Because background performers do not get trailers. You mostly are going to be directed to a holding area with some folding chairs in it, but my

experience was there were never enough chairs for each person. Never enough chairs, and they're usually outside. Yeah. So Jenny said that when she first went to the wardrobe tent, she was given an apron to wear, and she said she would be a grill cook. But then about an hour later, production pulled her aside and made her a Buffalo Branch employee, and then they winked and said, you're going to be part of a special branch. But she didn't know what that meant yet.

And get this. Jenny talked to a bunch of the background folks, and she said that most of them were not office fans, that they had never seen the show, and that a few of them did not know who Steve Carell was. She said they were thrilled to be working on our show because we had a reputation for treating background performers very, very well and for providing great food. She said one person told her from a work perspective to be able to be an extra on the office for an entire week, I feel like I won the lottery. So that made me really proud that our show did a good job.

Because as a person who did a lot of background work, yeah, it meant a lot. Usually the background performers were like the last people who get to go through the lunch line, and it's like what's left almost nothing, and you were not allowed to go to craft services. But on our show, we had a whole buffet set aside just for the background performers and a whole craft services table that they kept full, and it was awesome. Well, you know, that's Randy Cordray. Randy took care of everyone.

However you were a part of our show, he was going to make sure you were taken care of. That is absolutely true, lady. All right, lady, those are all my fast facts. I mean, it's a lot. Well, it's a huge episode. I know. All right, should we take a break and then start breaking down this episode? Just heads up, it's going to be a long one.

That's what she said. We are back and the phone is ringing at reception. The lights are out. Yeah. Erin takes the call and she says that Michael is not in right now, but he'll call this person back when he gets back. When he wakes up, I mean gets back. Right.

Well, guess what? He's not sleeping because he had chicken pot pie for lunch. Not just chicken pot pie, Jenna, he had the whole entire chicken pot pie. A family size. A family size. A chicken pot pie. And he's gone to sleep, as one would do. Well, the whole office is going to prank Michael into thinking that it is five o'clock when

he wakes up so that they can all go home early. And Dwight does not normally condone leaving early, but he does have that appointment with his horse doctor today, so he's in. Even catch from Marcy G in Connecticut, there is a small detail that tickles me every time I see it. In the cold open, when they're tricking a sleeping Michael into thinking it's 5 p.m., they have to change the time on his watch. Pam has her shoes off so she doesn't make noise in his office.

But if you notice, Dwight also has his shoes off while he runs outside to change the time on Michael's car. I saw that. Jim also has his shoes off. Yes. Did everyone just take their shoes off? We had another fan catch from Lloyd C from Australia who said, during Jim's talking head, when he goes to turn the clock forward, the time starts on 12.50.

But when Dwight goes to Michael's car to change the time, it starts at 12.10. He said, was this a continuity gap, or did Dwight's panther speed turn time backwards outside of the office? I think it was probably just a continuity catch. Maybe they had originally intended to see Dwight running outside to the car first and then have Jim explain it in his talking head, and then maybe they just swapped it in editing. I bet that's right, because Vada would have been all on top of this. She had everything meticulously time-coded every time we had a clock.

She was very particular. So I feel like that was a change up in editing. Jenny Tan, who was there that day watching us film, noted that John had a really hard time winding the clock backwards and delivering his monologue and timing it out perfectly. I thought so watching it. I'll tell you why. John is so effortless as Jim, but in this moment, I could see him concentrating on that clock.

And just for a split second, I thought I saw John. Well, she said that the knob on the back was really, really tiny and that John kept overshooting the time. Like it kept ending on like 5.15 or 5.10 instead of right before 5. But she said they finally got it perfect on the last take, and then they stopped. They were like, we got it. Yeah, done. Well, this whole elaborate ruse ends when they all collectively on the count of three

just erupt into laughter. And this wakes Michael up, he laughs too, because he always wants to be in on the joke. Yes, yes. But you had to be there. You had to be there. It was a geography joke. And then Michael sees the clock and does exactly what they hoped for. He's like, well, let's all go home.

I had a teeny tiny catch on Pam's desk at one minute 33 seconds when we're all laughing. I noticed, and I had forgotten this, that she has a prat mug on her desk that is what is holding all of her pens and pencils. And then she has her pink mug that she's drinking out of. But I spotted that prat mug. Aw. That's a great detail from our set decoration crew. Well, I love that.

I was way in the corner, back by Stanley's file cabinet, and that was just trying to get me in the shot. Ken Quapas had me come out from accounting once again, I'm standing. And that's how we could all be there. Well now we have our super short opening credits. They are like 10 seconds, Jen Salata did an interview with Office Tally, and she said they cut the credits down to get more time for the episode. She mentioned that they had gone back and forth about maybe making this episode an hour,

but she said they didn't feel like they needed it. There were other season finales like The Job or Goodbye Toby, where they had like tons of plot points to wrap up and huge moves they were going to make. But in this episode, she said they didn't have that much. They just had kind of the one big move with Jim and Pam, and a little bit of a move for Michael and Holly. And then the rest of us just little nods to our storylines. Yeah.

But she said they did need to steal that little bit of time from the credits. The day has arrived. It is the Dunder Mifflin company picnic. Here's a breakdown of all the different branches and their t-shirts. Oh. Thank you, Dunderpedia. I started making notes, and then I saw you had it. So I'm going to read what you have, corporate black t-shirts, Akron yellow, Albany light

blue, Buffalo orange, Nashua green, Rochester dark purple, Scranton red, and Utica dark blue. Lady, I'm calling this episode the plain hats club. Oh, I can't wait to hear this because I have some lingo I made up for this episode as well. Everyone in this episode is wearing a plain hat. And that is because if you wear a logo anywhere on your shirt or your hat, the production has to get it cleared with that company first. So I have a breakdown of everyone's plain hat.

Like the plain baseball hats? Yes. Jim is wearing a plain black baseball hat. Pam has a white visor. Dwight has a tan fishing hat, which I Googled and I learned is called a bucket hat. Kevin is also wearing a tan bucket hat. Angela has a floppy sun hat, Andy has a tan Panama hat, Aaron has a sort of light purple baseball hat, Creed has a light tan baseball hat, Ryan has a white visor, Stanley has

a straw sun hat, Phyllis has no hat while she's playing volleyball, but she has a straw sun hat on the sidelines, Meredith has no hat, Oscar has no hat, Charles Minor has a black Nike visor. How did we get away with that? I don't know. Because it's Idris and we're just like, let Idris do what he wants to do. We're just glad to have you back. I don't know.

Toby also has a yellow baseball hat with a logo. It has little trees, but I couldn't read what it was. Well you know, part of the hat strategy was because it got so hot during the day. We needed it. We needed it when we were playing volleyball as well to kind of create a shade on our faces so that you could see our expressions. So we weren't completely blown out by the sun, also for sun protection, but you might notice that Michael and Holly do not wear hats.

They are mostly in their cutesy little like love nest shady area. Yeah, exactly. Well, Jenna, I also did a little bit of tracking. I want you to know that I feel like this episode really brings out some of our characters other traits. I made a list. We have Sporty Pam, Saucy Jim, Petty Charles, Trash Talking Andy, Snarky Michael, and my most favorite, Vacation Stanley.

I love Vacation Stanley. So the picnic starts with Pam and Jim. They're walking up and they share a little bit about what last year's softball company picnic was like. Jim had that spider in his mitt, but that's not what Pam is talking about. She's talking about the guy who grabbed her boobs to keep his balance. Uh-huh. And then Pam points at her chest and says, yeah, you don't grab these for balance.

And Jim goes, well, and this is Saucy Jim. Well, next up, Dwight arrives with his friend, Rolf, his best friend, who they met at a shoe store when Dwight overheard Rolf asking for a shoe that would increase his speed but not leave any tracks. These two are made for each other. We had a fan question from David H. in Pennsylvania, who played Dwight's friend? Was he somehow related to the show already? Guys, Rolf was played by the amazing James Urbaniac.

And get the sandwich. But he auditioned and was called back for the role of Dwight. Well, that makes perfect sense to me. Doesn't it? He and Ray knew each other from their New York theater days. And after Rayne read this script, he called James and gave him a heads up. And he told Greg, you need to bring in James Urbaniac for this. Well, they knew him because they had auditioned him.

So he went in to see Alison Jones. He read for the role and he got the part. Ben talked a little bit in the DVD commentary about just how perfectly cast James was. And that for a guest star to come in on such a big episode, James just fit in so seamlessly, you would have never known he had never been on the show before. That is just how organic his performance was and that he just crushed it. Well, he's one of those guys who's been a working actor for a very, very long time. And I feel like he's one of those people where you recognize him immediately from his body

of work. Well, we got this interesting letter from Janna M. in Westport County, Mayo, Ireland. Oh, wow. We have letters from everywhere. This is so exciting to me. You know, we added a feature on the website where you can say where you're writing from. I love that. I know me too, because it's really fun to see how international the show is.

I know. Well, when we get mail here to Earwolf that I open, I can always see where people are from. But before in emails, we weren't always sure. Here is what Janna said. In fact, James Urbaniak, the actor who played Dwight's best friend, Rolf, whom he met in a shoe store, also played a shoe store employee with a foot fetish on Sex in the City. What is it about James Urbaniak in shoe stores?

That's really funny. I think that's fun. And now Christine B. from Mississippi asked this, I've heard that Rolf was introduced because Moe's was busy on Parks and Rec. Is that true? Oh, savvy question. It is true. You guys, originally, Moe's was supposed to come to the picnic with Dwight and they called

up Mike Scherr, who was now running Parks and Rec. And the week we shot company picnic, he was directing an episode of Parks and Rec, as well as running the show. And he was like, you guys, I can't do it. And I guess they begged him, like Jen and Paul, they were like, please, you have to come be Moe's and he's like, you guys, I can't do it. I am running a whole other show now. Yes.

And then, you know, we're going to have Mike on the show. I can't wait. And he's going to tell us a little bit about how he also truly hated playing Moe's. Hated it. Hated it. So I think he was like really happy that he had a good excuse to not be out in this field in his wool clothes for four days. That also made sense to me that Dwight wouldn't have brought Moe's to the company picnic.

And I love this twist that he's got this best friend. Yeah. You know, there's a deleted talking head that made me laugh, but also sad, where Michael says he usually brings the guy from Escondo with him. But this year, he came by himself. The guy from Escondo. Yeah. Well, Rolf is going to appear in four episodes of The Office.

This was his first. We loved you, James. He was really fun to work with. So fun. Now enters Holly. Aw. And Michael, Caesar, and Kevin's like, there's Holly, and Michael's like, oh, you know, we're just friends.

There's a whole awkward greeting between Holly and her boyfriend, AJ, with Michael. And Jenna, this begins snarky, Michael. Steve does this thing as Michael, I love so much, where he lets his hatred for someone just barely poke out. So he says, hey, I could get you guys some lemonade. Holly says, lemonade sounds great. Michael goes, OK, AJ says, I'd love an iced tea, actually, and Michael goes, you can go to hell.

Just kidding. Just kidding. He'll get him the best iced tea in the world. Yeah. First of all, Rob Hubel is back as AJ, and he's so good. He's being so nice to Michael. I know. The whole episode, you're like, oh, my gosh, this guy must really love Holly to be that

patient with Michael. I want to point out in this scene that Kevin is having a beer. Yes. Holly asks for a lemonade, AJ wants an iced tea, according to a big banner in the background. You can really see it over Michael's shoulder in his upcoming talking head. There is a breakdown of everything the Dunder Mifflin Company picnic is serving. Oh. The food was hamburgers, turkey burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, salads.

Listen to the beverage list, pina colada. Charles drinks one of those. My tie. Stanley drinks one of those. Hurricane. Oh, wow. Tequila sunrise. Dang.

Beer, wine, sodas, water. No iced tea. No lemonade. No ice. Lots of booze. Lots of booze. Lots of booze, you know, Michael has a talking head where he says, I lied to Kevin, Holly and I could never just be friends and he wrote a whole list of bullet points of why they

should be together on like a receipt, on some kind of receipt. He didn't use a proper piece of paper. No. And he's trying to read it and he can't really make out what he wrote. He said, there are soup snakes. And then he tries to justify it by being like, I think, okay, yeah, I think it's because when we have soup. And then he's like, no, no, soulmates.

Well, we had a fan question from Tracy C. and Georgia who said this, I have been holding on to this fast fact for so long, please include it in this episode. What is it? Mindy describes her and BJ's relationship as soup snakes because she loves the scene where Michael misreads his own handwriting. And instead of saying that he and Holly are soulmates, he says, they are soup snakes. You guys, this is true. In Mindy's book, Why Not Me?

Here's what it says, quote, we're soup snakes, BJ and I are soup snakes. And then she added soulmates is what you aim for, but soup snakes is what you get sometimes. Aw. Is that so sweet? Yeah. They are soup snakes. They are soup snakes. Come and jam.

We're going to say hi to Charles, who right out of the gate says nice day, huh? Jim says, yeah, Charles says must be nice to get a rest from all your rest and walks away. I call this petty Charles. I want you to know Charles was way more snarky in this episode, but a lot of it got deleted. Oh no. Yeah. Well, Jenny Tan said that when she was kind of going around talking to all the actors,

she said both Rob Hubel and Idris talked to her about what it was like to have fans hate on them. Oh, really? Yes. Because Charles was always mean to Jim, but I have to say, lady, he is not wrong on his read of Jim. Like Jim is very charming, but he, I mean- He slacks off.

He is a slacker. He gets his work done ultimately, but he could be more ambitious with his time. Well, yeah, that comes for him later in life. He will become more ambitious in later seasons. All right, lady, it is time to play volleyball. Yeah. Dwight is assigning positions to the Scranton team. Andy is like, bro, me, go, put Aaron next to me, all of Andy's ridiculous things.

Bro, me, go, it's pretty great. Well, guess what? The Scranton team is not doing well. Aaron misses the ball. He starts screaming at her, are you blind? And then he catches himself and he redirects the question in earnest to the man on the other side of the net wearing sunglasses. He's like, no, I'm really, are you blind?

Guess what? Sunglasses man was played by our very own editor, Dave Rogers. Yeah. But the game continues. Kevin is not great. Phyllis sits down in the middle of the game. Ryan is on his cell phone. Yeah.

And now it's time for Pam to serve. And Dwight is like condescending. He's like, are you left-handed or are you right-handed? Think about how you hold the phone. And Pam's like, you know what, Dwight? Back off. Mm-hmm. I got it.

This is sporty Pam. Oh, she spikes that serve. She does. And then she's like, maybe I played a little in junior high and in high school, maybe a little in college, and went to volleyball camp most, and you do this really cute thing to know where you go, Samas. Well, this created a fan mail flurry lady. It did?

Oh, yes. You know, Rose G from Colorado sums up all the letters nicely by saying, in season four, Pam says that she used PMS as an excuse to get out of volleyball gym class. But here, Pam is real good at volleyball. What is up with this plot inconsistency? Now, we did discuss this when we broke down Job Fair. You had your theory. Yes.

It was a fan theory that Pam wanted out of the non-competitive gym class volleyball. This is a very kind theory. This is like, I mean, this is a very kind, kind, like, let's just make any excuse. Well, Jen Salata did an interview for Office Telly, and she admitted they just forgot about that line when they wrote this. Of course they did. They didn't strategically plot out like, you know what, Pam was so competitive. She didn't want to do PE volleyball.

Right. She still liked that theory. I know. I know. Pam continues to dominate. She wins the game for her team, advances them to the next round because I am just that good. Yeah.

Well, I have a kid catch. What's the kid catch? So my kids rewatched this episode with me. They could not get over at seven minutes, 43 seconds. There is a full-on face body plant. This must have been someone with special business as volleyball because when Pam serves, you've got to look at the person who misses the ball. They throw themselves.

They fly through the air and they land in one clump face down. I was like, is this a stunt person? I mean, Jenna, I have to show it to you. I'm going to put it in stories. This is how this person lands. Oh my gosh, that person did not even break their fall with their arms. I know. That is intense.

Well, I have a tidbit to share about that. Okay. But first, let me do some fan questions. Peyton H. from Vermont said, Jenna, I know there was a stunt double for you and some of your volleyball scenes, but my question is how much was you and how much was the stunt double? And Megan B. from Jerome, Idaho said, have you played much volleyball in real life? All right.

I'm going to break down all the volleyball. I love all these questions, you guys. I love them because, you know, I know the answer to some of them and others I'm intrigued. I have played a lot of volleyball. You don't say. I have. When? In like grade school, high school, my youth at the beach.

I know how to play volleyball and I have a really great underhand serve. So do I. Very consistent. Yes. Nothing fancy, but we'll always get in. Same. They didn't want that for Pam. I offered to do it.

They weren't interested. They wanted overhand serve. Because you know in varsity high school, you have to serve overhand. I did not know that. I did not play varsity. I know this because my daughter's playing volleyball. She is. In junior high, she can still do underhand, but they're wanting them already to do overhand.

Well, here was the problem. I have a shoulder injury. I have tendonitis in my right shoulder and it's really bad. I have a lack of range of motion and doing that overhead swoopy motion, it's even a little sore. I'm doing it now. It's even a little bit sore if I'm holding nothing in my hand or if I'm not hitting a volleyball.

What? Why are you laughing? Why is it so funny? What? I was just going to say, and alias, oh my God, you're still tracking why I can't be on alias? I will for the rest of my life. How can you swing on a rope and like do a cartwheel and like throw a grenade or whatever

she did? I mean, you're making a good point. Okay, go on. I hadn't thought about that. They didn't ask me in my audition how my overhand range of motion was. Well, that might have rolled it out. They shouldn't have even auditioned me for that role. There's no way I could have swung on a rope.

All right, well, listen, they had to get me a stunt double. Her name was Nancy McCrum and Randy was kind enough to send me her photo, which we'll post in the Office Lady pod stories. And he sent me her resume. And her resume, it shows her height and her weight, which I just want to say, I can't believe I used to weigh that. Oh, because they matched her height and weight to you. Yes, when they find you a body double or a stunt double, they have to match the person's

height, the weight, the general hair color, or they'll put a wig on the person or color that person's hair. But it's more than that because I was on this one movie and they had to get a body double for me and the woman showed up and she was my height and weight, but her weight distribution was totally different from mine. So walking and- She didn't look like me. She didn't look like you.

This happened to me, Jenna. I did a movie called Struck by Lightning and there was this long tracking dolly scene that started in a room and ended up on the sofa that I was sitting on. And they had a body double for me for all the lighting setup because it was going to take a really long time to get this set up. So after an hour of them setting this all up, using the body double, it's time for me to report on set. We do this long intricate tracking shot.

The camera's coming down this long track, lands on me on the sofa and it cuts part of my head off. Well, what they found out was she was my exact height. They immediately called for her because the director of photography had set up all this time for the shot and he said, are you 5'1"? And she said, yes. And she came and stood next to me. We were the same height and then he said, sit side by side.

We sat side by side. I had a longer torso than she did. Yes! This is what I'm saying. So they had to like measure her like did we have the same waist, the circumference of your thigh, like all of that. And Nancy McCrum was just an exact body double for me. Well I could never tell that there was a body double there so they did a great job.

Well here's what I did. She was also very good at volleyball and she taught me how to do the motion, how to jump up, how to serve it and all of that. And I did a whole, whole bunch of takes and we used a CGI ball. So that you didn't have to actually make the contact. Yeah. Randy reminded me that the very first time I tried to do it by making contact with the ball and I like winced in pain and he was like, no, no, no more ball.

We're never having her do that again because like we said, he was so good at taking care of us. He was like, we're going to do a CGI ball. But he said while the serving and putting in a fake ball was not difficult, it was really difficult to have people dive for a fake ball. Yes. So that person that is diving in that video you just showed me is diving at nothing. Well that might...

That commitment. That might make sense a little bit. And the DVD commentary kin was very complimentary in saying that Jenna, you did great, fakey arm motion. Yeah. Well, I have to give credit to Nancy because she was such a good teacher. We became a little chummy on this episode and they did shoot with her a little bit from behind with a real ball and that was really helpful for the people on the other side because

then they were diving for a real ball and they used some of those shots, but I'm not sure if they ever ended up using any of her serves. I think they were mostly my fakey serves that made it in. But I do want to say one more thing, which is that over on OfficeTelly.com, Jenny Tan took a bunch of amazing photos of me serving with no ball. Oh, really? And they're really cool. And I grabbed them so that we can put them up on Office Ladies Pod.

Your story about Nancy, Jenna, just reminded me of an amazing run-in I just had. For years, Steve had a body double named Eric Sulke and Jenna, Josh and I were in the wine country for our anniversary and I hear Angela and I turn around and there is Eric and his wife. No way. He is still working with Steve. It's been like 16 years they've been working together. They're working together on a movie right now.

Look at that. Oh my gosh. Yes. I remember him. I know he was so lovely and I said, Eric, it's so crazy to see you outside of a suit because he was just in casual clothes. But sometimes when Steve needed out for something they had to get him to a talk show or whatever, Eric in a suit would sit in the office there in the background in Michael Scott's office.

You could catch his shoulder or the side of him and they are still working together now, 16 years. I love that. Me too. Well, listen, ladies, should we take a little break and then when we come back, we will talk about Michael and Holly and what they're up to? Yeah. I think we need to come back and talk about some chair pants.

Oh, great. We're back and also Snarky and Michael is with us. He gets a big piece of news here. He really does blesses hard. They tell him that they're designing a house. He says, for who? And AJ says, for us. And then Michael says, well, wow, I'm designing a chair.

It's part of your pants. You sit down. You're supported. Holly lights up. She's like, I remember your chair pants idea. And AJ's like, I like that. Put me down for a pair. I'm a size 34 waist.

Here comes Snarky, Michael. He can't take it anymore. He says, all right, Fatty, I will do it. You know what? We should actually rehearse. He wants to get Holly away from AJ. And AJ says, you guys are really going to do this? And Michael says, you bet your fat ass we are because you can't contain like how much

he's freaking out that this guy has just swooped in and is taking the love of his life. To build a house. To build a house. To build a home. To become a family. Oh. Well, we have this really sweet talking head where Michael and Holly together explain that David Wallace has authorized them to perform a presentation on the history of Dunder Nifflin.

Again, David Wallace, what are you thinking? I don't know. Well, Holly and Michael are going to find a nice little quiet place to rehearse. He brought her chocolate covered strawberries. When I rewatched this with my kids, they were like, wow, because I think they associate those with valentines. When you go to the grocery store, there's always a big chocolate covered strawberry display for valentines.

It's a very romantic gift. It is. What snacks do you bring to a picnic? You bring like potato chips, some salsa, chocolate covered strawberries. By the way, I love that your picnic items are potato chips and salsa. I have never brought potato chips and salsa. You don't like chips and salsa? But don't you eat corn chips or like?

Tortilla chips. Okay, I'm sorry. But also, I've never brought salsa to a picnic blanket. It's so messy. The chips, yeah, but I don't bring dips to a picnic. I don't think dip when I think picnic. Lady, lady, when my husband first came home with me to meet my family, my mom said to him, we're dippers and chippers.

Okay. We always have some kind of dip and something like a chip to eat it with. Even on your picnics. Most definitely on a picnic. Okay. It just seems like a mess waiting to happen. Give me all the dips. All right.

And you know, bring some paper towels. Well I have something crazy to share about this location where they shot these Michael and Holly scenes. The tree, the little shady tree? Yes. He said that this shaded location was the most troublesome of the whole shoot. Why? He said first off, they really wanted a romantic private area where these two could sneak off

to, but they still needed to feel the picnic in the background. And it was really hard to find the right spot. The one that they settled on drove Randall crazy. I guess there were these overhanging trees and then there was like a muddy creek where his lighting equipment needed to go and we usually shot our show with just two cameras. But for this, they had to add a third camera. And it's because they just couldn't cover it with these over the shoulders. They looked good, but they really wanted a two shot of them from the front.

But listen to this and I barely understand how they did it. Okay. It's so tight in this area that the only way that they could do it was they had to set up a mirror and they shot the camera into the mirror. And then in order to make it match over the shoulder shots, they reversed them in post because when they shot in the mirror, they were on the wrong sides. It was this like special mirror called like an optically correct mirror. I barely understand this, but it was a huge ordeal.

Well it sounds like a huge ordeal. I'm also very curious, could Steve and Amy see their reflections as they did the scene? Cause that would be weird. I wouldn't, I don't want to watch myself because then I'd be like, what are you doing with your face, lady? What is that expression? I would be so distracted. Yeah.

So I don't know. My question was like, did they just have this mirror on standby? Like is that part of their kit? They have an optically correct mirror in your camera kit. It sounds like a special order, but it also sounds like they kind of had to figure this out on the fly. But I don't know, maybe it was part of their planning scout. Get that mirror in case we needed and get a third camera.

You would have never known it by watching that scene though. It was so beautiful and effortless. I would have never known there was a mirror or a third camera. There's this great, great moment between Holly and Michael is their brain storming their ideas, right? And yeah, they're going to do this skit, but this is the first time they've met to figure out the skit that's going to be going up soon. And Michael has no script.

He just wants to wing it. So they start spitballing like movie spoofs, right? To get out this information about how Robert Dunder and Robert Mifflin met. Only part of it was scripted, Jenna. Steve and Amy just improvised and Ken said they love the improv. They just let the camera keep going and going. Really? Yes.

Here's how the scene started as written. Holly's like, what about back to the future? Yeah. That was scripted. The rest of this part was not ready. Yeah. How about back to the future? Steve improvises.

Could we get a DeLorean? So funny. Amy improvises. Jaws. They swim in the ocean and they terrorize the whole community. And then at the same time, like this sort of group mind, they both start going, Dunder, Dunder. No.

Dunder. Dunder. That's all improvised. And then they both start cracking up at nine minutes, 44 seconds. Go to that time code. The two of them are laughing. And I think it's because they're just cracking up like they're just having a good time. Wow.

I think they're both genuinely tickled that they came up with the Dunder Dunder in the moment. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. And then they go back on script at the very end when Holly's like, we haven't found our great idea yet, and Michael says, but we're circling it. Wow. Mm-hmm.

Wow. That was an improv in the middle of a scene. Yeah. Usually our improvs happened at the end. Yeah. And Ken and Paul and Jen said that the two of them were just magic together. You just see it. You really do.

Lady, should we go back to the volleyball game? It's getting heated. Pam scores another point. They're going to move on to the finals. Phyllis is like over it. Yeah, she twists her ankle. And then trots over to Bob Vance. Yeah, she has no problem running over.

And then there's classic Vacation Stanley, where he's like, you just had to be part of the group. And he's got his cocktail and his hat. I'm telling you, this is setting up Florida Stanley. Oh, you're so right about that. Well, now we need a replacement for Phyllis. And Rolf is going to call up Meredith, even though Angela volunteers. Rolf is so intense.

Yeah, Rolf says he didn't hear Angela volunteer because he doesn't hear cheaters, tramps, or women who break my friend's heart. And then there's this look between Dwight and Angela. I have two little tidbits to share about this scene. Number one, OK, so you know the part where I bump the ball? Yeah. OK, that was not a CGI ball. That was me.

That was real. And then when Phyllis is running to the sidelines, I spotted a man in a Yankees baseball hat. We took all of the trouble to put the whole cast in plain hats. And then they just let a guy sit in the front row with a Yankees hat on. What is that? What is that? It's just a lot of people. Someone's going to fall through the cracks.

You know what they would usually do if someone showed up with a hat or something with a logo on it, they would have tape in different colors and they would just tape over it. Oh, yeah. Someone did not tape over a Yankees guy. Or maybe they did and he ripped it off. Scandalous. Scandalous. Oh, my gosh.

We just had a dunder moment. We did. We had a group mind dunder dunder on Scandalous. Well, Jim is going to score a point and some trash talking starts. David Wallace says, we're still going to crush you, though. Charles is like, yeah, we are. Rolf comes out of nowhere. Oh, my gosh.

We could not get through this. Yes. We were all cracking up. He said, you suckers are going down. They're going to wipe their asses with your serves and piss all over your faces. Every time he said piss all over your faces, we would lose it. Yeah. And Reina's Dwight had to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, come on, come on.

But we kept laughing. Well, now we're going to go to this little tidbit, the HR folks, and I love it so much, lady. John Hartman is back as corporate HR Kendall. Toby is wearing his logo hat, and they are discussing the HR convention last year. I could have watched the two of them talk for 20 minutes. Ken shared that Greg had this idea that David Wallace would hate Kendall the same way Michael hates Toby.

Oh, my gosh, it's so funny. Well listen, one more point, and Scranton is going to move on to play corporate, and Jim makes it. I mean, Dwight hugs Jim. Yeah. They're so excited. I know. Oscars like settle down, guys.

Relax, fellas. Jenna, Scranton was so good. Is that your memory that you guys were good at playing volleyball? I guess that's my memory. That Scranton, Dunder Mifflin was good. That we were good. That's your memory. Yeah.

Like, are you saying in real life? Yeah. Like, fictionally, and in real life. Yeah. Why? Because. Why are you smiling? Because.

I feel like this is a trap. Because that is not how Ken or Paul remembered it, and Ken talked about a lot of the ways the volleyball scenes were logistically difficult, and one of them was because you guys were all terrible. What? And they all three talk about it on the DVD commentary. Can we hear that? Volleyball is hard to direct, especially with people who don't have a clue how to play.

Oh my God, I couldn't believe it. They were terrible, I will say. Every other team that was playing against them, so much better. I don't know why our people were not good volleyball players. I was editing, Paul and I were alternating days on the set, and Paul was like, it's going really well, but our team is terrible. I don't know what to do, and I was like, well, maybe the other teams can be made to be worse. I know there was one point where I said, I think Scranton was playing Nashua, maybe

Utica. And I just said, well, let's just play for a while. Let's just play some volleyball as we get warmed up. And Utica killed us, and I could tell looking at our cast, they all looked so sad. This is a terrible idea, let's just go back to the scene. Oh my God, you guys were the worst. The worst group there. Hey, to be fair, the other teams were filled with special business actors, okay?

So after I listened to the DVD commentary, I thought, oh, I've got to watch Scranton and Utica play. Ken said that Utica crushed you guys. So I went back and watched the episode, and I never saw you guys play Utica. It's in the deleted scenes. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it features some major trash talking Andy.

Send it back. Yeah. Send that ball back. Don't mess with Scranton. No. Uh-huh. Utica. More like you sucks to cuff.

Who sucks to cuff? You sucks to cuff. Who sucks to cuff? You sucks to cuff. Who sucks to cuff? You sucks to cuff. Ow. Ow.

Sorry. Jim comes up to Andy and Dwight, and he's like pinching their arms so they stop. But yeah, Andy starts this whole chant about you sucks to cuff. Oh, my gosh. But in reality, they were crushing us. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Don't mess with Scranton.

That made me laugh so hard. It's time for Michael and Holly's presentation. Oh, gosh. This is when David says, I have not seen this. He announces that they're going to sing a song, and they're like, no, no, no, it's a sketch. It's going to be like, David, you should already be worried. Yeah.

And then they say introducing Slumdunder Mifflinair. So Slumdog Millionaire was a hit movie that came out in 2008. According to IMDB, and this is a very brief synopsis, this is what it says, a Mumbai teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of who wants to be a millionaire. Oh, I saw this movie, it was fantastic. Oh, it's so good. It's so good.

Everyone was talking about it. Yes. It was huge, just a great film. It won a gazillion of awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2009. But of all the movies to parody, to tell the story of Robert Dunder and Robert Mifflin coming together, no one knows what they're doing. Well, they're also going to get some facts wrong. One catch from KCK in Orlando, Florida, in Michael and Holly's sketch, they say that

Dunder and Mifflin met in college. At Dartmouth, which incidentally is where Mindy went. But in Dunder Mifflin Infinity, Robert Mifflin said he knew Dunder through the Rotary Club. So I caught it too. Yeah. Ken shared that they really just drove home with the crowd watching to please not react in any way. Even the children don't crack a smile, nothing.

And Ken was so happy with how the scene turned out because everyone really just looks at them so deadpan. And Ken said that Steve and Amy pulled him aside after the first take and they were like, this feels really uncomfortable. This is like so awkward. Amy was like, I'm rattled by it because it truly felt like they were bombing on stage in front of everyone. Well, I guess this sketch took like hours to shoot.

And in addition to being told not to laugh, the extras were not allowed to move from their spots for continuity reasons. So we would bring waters around and things like that, but they had to stay right there. And Jenny Tan had this tidbit in her breakdown from her visit. Andy Buckley, who plays David Wallace, would get on the little stage during the breaks and he would entertain the crowd with stories and jokes. She said he even sang a song, but he was like the entertainment. And she said it was just like the sweetest, most thoughtful thing.

And you know what? That is Andy Buckley right there. I was like, of course he did that. Of course. That is so sweet. Yeah. Well, the only person that's enjoying this is Stanley. We have some classic vacation Stanley when he has his cocktail and he says, I usually

don't enjoy the theater, but this is delightful. I think he's had a few cocktails by this point. I guess he has. There's a lot of booze being offered at this event. Now Michael and Holly are going to do something. They're going to announce that the Buffalo branch is closing and then they take a bow. This is news to the Buffalo branch. They are ticked off.

Well, there are two especially very angry Buffalo branch employees. They were played by Brian Stack and Marla Garland. Brian Stack was a writer on Conan and I've known Marla for years. She is just delightful. Well, also seated in the front row, who's very upset about this branch closing is Jenny Tan. Yes. And she revealed that she was in the front row with a real life husband and wife couple,

Dan and Aaron, who were booked together to play extras on this episode. They gave them two fake babies and it's really great. You can see Dan sitting next to Jenny. And when Brian Stack as the angry Buffalo man is yelling, he's shushing his baby. He's like, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, don't let the angry man upset you, baby. Yes, exactly, exactly. David Wallace is furious. This is not how he wanted the Buffalo branch to find out.

No. But one little boy just asked him if daddy will have his job at Christmas. And Michael's like, well, he's just thinking about his own gifts. Not helping Michael. The Scranton group huddles up. They're over by the picnic tables. And Meredith is like, I think we should forfeit the game out of respect. And Dwight says, people need volleyball now more than ever.

Oscar agrees with Dwight. Now they have this rallying call. They want to kick corporate's ass. Yeah. And they're doing great. Petty Jim, which we get a little bit of. Petty Charles. Yes.

Petty Charles. Thank you. Petty Charles says, look who just woke up. And then scores a point and says, I've been up for a while. Okay. So now Dwight is going to stand up to Rolf. He is. And Jenna, I had one of those moments where I think I thought I heard something that's

not in the script. It's not in the subtitles. And I need you to tell me what I heard. What? Yeah. Okay. Kevin says it's six to six. It's a nail biter.

Angela says, Kevin, no, it's seven six or is that too much accounting for you? Rolf says, here's an accounting question for you. What does one fiance plus one lover equal? Answer one horror. Dwight says, okay, knock it off Rolf. Rolf says, what? She's sitting here casting aspirations and Dwight goes, Rolford, please Jenna, I swear I hear Dwight say Rolford, please.

You mean like Rolford is Rolf's full name? Yes. It's not documented anywhere. I'm probably just losing it. I need you to hear it. I'm going to play it. Ready? Okay.

Okay. Knock it off Rolf. She's sitting there casting aspirations. Rolford, please. I am asking nicely. Oh. Okay. Rolford, please.

I'm telling you. Okay. Here's the first thing I need to know is this. Is Rolf a name? That I don't know. Did we make that up or is it a name? Is Rolf short for Rolford? Well, there's a restaurant in Manhattan called Rolf's.

It's in Gramercy Park. Oh, here we go. Wikipedia. Rolf. It is a male given name and surname. It originates in the Germanic name Hrolf. Interesting. But now Rolford, Rolford.

We need background music for ladies who Google like Jeopardy. We really do. Booty, booty. Okay. Let me tell you, there is the Rolford Leather Company in the UK. They are a supplier of fine quality leathers. Also just from Ancestry.com, Michigan had the highest population of Rolford families in 1880.

So I think you might be right. Both names seem to be names. I mean, just come on. Okay. Knock it off, Rolf. She's sitting there casting aspirations. Rolford, please. I think you're right.

I think we have broken a big case here. Mom Detectives, we declare Rolford. Put it on your calendar that this is the first time Rolford is being documented? Yes. In the office canon. Angela. I'm clapping for myself. I'm clapping for myself.

Applause for you. Thank you. Good work. Thank you. And now whoever does subtitles, change it to Rolford. Thank you very much. I'd like to say that that was a combo mom detective to ladies who Google move. Do you see how both of those came together?

It's beautiful really. In that moment. I'm proud of us. Ken shared that he really liked seeing Dwight softening to Angela. Angela's clearly moved by this and then right after the scene there would have been an Angela talking head. It got deleted but I wanted you to hear it. Today for the first time in months Dwight nodded at me and I have to admit it made my

heart set up just a little straighter than it's here. I know I seem hard and cold on the outside but on the inside I'm as warm as porcelain. I'm sorry for gushing on like this. Just must be the apple juice talking or I don't. It's very sweet. She is as soft as porcelain on the inside. Apple juice is not on the drink menu. I knew you were going to say that.

I also now like this expression of saying it just made my heart set up a little straighter in its chair. I loved that too. I thought it was cute. The game is going and Pam is going to fall. Lady, I did my own falling stunt. That's all me. I believed it.

I'm very proud of it. It's not the first time you fall in this episode. You fall twice. I do. Yeah. You had a spontaneous fall while you were playing fake volleyball earlier in the episode. Oh. I clocked it.

You went down to your knees to get a ball. Huh. I'm a pro. You are sporty, Pam. Well, there had been a lot of discussion about using my double and shooting the fall from behind, but Ken said to sell it, they really needed to see my face on camera. And it wasn't the shoulder rotation. Yes.

There was no reason why they couldn't just have me fall. It was not going to affect my shoulder. Randy told me that sometimes in movies, they will use a stunt double from the front and then they do CGI face replacement. What? Yeah. Face off. Kind of like the movie magic version of face off.

He said we could not afford that. So there was no putting my face on her face. Okay. So you know at the end of this, when Pam is going to leave to get her ankle checked, Dwight has to start stalling for time. And the first thing he does is he like kicks the volleyball really far away. This reminded me of like the butthole kid growing up, like when you played kickball, who would have a tantrum and kick the ball real far and someone had to go get it.

Well we had a fan catch from Emily H in Ohio who said, I have a background catch at 16 minutes, 55 seconds. When Dwight kicks the volleyball away to stall the game, there are some weird face cutout board picture things in the background. And I think there is a person sticking their head through one of them. Really? I saw those things. They look like something from a carnival.

All right. I don't know if this is related, but Jenny Tan wrote this in her diary for the day. She said, during the first few takes of Dwight kicking the ball, there was a background performer hiding in the shack. And whenever the volleyball was kicked near it, this person would wave his arm outside the shack and ruin the take. She said needless to say, this person was asked to leave the set and was told not to return for the rest of the week.

I don't know. What's happening? I don't know. I was like, could that be the person whose face was in the little like picture thing? Well, you know, I'm going to go back and look. I know. Well, not in the shack waving their arms or Michael and Holly, how's that for a transition? That was a wonderful transition, I like that.

We should share with you guys. We often wonder how to transition. We are trying so hard not to have every transition be lady. Lady are well. Yes. Oh, the wells. We do a lot of wells. Dr. Peter Thibodeau, please don't count the wells.

Oh, don't. Oh, I have Dr. Thibodeau a few times and it was staggering. Anyways, Michael and Holly are going to reflect on their skit and on their mistake of mentioning the buffalo thing. And they have this very sweet couplet of dialogue. Holly says, well, I'm glad we did it. Michael says me too. And there's a long pause and he says we have a lot of good material for next year's sketch.

And she lights up and says, I can't wait. Well, this was a really beautiful performance by Stephen Amie. They shared in the DVD that everyone at Video Village where they were watching the playback was crying. They said, Jenny was there, Jenny Tan, she was crying. And then Kin said something I just loved about this scene between Stephen Amie. I wrote it down verbatim and I want to read it to you. Okay.

Kin said, it's the toughest kind of scene because in a way everything is happening and nothing is happening all at once. There's a gigantic shift that takes place, but it's all under the surface and the challenge is to find it over and over again, take after take as if they've never been there. Yeah. I just thought that was really well said because every time they did it, they had to have that discovery of knowing that something just changed for both of them. It's a beautiful scene.

And then they say goodbye. And then Michael has this fantastic talking head where he says he didn't find the perfect moment that day to share those things with her, but it's okay because they're going to be one of those couples who have a long story and he's just going to be patient. Yeah. Jen said in an interview that they loved setting up this idea that Michael was going to find a way at this picnic to try to make his move with Holly, but then over the course of the day, as he spent time with her, he was reminded that they have something really special and

he gains this more mature way of looking at the relationship and it's very different than how he would behave if this were Jen or any other woman from his past. And that she said, quote, he was calm and confident and quieted by this thought. And I loved that. And this talking head right here is why you know this is his soup snake. Yeah. His soulmate. So cool.

100%, right? Yeah. Well, Jim is going to take Pam to a local hospital and for whatever reason, they have this belief that Dwight can stall this volleyball game. I mean, for how long have you ever gone to get an ankle checked or anything? Even just the commute and finding parking and getting inside and signing up and getting your insurance information and I don't know, Jim is feverishly filling out some hospital form while a sassy nurse is wheeling Pam away.

The sassy nurse was played by Allison Martin. She's done a ton of television comedy, most recently, Grace and Frankie. And she did an episode of Law and Order. We had a fan question from Christy H in Maryland who said, my 13-year-old son thinks the hospital that Jim and Pam go to is the Scrubs Hospital. Is he right? He's a huge office fan. And Sam Oh from Milwaukee, Wisconsin said, at the end of this episode, you guys are clearly

in the hospital from Scrubs. Do you remember anything about working there? Was the cast of the other show around at all? Well, I tell you what, Christy, your son is right. Sam, you are right. This was the hospital that they used on Scrubs. It is a former hospital. It's not even around anymore.

They've torn it down. But at the time, it was an abandoned hospital. It was the Riverside Community Hospital in Sherman Oaks. The Scrubs cast were not there that day, but Randy told us that their production graciously allowed us to use some of their pre-dressed corridors and examination rooms. And something I'll tell you is that we shot all of this hospital stuff on Monday. It was our very first day of shooting. It was before we ever went out to the company picnic.

So all of that emotion was just day one. Day one. Wow. We started with the cold open, and then we relocated to the hospital. And Jenny recalled that she was not allowed to observe the hospital. She knew that we were going to a hospital, but she didn't know why. And we'll tell you more about that in just a little bit. I don't know how much longer Dwight can stall.

The corporate team is insisting that Scranton put in their subs. And Dwight is doing this really long, roundabout thing of like, well, how many people must get hurt before a lesson is learned? One, two, three, four. He's doing a horrible job of stalling. But Jim is like, Dwight, keep stalling. And then he gets called into the room where Pam is. And they get some pretty big news.

But we can't hear it. Nope. But I think we know what it is. Yes. We got some mail. A lot of people wanted to know why was this scene silent? Obviously, they're being told that they're going to have a baby. Why couldn't we hear it?

Well, this was partially inspired by the British show. There is a scene in that series where Tim is going to tell Don how he feels about her. But first, he takes off his microphone. And Jen and Paul thought that this made that moment even more intimate. It's one of those things kind of like the teapot note. There's nothing that you could write that could ever meet people's expectations of what it needed to be. So if you leave it for people to fill in themselves, it'll always be the perfect note.

I agree. And I feel like Randall Einhorn shared with us that the further you were away from a moment, the more intimate it feels to watch. Yeah. And so removing the sound makes you pretty far away. Yeah. Well, this idea was something we had been toying with for a long time. On Casino Night, there was a whole conversation about whether or not we should hear Jim tell

Pam that he has feelings for her out in the parking lot. We ultimately decided to keep the audio for that. But we're going to do this again when Pam says goodbye to Michael. Every once in a while, it was a trick we could use because we were a documentary. We could pull the sound and make a really impactful moment. So Jim is going to run into the hallway now. He's going to call Dwight and he's going to say, send in the subs. We got mail.

NetE from Minnesota said, Jim's face when he finds out he's going to be a father gives me goosebumps every time he is acting goals in this scene. And Abby M from Utah said, what were the directions given to John for when he finds out about the baby? So yeah, John Krasinski, man, why he didn't win an Emmy? Why you didn't? Why the whole freaking cast didn't win more awards because the show is delivering right here.

Ben shared on the DVD commentary a note that he gave John for this scene. And I thought it was great. And I want you guys to hear it. The one thing I told John to remember is that over the course of this series, he's developed a relationship with the documentary camera operator. And so when John emerges from the room to make the call to Dwight, something about seeing his pal, the cameraman, kind of suddenly got him very choked up. Wow, what a great note.

Cool? Yeah, that, he had told me this look. Because we debated whether or not he should be so wrapped up in the moment that he should ignore the camera. But in fact, it was the opposite. This look right there. That look. It was almost like, you know, the cameraman has been sharing so much of what's going on

with Jim that, you know, that it became very important to acknowledge him here. So the look he is talking about happens at 20 minutes, 50 seconds. And you guys know these moments in your life where you're feeling all of this emotion and then you see a good friend and it just comes pouring out of you. It's that person that says, are you okay when you're not okay? And I loved that. And I'm so glad that they had John as Jim look to camera and look to his friend. It's a brilliant note.

That's great directing by Ken Quapas and a great performance by John. And you too. I loved this moment. Give me tear up again watching it. Well we got a fan question from Kaylee and Auburn, New York. Jenna, did you have any idea before this episode that the writers were going to make Pam pregnant? And what were your thoughts when you found out? Well, I barely knew.

They did not warn us like weeks or months ahead. I found out basically right before the table read. And I remember sitting in that table read and Ken Quapas read the stage directions and there was like an audible gasp in the room. Everyone was like, so here is what the script said. This is what Ken read. The doctor tells Jim something and we see Jim's face light up. Pam is also grinning.

Jim and Pam hug. Jim walks out with a big smile on his face. So the script did not even say that Jim and Pam were going to have a baby, but everybody knew, oh my gosh, Jim and Pam are going to have a baby. Yeah, that was just for the table read. If you read the shooting draft for this episode, those scenes are omitted. It just says scene 51, 52, 53, see production for details. Yeah, they immediately took it out of all documentation, all scripts, everything.

It was a huge secret. Uh, yeah. They shared on the commentary that our producers made a huge effort to keep this a secret. They didn't want it to get out to the audience. They didn't want it to be ruined. They could not let NBC know. So crazy. So crazy.

So none of the scripts had the final scenes, just like you said, right? And then the scripts that went out, they were omitted from those. And then every day you guys, they would send NBC the CDs of the dailies of what we had shot that day. That's right. It was deleted from that. Oh my God. And then the final master cut of the whole episode that the network gets to review before

it goes on the air. They had deleted it from those as well. Oh my gosh. And then Jen said that all of the scripts, every single disc that was sent to NBC, they were all watermarked so that you couldn't copy them in any way. And Jen said in hindsight, if she was someone at NBC, she'd be like, they don't have her watermarker CDs or scripts. Like what's going on?

Like what? What's all the hullabaloo with the watermarking? That is so crazy. She said in thinking about it, they watermarked scripts and CDs that didn't even have a scene to copy. It's so true. But they were just, I guess, so paranoid. Wow.

But it didn't get out there and it was a true surprise. It was. I guess when they finally had to, at the last minute, send the deliverable, airable version, they finally put the scene back in. That's right. But it was too late for anyone to ruin the surprise. Or to even make promos. I think that was always their big fear, was that in order to tease the audience that they

would reveal big plot points. And Greg was always so protective of that. All it would have taken is one NBC teaser of you and Jim in a hospital. That's it. And they'd have an announcer being like, Jim and Pam, get the news of a lifetime on tonight's finale. Thursday, NBC. We got more mail about this scene and I'm just going to just run through them real quick.

Phoebe T from Indiana would like to know if I was actually pregnant or if it was just for the show. Phoebe, it was just for the show. I was not even married to Lee yet, though we were dating and we were getting a little serious, but we weren't at baby yet. No, you weren't there yet. No. You were still in what I call the sexy life.

We were in sexy life and I will be wearing a fake belly in the upcoming season and I'll tell you all about it. And then Louise from Washington said, why did the writers decide on Pam and Jim having a baby before getting married? You guys, that's just Greg. He liked to keep people on their toes. He liked to surprise the audience. And finally, Liz B from Columbus, Ohio said, what ended up happening with Pam's ankle?

Liz, I love you. I love that in this whole episode, we have left you hanging about Pam's ankle. I feel you. This is how I feel when I watch a John Wick movie. He has lots of injuries and I need those, I need them to be resolved. So Liz, it was just a slight sprain. It's just going to be a little rest, a little elevation, a little ice. She's going to be fine.

And that, my friends, was company picnic. I have one last thing to say. Is this goodbye to Charles Miner? I believe it is. Aw, Idris, you were fantastic. We really enjoyed rewatching all of your episodes. That's really fun. You were fun to work with.

You sure were. Happy company picnic day, everybody. And happy new year. Oh my gosh, that's right. This was a great way to kick off the new year, I think. It sure was. We will be back next week and we will be starting season six. We are now officially halfway through our rewatch.

I can't believe it. I can't believe it. It's flown by. It is flown by. We hope you have a great week. We hope you have a little bit of vacation Stanley in your day and we'll be here next week. See you then.

Thanks, everybody. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fisher and Angela Kenzie. Our show is executive produced by Cody Fisher. Our producer is Cassie Jerkins, our sound engineer is Sam Ciel war, and our Associate Producer is Ainsley Bubicow. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Ratton. For ad-free versions of Office Ladies, go to StitcherPremium.com for a free one month

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