Office Ladies - New Boss

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

This week we’re breaking down “New Boss”. Michael’s 15th Anniversary work party gets thwarted by the new, no-nonsense Vice President of the Northeast Region, Charles Miner, played by Idris Elba. The ladies dish some fun fast facts about Idris, Angela explains what she thinks a petting zoo at Burning Man is and Jenna addresses a couple “fan mail flurries” on how long Michael has actually worked at Dunder Mifflin and Jim’s "number two" position. This episode is an extremely attractive one, so put on your tuxedo and enjoy! Listen to Idris Elba’s song “Fudge”: https://djmag.com/news/idris-elba-has-released-new-house-track-fudge

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. Hi, everybody. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

You did it. Paul. Did I get everybody? You did. This week we're talking about New Boss. I was delighted by this episode. Me too. I read the script.

I read the script and I was cackling. Josh was like, what are you reading? I'm like, it's the shooting drop for New Boss. It was so good. This was season five, episode 20. It was written by Lee Eisenberg and Jean Stupnitsky and directed by Paul Feig. Hit me with a summary. I will.

There is a New Boss at corporate. They filled the position that used to be held by Jan and then Ryan with new regional supervisor Charles Miner. And he's come into Scranton for a visit. He's going to hobnob with us all day. He is also going to announce some new policies involving our budget, in particular our party budget. Well, to be fair to the new boss, Michael was supposed to let us know.

He was. But once again, he did not. And instead, he started planning his own 15th anniversary party. He's been working at Dunder Mifflin for 15 years and he wants to have a big party. Big, big party. Things do not go well with Michael and Charles or with Jim and Charles. Oh, that was so fun. It's maybe one of my favorite runners ever.

Watching Jim be sort of like on the outs with someone and feeling like embarrassed was so good. So, so fun. Michael is spinning out. He tries to get David Wallace on the phone. He can't. So he drives to New York where things are going to take a dramatic turn. Bum, bum, bum.

Fast fact number one, I mentioned there's a new boss in town. Oh, please give me the character breakdown. That person is Idris Elba. Yep. All right. Yes, it is. Let's get this out of the way. Let's just roll up our sleeves and talk about Idris for a second.

Idris is the most beautiful man I have ever laid my eyes on. He is. And I want to say I've laid my eyes on some gentlemen, famous gentlemen. He's not just beautiful. There is just, I don't know how to explain it, you guys, when you know those people that walk in a room and you just go, damn, it's a whole aura. Yeah, it's a presence. We got a fan question from Anna B and Ally C. How did Idris Elba end up on the show?

Randy told me that the role of Charles Miner was written for Idris. He is the only person they ever approached for the role. He said that Idris's name was in the story outline for this episode, which comes out like two months before you even shoot it. And he even sent it to me. It says, interior reception, Charles Miner comma Idris enters. Like, they were like, we want Idris Elba for this role. Oh my gosh, they were planning this pretty far out.

Yeah. Well, the writing staff was a really huge fan of the TV show, The Wire. That's what I was going to say. We had a lot of The Wire fans. If you remember that show, everybody was so obsessed with it. It's such a great show. Yeah. And to get Stringer Bell, come on.

I know. Well, he's the second cast member we've had from The Wire, because Amy Ryan was also on The Wire. Yep. We got another fan question from Derek H, who said, I've always wondered how it works with actors who have one accent in real life but have to speak in a different accent for the role. Did Idris Elba speak in his normal British accent between takes, or did he stay in character

with his American accent the whole time? Yeah, I guess we should mention Idris has a British accent. Which pretty much wrecked us all. Yeah. I mean, if you look like Idris and then you sound like Idris, come on, what were we supposed to do? We were also charmed by him. So charmed, and yes, he did speak in his British accent between takes.

Right. Fast fact number two, more Idris Elba. Okay. I'm sorry. He's too great. We're going to keep talking about him. As you know, since being on The Wire and the office, he has gone on to do a gazillion things, movies, TV shows.

He was most recently in the Suicide Squad. But did you know this? Because I didn't know this. Before he was an actor, he was a DJ. Okay, I did know that. I did know that probably because I was so excited he was coming and I looked up everything about him. Just in case a topic came up, I would know something.

Wait, before he was on the show, you Googled him and you're like, I need topics of conversation. I just want to know everything about him. Okay, I did not Google him until we had to prep for this podcast, during which I found out that he is a big time DJ. Growing up, he DJed parties. When he was a struggling actor and he first came to the US, it was really hard for him to get work because he had a special visa. But he was able to get gigs as a DJ.

He also worked as a bouncer, which I found very interesting. He goes by the name of DJ Big Driss. Now he's done tons of shows. He did a party for Michael Jordan. He DJed the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. That I did not know. How did I miss that? You need to do more Googling.

Well, I guess I need to re-Google. Yeah. He also played Coachello in 2019. He got rave reviews and he just released a new house track through his label Seven Wallis called Fudge with vocalist Eliza Legzina and I thought we should listen to it. Oh, I'd love that. This man can do no wrong. He, I mean, stop it.

Can we get invited to a party where he DJs? It'll never happen. Can we? I don't think it'll happen. I don't think we'll make the list, but I would love it. You know what? We could. Let's go hide in some bushes.

We'll sneak in. Bush hiders. Bush hiders too. Bush hiders goes to the club. Lady, this is like kind of one of my new life goals, which is to go to a party that address DJs. I want to do it and dance it up. Why don't we wear?

What do you wear to something like that? Can I wear one of my fake flowers? I'm going to say no. Not on this. I agree. I agree. So that address was in that my husband loved was Luther. Yes.

Luther is so good. It's so good. He also did a show that he created himself where he plays a DJ called Turn Up Charlie. He's done it all. He's done it all. All right. I will move us on. Fast fact number three is not about Idris, even though it could be.

Fast fact number three is why is it raining in this episode? All throughout the episode. The whole episode. Pouring rain. Not just raining. Not so much so you can hear it in the talking heads. Yeah. Yeah.

I started by looking in the script. I thought, was there a deleted something that tells us why it's raining? I only found one random side comment by Michael. Same. It's in the scene where he's making small talk with Charles and he says, so great weather we're having, huh? Kind of rainy, you know, but still humid, but that was it. That is it.

I asked Randy about it and here's what he said. He said, if I recall correctly, we entered this week expecting rain all across LA. In fact, the top of our call sheets for the first two days of shooting say be prepared for rain because they would do that and then they would have extra umbrellas and like all kinds of things for us if we were shooting outside. Randy said the very first day of shooting we had to shoot these driving scenes with Steve. They were supposed to be Michael driving to and from his meeting with David Wallace. Oh, I have some.

I'm going to play later for when he leaves. It's amazing. Because they got deleted, right? That's right. Well, I guess while they were shooting this, it was raining all over the car. The wipers are going and all that. That afternoon they moved back to our parking lot where they had to shoot the scenes of Angela and Kelly trying to find Charles.

That's when Angela, where you're like gripping his scarf. Yeah. Yeah. In the rain. Yes. He said it was steadily raining the whole afternoon. It was perfect. It became a whole bit, which I know we can get to later, but it made the scene that much

more fun. It's funny because when I first saw it, I asked Randy, did you guys spray down the parking lot with water? And he said, no, that was our rainy day. Yes. It was actually raining. And it was one of the only times I filmed on the office where they didn't care about my hair and makeup.

They were just like, let her get wet. Well, I guess after we finished shooting that one day, it was necessary to match that to the rest of the episode. So Michael Gallenberg and our construction coordinator, Tim James, and the special effects crew led by Ron Nairie added plexiglass sheets over all of the office windows. And they made it rain out every window for the rest of the episode. Well, I think that's so great because I think it would have been weird to have some scenes where it was raining and some not.

I like the consistency. I also kind of loved it that we never talked about it. Yeah. Well, remember what you said about how you could hear it? I guess that was kind of an issue because our sound mixer, Ben Patrick, could really hear it through the microphones, especially in the back of the talking heads. So they tried putting down these big fuzzy mats called horse hairs inside of the metal troughs that the water would drip into and then it would get sucked back up and that

would just sort of cycle through the window pane to try to quiet the water, but it didn't work 100%. So you can hear the rain in the back of some of these scenes. Randy also wanted me to tell people that the fuzzy mats are not actually made out of horse hair. That was my next question. I said, oh no. Oh no.

Hold that. Oh. Randy said that it's, quote, just another old timey holdover from early Hollywood. Well, thank goodness because I was worried for a second. It's fakey, fakey hair, fakey hair. Well, that's all I got, lady. Well, I loved all of that. We should probably take a break and then get into this episode.

I think so. I've invented a new phrase for today. Oh, yeah? Uh-huh. You want to hear it? Yeah. It's called the fan mail flurry. Oh.

And that's when we get tons of mail about a certain one subject in an episode. And this week, there were two fan mail flurries. Jenna coined a phrase, well, I want you to know, I had my husband make a sting in this episode. What? And I will surprise you with it. Let's take a break and we'll be back with new boss. We're going to kick off this episode with a little meeting in the conference room about

Michael's 15th anniversary celebration. And who is in the party planning committee now? Jim, Dwight, and Pam. Oh, I'm just there to take notes. I don't think I'm really in it. Although later, I guess I am throwing out ideas. You are. Hmm.

How'd I make my way back in? I think Jim wrangled you in. And I'm going to say, traitor. Dwight is going to pitch the idea of a 15-minute round of applause followed by a 15-minute moment of silence. What would that 30 minutes be like if you're an audience member? It's 30 minutes total. It's so hilarious to me.

Like, I know we could never have done this, but I would have loved to film that. And I would have loved for all of us to have had to clap for 15 minutes. That would be so difficult. I know. And then try watching it. Well, the camera pans over and Jim is wearing a tuxedo. And wow, this is really going to haunt him later. He's wearing a tuxedo.

He's slicked his hair. He went all out to rub it in Dwight's face about his dress code memo. Dwight is going to continue to list off activities that Jim is sort of shooting down. Jim is clearly influencing Michael, right? So Dwight says a string quartet performing classy Cal music and ice sculpture surrounded by chocolate-covered strawberries. An ice sculpture of Michael. Yeah.

This scene would have continued. Part of it was edited out. In the script, Jim says, you can't buy classy. You can't teach classy. You're born with it. Michael has it. Pam has it. Dwight goes, really?

Pam has it? And then Michael says, Pam has class coming out of her ass. Wow. Pam says, thank you, Michael. That was very classy of you to say. And then Dwight's like, well, I'm sorry, I don't know what classy is. That is amazing. I love that.

You know, in this meeting, one of the things they're going to decide is classy is Mr. Peanut. Yes. Mr. Peanut is the logo for the Planters Peanut Company, which, listen to this, was founded in 1906 in Wilkesbury, Pennsylvania. Oh, that's awesome. How about that? And I have more to say about Mr. Peanut. What?

This peanut is like one of the best-known, most iconic images in advertising history. Oh, yeah. I have it in my mind instantly. Yeah. Mr. Peanut, I picture him with this hat and they have a cane and a little monocle. Yeah. You know it. Yeah.

You know Mr. Peanut. He kind of kicks one leg over the other when he stands. He does. Yeah. So, here's where he came from. They did a contest to have someone design a logo for the company and a young schoolboy by the name of Antonio Gentile submitted a drawing of an anthropomorphic peanut. And he won the contest and he got $5.

$5. $5. But I'll have you know that the founder of the company, his name was Amidio Obici, if I'm saying that correctly, he was so taken with this little boy that he ended up paying his way through college and all of his siblings way through college. Oh, I like hearing that. So I guess he got $5 and a college education for himself and his siblings. There was a commercial artist named Andrew Wallach who added the monocle, the top hat

and the cane. So it was a bit of a two-hander, however, the plot thickens. What? There is a disputed claim that a different artist actually added the monocle top hat and cane. The family of Frank P. Creasy claims that he did it. He was a Wilkes-Berry artist and also the head of the Suffolk planter plant. They think he did it.

So mom detective, what happened? Thank you, Angela. There are no sources still in circulation that can positively identify the artist. We know the little boy started it all. But who added the monocle top hat and cane? We'll never know. We'll never really know. There you go.

On this episode of Mom Detective. Is that going to be unsatisfying if the episodes of Mom Detective's end with, we'll never know? I think many of them will in that way. Well I have a little thing to share about the script because, you know, I loved the shooting draft of the script and Jenna and I have talked to you guys about how we would have a scene and then sometimes in the moment we'd play around with it and it would change right there in the moment.

So I think this is a great example and I don't think our show could have been like this without Steve Carell. I'll tell you why. In the shooting draft, Michael is the one that has the whole speech about Mr. Peanut. Not Jim. Michael says this needs to be classy like the grand opening of a car dealership or Mr. Peanut. And then Dwight says Mr. Peanut's not classy.

He's just a regular peanut dressed in a top hat and cane and Michael says that's what makes him classy. But when you watch the episode, it's a two-hander. Michael says we need it to be classy like a car dealership. Jim says our Mr. Peanut and it's a two-hander and it makes the scene so much better because then Michael and Jim are kind of in cahoots about this, right? And Dwight's the odd man out. I bet that happened on the day.

Yeah. That's so great. Isn't that cool? I know these are sort of tiny moments, but I just think it speaks to our creative collaboration on the show. Absolutely. Angela, this cold open also created fan mail flurry number one. Okay.

I feel like I'd need a Sting, you mentioned Sting and now I want a fan mail flurry. Like stuff going into an inbox. People have a lot to say about whether or not this is Michael's 15th year at Dunder Mifflin or not. Let me get you started with Maddie L. Fan mail, fan mail, fan mail flurry. Hey, I love it. Maddie says, per this episode's air date, Michael would have started work at Dunder

Mifflin on March 19th, 1994. But during Michael's last dundies, the cast sings the song 9,986,000 minutes in tribute to how long he's worked at the company. And if you do the math from that air date, that would mean that Michael actually worked at Dunder Mifflin for 19 years. So much math. If you back it up to this episode, that would be 17 years at this point. Huh.

Kelly S. got in on this and said, in the negotiation from season three, Daryl says that Michael has been working at Dunder Mifflin for 14 years. This is two years later, so that would make this his 16th year. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How long has Michael been working at Dunder Mifflin? It's shifting this 16, 17 years. This feels like one of those math word problems on a test, like about the train that goes

to Pennsylvania, but then stops off in New York and blah, blah, blah, guys. I've seen teachers do that where they'll do a math word problem using office characters and stuff. I think that's really fun. I do too. You still wouldn't be good at it, though. No, because it's still math. Bingo.

Were you good in math in school? Because I was very good at math in school, and now, I mean, everyone knows my calculator story where I tried to add without a calculator for a year, and I don't know. It's left me. Like, I can barely help my 10-year-old with his math homework now. Well. What happened to me? I mean, I was really good.

I was like, you know, 98th percentile in the math tests and stuff. I was a solid B student in math, totally fine, all the way up to Algebra 2, and then I had the option to take language over trig, and I love language. I love speaking other languages, and so I actually went all the way up to Spanish 4, but I was able to opt out of trig to do language. I loved trigonometry. I didn't take it. I didn't care for geometry, but I loved trigonometry, algebra, all of that.

But it has left me. Let's get back to the episode, because a gentleman named Charles has arrived, and he would like to speak with Michael. Hold up, but first, I have a very tall plant alert. What's happening? We haven't had a plant at reception alert in a long time, two minutes, 23 seconds. This might be Pam's tallest potted plant. I just want to go on record.

You know, it's interesting, I was just looking at the watercolor that Morgan did of Pam's plants. Yes. There is a plant on there that's very, very tall. It's down in the corner. It's so tall, it actually encroaches on one of the other plants. Could this be that plant? Maybe it is.

The watercolor painting of Pam's plants that we're talking about is done by this fantastic artist. Her name is Morgan. You can find her on Instagram, Morgan Gissell Art. Morgan G-E-S-E-L-L-A-R-T. You guys, she's painted all of Pam's plants. She calls it Beasley's Botanicals. You can get it as a mug, and she was kind enough to gift me with the original watercolor,

which I treasure. I know, and you know what she did? She did all of Angela Martin's outfits in a watercolor painting. I have it hanging in my bedroom. So yes, there is a very tall plant at reception. I didn't notice the plant, Angela, because my eyes were on Idris Elba entering the room. Yes. The plant that the minor has arrived at two minutes and 50 seconds, Angela Martin looks

him up and down. Michael welcomes him in and says that everybody needs to go into the break room because he has a surprise that he is setting up. Yeah, he whispers to Dwight, I have to get the fish ready. Yep. Gross. What's a what? And now for a segment I'd like to call History in the World.

What? History in the break room. I made my husband do that like last night in his car. You can tell. I'm like, do it in the car, in the minivan, it'll sound better. History in the break room. So Michael needs Dwight to distract Charles and the group. They go in the break room.

He bores them with the history of Scranton. We only hear one sentence of this and I also remember Rain had a hard time not laughing and you can kind of see him starting that twinkle when he starts to break. Do you know there was a whole entire speech in the script? I do because I remember that Rain had to memorize a huge monologue about the history of Scranton. In particular, the anthracite coal mining communities. You guys, when we saw the episode and only one line made it, I just know Rain was like,

son of a, this is what he had to learn. Originally founded in 1866, Scranton quickly became one of Pennsylvania's largest anthracite coal mining communities. The nation's thirst for energy during World War II was slacked by the extensive strip mining operations in the area. But in 1959, the Knox mine disaster all but erased the local mining industry. The area was then scarred by abandoned coal mining structures, strip mines, and slag heaps, which give mute testimony to the city's industrial past.

So anyway, what's up with you? Can you believe he learned that whole thing and one line made it? The first line and the ending line made it. Oh my gosh. Well, then Michael is going to come in and he says, all right, everybody come to the conference room. And you know, he does that big gesture where his hand hits the door frame. Yeah, he does this windmills like motion.

And then he does the thing that Steve does so well where he's like, oh, right, where he like grunts. It was the same thing that cracked me up when he would get out of Pam's chair after it had sunk down. Our when Kevin sat on him as Santa, it's the same noise. It's like, yeah, he does these suppressed groans so well. Well, that whole thing was scripted. I looked it up and this is what the script said about that.

It says, Michael windmill motions for people to follow, but nails his hand on top of the entrance he winces. So that little moment was scripted for Steve and he was amazing. He was amazing because you're not sure. You're not sure if that was just him mucking around or if it really happened. Well, once in the conference room, Michael is going to present an array of bagels that have been cut into the shape of a C for Charles. Took them all night.

Yeah. I have to say, when I saw this, I thought this was a very Ted Lasso move. What? Couldn't you see Ted Lasso and beard doing something like this? Like making all the bagels into like a certain letter. Am I crazy? No, it's a Ted Lasso. I can see it.

And this just got my brain sort of thinking about how there are actually a lot of things that Michael does that Ted Lasso also kind of does, but he does it better and more appropriate. You guys were talking about the show Ted Lasso with Jason Sedakis, Bill Lawrence, executive producer show. He's amazing. It just won a gazillion Emmys. Yeah. Yeah.

The cast is phenomenal. But I was just watching an episode the other day where Ted Lasso is like riding lawn mower with the guy. Uh-huh. Couldn't you see Michael Scott doing that? Michael and Dwight. Yeah. I don't know.

I was seeing some parallels and it was kind of charming me. And I think also because I thought it was kind of cute that he made the bagels into a sea. I did too. It's just that his presentation of it was so sad. It was just on a bunch of paper towels. Well, and also like just his buildup. His buildup was so huge. Yeah.

Oh. Ted would have had them on a tray and that would have made the difference. Yeah. And he's also Ted and not Michael. Anyway, we both love Ted Lasso if you can't tell. Definitely. We just like it. Michael has a talking head.

He's super excited about what his relationship is going to be like with Charles. They hung out at corporate. They got along. He said, it's going to be mental. He's so excited. You guys, did you notice that this scene starts off with Creed walking out of the conference room just eating salmon out of his hand? No.

He's just throwing salmon in his mouth. You can only see him from the back. It's such a small detail. I was cracking up. You know, for a technical reason, they needed Creed or someone to leave the conference room because then the camera follows that person to Angela and Kelly. And Creed, I know, I know he just was eating that fish that was not in the script. This is when Charles is going to notice Jim's tucks.

Oh, they get off to a bumpy start. They really, really do. Pam has to like gently pull Jim away. That was really hard for me. I would laugh every time I had to do that because it was funny to me. It was so funny and you guys, right after this awkward meeting between Jim and Charles and Pam pulling him away, there was a Charles minor talking head. What was it?

Okay. Oh, I wish it would have made it. This is what they would have cut to. In business school, they taught us how to assess operations and identify waste. It's rare the waste so readily identifies itself. So it's very clear if that had stayed in how Charles sees Jim. Well, Pam and Jim have a talking head together and in this talking head, Pam says he just had to wear his tucks today, took him 40 minutes to get ready.

She's so amused. We got a fan question from Lola C and AK Sangra. Why didn't Jim just take off his blazer and tie? Because then it would have just been like kind of a white button down shirt and pants. I don't think it would have mattered. That's a weird white shirt, right? It does have the tuxedo collar, yeah, but it would have helped. It would have maybe helped a little.

I'm going to say good point, guys. This whole dynamic of Jim and Charles getting off on the wrong foot, this is going to extend because Idris is going to be on for five more episodes and this is going to extend through this whole storyline with him. And this was a dynamic Gene and Lee told me that the writers really wanted to examine. They loved this idea that someone was going to put Jim back on his heels, that there was a character that was immune to Jim's charm and wit, and they thought it would be very, very funny to see Jim be so disarmed.

It was. I couldn't get enough of it. I loved it. I loved John, everything about John, having to play this piece of his character. When you know John had so much fun, that was just always really cool when you got to examine another side of your character. I loved that too. I always loved when there would be little shifts like when Pam and Dwight were friends,

you know? I love suspicious bitch, you know? But now one of my favorite elements of our show is when Michael has to introduce a new person to anyone in the office. He gets so personal. He has done this time and time again. He brings over the accounting department and then tells all of our dating history. He tells about Oscar's breakup with Gil and how Angela has had sexual relations with Andy,

and then Idris just interrupts him and is like, you know, Michael, I don't need to know everyone's sexual history. And he's like, good, because we're getting to Kevin and he's got nada. I just love it every time, every time I look forward to it. The writers must have loved having to come up with new ways for Michael to introduce the same people. It really reminds me of how children like sometimes introduce people. Yes.

Like my mom has this story of me. I was probably like eight years old and we were at the grocery store checkout and it was me and my mom and my friend. And the woman thought my friend was my mom's daughter and she was like, oh, she looks just like you. And I said, that's not her daughter. I'm her daughter. These guys are hair and my mom was like, thank you.

But that's how Michael introduces people. No, it's true. He's like, how could I introduce this person? You know what? They only have eight toes. What? Here's something interesting. Charles clearly realizes he needs to take over here for a second.

He's all business. He is. And he wants everybody to know that Dunder Mifflin is cutting 3% across the board. They will no longer be matching 401K contributions. All over time has to go through corporate. And here's the big one. They're putting a freeze on discretionary spending, including parties, petty cash, supplies and parties.

Oh boy. Oh boy. And immediately, Michael starts to spiral. He's like, OK, Charles, thanks for coming in. Thank you. Thank you so much. And Charles is like, no, I'm actually going to stay today. And we got some mail about that.

People were like, why is David Wallace having Charles Minor babysit Michael all day when just a couple episodes ago, he was so impressed with Michael that he was sending him out to speak to other branches? I never saw this as Charles babysitting Michael in particular. I just saw this as this guy who's new to the company. He's an executive. He's just going to go around to every branch and spend a day at the branch. He's going to get to know the people.

He's clearly going to bring them lunch. You know, this wasn't a babysitting thing where Michael was singled out. This is just what he's doing to kind of get to know people. Exactly. This is standard practice. He's the VP of the Northeast region. He's got to get to know his region. Well, while Charles is setting up in the conference room, Michael is going to get David Wallace

on the phone because it was his understanding that he would not be managed. This is one of my favorite lines that Michael says in the whole episode. Yeah. He's telling David. He says to David, he doesn't understand why they can't just leave the position vacant and then here's my favorite line, truth be told, I think I thrive under a lack of accountability. I know. Michael asks David if he will be attending his anniversary party and if hiring Cirque

de Soleil performers as salaried employees would help with the year-end tax stuff. No response. I counted. It's a seven second silence. It's so perfect. And then Dwight, who by the way they revealed was there the whole time, it's classic Michael Dwight scene. Dwight's like, maybe he hung up and then he's like, no.

Who comes out of this phone call? He's decided, all right, he's going to try to get to know Charles. He's going to make an effort. He's going to ask him some personal questions right away. He's like, tell me something you've never told anyone before. Charles is like, no. And before we get any further into this crazy meeting, because there is a scene that was deleted that I want to read to you.

Let's take a break. Yes. And we'll be right back. All right, so we're back. We're in the conference room. Michael is desperately trying to get to know Charles Minor. Charles Minor is having none of it. I know somewhere in an NBC vault, there's got to be tons of extra footage because in

the script, there were all these bits and you know Steve went off script. So the scene would have started like this. Hi, Charles. Hi, Michael. And then Michael would go, Charles, Charles, Charles, Bobarles, Banana, Fana, Fana, Fafarles. And then he stops and the script says, long beat. And then he goes, Mimo, Mo, Marles, very long beat. And then at the same time, Charles goes Michael and Michael goes Charles.

That's how it would have started. Wow. I'm sad that's not there. Well, instead, Michael asks Charles two questions in a row. What is your wife's name and where did you work before this? And Charles says, Satecoy Steel. And Michael says, oh, what a cool name for your wife. And he's like, no, I worked at Satecoy Steel.

And the performance by Steve as Michael when he realizes that Charles isn't even a paper man. Yeah. He's like, does David Wallace know this? You don't even come from paper. Yeah. We got a lot of fan mail about the Satecoy Steel. People noticed that we film on Satecoy Street and they wanted to know, is this a real company

or just a nod to where we filmed? It is not a real company. It was just named after our street. And I love it. I did too. However, I did find this. When I was looking up Satecoy Steel. What did you find, Mom Detective?

I found out that there is a profile for Charles Minor, Regional Manager of Satecoy Steel on LinkedIn. Oh, great. As well as profiles for all the office characters. There's like a ton of Dwight K. Shrut profiles, but you can find all of us on LinkedIn. I love that. You are very right, Angela, when you say that Michael is very furious to find out that Charles has not worked in paper and he calls David Wallace immediately.

He does this thing as my dad would say, he went in there wide open. Oh. That was an expression my dad would say, which meant, here comes hell, right? So Michael is in a frenzy now. There was a scene that led up to his phone call to David between him and Dwight and they are pacing and they're speaking in hushed tones. While Michael's dialing, Dwight saying nothing, not even paper plates. Michael's like, nothing.

The man is a still worker. He probably has no idea how paper's made. Hello. And then the phone picks up. That's the energy that would have started the scene that was in the script. And Michael cannot get David Wallace on the phone. Dwight says, you cannot give up so easily. All right.

You've got to charm them. Rain could not get through this scene. It's in the bloopers. We have to hear it. Hey there, gorgeous. How you doing today? I'm good. Thank you.

How's it hanging? All right. Listen, my name. He doesn't even sound like Dwight. That's the other thing that I think. He sounds like rain. He does sound like rain. I think that kind of cracked rain up.

David Wallace's assistant was played by Suzanne Watson. I'm not exactly sure how she got the role in this show. She mostly works as a producer, but she is going to appear in three more episodes of The Office in season six, and she would have had a scene in this episode as well when Michael eventually goes to corporate. So she wasn't just cast for her voice. She actually, you know, was going to have this recurring role as David Wallace's assistant. Stephanie.

Stephanie. Stephanie. Oh, to be Stephanie. Taking Michael's calls. Oh, man. So meanwhile, Jim is working at his desk in his tux, and he keeps looking over his shoulder and Charles is there. Yes.

Looking at him through the blinds of the conference room. And then it pans to Jim, and Jim, like, shakes off the camera, like, mm-mm-mm. And then it whips over to Dwight, and Dwight is so smug and happy. Well, in the script, Dwight had a talking head here. It got deleted, but you got to hear it. Oh, look at me and my pretty tuxedo. I'm so pretty and carefree, and I don't need glasses. And, oh, what's that?

An objective outside observer doesn't find me amusing? A hysterical. That's pretty great. This is making Dwight's year. Hey, guess what? What? Lunch is here. And it's on me.

Charles got lunch for everybody. People are thrilled. Michael's like, I wish you would have told us sooner. I was going to go to the vending machine and get an egg salad. I'm sorry. Is there egg salad in our vending machines? Gross! What vending machine is this?

We did not have a refrigerated vending machine. No. Charles, though, is like, you still have that option. There's some serious Charles sass in this scene, and my favorite is this one. I do this for every branch I go to. If you do not like it, then I think there are some bagels left over from this morning. Sass. Yes.

That's major sass. Well, you know, in the conference room, Kelly's going to say to Angela, should I seduce Charles? And Angela goes, no. No one wants to see that. But then she sneaks a smile at Charles. I like this rivalry. Mindy and I had so much fun doing this. We had such a blast.

Michael is trying to call David Wallace again, and then we're going to have the scene that is the tipping point for Michael. It's so cringey. Kevin approaches Michael and says he used the wrong calendar for his spreadsheet. The wrong calendar. From 2008. And he has to redo his spreadsheet. Can he come in over the weekend?

That would mean overtime. Michael says, yes, Charles says, no, no, we talked about this. And Michael's like, I'm sorry, this is my branch and I like your initiative, Kevin. And yes. And Charles just shuts him down. He's like, that's not how we're going to do this. And how does Michael respond? Michael starts doing that like six year old thing, that echo thing where you just repeat

what the other person is saying. Yeah. I know you are. I know you are. And then it's like going on and on and everyone in the bullpen is saying, Michael. Stop it. Please. Pam has a talking head where she says she can tell how upset Michael is by which comedy

routine he uses and how infantile and immature he gets. He has skipped over the Ace Ventura butt routine, which never happens. She knows this is bad. He skipped over Ace Ventura butt routine. That's the talking butt. Yeah, I know the talking butt. I know it. He's going to take all that energy and he's going to say, all right, fine.

Party planning committee in the conference room. And there was a thing in the script where he was like, you guys just pitch me ideas because maybe planning my party will make me feel better. I remember shooting the scene. We had a hard time getting through it. I bet. I bet. Well, while you guys start pitching party ideas, Charles is going to go over to Phyllis

and say, you know, what is the PPC? And Phyllis says it's the party planning committee and they spend hours planning parties. And then Phyllis would have had a talking head. And I so wish it had made it in. Are you ready for some Phyllis sass? Here's her talking head. I built that house. I can burn it down.

That was in the script. Oh, Phyllis. I know. I love this side of Phyllis, especially when it's not directed at Angela. Well, in that moment when Charles is talking to Phyllis at 14 minutes, 48 seconds, you get a real good shot of this silver, insulated coffee mug that he's been carrying around all day. Do you know what it said on it?

What? Satacoist steel. Oh, nice detail. Way to go, Phil Shea, because when Charles enters the conference room, he is holding that Satacoist steel coffee mug I level to Michael Scott. And I don't know, I just felt like it was subliminally pissing Michael off. Just poking the bear. Yeah.

Just rubbing it in his face. Well, Charles wants to know what the heck they're doing in there. He now has been tipped off by Phyllis that this is a big waste of time. And he starts to look over Jim's shoulder and he's like, what is a two-way petting zoo? And Jim is really embarrassed and he says, you pet the animals, they pet you back. We could not get through that. Two-way petting zoo did us in every time.

I got a little bit curious. You did not look up two-way petting zoo. I did. Oh no. Is that a burning man? Because I have a friend who was in a petting zoo at Burning Man. What? What is that?

What is that? Okay. This is someone I did improv with. And I'll never forget, you know, she's kind of like a free spirit. And I was at the airport, this is years ago, and I see her running through the airport and it looked like she had like, I don't know, she had like a carry-on, but you could see sort of like a onesie poking out of it. She's running through the airport and I'm like, hi, and she's like, hi.

And she's like, so good to see you. And I was like, you too. She's like, where are you going? And I was like, I'm going to see my folks. I said, what about you? And she said, oh, I'm going to Burning Man. I'm in the petting zoo this year. And so I had to say, what, what, what is the petting zoo?

She was like, well, you know, you dress up as animals and let people pet you. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. That's what I thought of when you said that. I did not know that. I mean, I found out that there's no such thing as a two-way petting zoo where actual animals

pet the humans, but I did not know about this human petting zoo at Burning Man. Did you think animals would pet humans? You know what, lady? I didn't know. I admit. I don't know. I don't know about Google, but I did find this. What?

Two-way petting zoo is apparently like a euphemism for describing like a really intense passionate sexual encounter. Like you would be like, oh, me and my boyfriend had a real two-way petting zoo last night. No, come on. Who talks like that? But you are giving me flashbacks of like sixth grade sex ed where like we had a coach teach us sixth grade sex ed, and he was like, sometimes there's heavy padding. Sometimes you're like, oh, heavy padding.

Heavy padding. Yeah. I don't know. Well, we don't know what Jim meant, but we know he's super embarrassed. Well, Charles has had enough. He wants to dissolve the PPC effective immediately. This is where Michael completely flips out. And there was a deleted scene where he made a defensive argument to keep the PPC.

Oh, we need to hear it. The party planning committee is an institution in this institution. It is something that I incorporated in the mid-90s to celebrate the laser disc release of a League of their Own. It has become a tradition here. It is something that is important to all of us. What did we do for League of their Own party? A pizza of your own party.

Make your own pizza. I didn't even work here then. I just heard the stories. Okay, thank you Dwight. That should take five minutes of one person's day. Really? Five minutes. Yeah, and then that's where the scene picks up and he just goes off and he's like, you

don't even know how paper is made. It's not like steel. You don't put it in a furnace. And he starts like to cry. And he shoves over a chair on his way out. That was not in the script. He has a whole tantrum. Ah, I remember.

After Michael leaves, Jim is going to attempt to start over with Charles. Yeah. And this created fan mail, fan mail, flurry number two, a lot of people wrote in. This is a quote. I am so excited to finally get to discuss my biggest pet peeve in the whole series. Oh my goodness. What at 16 minutes, 40 seconds, Jim says, he's a great number two for the office. And Charles responds by saying he didn't know that position existed.

And then Jim kind of like tap dances and he's like, well, at first it was made up for Dwight, but then, you know, Michael gave it to me and kind of all ends with Charles being like, is this made up position important to you? Yeah. Well, people are pee-o'd. At who? Here's the thing. I mean, people sent in lists of evidence to say that this number two position that Jim

holds is real. It is not a made up position and that Charles should know that. Here's the evidence. In branch closing, Jan is talking to Jim about going back to Scranton and she says, quote, we'd like to offer you the number two position at that branch. In the merger, Michael is on the phone with Jan after firing Tony. He tries to blame Dwight by saying bad advice from my number two and Jan says, Jim is your number two.

I sent you a memo about this. In the merger, Jim confirms to Dwight that the job comes with a pay raise. Oh, yeah. In Benihana Christmas, when Pam gives her Christmas gift to Jim, he turns it down using quote his promotion as an excuse. Also in a Benihana Christmas, Dwight refers to himself as the ranking number three and he finally concedes to Jim's authority as ranking number two. This is when they're trying to validate the committee to plan parties.

They get in this whole argument. In the return, Andy tells Jim, I'm thrilled to be working directly beneath you. In women's appreciation, Dwight tells Jim, you may be second command, but that does not put you above the law. This is a real position. I agree with everybody that yes. I think Jim doesn't present it well and then he gets flustered. I think so too.

By the way, great research, everyone. Yeah. I'm very impressed. Let me give a shout out to Laura K., Alexandra K., Cy L., Dan C., Emily M., and others. Well done. I like it. People were fired up. I like it.

It was a fan mail blizzard. Yeah. Jim just can't win with Charles. There were more scenes where he just got busted throughout the day. One of them happened at front reception. Oh, I remember shooting this. Can we hear that? He really doesn't like me.

But you look so dapper. Thank you. I'm working so hard. I was hitting the phones. I closed the sale. I updated my contact list. Is this your day, Jim? What?

I... Hey, go tell him you updated your contact list. I would tell him if it... You're mocking me? Really? Today? Like, I don't have enough going on. I'm sorry.

Have a candy. Thank you. Sweetie, do you mind eating that at your desk? I don't want him to keep seeing us together. Okay, when I had to say that line, could you eat that at your desk? We could not get through that. That made John and I laugh so hard that Pam was like, could you just do that somewhere else?

He also, which you guys can't see it, right? It's in the deleted scenes if you have the DVDs. When Pam says that, John, as Jim, looks at the camera, like super deadpan, like, are you kidding me? I remember all of that. I remember it so clearly. Well, Michael's going to drive to corporate. He's going to confront David Wallace as he's leaving the men's room.

This is a classic Michael move. I'm sorry, you guys, but Angela did that to me today. I did. I went to the restroom during our break. Well, there's only... Okay, first of all, there's only one bathroom here. And one hallway. Yeah.

It's right there. And you had this email you wanted to show me, so as soon as she came out of the bathroom, I was like, look at this. And I said, you just Michael scotted me. Yeah. Anyway, David Wallace, here's Michael out. And he's like, you know what? Look, you can have your 15th anniversary party.

You can have the figs. Michael keeps talking about these figs. I know. There was a whole fig runner. What? Yes, in the script. I thought this was just like a random thing and I was so tickled by it, I was like, what is this?

Yes. Commitment to having figs. Yeah. So this would have been a callback to an earlier scene when they're doing all the party planning. One of the things Michael wanted was like bacon-wrapped figs, okay? And then remember when he started to spiral out to Charles Minor about canceling the party? He had this whole speech where he was like, there will be horse-drawn carriages, there will be panchetta-wrapped figs, there will be breakdancers.

Wow. Yeah. Those are the figs. The figs. They've already arrived. They're arrived. What's he going to do with them? Exactly.

So David Wallace says, I will come to your party. You can have your figs. I will move some money around and make it happen. But Michael says, he smiles and you think he's happy. And then he says, I quit. He quits. I was so surprised. It's amazing.

Yeah. I have a real tangent to throw in here. Okay. I don't know if you noticed, but at the very beginning of the scene, David Wallace is drinking water out of a Fiji water bottle. It was really random to me because he's turned the bottle in such a way that you can't see the name facing you, but it's clearly Fiji water. And I was so confused because I thought they never let us do that.

No. I just wondered, was that he had been drinking some Fiji water and it ended up in the scene and he turned because, you know, was he, I don't know, I just, it stood out to me. But it also stood out to me because earlier in the week by coincidence, my family became fascinated with the origins of bottled water. So we're in this phase right now where our 10 year old, if we're talking at dinner and we bring up something, he wants to look it up and find out everything about it. I wonder where he gets that.

Well, we were discussing getting new water bottles for school, you know, the reusable ones. And this got us on bottled water and my son ended up doing a whole deep dive for our family on the origins of bottled water. And I thought I would share a little bit about it since what the coincidence that David Wallace is holding a water bottle. Okay. This is my son's deep dive and I find it fascinating.

And I think you will too, even though you're not his mother. The first commercially distributed bottled water company in America was called Jackson Spa and it was founded in 1767 in Boston. This was the question that launched everything was who made the first bottle of water. It was Jackson Spa and the people who drank the water thought that it held therapeutic properties because it came from like one of those mineral springs, a natural spring. One of the biggies, Arrowhead, was established in 1917. That's so early.

I know. Arrowhead water is sourced from the mountain springs in California, Colorado and Canada. It's bottled in California even today. Then we get up to Evion. That was not established until 1978, almost 70 years after Arrowhead. Their water comes from a spring in the French Alps. Fiji water, as held by David Wallace, comes from Fiji, but the big shift in bottled water came when Pepsi and Coca-Cola got into the game by selling purified water.

Purified water is basically municipal tap water, which is then filtered using a process called reverse osmosis. Spring water is also filtered, but the reverse osmosis is what purifies it, I guess. That's the purified part. Then we all wondered as a family, what's the best water, purified, spring, tap? You know what it is? Guess. Tap.

Nope. Spring. Nope. Purified. Yes. Purified water. The reverse osmosis makes it the most pure above filtered spring or tap. How about that?

Pepsi and Coke were already using purified water as the basis of their sodas. They would get water, they would purify it, and then they would add all the bubbles, and then they would add all the other stuff that you put in a soda. It was really easy for them to just start bottling it before they did all the rest of it to make it a soda. Well I think that's a fascinating deep dive. Well done. We are trying as a family to cut down on plastic.

Super hard. There's so much. So much single-use plastic. That's right. And that's what we're trying to avoid. Exactly. And my husband just worked with this company that I find fascinating called Tetrapack. Oh my gosh.

I watched his video that he made for them, and it was great. It was amazing. They're putting water in everything you can imagine, soup, and it just, if you start to notice what Tetrapack looks like, it's like paper packaging. Yes. And the only thing that's plastic and it's like recycled plastic is the lid. Yeah. It's the thing that like broth comes in.

Yes. Coconut waters, I see. Box milk. Yep. Fascinating. Another factory that I want to go to. Oh, let's go to the factory. I know.

Okay. Well, back in our episode, Charles is going to leave for the day. He says goodbye. Angela runs over to say goodbye, and I loved the scene between Kelly and Phyllis in the kitchen. Kelly's putting on lipstick. She's like, I'm going to make them buy me a steak tonight, and Phyllis is like, first of all, I'm the only person here.

Because she starts with you guys. I know. I know. And then she's like, I think he already left. And Mindy, as Kelly goes barreling out, kind of knocks into camera, do you see her start to break? Yes. I wrote it down.

She started to laugh as she pushed through the door. I also want to say Phyllis is drinking coffee at the very end of the day. Needs to pick me up. It's just a little thing to note. Afternoon pick me up. Kelly bolts out to the parking lot, and Angela is out there holding Charles' scarf. In the rain. She swiped it.

Oh yeah. 100%. She swiped that scarf. She quietly plots, OK? Kelly is very out there with what her plans are, but Angela was secretly plotting. Shooting the scene was so much fun. It was actually raining. We had to time it out so that Mindy would come running out, and I would come around the

corner, and we would see each other, and then start yelling our scene at each other. And then they were like, we want you to chase after her. And you run. So we took off. I loved every second of doing these scenes with Mindy. You guys had to run in your heels. In our heels. On the wet pavement.

I also remember talking to Paul Feig about, wait, how would Angela Martin run in this moment? You know? Oh, how does your character run? Yeah, and I had done fun run, but she was angry running about sprinkles. But this was like, I had heels, and how would Angela Martin run? And these are small details, but they're so fun to like figure out. But this is what you do as an actor.

You make these choices for how your character would do something that's different from how you would do it. Yeah. And then after this, I have this talking head. And then I have a talking head, but we did not film my talking head that day. So they had to try to match how wet my hair would have looked. They spritzed my hair with water. They put water on my face, let my mascara run down my cheeks, and then I had to deliver

this monologue as if I had just run away from Kelly. So I was like, when did? Now, let me ask you, before you started shooting, did you stand up and like do like a fake run? Because I've done that before. When I have to enter out of breath, I'll do like a little jog in place. I did not. Oh, that's all, that's all fake. You didn't need it.

I didn't need it. I just did this. Kelly and Charles, absolutely not. He is a sophisticated man. He doesn't need to go dumpster diving for companionship. Okay. Wow. Wow.

That's really good. Thank you. That's really good. Well, listen, that is new boss, but Angela, there would have been something here. Those driving scenes. Yes. Michael driving away from his meeting with David Wallace. They're so funny.

I read in the shooting draft, there were so many. They just let Michael go on and on and on. Well, here's a few I want you to hear that made deleted scenes. Wow. Oh boy. Like Thelma and Louise driving off the cliff. I'm really not even sure what just happened. I went inside and that was real, right?

No, mom. I don't know if I did the right thing. It's just, it's just what I did. Okay. Don't put Jeff on the phone. I don't, please. I don't want to. Hello, sir.

How are you? Trains. What is that? I know. There were a series like where he started talking to himself like, I can't believe this happened. Then he calls, right? Then he's laughing hysterically.

Then he's eating pizza. Then he's crying. They just went on and on. But I loved that his mom put Jeff on the phone. What's up with Jeff and trains? Is there something where he talks about Jeff collecting trains at some point in an earlier episode? I feel like maybe.

Maybe. If it had been the tag, it would have been Michael in the car, leaving New York, and all these series of emotions and little snippets in his car. Well, this whole thing is going to lead to one of my personal favorite storylines of the entire series for my character, Pam. And that is when Michael starts his own paper company and Pam goes with him. I can't wait to watch these episodes. I can't wait.

All right, you guys, that was new boss. We hope you're having a great week and we'll be here next week. See you then. Bye. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Cody Fisher. Our producer is Cassie Jerkins, our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate

producer is Ainsley Bubicoe. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad-free versions of Office Ladies, go to StitcherPremium.com. For a free one month trial at Stitcher Premium, use code, OFFICE.