Office Ladies - Office Olympics w/ Paul Feig

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

This week Jenna is on a cleanse and Angela falls into an 'Amish In The City' hole, but that doesn't stop them from covering this week's episode, Office Olympics. The ladies discuss how the animated series, King Of The Hill, inspired Office Olympics, and they take a call from this episodes director, Paul Feig (Freaks and Geeks, Last Christmas). Paul chats about shooting in Micheal's condo, the most he's ever laughed on set, and the intricacies of picking the famed yogurt lid medals. Let the podcast games begin!

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. Hello everybody. Hi everyone.

Welcome to season two, episode three, Office Olympics. Yee-hoo! Guys, if I sound grouchy today, it's because I'm in hour four of a cleanse. I've never done one before. I think they're stupid. I don't know why I'm doing it. Angela, what are your thoughts on my cleanse? It's a bad idea.

Why am I doing it? I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. I don't want a bunch of people writing in like to us being like, you guys, cleanses are good for you. But you know what? I just think they sound like a big pain in the ass.

Here's the thing. I was running out of the house this morning. I was late. I didn't have time to make my usual breakfast of scrambled eggs and sliced strawberries. I eat that every morning. Oh man. I love it. Didn't have time.

But I remembered that about eight months ago, I ordered this five-day cleanse at the advice of one of my friends. Who's like healthy or something? Super healthy. Looks amazing. Skin is amazing. And I thought, well, maybe today's the day. Maybe this is a sign.

So I just grabbed day one of the cleanse. It's like a little pre-package. You know, I had a nut bar for breakfast. She looks like she's going into outer space, you guys. I'm so angry. She has a little box. I'm mad. You've got like, it looks like compressed food.

Everything's freeze dried. Compressed food in this little foil packets. I've already, I guess, cheated. I hate that. I hate that I'm shaming myself over this thing already. But I'm having coffee. You're not supposed to have coffee on the cleanse. You're supposed to have tea.

It's not even caffeinated tea. What am I supposed to do with that? What is wrong with these people? That's what I'm saying. I don't know. And I already decided I think I'm going to eat a full meal for dinner. I don't know. Well, I won't tell you what I brought for lunch.

What? Pasta? I brought pasta? Oh my gosh. I have like freeze dried soup to eat. I know. I know. You're going into outer space.

You're eating your packets. Why am I even saying I'm doing a cleanse when I've already planned to eat dinner tonight? I'm not doing. I'm kind of doing a cleanse. I hate to break it to you. What am I doing? You're not doing a cleanse. You were rushing and you grabbed your NASA packets because you bought them and you feel

bad that you bought them. That is it. And they've been sitting there. Yes. And also what I'm learning about you, Jenna, like I already knew this about you. But boy, am I learning it now being your business partner. Is that if your routine gets thrown, you love routine, it sends you into this like spiral where all of a sudden you're like, like if you're like, oh, I didn't get my scrambled

eggs and my strawberries. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to move to Arizona. What? It's so true. I've so thrown that I start to make really wackadoo decisions. Yeah. You make some big swings.

Okay. All right. Well, let's see how it goes today. Yeah. On that note. This episode, as I said, is Office Olympics written by Mike Scher and directed by Paul Feig. Yay.

Let me give a summary. In this episode, Michael has to leave the office for the day to sign papers on his new condo. He's becoming a homeowner, everyone. Dwight goes with him, leaving Jim in charge, who decides to use the day to stage Office Olympics with the employees. Fast fact number one, Office Olympics was inspired by the King of the Hill Office Olympics. Yes.

The writers on Greg's show, King of the Hill, created a real Office Olympics and that is what inspired our episode. Actually, Jenna, it wasn't the writers that invented the Office Olympics for King of the Hill. It was Tim Crosston, Greg's assistant. Oh. Tim Crosston was Greg Daniels' assistant. Tim is also a longtime friend of mine.

I've known him for years. And Tim and two other assistants are who set up the whole Office Olympics at King of the Hill. The writers, yes, participated, Jenna. Okay. They participated. But it was a, Tim was the mastermind. He was the self-appointed commissioner.

Oh. Yes. And I- He was the gym. He was the gym. And I talked to him last night. We traded text messages and Tim, sorry if I woke you up at 11 o'clock at night in North Carolina, but thank you for responding.

They had a whole opening ceremonies. They had a torch. They had shirts for different teams. What? Yeah. They marched through the hallways. They had like a banner each team carried. They had a full opening ceremonies.

And you know the doves that you see at the end for our closing ceremonies? Yes. They had that. They had doves that went across. They had several games that they had to play. It took a day and a half, this Office Olympics. What were they not doing during this day and a half? I know.

Well, Tim said that we wasted a full day and a half on this and I won the award for wasting the most office time. So he said, so overall, I'm very proud of my time on King of the Hill. He said some of the games they had were mini golf through the office, Kerplunk, which was like this game, I guess where they had like sticks like in like a tube and you drop marbles down and then you had to twist it. I don't know. And then it went Kerplunk.

Tim's favorite game that they had though was guess the elevator and that made it into our episode. Yes. So someone went down to the lobby and then came up and you had to guess which elevator they came out. So he said that was his personal favorite. They also had a Twinkie eating contest and Paul Lieberstein came in second. Go Paul.

Cause Paul was working on King of the Hill at the time as well, but he said they really got into it. They went all out and he said one of the things that blew him away was Chuck Manjoni. He is a famous musician, composer, Jenna. He actually played a recurring character on King of the Hill as himself as the celebrity spokesperson for the Megalomart. Yes. And he flew himself out on his own dime to play.

He plays the flugelhorn and the trumpet to play at the opening ceremonies because he in fact actually played at the Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. This is crazy. How many years did they do this? Do we know? This was an annual thing, right? I don't know that. I don't know that.

I think, I mean, from what Tim texted me, they definitely went full out one year. I don't know if they could sustain this because I think they did waste a lot of time not working. And here's a random piece of trivia for you. I did a voice on King of the Hill. I had like a one line in the Megalomart where I said, wait, I don't sell superscourters no more on account of their dangers. So there's my, there's my connection there. Can you believe that?

They really went all out on King of the Hill for their office Olympics. And that was the inspiration for office Olympics on the office. I love all of that information. That was amazing. Also, this episode ended up inspiring offices around the country to do their own office Olympics. I mean, this got even bigger than just our TV show. Tim, you really started something.

Thank you for that legacy. And thank you for letting me text you till almost midnight last night, your time. Fast fact number two, writer Mike Schur makes a cameo appearance in this episode. Oh yeah. Appearing in a photograph as Dwight's Amish cousin, Moes. Moes was actually based on a character in the UPN show, Amish in the city. It came out July, 2004, Jenna, I went down the rabbit hole last night and I watched the pilot episode of Amish in the city cause I wanted to see what the character of Moes.

There is a guy named Moes. First of all, the premise for the show is crazy. They take five Amish teens who are on their rum, springa, you know, they can go and live in the world for a year and then they, in the non Amish world. And then they decide if they want to actually take the Amish way of life, right? So they take five Amish teens and they put them in a house in Los Angeles, like right off Ventura Boulevard, overlooking the city. And they put five mainstream American like teenagers.

And now I think just taking five Amish kids to Los Angeles is enough. You got to throw in, there's a guy from Boston who's like, all I want to do was like, get laid and potty. Woohoo. And you're going to put him with Moes, Moes who like brought his wooden puzzles that he made himself. I mean, there's a whole scene where he's like, do you like puzzles? And the Boston guy's like, nah, I don't like them.

And he's like, oh, that's pretty much all I brought. Oh my gosh. This, okay. Sorry. Your explanation of Amish in the city is making me want to watch Amish in the city. I'm very invested in Moes. I feel like I'm going to have to go back because I'm like, what happened to Moes in his puzzles? How's he doing?

Well, I guess the writers were obsessed with Amish in the city as well. And the entire first season of the office, they would all talk about it. And so finally, when we got a season two, they, that was their way of honoring their love of Amish in the city was this character of Moes that Mike sure, I think he thought he was just appearing in a photograph, little did he know he would go on to play this character for nine years. And then probably would have been in the spin off the farm had it happened. True.

He would still be playing Moes. Of course. We also introduced another recurring character in this episode. It is the realtor. Yes. Carol Stills. Carol Stills, played by Nancy Carell, Steve Carell's wife. Who is hilarious?

Nancy is hilarious. And we will talk more about her scenes with Steve as we get into this episode. Fact number three, this was our first time working with director Paul Feig, who is undoubtedly one of our favorite directors. Paul is so brilliant. And what I love is he's kind. He's just a delightful person to be around. We've talked a little bit about how he and his wife Lori would host our viewing parties,

but this was our first time working with him. And I'll never forget when he walked on set because he was wearing a full suit and tie. Oh, he is so dapper. Which he wore every day. Every day. Every day he wore a suit. A lot of them were like vintage suits, so they were also super cool. They weren't stuffy.

I mean, they were like super hip. No, he and his wife Lori are like, they're like a smart looking couple. Yeah. They look like people who read The New Yorker, don't they? Like they're super smart. They can read the long articles because those articles are super long. They're really smart. And their house, I remember, was like decorated, like so lovely.

They had art. Yes. Yes. Art. But they're not stuffy people. You know what I mean? They're incredibly approachable. Not flashy.

Yeah, not flashy. They're just really nice people. And Paul was one of my absolute favorite directors we ever had. You are in love with his Instagram. I am. She is obsessed with his Instagram. I love his Instagram. It makes me want to travel and dress nice and have a cocktail.

Yes. Yes, this is true. Sophie, before this, had worked on Freaks and Geeks, which I was a huge fan of. And actually, Freaks and Geeks is the very first television show I ever auditioned for. I wondered if you auditioned for that. That seemed like right in your wheelhouse. I did not audition for one of the regular characters. The show had already happened.

But I went in for a guest appearance, I think just three lines. And this was because Alison Jones, who cast The Office, also cast Freaks and Geeks. This started my relationship with Alison Jones. I went in, I auditioned for Freaks and Geeks, I did not get the role. That's all right, lady. That's all right. It happens sometimes. She called me back later for a TV show called Undeclared that was produced by Judd Apatow.

And I did get that part, just one line. And then, you know, five years later, she called me to audition for The Office. Wow. That was all Alison Jones. But I almost worked with Paul Feig on Freaks and Geeks, but it didn't happen. But it was meant to be, our paths would cross. Little did I know. And they did.

But, you know, Paul also directed Bridesmaids, one of my all-time favorite movies. So funny. I remember going to that premiere because, you know, we were so excited to support Paul and to support Ellie and the whole cast was just phenomenal. And I was so happy for him. And you know, Paul is the type of guy, the minute he sees you, this huge smile comes across his face and he gives you a big hug. And he's just such a giving person of his self, you know?

And I was so happy to support him and so happy that it ended up being such a huge hit. I want to call your attention to Paul Feig's many books that are amazing, okay? He wrote Kick Me, which is, I guess it's like his autobiography for the first chapter of his life. Yes. About his adolescence. Yeah. I really feel like he could write a whole bunch more.

But he's so funny. The book is amazing. And then he also wrote this book called Super Stud or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin. It's also amazing. So you guys, really, if you want to dive deep on Paul Feig, I recommend these books. Guess what we did? We called Paul Feig for this episode. Who is singing?

What has this cleansed onto me? It's turned me into you. It's turning you into me and you're about to make some crazy life choices. Should we go to a bar right now? No, God, no. We should not. That's horrible. It's 11 a.m. also.

Probably defeats the purpose of your cleanse. Guys, we called Paul Feig and we interviewed him about Office Olympics. We even included some of your questions. So after the break, we're going to talk to Paul Feig. We're going to ask him some questions. He's going to tell us about Office Olympics. I can't wait. All right.

Stay tuned. All right. We are back and we are going to be talking to Paul Feig. Sam, dial him up. Hello. Hi, Paul. Hey, Paul. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? Are you somewhere fancy, Paul? No. I'm in New York, actually. Yeah. But are you somewhere fancy? Well, my apartment's very fancy.

Because I'm very fancy. Thank you so much for doing this. Paul, it really means a lot. Oh, my God. I'm so excited. I'm so happy that you guys are doing this. And I wish I could be in the studio with you. It would be so much even more fun.

Well, you're always welcome to come back. We've got 200 episodes to talk about. And you directed a great deal of them. Oh, good. Exactly. I'll talk on all of mine. We'll hit you up for that. We actually reached out to some fans to talk to you today.

And there were people who had so many questions. Yeah. So we're going to include some of their questions with our questions. Very good. I'm excited. Well, to get started, Paul, how did you get involved with the office?

It was my great agent at the time, Rene Kurtz, who was steering me towards it. Honestly, I was offered several years before the chance to develop the office, the British office, into a series. And I was like, oh, forget it. There's no way you can do it. It's too scary because it's such a great series. So I just didn't even take the bait.

But then when Greg did it, I was really amazed by that. And actually, the funny thing is I was making a pilot at the same time that Greg did the pilot for the office. And I remember we were both working at some studio, and he was editing there. And I remember him coming over to us to Rodney Rothman and I, whose pilot it was. And he's like, hey, come in here.

Come in here. I got to play you a couple of different options for the opening theme song for this show that I just directed. And so he played a couple of different versions, including the one that would be now infamous piano one. So I was definitely there right at the very beginning. When the show got picked up, my agent called me, Rene, and she was just like, they'd like you to direct an episode.

And so I watched the first six that you guys had done and thought they were so hilarious. You know, as soon as I saw Diversity Day, I was just like completely in. I just thought it was so great. Yeah, I came to that first table read. I don't know if you remember, they did kind of a bunch of episodes all at once.

And I remember you guys were reading the Dundee's and all that. And then we read Office Olympics. And so I was in. Did you get to pick Office Olympics from that table read? Or was it assigned to you? Yeah, that was the one that was assigned to me because I remember having a moment going like, oh, I want to do the

Dundee's. That seems really fun. But then, um, but then I just saw the potential of the Office Olympics was just, was just going to be such a, such a blast. I mean, it was, it was just, it was just such a fun thing to kind of put together. I mean, I remember just what an interesting, I don't know,

what interesting feeling it was on the set for that, because I mean, if you remember, that was sort of, you know, aside from the Olympics part of it, that was the episode that kind of started to turn everything because that's where, you know, Steve's character started to become slightly more sympathetic. And I don't know if you remember or not, we really, that kind of got found on the set.

Because remember, we were doing the whole thing where we were presenting, you guys were presenting Michael with the, you know, the, with the, the metal. And Steve just made this decision to kind of start crying. Yeah. You know, getting all choked up. And, and I remember just going like, oh my God, Steve, that's so great.

Like, keep going with that. And that was, I think that was kind of the, the turning point where his character took that left turn from Ricky Gervais' character and became more sort of the, the lovable, you know, misfit who's trying too hard for everybody to like him. And all I remember in that filming of that scene that you directed all of us to be genuine.

And you can see it on our faces that we are genuinely clapping for Michael. We're not mocking him. It was this collective moment with everyone in the office enjoying supporting one another. It was really sweet. It makes me tear up every time I watch it. I cried when Steve did that.

Yeah. It really gets me too. Cause I think, you know what it was, it was just Steve's performance was so sincere that it felt, if we were kind of being snarky or, or, or, you know, laughing at him, that it made us such, it made you guys such villains to do that. And, you know, and it was, but it wasn't anybody's really instinct to do that.

And so I just, just kind of encourage you to, to go along with what you were already doing, which is we were all really being affected by Steve. Yeah. Yeah. It still gets me. Well, we have a fan question for you. Um, Reed wrote in and said, I know, ooh, Reed says, when

filming a mockumentary, do you storyboard or do you have a shot plan? Neither. What you do is you basically kind of go through the script and I would walk around with Kelly, our AD, the, you know, the day before or whatever. And we just basically kind of go, okay, what's the bet? Where would we put the cameras for this scene so that we

would be cross shooting it and the cameras could, could avoid seeing each other, but where the documentary crew would actually be. And, um, so you always just kind of going, okay, you know, for me, it's like, I always want to have depth behind us. So I never wanted to shoot in the walls whenever I could avoid it. And so just kind of go, okay, you, they would be, you know,

one would be over here by this desk and then on the opposite side, something, you know, Matt would be over there and Randall would be on the other side. And really that was, that was kind of it. Then you'd also go like, okay, is this going to be a spy shot where you guys don't know you're on camera? Well, we'll be shooting through, you know, the blinds are through a crack in the door.

Um, and then that was kind of it. And then, then we would just get there and just play out the scene. For me, this is, it's the greatest way to do TV comedy because it just, every time we shot the scene, we had the full scene. And so it just allowed us to just play and go like, okay, this time try this, you know, and, you know, and just the

fact that Greg and everybody let us play around so much with these great scripts that we already had. And, and then we had the confidence to keep that stuff in because I'd worked on other shows where the cast was really brilliant at kind of improving or tagging something or just kind of taking a little left turn in the middle of the scene. But the show runners just wouldn't put it in because they

were so in love with their scripts that they just wouldn't use it. But, you know, just, I mean, the, the shining example of that was when we did the next episode, the Halloween episode where we had that thing where we found, where Rain was doing, you know, playing the emperor and talking to Michael and kind of goading him. And we just found that funny angle that looked like the

emperor from, from Star Wars where you just kind of see his face. And we just, you know, him just taunting. That went on and on. But Greg, I think, Jettison, some other kind of storyline just so we could keep that scene long because it was just so funny. And, you know, that, that, that takes, that takes a lot of

confidence in, in sort of, you know, well, self-confidence really on the part of the showrunner to let those moments play out like that. I love that. Me too. I love hearing everything that went into the, how it ended up on screen. We were just acting.

You did all this planning. I know. You put all this thought into it. Without you, we are nothing. Without you, we are nothing. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about picking the condo location in this episode because it's almost like another character.

It features so prominently. What was the criteria for picking the condo? You wanted something that, that had enough flow to it and openness that you weren't going to be stuck in little rooms, you know, with, with just basically walls as your background. And so what I really liked about it is they had that kitchen that went through to the back patio.

So, you know, we were in the kitchen shooting Michael kind of having his breakdown, which is still possibly the, I think the hardest I think I've ever laughed on a set. Yes. We were, when, when Steven was having that thing where he's having the breakdown, he kind of puts his hand on the stove and picks up the thing and then goes outside. Is this supposed to come off?

He walks out with it. Oh, God. I mean, that, that is like just, that's the genius of Steve. I, I, I literally thought I was going to die when he was doing it and every time we do a take, you do something different. Did we use that same condo in dinner party? Did we manage to keep that same place?

It looked familiar. It looked very familiar to me. Didn't it to you? Like the kitchen. I thought it was the condo. Yeah. That's amazing. Well, what was, what was fun about that is being able to go

in and turn it into Jan's place. Yeah. And that's, that was, I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to jump episodes, but I mean, for dinner party, that was the most fun of like, how do we see how Jan's woman's touch went in with kimonos on the wall. Oh my gosh, Paul, you have to come back. You have to come in.

We will have so much fun with that. I was talking to Mike sure about this episode. He was the writer of this episode and he shared with us your choice of using a wide angle lens when filming Steve for this episode. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. It was just, you know, we really wanted him to feel lost in

this, in this thing because, you know, it's so much about him being overwhelmed. Yeah. I had a very similar experience when I first met Lori, my wife, and we were going to move in together, you know, and she had found this place and I came over, it was under the guys. I was just going to like look at it and see what it was

about. And little did I know she kind of had the realtor there and everything. And like, I had to sign the papers to pull the trigger. So suddenly I went from being like this kind of weird lonely bachelor to like committing to moving in in front of all these people. And I just kind of freaked out.

And I just remember that feeling of like suddenly the house felt very like abstract and like you're in a horror movie a little bit. You're having a panic attack. And so I wanted Steve to kind of feel that being, you know, in that house of like, it's almost like, you know, up, you know, I forget there's an old movie, not obsession, but something where this woman's going crazy in the house.

I just thought it'd be kind of funny to give it that feel. Oh my gosh, I love that story. Lori, you go Lori. I'm telling you, I know, look at that. You know, we would celebrate our 25 year anniversary, wedding anniversary. So it worked somehow. Well, we got a lot of questions also about the yogurt lids.

This was maybe the thing people are most curious about, these yogurt lids. Oh my gosh, they went crazy about the yogurt lids, Paul. Mel wanted to know how many medals were made. Casey wants to know, were any other items considered for medals before landing on yogurt lids? Literally any information you can give us about these yogurt lids. Anything about yogurt lids.

People want to know. Wow. Cause I remember that so distinctly, just because I remember thinking it was, it was not at all what I thought we were going to make the medal. And I remember Phil, I remember Phil Props coming up with those. And I remember him rigging that up with, you know, with the paper clips of the chain and hanging of that out there.

And I had moments of going like, I don't know if it's substantial enough because they're so light. But then thinking, but this was kind of brilliant too. And so going with this, I have some weird memory and I don't know if it's accurate or not of like a cottage cheese lids. Oh, it would be larger. Or for if you like and bigger. Yes.

But I think, I think we might have said they were too big and also I think they didn't stay on the, on the paper clip. So, but that, that's just a kind of a hazy memory. Steve Gordon asked, this is just kind of a fun question. Which one of the freaks and geeks could work in the office? I think it would have to be Lindsay. I think only Lindsay could really pull it together. And appropriately navigate that, that mouse room.

I hear that. I think that is the right choice. I think that is correct. And then, okay, Paul, we have to bring up because Jenna and I love this about you so much that you wear a suit every day with a tie and that our crew loved it so much on Friday. A lot of times on a set, the crew will wear Hawaiian shirts. It's Friday.

But when you would work, they would all wear a tie on Friday. And, and so we were wondering when did your origin of the daily suit start? It was after freaks and geeks because flashed all the way back just briefly. When I was a kid, I used to wear suits and ties all the time. I loved that. That was kind of like starting like eight years old.

Like I got my mom to buy me my first three piece suit. And then I wore it off. My dad was so mad because he's like, you're going to grow out of it in six months. And he was right. But oh, what a six months I had walking around with these suits. So it was always in me. But then when I got into my twenties and I became a standup

comedian, I used to, I used to wear a suit on stage. And then I realized I wanted to be more, I don't know, kind of relatable to the audience. So I started wearing like jeans and bowling shirts and that kind of thing. And then when I did freaks and geeks, I, I, even though I didn't dress this way in high school, I started dressing just like kind of T shirts and jeans because I was trying to get in the head of

like the freaks and stuff. And so grew my hair really long. So you pictures of me from, from then my hair was super long, like down to my shoulder, I think. And, um, but then, so then it was after freaks and geeks was done and I was going out and pitching new shows and taking all these meetings that I was in these, in the meetings and there, all the executives would be in suits and ties.

And I was there and like jeans and a T shirt. And I just didn't like it. I felt like really identifiable is sort of the, the prey, if you will, in that room. And so I remember going like, well, screw this, I'm going to go back to what I used to do and wear suits and ties. They kind of thought I was an idiot for doing it, but I just remember going like, I like the power structure of this better

of me in the suit like as an adult and just decided from that point on is like, I'm just going to wear a suit and tie all the time because I enjoy it and that makes me feel like an adult and also makes me feel in charge. And I, and I look better in a suit than I do in jeans. So there you go. Well, and Paul, without your suit, I wouldn't have my favorite hashtag you do, which is drunk funkel on your Instagram.

Thank you. I live for it. Paul, I love your Instagram so much. I want everyone to go follow Paul feet. And, and also Paul, I'm so excited about last Christmas. I am so excited to see it. I can't wait. And you know, I loved, I loved Game of Thrones.

So of course Jenna doesn't watch Game of Thrones. It drives me crazy. So Amelia Clarkson. I'm still an Amelia Clark fan. Even though I didn't watch Game of Thrones. So this is very exciting to me because I get to see her and not Game of Thrones. Yes, exactly.

And then of course, like Emma Thompson, I cannot get enough of that woman. I just live for her. So, and, and Henry Golding and all of it. I can't wait to see it. I love, love holiday movies so much. So everybody go see last Christmas. Oh, yeah.

You'll love it. You'll laugh, you'll cry. And it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever shot. It's just absolutely gorgeous to look at. Oh, I can't wait. I cannot wait to see it. Paul, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Thank you.

Thank you, Paul. No, thank you. It's so much fun. I'm so glad you guys are doing this because the show is so special to me. I mean, honestly, I just, I have to pinch myself that I was got to be involved and be involved with so many episodes and so many kind of the bigger ones too.

And it will just always be one of my proudest, proudest moments and working with, with you guys with just, just one of my great joys. You were just such a wonderful cast to work with every, every day was really fun to come in and just every take was fun and different. And I mean, I just couldn't have had a better time. So thank you for that.

And I love you guys very, very much. Oh, Paul. Thank you, Paul. Okay, guys, we're back and now we are going to break down Office Olympics. Yeah. That was so nice talking to Paul. That was so great.

All right. Let's get into this episode scene by scene. We start with Michael's talking head. He explains that he has come in early and we learned that Ryan had to come in early to bring Michael a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit. Ryan is so pissed. Angela, I noticed a little bit of Ryan sass.

Yeah, Ryan had some sass. Can I get Ryan sass from you? Yeah. Do you have a card that says Ryan sass? I don't because the only person that bumps me with sass is Pam. I knew, I knew it was targeted. I knew your sass was not universal. I knew it was personal.

See, I just proved it. I also remember that Steve had to eat all of those egg and cheese biscuits and he had a bucket under his desk because he would spit them out because remember, he had just gotten in this amazing shape. And I feel like season one Steve might have enjoyed eating all of those, but season two Steve was like, I'm not doing that to my body anymore.

Also though, I mean, listen, here's the thing. When you have to eat that much food, like the same food over and over, maybe 30 takes of that food, it turns on you. It does. You don't need that sausage egg biscuit turning on you. It's true. I'd spit it out.

All right. So then there's another scene that has the thing that I love so much, which is when we start on Michael speaking to camera and we widened to reveal Dwight lurking over his shoulder. It is one of your favorite, favorite talking heads. And this is when Michael reveals he is buying a condo going to become a homeowner.

Yeah, big day for him. And then we swoop into the main office. And did you notice this, Angela? The photo on Jim's desk. I have two note cards about these opening shots in the bullpen at a minute 48 seconds. Do you know what Jim's screensaver is? What?

It's a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. I think that's a little foreshadowing to the fire. Which is coming next. Coming next, that desert island. At a minute 51, John's desk right next to his computer. There's a photo of him holding a baby. Do you know who that is? It's his nephew.

It's his nephew. So when we had to personalize our desk, that's one of the things John brought in. He was so proud to be an uncle. I know. He's adorable. He was so excited to put that picture on his desk. Then we go to the scene where Jim and Pam are throwing things

into Dwight's cup. This is when Pam has to revive Jim because sometimes he dies of boredom. I remember shooting that. That was really fun. John and I got really into seeing if we really could throw stuff in the cup. Like sometimes that happens where it's in the scene, but then

in real life you actually really enjoy it. That was a moment. Well, I have a little something from that scene. At two minutes, four seconds, boom. The boom drops in the scene. The boom operator. Yeah, we got a little bit of boom and they left it in because as you know, it was a mockumentary.

So when that happened, they let it stay. They wouldn't let it ruin a take. But there's a boom in that scene. What about Dwight's Mozart, Butch Cassidy talking head? This to me is such a sign of Mike Scherr's writing. I think if you go back and look at every amazing Dwight talking head, most of them were written by Mike Scherr. Mike is brilliant.

He is brilliant and he's smart. And I mean, I feel like I would wear a t-shirt that says Mozart and Butch Cassidy. You're going to get a bullet in your head thanks to Butch Cassidy if you mess with Mozart, everybody. I'm not messing with Mozart. No. Again, Michael's list of magazines.

He lists off all his magazines. He asked Pam if she has forwarded, cracked, and American Way magazine to his new condo. I just want to point that out. His magazines are Small Businessman, Maxim, American Way, Cracked, and then the Fine Arts, Efficient Nado. Yeah, the one he made up. Yeah, the fake magazine.

We also get to see Michael's car in this episode for the first time. Is it for the first time? I think it is. Well, I have a pretty big note card before we get to the seabring. Oh, well, then go ahead. At what minutes is the seabring?

Don't know. I don't write down minutes. That's your thing. It's weird. I like a good list, but you're really obsessed with these minutes. You know what? You and your clins can suck it, Fisher.

All right. My background people who love background stuff. At four minutes, 52 seconds, Jim is talking to Oscar and Oscar's desk faces the partition that is between Angela and Kevin. Okay. And on that partition is a post-it note. It's a drawing that Oscar drew.

And after this episode, he gave it to me and I still have it. And I, so here's the thing. What is it? Okay. So Oscar is a very good drawer. He's very good and he would make these doodles and I kept a lot of them and he often would draw Kevin, Angela and Oscar, our characters doing crazy things.

I have a drawing one of one where we're on a moped. Oh, I've seen that one. That's so cute. Okay. So this post-it note is a drawing he did is one of my personal favorites. It is Angela as a dominatrix. She is getting a shoulder ride from Kevin.

Okay. She has a whip in her hand like she's cracking the whip. And on all fours being drugged behind them is Oscar by Elish. Wow. Yes. That is what's on the post-it note on his partition. And it cracks me up.

Like the detail that he drew our costumes are dominatrix costumes. He has like a spike color on. He definitely would do all these drawings of the accounting department and my character was always invoking pain in some way. But it is one of my favorite things I own is this post-it note that he drew and it's there on the partition at

four minutes, 52 seconds. I about fell off my couch. I was so excited. But then after that, he gave it to you after this episode and we, you would never see it again on the show. It just lived there for this episode. It lived there.

He drew it clearly that day and stuck it up there. Yeah. And I now have it. Oh, I love that. And then also at four minutes, 52 seconds because we were allowed to personalize our desks, right? There is a photo that Oscar brought in of himself and his dog in a frame.

Oh. Yeah. So there you go. I want to talk a little bit about Michael's car. Okay. He has the Sebring convertible. I think this is the first time we really see the car. It's certainly the first time we drive in the car.

It is. The first time it's featured. And BJ told me that they picked this car very carefully. They felt like it was the flashiest car Michael could afford on his salary. It's a convertible. Yes.

He's very, very proud of it. And when Michael and Dwight leave the office and they're shooting that scene, Randall Einhorn, our director of photography and also our main camera operator was shoved in the backseat in order to get those shots. Randall is a big guy and that is not a big backseat. No.

He told me that his knees were up by his ears. He was contorted in this weird position. I traded some messages with him and he said though that whenever they had to get in the most painful position, they usually got the best shot. So he was like, you knew you were getting a great shot if you were hurting. And I also, the back window of the seabring broke in

this episode and Randall has been blamed for this on the internet. Really? Yes. The internet says that Randall broke the window and it had to be replaced. It cost almost $900 to replace. I know because, you know, we rented these cars, we

didn't buy them. I asked Randall about it and he said actually the window did break. He said, this I thought was interesting, he said he thinks it's because they left a camera battery pack on the back shelf and then when they put the convertible top down, it crunched. But who's they, Randall?

Who is they? Would that be film crew? Would that be you? Camera? So he said they, but yes, it did break in that scene and we had to then replace it. Okay. So I have a little story about the seabring.

I have a time code. Now we're jumping ahead, but since you're talking about it, I'm going to bring it up, Jenna. Is that all right? I'll allow it. Oh Lord. At 16 minutes 39 seconds, there is proof of what the actual outside temperature was because there is a

full on camera shot of the dashboard in the seabring. It says that they are going east and that it is 91 degrees. Yes. Because we shot this in the middle of summer. In the middle of summer, we had to have coats on and pretend to be cold, but there you have it. It was 91 degrees.

Okay. Angela, I have a question about hate ball. Oh, I have a note card about hate ball. All right. Your hair. Yes. In hate ball. Yes.

Your, will you please talk about the braid headband thing? I have been wanting to. Okay. So at five minutes 42 seconds, there is a great shot of me through the partition because obviously I hate what they're doing. So they say hate ball and they cut to me and I'm

frowning. You see the classic headband braid that was created by our hairdresser, Kim Ferry. She did my hair every day on the show. She actually is an amazing braider. She can do any kind of braid and all of my intricate braids and hairstyles of Angela Martin were by Kim Ferry.

So she called this the headband braid and what she would have me do is she would flat iron my hair straight. Okay. She would have me flip my head over and then she would start at one side of my ear and do this like inverted braid over the top of my head ending at the other side of my ear, leaving the back of

my hair straight. So it would only braid like basically like a headband that went over like the top of my head. Did it hurt? It did not hurt, but I did have to sit with my head kind of contorted. In order to get the style. In order to get it.

But it was like one of our favorite things. Greg Daniels loved it. The first time he saw it, he was like, oh my God. Yes. Yes. This is Angela Martin. And it went on to be featured in a lot of episodes. We even did a behind the scenes for NBC.com because

so many people asked if that was my real hair. It was my real hair flipped upside down inverted braid and it made it look like a headband. The headband braid did not hurt. Like you would far prefer this over a bun. Yes. Yeah. It's just like having a part of your hair braided,

but it wasn't tight or pulling at the back of my head. To me, that is classic Angela. Yeah, the headband braid. Yes. Speaking of hair. Yes. At six minutes, 15 seconds, you go in the back of the office because they're playing dunderball.

Yes. And you see that Kelly still has an updo. Still an updo with Kelly. But it's a little bit looser. There's like a little piece kind of dangling in the back. It's like a loose braid. It's starting to come down, Jenna. You know what?

I think, and I'm going to predict because we have not watched all the episodes. We really are watching them in order. I think her hair comes down in Casino Night. I think it's the first time her hair comes down. I'm going to predict it. So let's see if I'm right. Let's see if you're right.

As we continue to rewatch. Because I know her hair is down in Casino Night. Well, I remember. The bun is getting looser. We're heading there, folks. It's interesting. It's her hair comes down the closer Jim and Pam get to kissing. Sort of.

I don't know. What? That just makes no sense. You know what? You know what that correlation is? What? A cleanse correlation. Oh, no.

That's cleanse logic for you guys. That's cleanse logic. Let us talk about Michael's condo, please. Yes. He gets to his condo. And like we said in our Fast Facts, the realtor is played by Nancy Carell. So our casting director, Allison Jones,

pitched Nancy for this role. She thought Nancy would be perfect. I emailed with Allison and she said that she had always been a huge fan of Nancy's. And she was looking from day one on our show to find a place for her. And she thought this was perfect. She loved being able to pit Nancy and Steve

against one another in this way. Mike sure told me that Steve was positively giddy when Nancy was on set. He was just giggly and delighted that they're so cute together. And we know they're so cute together. Yeah. She is hilarious and so smart. But Steve, you want to meet a man that loves you

the way Steve loves Nancy. For sure. Because he's just delighted by her. I love when Michael starts to spiral out because he realizes, you know, and Dwight is not helping. Dwight's like, you know, you're going to be 75. You're basically buying a coffin. Yeah.

If I bought a coffin, I'd buy one where I couldn't hear the other dead people. But Michael, as he's spiraling, has this line that I love where he's like, I was promised hot people. Where are the hot people? Like what, in this condo development, you were promised hot people. But Nancy's reaction to that is really what makes it.

Angela, you have a three star card about the condo. Well, it's at six minutes, 58 seconds. It's not so much about the condo, but it's what information we find out at the condo, which is that Dwight has a 60 acre beet farm. Yes. This is the first mention of his beet farm. Yes.

And you mentioned that we see a photo of Moe's. But this is when we learned that Dwight is a landowner. He has a working beet farm. Yes. And this brings up a fan question, Angela. Stan wrote, in this episode, Dwight says that his parents left him a 60 acre beet farm. But in the farm in season nine, Aunt Sally leaves the farm

to all three kids if they move back into it. Jenna, did this discrepancy happen because you stole the show Bible? Stan, I have the show Bible right here. I'm referring to page 31 of the show Bible. And it says that in office Olympics, Dwight says he has a 60 acre working beet farm left to him by his grandfather. And also, Stan, if you want to go to six minutes 58 seconds,

Dwight has a talking head to camera where he says, my grandparents left me a 60 acre beet farm. Yes. So, Stan, I do have to say this still does bring up the question of why in season nine do we say that it's his Aunt Sally who has the beet farm? I don't know. I need to revisit season nine because I know an Aunt Shirley

because she slapped me and called me a kitchen witch. Yeah. But I don't know who Aunt Sally is. Well, he has a number of relatives. Oh, I know. You guys, I do want to say that to find this reference in the show Bible, I had to read something like five pages of facts about Dwight Shrut.

And I think that if they only published the Dwight Shrut section of the show Bible, it would do very well. Every single one of these bullet points is gold. Just pick one random one and read it to us. All right. From the show Bible, the chapter is Dwight. Thanks wolves are a major threat to office workers. Thanks wolves are a major threat.

Yeah. Season three, episode 20, he says that he has a bomb shelter. It cost him $1,200. He performed his own circumcision. No. No. He can sneeze with his eyes open. These are amazing.

He thinks triceratops is the lamest dinosaur. I kind of want you to make it. I mean, I could go on and on. Yeah. Uses deer penis as an aphrodisiac. Oh God, poor Angela Martin. Appears to be a fan of wrestling. Just fakes it.

Not just for appearances. This one made me laugh out loud. His farm is non-organic. He uses pesticides? I guess so. In some episode, he must brag about the fact that his farm is non-organic. He has $30,000 buried very deeply and under someone, and he

doesn't want to dig past them to get it. Guys, I mean, I really. The Dwight. They could do a whole episode where I just read you Dwight Shrut from the show Bible. That is amazing. But yeah, six minutes, 58 seconds. Huge information, which is that Dwight owns a 60 acre

beet farm. This is one of my favorite things that they came up with for a character on our show because we are just going to continue to mine gold from this fact forever. Forever. I have a little card here at eight minutes, 36 seconds. There are the opening ceremonies. Yes.

There's a banner. There's the lighting of a candle. I wanted to share a little behind the scenes story for you guys. So whenever we had a lit candle, we had to by law have a safety meeting. Yeah. And I used to crack up because I would think about shows

that had car chases and explosives and things. And on our show, you had a safety meeting about a candle being lit. And our second AD, Kelly Cantley would go safety meeting. We will have a lit candle. Yes. That is real fire, everyone on the set.

Please be aware of your sleeves and elbows around the candle. A lit candle, everyone. Okay. Safety meeting adjourned. And it's funny because I would go on to do shows or projects where we would have safety meetings and they would be said with sort of that same bravado, but they

would really be like, everyone pay attention. A car will be exploding at two o'clock. Yeah. So please keep your distance. Do not go toward the car after it has exploded as it will be hot. But on our show, we will have one candle. It will be lit with a lighter.

A very long lighter too. A very long lighter to protect John's hands. Safety meeting. I want to say in that same scene with the opening ceremonies, I really drew the sign that says games of the first Thunder Mifflin Olympiad. You drew that? I drew it.

Did you color it in? Yes. You made the sign. Yes. What the hell, really? I made it. Those are my bubble letters. I drew it.

I also put together a lot of the yogurt lid things. I did it as part of your method acting. No, it's not part of my method acting. They gave me some paper clips and yogurt lids, and they had some shots of me putting together the medals at my desk. We never used it, but I did do it. And then I also made that sign myself.

Now, did they want you to make that sign? I don't remember. Or did you volunteer in your method acting ways? You know, I feel like Phil Shea came up to me and said, do you want to make the sign since Pam made it? And I said, sure. Why not? There were times where they would ask me, you know,

Angela, your character is going to hand this piece of paper. Do you want to write out all the things so it's in your handwriting? And we always did. We always would sort of do that kind of thing. I liked that detail. Mm-hmm. Continuing our conversation about the office Olympics,

we should talk about the game Flunkerton. Yes, we should. I got a lot of questions. People asked, was Flunkerton scripted or improved? It was a written line, but I was told to deliver it like I was making it up on the spot. Yes, that was scripted. A lot of people also asked who came up with the term Flunkerton.

It was Mike Scherr. Well, Mike said it was either him or Greg Daniels, but he is personally obsessed with the FL sound, the FL. Yeah. The FL sound. He thinks it's very funny. He said that is also how Toby got his last name, that Mike was responsible for that.

So he's pretty sure he can claim having written Flunkerton. I remember Phyllis had so much fun doing that scene. She had so much fun. Phyllis loves getting to play basketball, play Flunkerton. To play games. She wants to be a participant. She does. She was very excited.

I felt like, Jenna, I have two note cards here that I felt like we should outline a little bit of the games. Let's do it. Okay. First of all, there are the games that people played that weren't part of the office Olympics, but were the inspiration for Jim. Yeah.

When he was going around to everyone's like sort of desk area. So Pam, of course, threw, you know, things into Dwight's coffee cup. There was hateball and accounting. There was dunderball and human resources. Stanley said he plays work hard so his kids can go to college. And then Angela Martin says she plays Pampong.

Yeah. Oh. Angela sass. That is some serious Angela sass. I have a question for you about Pampong. Okay. Is this the first time that an office coworker has called out the Jim Pam crush?

Yes. Right? That's the first time someone's like, oh, I see what's happening. You're not fooling anyone. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And Pam is super self-conscious about it for the rest of the

episode. Yeah. So, and then of course we have Angela at 16 minutes, 20 seconds. She's keeping score. She comes over. That's the only game she's playing that day. That's the only game she's playing. But then the actual games that Jim makes up, Jim and Pam, right?

Yeah. They make these up are number one, Flunkerton, Phyllis being the winner of that. Yeah. Number two, how many M&Ms can you put in your mouth? Kevin was the only. Only participants. Only participants.

Three, guess the elevator. Inspired by the real office Olympics. And Ryan won that. And then the final game that we see is this full coffee mug relay between Oscar and Toby and it disrupts when Michael and Dwight come in the office and we never see the outcome of that. Well, we kind of do. I think Toby's coffee is spilling at the end.

So you're, you're. I'm giving it to Oscar. You're giving it to Oscar. Okay. Okay. But you have two medals hanging on your desk at 17 minutes, 32 seconds. You have a gold and a silver.

Yeah. So I wonder what Pam won for. I don't know you saying I don't deserve my medals, Angela. No, cleanse. I'm not. I'm just merely being a fan saying, I wonder, I wonder what other games we didn't get to see. Yeah.

Well, obviously something where Pam won a gold medal. Oh my God. I just want to say. Okay. All right. Angela. Maybe she won a gold medal at Pampong. Oh, I see.

I see what you've done there. Thank you. I do have a fan question. Karen asked, did you get to take home the medals? Yes. And I still have mine. Aw. I have a yogurt lid medal in my home office and it is hanging on my

Dundee. And from this episode, I have the drawing Oscar did of Angela as a dominatrix pulling Kevin and Oscar around in costume. We kept all kinds of stuff from the show. We did. We're a little bit of hoarders, guys. Someday we joke that we're going to do a book and put them all in, all somewhere where we can share them.

I think we should. I think we should too. We should go through our bins and we should share all this memorabilia and our tons of photos. Yeah. I mean, we have so many. So many. And I also want to do it.

Can we finally get on that, please, Angela? Can we do that? Yes. You guys would want that, right? You would want a book of this stuff. Do people want that? Like a scrapbook. A scrapbook.

Like our sort of BFF scrapbook. Yeah. Yeah. I think we should because I want to do it before I lose the stuff, okay? Because I'm worried. I'm worried about my shed. Lastly, guys, I cannot not talk about the scene at 20 minutes,

53 seconds. It's the closing ceremonies. And we talked a little bit about this, Paul. Yeah. And I agree. Steve did such an amazing performance where as Michael, he tears up. He's made this huge life choice to buy a condo.

He's filling this love and support from his office family that he doesn't get from his family, probably, right? The office family is his family. And he's absolutely emotional. And when we filmed it, we did not know that Steve was going to make that choice to get emotional. And so we're all looking at him and he started to tear up. And I, as Angela Martin started, as myself, started to tear up.

Yeah. It was so moving, just sort of his honest portrayal of this person. And Steve is just amazing. Yeah. Yeah, when that happened and the first take that that happened in, Paul then said to us, this is the direction of this scene. Yeah. This is how we're going to do it.

So everyone just be proud of Michael. Just play it real. Play it real. It was hard for me because I feel like Angela Martin did not want to participate in office Olympics. Probably thought this was a waste of time. Also probably doesn't have really a lot of warm feelings towards Michael.

But for me as Angela Kinsey, watching my friend Steve do this performance, it was so hard not to get emotional and sort of know the fine line that was me reacting and Angela Martin, how she would react. I teared up when we shot this. I tear up every time I watch it. I also watch this episode three times in preparation for this podcast and I cried every time. Yeah.

Isabel, when she watched it with me, she said, Mommy, he's crying. I said, I know. I know. It was a big moment in his life. These are the things I love about this show. Same. Guys, that's Office Olympics. That is Office Olympics.

Join us next week for The Fire. Yes. You're going to hear all about how Angela was almost carried away by a giant bug. And I might have hit John Krasinski. You did hit John Krasinski. All right. We'll see you next week.

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Our producer is Cody Fisher. Our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer. And our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad-free versions of the show and our bonus episodes, Candy Bag, go to Stitcher Premium.com.

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