Office Ladies - A Look Back on Weight Loss, Part 2

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

This week we take a look back on Weight Loss, Pt 2, which includes some new tidbits! Angela uncovers a Michael Scarn deleted scene and Jenna continues to try to give a shoutout to that great background actor in the hospital bed next to Toby. The Office gang continues to lose weight for the Dunder Mifflin Weight Loss Challenge, and a truly unexpected proposal happens. We hear an audio clip from Paul Feig about what it was like to be the Season 5 “Tastemaker”. Jenna tells us about some very special cats at Pratt Institute, Angela breaks down what it was like to have a fruit fly wrangler on set and we learn everything we ever wanted to know (and maybe not wanted to know) about the famous Jim and Pam gas station proposal. Enjoy! Check out Office Ladies Merch at Podswag: https://www.podswag.com/collections/office-ladies Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestionFollow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPod

Hello! Hi everybody, thanks for checking in with us. We are continuing from last week with Weight Loss Part 2 and we have some fun new tidbits for you. Angela, I believe you found a deleted scene that you had not shared about before. I sure did. So, I went to the shooting draft and get this, Michael inadvertently shares about Michael Scarn with Holly.

In this episode? In this episode. Okay. Here's how it played out. You know the scene where everyone is leaving one of the weigh-ins and Oscar says to Holly, hey, how'd your date go? And Holly says, 8.5, I got a red wine stain

on my favorite shirt, but he's cute, right? And in the background, you can hear Michael groaning behind them. He's like, ugh. And Holly turns around and says, what's wrong? And he looks to Jim and then he just mumbles, nothing. Okay. Well, the actual scene was longer and Michael mumbles and then he kind of on the spot panics

and makes up a reason why he's upset. And I want you to hear it. Okay. He's upset, and I want you to hear it, okay? He's cute, right? Mm-mm. What's wrong? Somebody died. Oh my God.

I'm so sorry. Really? Sort of sudden? He was my friend, so it was kind of hard. Well, I'm a really good listener you know if you need to talk about it. Thanks. Jim knew him too though. So actually I'm gonna talk to him first. Okay so is his friend Michael Scarn? Well wait wait and then it would have cut to a scene where Michael is yelling at Jim in his office.

He says, you know what? You forced me into the friend zone and now I've lost my opportunity to be with Holly. And then there was another scene where Holly comes to Michael's office and asks him if he needs to talk about his friend's passing. And I want you to hear that. Do you have a sec? I just wanted to talk to you about what you said earlier about your friend if you need to talk. His name was Michael Skarn and He worked for the government. Can't really talk much more about it than that.

Your... your names are so similar. I can't even imagine what you're going through. I can't imagine it... for me as well. Okay. For me as well. Okay. I'm really sorry. Yeah. Thanks. Well if you need to talk anymore... I'll just...

Take care, Michael. Oh my gosh. I know, but then, I mean, but then later they actually do the movie, you know? So I'm like, when would Holly have put this together? Well, it's a good thing they deleted it. Right. But very funny. I love that she's like, that's so similar to your name.

Yeah. And then also it kind of explains why Michael is so mad at Jim and that scene in his office. Yeah. Michael killed Michael Scarn in an effort to bond with Holly. That tells you a lot about his feelings for her, actually. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. Well, since this was season five, and our beloved Randy Cordray was our line producer for season five, I traded some emails with him. I told him we were revisiting these first few episodes because I really hoped that he might be able to solve the mystery of who is in bed next to Toby in the tag at the end of this episode. When you listen to this rerun, I go on and on about this guy.

I just loved his performance. And he said it was a non-speaking background performer and he didn't have his name. So I was not able to solve that mystery. But speaking of Michael Skarn and Threat Level Midnight, Randy shared that he recently co-taught a production management class at Southern Oregon University for cinema majors. He gave the students the script for Threat Level Midnight and asked

them to do mock breakdown schedules, budgets, and call sheets. That is so cool! Yeah! I just loved it. So listen everyone, don't forget, August 14th we're back with the farm, but for now, please enjoy this rerun of Weight Loss Part 2. 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. Hey gang, how's it going? Howdy! It is Weight Loss Part 2. Season 5!

Yeah, this is the second part of our Season 5 premiere. It was written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky and directed by Paul Feig. Get us with a summary. All right. Well, you might remember last week we set up that Dunder Mifflin is doing a company-wide weight loss contest. That contest continues. It's really causing some division among the employees. People are getting hangry.

They are. Ryan returns to Scranton. He's a temp again. Michael hires him to fill in at reception for Pam, who is off at Pratt. She's, you know, doing art school. Now Michael is very slowly still pursuing Holly. Dwight and Angela are continuing to hook up in the warehouse behind Andy's back. And Jim has an important question for Pam. The question! All right, fast fact number one. Paul Fiegg directed this episode, and he also had a much larger role overall in season five. Paul was with us for every single episode of season five. He was, and he was amazing. He was this great, constant, like, I don't know,

he was like the man of the ship. He was like guiding us along the way. Having him on set always just made me feel better. I'm with you. I loved it. You remember last week we talked about how Greg Daniels was now working on both The Office and he was trying to get Parks and Rec off the ground. He had groomed Jen Solata and Paul Lieberstein to run the show.

They were overseeing the writing of the show. They were running the writers' room. Well Paul Feig was brought on as a supervising director and co-executive producer to oversee the on-set production and to oversee all of our directors. Because we had a lot of new directors in season five, including some cast members and crew members and even some of our writers. They all directed their first episodes.

Paul was also in the writer's room a bit, but mostly he was like the taste maker, right? He was like one of these original visionaries. What is a taste maker? I mean, I don't know, but I think a taste maker is like you set the tastes of... Did you make up that word? No, taste maker is a real word. Well, maybe if you're like running a winery.

But you can be like a tastemaker like is the same as like a... I think you made it up. Well, I didn't. You can Google it. I can't believe you're getting out your phone right now to Google it. This is unbelievable. Tastemaker is a real word. It's like a trendsetter. Yes. Thank you, Sam. It's like a trendsetter. Okay. Tastemaker. Okay. According to the English language learner's definition, a person whose judgment about what is good, fashionable, et cetera, are accepted and followed by many other people. That's right. He was a tastemaker. He was a tastemaker. He was. It was his job to control the quality of the show. He said yes to jokes and no to other jokes because of his good taste. I know this is getting us off so early. I really want to know the origin of this word.

Where did the word tastemaker come from? Was it the person that tried the food for the king? And if he didn't die, okay, fine, we'll all eat what that guy had? I don't know, but I think you should deep dive it for a revisit Angela. Okay fine. I do. Okay, Paul Feig was the tastemaker. Well listen, I talked to Greg Daniels about it and he said that this was a big push that he had to make with the network. In particular, Jerry D'Canio, the head of production at Universal, because our show had been functioning just fine without someone in this role before. But Greg explained he was often called down to set

to discuss the shooting or the motivations with the actors and directors, and he wanted to make sure that that would still be covered while he was gone. And they eventually agreed. And I traded some messages with Paul Feig about this too. And he even sent in an audio clip. Oh, Paul Feig!

All the way from London! Yep! It was such a fun year because, you know, to be around you guys and the cast every day and to be in that writers room with that amazing group of writers was just such a special opportunity. Yeah, I got to direct a lot of episodes that season, but also it was just fun to kind of be with all these other people who were starting to direct and seeing how great they were doing. It was so fun to be with Steve when he directed his first episode and Brent Forrester did a great job and Dave Rogers, we had so much

fun. And so that was kind of my experience of the fifth season, was being around everybody so much, but also just kind of getting to see the show through a lot of fresh eyes of these new directors or people coming out and doing it for the first time. Well, I want to say that Paul also directed five episodes himself this season. And when we were trading messages, Angela, he said he loved his time on season five so much that he wanted to send

us audio clips for every single episode of season five. Get out, Paulapedia! With his memories. I was like, Paul, you're busy. You're directing a movie right now in London. I mean, you don't have to do that. And he said, well, I'll do as many as I can. So Paul, you're busy. You're directing a movie right now in London. I mean, you don't have to do that. And he said, well, I'll do as many as I can. So guys, get ready. Get ready for, should it be Figapedia or Polapedia?

Paul Figapedia? Paul Figapedia! All right, fast fact number two is an art school location breakdown. We didn't do this last week. We're going to see more of art school this week, so I thought it was appropriate. Fan question from Yvette and Rachel, where were the New York City art school scenes shot? I will tell you. Everything was shot at USC, the University of Southern California.

The classrooms were empty classrooms on campus that our set decorators dressed. Even the dorm room was a USC dorm room. The hallways, when Jim's watching TV in the common room, we were basically all on campus. The only thing we didn't do on campus and we talked about this last week was when Jim and Pam are video chatting. They recreated my dorm room on that warehouse set of Dunder Mifflin. Well, I have one other thing to share about the USC campus, but I am gonna save it when it comes up in the episode. Well, all right. I have one fun thing to share about the real Pratt, which is in Brooklyn. Mm-hmm. That's where Pam's meant

to be. We got a letter from Mila S, who is a student at Pratt, and she said this, there is a communal cat population living on campus called Pratt Cats. They have their own little houses and they wander the lecture halls and the campus freely. If you're ever in New York after COVID, I highly recommend you visit the campus along with its sculptures and cats roaming the grounds. Angela, the cats even have their own Instagram page and it's called Pratt Cats. Pratt Cats? That's so cute. Two T's for Pratt and two T's for cats. Pratt Cats. Pratt Cats. I looked at it. It's just a lot of super cute pictures of cats. I want to

see it. Oh my gosh, there's so many. Yeah. There's so many cats. I think we should put this on our list. We should. All right, fast fact number three. We've got a big guest star alert. It's Rich Summer as Pam's art school friend, Alex. Yes, and we are friends with Rich. We're like really good friends with Rich. He needs to come on.

Well, he's refused. No, he has not. I'm kidding. We are going to have him on. You guys, Rich is probably most well known for his role as Harry Crane on Mad Men, but he's also acted in such shows as Wet Hot American Summer, the TV series, as well as many movies with Office Connections. Oh, yeah.

He was in The Devil Wears Prada starring Emily Blunt. He was in Celeste and Jesse Forever starring Rashida Jones. And he was in the Giant Mechanical Man starring me. Yay. He is also supposedly real life friends with Nicholas Degosto, AKA Hunter. We're gonna have to ask him about that when he comes on the show.

Oh yeah, we have lots to ask him. We do. Jenna, as you remember from last week, there is a fantastic DVD commentary for weight loss. It's an all crew DVD commentary. I have more to share from that in this week's weight loss part two, as well as I reached out to Joya Balfour. Do you guys remember,

Joya? She has contributed information on the podcast before. She worked on the digital team at NBC.com and she has some fun Andy Angela wedding stuff that she shared with me, as well as one little surprise, but we'll get to it. I love it. Should we take a break and then we'll be back? Yeah. We're back. And a friendly Ryan has returned to Dunder Mifflin Scranton. There is a deleted scene, Jenna, that the camera catches Ryan being dropped off to work by his mother. She's driving a station wagon.

She pulls up, he hops out with a little sack lunch, and he starts to go in the building and she rolls down the window and honks her horn. And he runs back and gives her a kiss on the cheek, and then he runs in the building. Wow. If this tells you where Ryan is at life, he's back living at home, and his mom is driving him to work. Wow.

He's also grown a goatee. Mm-hmm. And this now explains why Michael has had a goatee, because he says, Michael, did you grow that goatee after you saw mine when you helped me move? Yeah. Remember, these goatees are not real. Hair and makeup put them on. I thought they did a fantastic job. And Michael has a talking head that explains that he hired Ryan off the temp agency.

Yeah. He said Ronnie was very blech and he told the temp agency, I don't care what it costs me, I have to have him. I have to have Ryan Howard. People don't know how to react to Ryan being back. Kevin is excited, runs over, gives him a noogie, which starts a great runner. And Jenna, there was more in the deleted scenes of Ryan having these talking heads where he's putting everyone who's wronged him on his list. Yeah. He explains that he's making a list so that when he is back up on the top, he can get his revenge. Yeah. And Kevin just made the list. Also, who makes the list is David Wallace. In a deleted scene, David Wallace calls, Ryan answers,

and David flips out, starts berating Ryan. You can hear it through the phone. Yeah. So much so that Ryan cries, and Michael vouches for Ryan, and David Wallace does not want him there, but agrees. And so now David Wallace has made the list. And Jenna, I couldn't help myself. You know what this made me think of? What? Game of Thrones. Oh, somebody has a list.

I didn't get that far. Arya Stark has a kill list for everyone who's wronged her. Can we take a minute everybody, if you haven't seen Game of Thrones and you don't want spoilers, just, I don't know. Fast forward 30 seconds. Angela. What? I started Game of Thrones. I never finished it spoilers. Just, I don't know, fast forward 30 seconds. Angela. What? I started Game of Thrones. I never finished it. I'm never going to finish it. Really? Will you just tell me, does Arya ever kill?

She kills everybody. She does. She kills everybody and she kills the biggest baddie. And I don't want to ruin it in case someone didn't fast forward, but she kind of saves the whole world. I'll just say that. That is kind of a spoiler. That was the only thing that was kind of keeping me there was that I saw the potential in her character. Mm-hmm. No, she follows through. Well, that's good to know.

Continuing Ryan's list, Ryan apologizes to Jim, right? Jim shakes his hand. And now are you ready for some Jim, right? Jim shakes his hand. And now are you ready for some Jim sass? Oh, it's so good though. Ready? Ryan says, Jim, I want to apologize for how I treated you last year. He goes on to explain all the things he feels sorry for.

And he said, you know, he's even started volunteering. He's giving back to the community. And Jim goes, well, that's great. You're talking about your court ordered community service. And Ryan says, I don't need a judge to tell me to keep my community clean. And then Jim goes, but he did, right? And Ryan goes, all right. And Jim goes, all right. So much Jim sass. And then there's just a silent Ryan talking head where he's staring down the lens of the camera and he's clearly writing Jim Halpert in his list, which I loved. It's time for another weigh-in on the giant scale that was custom made for our show we

learned last week. There is a zero pound weight loss. People are really starting to melt down. 22 minutes, 59 seconds. Did anyone catch that Meredith's face is back to normal? Oh, I didn't catch that. No more sunburn on Meredith. I'll tell you, we had Erin M. write in and say, during that moment of the weigh-in, Michael does this bird-like flapping move when he's frustrated. And she says it's literally my favorite moment in the whole show.

She wants to know if Steve improvised that. Yes, that was not scripted. That was Steve's take on his character's frustration. I loved it so much. At 23 minutes, 21 seconds, Andy has a talking head. He says this is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. And you know, he hasn't had a very hard life. Ding ding ding! This was a digitally corrected shirt and tie.

Once again, we talked about this in the episode previously, Weight Loss 1, that the writers wanted to move around some of Andy's talking heads and to match his outfits for continuity, they had to go in and post-production change the color of his tie and his shirt. I mean it just blows my mind still. I know. They had to go in and post-production, change the color of his tie and his shirt. I mean, it just blows my mind still. I know. Some other things that happened in the scene are that Holly tells Oscar that her date went well with his yoga instructor, and Michael overhears, and then he blames Jim because he

thinks Jim's bad advice has landed him in the friend zone with Holly. And then we move upstairs. Yeah. Dwight is really mad. He doesn't think everyone's taking this seriously. He randomly selects Stanley, Phyllis, and Kevin and tells them to get liposuction on their own dime. Yeah, they have to pay for it. Yeah. And meanwhile, Ryan goes to apologize to Kelly. And now we have some Kelly sass. Oh, it's so satisfying. It's so good. I mean, Brian, come on.

I wish you could have stuck to it. I know. It's so good. He's like, hey, should we, you know, grab a drink later, catch up? And then he says, pick me up at eight, right? He's trying to do his old shenanigans with her. And she goes, that is so sweet. But I'm dating Darryl still and we're like crazy in love.

So and he goes, oh cool. Well, maybe I'll see you around. And Kelly goes, it's a small office. Yeah. Yeah. Did you notice on her desk? What? She had her little nameplate from the first Christmas party.

Yes, I did see that with the flower. I thought that was so cute. I did too. Dwight's going to apologize to Phyllis for telling her she should get liposuction on her own dime. He says, I'm going to make it up to you. I have a sale, but it requires two people. Will you go with me?

Big sale. Oh yeah. It's a sure thing. Yeah. I'll give you 40%. I'll split it with you 60-40. He says he'll drive. She's like, all right. And then, of course, Kelly needs to have this really odd, forced

makeout session with Darryl in front of Ryan on purpose. But I want you to know, Jenna, at 26 minutes, 12 seconds, you get a really good shot of Ryan's phone, earpiece, headset thingy. Yeah. Yeah? According to Randy Cordray, our line producer, there was a lengthy discussion about which ear headset Ryan should use. He said Phil

Shea brought over a tray. He said it looked like 12 to 20. That sounds right. Right? Different versions for them to pick out. That sounds about right. Yeah. They picked a real douchey one, so good job, guys. Let's go to the break room. Jim is having lunch with Michael and Holly. Two things here. Mm-hmm. Continuity catch.

I don't know if you noticed, but Michael suddenly does not have a goatee. Oh, yes. They were having issues keeping track. And also, there are a lot of fruit flies in the vending machine. Well lady, I think it's time for a fruit fly breakdown. Oh please! Angela, we got a lot of mail about the fruit flies. Hit me with your questions because I have some answers. People wanted to know if they were real, were they CGI?

I remember Gene Stupnitsky told me they were real and they even had a fruit fly wrangler. They were real. Let me tell you everything I learned about them in the DVD commentary. First of all, this whole bit cost thousands of dollars. All right? These fruit flies were from the Florida fruit fly growers and they were bred specifically for this episode. These type of fruit flies are a sterile type of fruit fly, and they are bred for Florida citrus farms. According to Kelly Cantley, they have a very specific breeding cycle,

so they had to schedule the fruit flies to be released on a specific day. And Randy, Randy said we had fruit flies for weeks. I remember them. I do too. We'd go in the break room and there would still be a few buzzing around. Yeah, I guess even though they couldn't mate, a lot of them, they really lived beyond their life cycle.

Yeah. In addition to these fruit flies reading schedule that we had to plan around, Jenna, Phil Shea had to time out rotting fruit over the course of eight weeks. Oh my gosh. This fruit had to go through stages of rotting. He had a table set up on our soundstage full of fruit and different stages of rotting for this scene. Lady, I was just about to say that as you said that a memory came flooding back into my head of this giant long table where he had created little squares out of tape. Yeah. And each square had a different piece of fruit in it in

different stages of rot. Yes, all for this one gag. That is like on camera for like two seconds. I know. Again, like some little throwaway line in the script created all of this production. Florida fruit fly growers, rotted fruit, fruit fly wranglers. Incredible. fruit, fruit fly wranglers. Incredible. Shifting gears here, over at Pratt, Pam is in the hallway between classes. She's palling around with her new school friends. Alex, played by Rich Summer, is making some jokes.

Jim calls. Pam says, I'm gonna call you back because I made some friends. Okay, they were trying to make everybody mad. They were trying to make people feel like this art school thing might drive a wedge between Jim and Pam. Now see, I wasn't worried yet.

As I re-watch it, I'm not worried yet. I'm happy that she's making friends. I am too. I do wanna say, Pam, what the F with your earrings? This is sassy college Pam. She's got her updo ponytail. Did you look at the earrings though? They're like these purple roses. I mean, has this woman never dressed casually?

I don't know. I feel like I'm celebrating Pam in this moment. You're really judging her whole outfit. I guess, you know, you don't have to be too worried about Pam attracting other men with those earrings on. Oh, stop. I don't know. She looked cute. I have to take us back to the bullpen because at 27 minutes, 13 seconds, one of the best scenes of this episode is Phyllis storming in. She is ticked off. Gene Stupnitsky said this is his favorite scene of the episode. I loved it so much.

I mean, Dwight drives Phyllis to an abandoned warehouse five miles away and kicks her out of the car. Yeah, he took her money and her phone. And so she had to walk back. And Dwight says, I bet you burned about a thousand calories. Phyllis is not having it. I think pissed off Phyllis is my favorite Phyllis. It's such a hard call because pissed off Phyllis is so great, but I do also love like emotionally wounded Phyllis, like the whole thing that went down with Sue Grafton.

Oh gosh, yes. At the Steamtown mall. Sue Grafton, that was so good too. Week six of the weigh-in. There is no weigh-in this week. Holly instead reads an official statement from corporate. They're just concerned. This was supposed to be about health and wellness, and they need to make sure that everyone knows

the point of this like health kick. In case the memo wasn't enough, Michael's going to try to help explain it. Oh yeah, Michael wants to bring it on home with one of his characters. This is how you get people's attention. Remember, as a little kid, Hoot the Owl came to his elementary school. If you want to get through to someone, you dress up as a character. So enter Michael Clump. Yep. We had a fan question, Angela, from Grayene L. When Michael says he's wearing his sumo suit from Beach Games, was Steve actually wearing his sumo suit underneath his clothes? No. So here's the deal. Alicia, our wardrobe designer, was actually part of the DVD commentary

and she said they weren't able to use the sumo suit. They had to buy a special type of suit that went under the sports jacket and pants. And Steve actually had to have two pretty thorough fittings for this whole thing to happen. Wow. I bet Steve got hot. I wonder if they used his air-conditioned vest that you told us about last week. His cooling vest. Yeah, Probably.

Well, Michael is leading this whole meeting where he wants to celebrate people's body image, no matter what you look like. And during this meeting, he looks over and he notices that Ryan has shaved his goatee. Yeah. And he's like, Ryan, did you shave your goatee? And Ryan's like, yeah, I did.

Well, now all the goatees are gonna come off. Well, yeah. You know, Michael is trying to get everyone to celebrate how their bodies are different, but beautiful, and Michael kneels down to talk to Kelly. You guys, 31 minutes, 21 seconds. Mindy is doing her classic covering her mouth so you can't see her starting to break.

I noticed it too. I noticed it right away. Michael makes Kelly stand up. He wants everyone to look at her and tell her how great she looks. Ryan says she's perfect. Meredith likes her fingernails. Phyllis likes her dress. And Creed says she has a hell of an ass.

Yeah. And Kelly's like, what else? I wasn't there. I was at art school. Yeah. It was such a bummer. There were a lot of things that I missed. These were the classic conference room scenes when you guys would be stuck in there for

a whole day, maybe two. Oh, yes. We got pretty punchy in there. But one of my favorite talking heads is Phyllis saying she wonders what people would like about her, probably her jugs. Maybe so. Speaking of art school, Pam's in class and Alex is making her giggle. Flirty flirt.

They even get in trouble. Well, I have a little fun fact. If you listen closely, you can hear her art school professor saying this. Some blame it on the new air conditioning system. This is what he's talking about. There are these paintings in France called the Lascaux paintings, if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

They are ancient cave paintings and they have just faced incredible disturbance since their discovery because they have tourists come through, like upwards of like 1200 tourists a day. They put in air conditioning in this cave, they put in lighting systems to make viewing these paintings more enjoyable. But as a result, lichens, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but whatever lichens are, right, and crystals, they start to appear on the walls in the late 1950s. And they had to close down these

caves to preserve what was left of the sacred paintings. So when he says some blame it on the new air conditioning system, he's talking about these cave paintings in France. Lylea Ingle Well, that was a lot of good information. Jennifer McAllister I just think it's really cool that our writers, someone is very, very smart on our writing staff. Was it Jean? Was it Lee?

Was it someone else? I don't know. Maybe it was Paul Lieberstein because we know he's quite the world traveler and likes art. Someone did a little digging and planted a little seed there. Well, this scene in juxtaposition to Jim's talking head got people fired up because here's Pam laughing in art class with Alex and then there's a Jim talking head. He says, summer's going great.

Just listen to Michael Klump for two hours, convinced I have an ulcer and my girlfriend lives in New York and I haven't seen her in 10 days. So people were not happy with Pam when this episode aired. I remember. I have a lot to say. Oh no. Oh no. Well, I just want to say that when Pam went to art school for only three months when she

was not yet married and didn't have children, people came down real hard on her because of Jim's feelings. Then when Jim invested in a business without telling Pam and left his family and left Pam alone to care for their two children while he chased his dreams, people came down on Pam again for not being supportive enough of Jim. So in both of these instances, I just wanna say, I noticed a

lot of hate for Pam. Do I want to call it sexist? I do. I do. Oh my gosh. I just want to say that Pam faced a lot of scrutiny as a character, I think because she was a woman. Right? Yeah. That river runs deep. It runs deep and it's gonna run long into some future seasons. Okay. Should we take a break? We should because when we come back, we're gonna have a weather breakdown. A weather breakdown? I can't wait. Well, we are back and it is pouring rain. There is a black screen with the words, Week 7, August 11th, and you can just hear the rain.

Now it's time for the weigh-in. Everyone's in the warehouse. The huge warehouse door is open and it's just coming down. I wonder why it needed to rain. I wonder why we needed to establish a big rainstorm, huh? I don't know. Maybe we'll find out in a little bit. Well, this was fake rain.

And yes, this was thought out. They wanted to establish this big rainstorm outside of the windows of our set in the bullpen where normally there would be the big backdrops, right Jenna? Yep. They brought in those rain panels that you told us about. Oh, cause we had an episode where Michael couldn't get the top up on his convertible and then it rained inside the car.

That's right. So they brought back in those big window panes that they were able to sort of recycle water through so it looked like raining. And you're going to see it in the backdrop of several scenes that just help keep reinforcing that it is a rainy day out. The one thing I will tell you is that sometimes with this rain, like outside the warehouse, they would have to adjust that for the sound department and editing. But they said it sounded real, so the sound department didn't have to edit out the fake rain.

Huh. Well, there you go. Also if you're keeping track, remember Kelly Cantley in last week's episode gave us a list of things to keep track of. We are now two guys, no goatee, one guy goatee, Michael and Ryan, no goatee, Dwight with a goatee. That's right. They're also having their week seven weigh in. And this is when Holly says she hasn't heard from her yoga teacher date in like three days. She had even bought tickets to the Counting Crows for that night. And she doesn't know, like, is he going to show? Is he going to call? Yeah. And Darryl announces that they've lost four

pounds. Four pounds. Meanwhile, back in the bullpen, Jim and Pam, they're chatting on IM. They're trying to figure out when can they see each other. Jim has a conflict with his nephew's ball game. They don't know. Jim says, why don't you meet me for lunch? Yeah, kind of spontaneous. We'll meet in the middle. Yeah, meet halfway. Let's meet at the rest stop that's halfway between New York and Scranton. When this whole time, Dwight thinks Jim is talking about him, right, that he's up to something, and Pam IMs Jim and says, oh, by the way, finished my summer project. And Jim clicks on it, and guess what's there? A picture of Dwight. It is an ASCII portrait, which stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange,

which is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunication equipment, and other devices. Well, guess who has a copy of it? Who? Joya, and she sent it to me. Oh my gosh. So I have Pam's ASCII portrait of Dwight. I'll put it in our stories. I love that. Well, I like it because it shows that Pam is learning things in school. She's not just flirting. No, she's not, everyone. She's taking it seriously.

She's putting on her purple flower earrings and marching her ponytail into class. Holly goes in to talk to Michael, and she wants him to know that they have lost Utica by only eight pounds. And Michael's like, wait a second, we have to the end of the day. Maybe if they really go for it, they crank up the heat, they're going to wear trash bags, maybe they can get there. Well Andy's into it immediately. He puts on his trash bags.

He says he does not lose competitions. He wins them or he quits because they're unfair. Kelly is not participating. She's having some pizza. The wedding planning has not stopped between Andy and Angela. Angela says, hey, she asked very nicely, by the way, if the first dance can be to Little Drummer Boy, her favorite song. Andy's like, yeah, he's already booked his acapella group. Oh, yeah, it's even better than can their last song be to Little Drummer Boy. His acapella group is going to sing it for you.

Yeah, here comes trouble, class of 96. And he's like, sweetheart, you're going to love these guys. Carl one, Carl two, broccoli Rob, spare rib, doobie, lunchbox, boner champ, that's me, pubie Lewis and the news, hopscotch, jingle jangle, and sandwich. Yeah. And they're collectively going to be his best man. Yeah. Guess who's paging Dwight.

Oh, yeah. Now, if I remember correctly, Angela, NBC built a website for Andy and Angela's wedding. Do you remember that? It's not live anymore. But do you remember that? I do. And I asked Joya about it. She sent me the homepage photo of Angela and Andy's wedding website, complete with their wedding gift registry and the audition video that Andy put together of Here Comes

Trouble to be their wedding band. Wow. I have all of it. I'll put it in stories. No. I have all of it. And I want to read to you though, the items on the registry. Please. So Joy has said the joke was that Andy would list something and then Angela would list something

in stark opposition to what Andy had listed. Okay. So see if you can guess who put what on the registry. The singing machine ISM370 karaoke with iPod dock. Noise canceling headphones. Twilight thick non see-through shower curtain. Deadbolt bathroom door lock. Modesty changing screen.

His and hers kitty cat PJs, Kids Small and Men Size Large, Kitty Cat Shays Lounge, Three Cornell Big Red Ultimate Outdoor Rugs, Marie Osmond Inspiration Bench, Decorative Wall Hat, and Getty's Calendar. Wow. That's what was on the registry on the NBC.com wedding site. It's time. It's time. Jim and Pam, they're going to meet up at the rest stop in the pouring rain.

We have a lot to share about it. Jenna, you were there. I was not. I have some fantastic DVD commentary stuff to share with you from our crew, but you should take it away. Well, this is the proposal scene. Yes. DVD commentary stuff to share with you from our crew, but you should take it away. Well, this is the proposal scene. Yes. Jim gets down on one knee and he proposes to Pam. She's totally shocked. They're at a gas station. You know, he was supposed to wait till she got back from art school, but he says he couldn't wait. She's completely thrown. You can really tell she

had no idea. In fact, the beginning of the scene, she's like, hey, this is not halfway. I drove further. Like, she's, her head is so not in that place. Yeah. But she says yes and they kiss. So first of all, I just want you guys to know that Greg spoke with us about this. He said that he really wanted Jim's proposal to Pam to be in the season premiere. He thought, number one, that would be unexpected. You usually end seasons with proposals. So he thought this would be a real shock. And it was. Jenna, I even remember at the table read, you know, we had so much going on with this weight loss story and Pam at art school. I didn't see it coming. No. And we'd been teasing it all last season. He said he also wanted to throw people off by having it in a very ordinary location.

So he wanted to feel special, but he also wanted it to feel like Jim made the decision without a whole lot of planning. So Greg thought that the ideal location for this scene would be a gas station along the freeway between Scranton and New York in the rain. And they based the rest stop on one that Greg Daniels had traveled to as a kid along the Merritt Parkway. We did not actually fly to this location. This is the insane part. They built this in the parking lot of a Best Buy that I have been to many times actually. What they did was they used Google Street View to capture images of a real gas station along the Merritt Parkway and then using those images they built it to match in this parking lot. It took them about nine days to build it. To

create the illusion of highway traffic, they built a four-lane circular racetrack around the gas station set. They set up cameras on the other side of this raceway and they had cars drive around it at 55 miles an hour. Then they added rain pouring down on us, these giant rain machines. Our production manager, Randy Cordray, said they had about 35 precision drivers. They were driving not just cars but like semi trucks. When we were standing there on that set, you could feel the wind, like, of these cars speeding past you. It was so, so bonkers. But after we shot the scene, they had to hire a special effects

company to paint out the background because the background were these California mountains. And so they had to paint out the mountains and put in some trees like East Coast looking trees. In the end, this was the single most expensive scene ever shot during the entire run of the show. It lasts 52 seconds and it costs $250,000. Oh my Lord! Oh my Lord! Wow!

Yeah, so a quarter of a million dollars for less than one minute of screen time. Oh my Lord. Wow. Yeah. So a quarter of a million dollars for less than one minute of screen time. Oh my gosh. Well, listen, they talked in depth, our crew, about this moment in the DVD commentary. Several obviously very similar things as what you just shared. So after months and months of scouting and meetings, it was our location manager, Kyle Alexander, who found this enormous paved parking lot. I guess it was off Los Feliz Boulevard. Yep. Acres and acres of paved ground, which is what they needed if they

were going to build a racetrack basically, right? Yeah. So these cars could loop around. Now, according to Randy Cordray, the reason why it was such a massive, massive, massive parking lot is because it was a paved over toxic waste site. What? Yes. Apparently, years and years and years ago, there was an old like ceramics plant or something that had buried lead paint waste

into the ground. So they had to seal it and cover it. So Angela, I just want to make sure that we acknowledge that the information you've just given us means that Jim and Pam, our beloved jam,huh. At a former toxic waste dump. Fluorescent jam. I mean, yikesy. Well, this is what they shared in the DVD commentary. It was a long time ago.

They sealed it up. It's a giant parking lot. Apparently, there's a Best Buy there now. Michael Gallenberg shares on the DVD commentary one of his favorite things that he built of this whole set was the drinks behind the glass doors. It's in fact one humongous giant photo. It was an inkjet print on foam core paper. It looks amazing and there's a great shot at 38 minutes 32 seconds right behind Jim and Pam. I would have never known that those drinks were a

photo. Yeah, it was an incredible set. Yeah, really just kudos to our set design team and our construction guys. They just crushed it. It was incredible. The one other debate about the scene, which I'm sure you know, was whether to have sound or no sound. This was a huge, huge debate.

Greg could not make up his mind. They had two versions ready to go, one with sound during the proposal and one without. And literally, I mean, Jake shared on the DVD commentary, Jake oust that up until the day of airing, it was the air date, Greg was still trying to decide. It's so funny because I vaguely remember that, but we spoke dialogue every time. So the debate was just simply whether Jim and Pam were still wearing their microphones and

you could hear our dialogue or Jim and Pam weren't wearing their microphones and you couldn't. So we said dialogue every time. It wasn't like there were two different scenes that were written with or without dialogue. It was just whether or not you could hear it. Yeah. I don't think John and I knew about this big debate because we were just saying our lines every time.

Yeah. I liked being able to hear it. I think it was important that you heard it. Yeah. I have a few more things to share that hopefully won't shatter your memories of this moment. Like you said, the trees were digitally put back in, right? They are East Coast trees.

They were put in digitally by Stargate. And here was the other thing that was a big, big question mark about how they do this was the rain. How do they do the rain? And they really considered doing it digitally, adding it in post-production, but Paul Feig was very, very against it. He wanted the rain to feel as real as possible. And we could feel the rain. I mean, there were, you know, it was, I don't know if it was just the wind from the cars. I don't remember there being wind machines, but I do remember the rain hitting us. And I mean, even though it was a former toxic waste dump, and even though it was a-

That's by parking lot. Yeah, just like it was actually to be there, really romantic. You know, it was funny, the gas station, it was just a front. If you went in, it was like a fakey fake. You go through the door and then you're just like looking at trees. It didn't have a back or anything. But it felt magical. It did. And it was so much fun to shoot that scene. I mean, I feel like we got it on the first take and maybe we did a few, but my memory is that we weren't there long, that we got it pretty early. And it was a cool moment. It's a really magical moment.

Well when the gang is ready to weigh in again, Jim is late. And then he shows up soaking wet. And so happy. So happy. I was a little sad that they didn't get to spend the whole evening together after getting engaged. I guess Pam just had to drive back to school. I know.

But Jim is so happy. Holly decides that this yoga guy is never going to call her. And Michael says, you know what? I'll buy the Counting Crows tickets from you. And she's like, really? Everybody thinks this is like going to lead to Michael offering to go with her. I thought they were going to have a date. No, Michael rips up the tickets. Yes! Offering to go with her. I thought they were going to have a date. No.

Michael rips up the tickets. Like gallantly. Yeah. Like he's saving the day. She's confused. We got some mail from Emily G. Okay. Here's what she said.

Having worked at several concert venues, I wanted to let you know that if you lose or damage your concert tickets, you can go to a venue's box office with your photo ID and someone will reprint them for you." Oh. She said, I hope Holly knew that was an option. Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. It didn't seem like Holly knew. No, I didn't know.

Well now we all know. Now we all know. Thank you, Emily. Yeah. In the end, Dunder Mifflin did not win the weight loss competition. Stanley lost seven pounds. Yeah. He says he's going to take off five days anyway. Yeah. And now it's week eight. Toby is on his fifth week in a hospital room in Costa Rica. Oh, poor Toby, guys. Remember, Toby had his weird moment with Pam, so he moved to Costa

Rica. And on like his first day, or day, what's it like? Day three. Day three, he went ziplining. And he broke his neck. Yeah. He hasn't even been to the beach. Did you notice what was playing on the TV in the hospital room? Yes, I did. It is the Hug It Out Bitch episode of Entourage. That is the episode of Entourage that Michael quotes in the coup. Well, I did. It is the hug it out bitch episode of Entourage. That is the episode of Entourage that Michael quotes in the coup. Well, I have a little location breakdown for you about Toby's hospital room. Give it to me.

It was also filmed at USC. Oh! Yeah, while they were there filming PAM's art school, they used the USC television stage building and USC asked if eight of their film students could intern and help that day They had interns in all of the different departments and our crew said they did a phenomenal job. That is so cool Mm-hmm before we go. I just want to give a shout out to whoever the guy is in the bed next to Toby He was a background performer Angela. I tried so hard to figure out who

this is because he is so funny. He just stares into the camera the whole time Toby is talking. It is so good. I watched it three times. I was like, how is this guy doing such a great job with no words? I was so impressed. We couldn't figure out who he was. We reached out to several people. Yes. And I checked everywhere you can check.

He is uncredited in the episode. Phenomenal job. Way to crush it. That was a weight loss part two. There's so many folks to thank for helping us get this episode out to you. First of all, our crew that participated in the DVD commentary, Randy Cordray, Michael Gallenberg, Brian Whittle, Nick Carbone, Ben Patrick, Alicia Raycraft, Kelly Cantley, and Jake Aust.

Amazing. Best commentary. Really, such a good listen if you love behind the scenes information. And James O'Carrie for letting us bug you with questions. Yeah, we did. We did bug him. We did. Enjoy a Balfour. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited to share all of that NBC.com website stuff about Angela and Andy. And then Greg Daniels. Yes. Thank you. And also Paul Feig for that audio clip. I promise not to bother you too much, Paul Feig. Well, we probably will. I know why am I making that promise? But we appreciate our

cast and crew so much. We hope you enjoyed this one and we are kicking off season 5. We'll be back for more next week. We sure will. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwool, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Cody Fischer. Our producer is Cassie Jerkins. Our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer. And our associate producer is Ainsley Bubico. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

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