Office Ladies - Product Recall

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

This week we're breaking down Product Recall. We start this episode off with some Bears, Beets, and Battlestar Galactica, and answer fan questions about this very funny, very quoted cold open. Then, we get a historical deep dive on watermarks and paper making, we chat about Michael and Creed’s different versions of damage control, and Angela reveals her all time favorite line from The Office. Finally, we get some on-set memories from Shira Scott Astrof, the actress who played Andy's young girlfriend, and we come full circle with this episode's tag where Dwight's plan of imitating Jim totally backfires. Now, beer us another episode.

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. Howdy, Ange. Bonjour, Jenna. Oh, oh, that's gonna kind of come up later in this episode. There's gonna be some accents later. There are. Oh, it's fun accent day. Oh, no, people are turning us off. No, no, no. They're like, Oh, no, it's accent day. Okay, we won't go crazy. Yeah, this is a fun one, Jenna. Tell them what we're doing today. We are doing product recall season

three episode 20 written by Justin Spitzer and Brent Forrester and directed by Randall Einhorn. Randall, I was so excited when Randall got to direct. We'll get into that. But you know, Randall was our cinematographer. So this was really fun for him and fun for us. Did you know that Randall directed the most episodes of The Office? No, I did not. Crazy, right? I think he did 15. That is so wild. Well, I love that even more. Well, I am ready for a summary, Angela, but I've got a little special something. Sam? It's Angela and Jenna. Here to read the office episode. Do off summary. Where is that from? That is so adorable. Isn't that so cool? It's so cute. That was sent in by Joey Moisica. And he said he recorded all

of the parts himself just like Andy. I was gonna ask because there's like a doo-wop part. That's so cool. Thank you, Joey. All right. So here is the summary for product recall. Dunder Mifflin is in crisis mode after paper with an obscene watermark goes into circulation to customers. Michael organizes a press conference and apologizes to a client. When the client demands that Michael be fired, Michael recruits Pam and Dwight to help him make an apology video. The accountants learn how to make customer service calls from Kelly and Creed, who is determined to save his job, pins the blame on an employee at the paper mill. Poor Debbie Brown. Oh, poor Debbie. This was such a fun episode. I loved rewatching it. I had so many fun memories. Same. Oh my gosh,

I feel like Steve is in rare form in this episode. I also personally think some of the best quotes of the whole season three are in this episode. Oh yes, it's so many. We'll get to it. And I just want to share one of my favorite quotes of the whole entire series is in this episode. Oh, rare. This is also the episode of animal noises or nonverbal reactions. Yeah. Accents and nonverbals. Someone just hit fast forward. Oh no. Well, fast fact number one, I mentioned that this episode was written by both Justin Spitzer and Brent Forrester. I should probably clarify that there are some writers who work in teams. Yes. Like we've mentioned before, Jean and Lee. They were a writing team. They were hired together as a duo. But Justin and Brent were not a writing team.

They were hired separately. So this was interesting that they were co-writing this together. Well, we reached out to both of them to hear what it was like to be paired together on this episode. So they said that Greg just paired them together because he thought it would be kind of fun. And Justin told me that they basically just split it down the middle, that Brent took a pass at Act One, Justin did Act Two, and then they split Act Three. And then they came together one afternoon and they kind of went over it. And since Brent was the senior writer, he kind of took the lead on a kind of a dual rewrite. And then they turned it in and it was kind of, you know, punched up by the staff like every other episode. I could see Greg doing this because he loved pairing together

people to see what would come out of that pairing, whether it was characters or writers. You know, he loved to see what happened. Even our editors sometimes were paired up in different ways. Well, Brent said that it's true that Greg did make it clear that he was the senior writer and that he had final decision on what went into the draft. But he said right from the start, he could see that Justin scenes were just so good that it would be a terrible mistake to put, quote, my grubby fingers on any of it. End quote. So he said that they didn't change any of each other's work. They ended up turning it in just as they had both originally written it. Well, that is so fun. All right, fast fact number two. I asked these guys, what was the inspiration for

this episode? Was this based on anything in real life? And Justin told me that he couldn't remember exactly where the idea came from, but he's pretty sure that it just came out of one of those pitch sessions in the room. So it wasn't like one writer had the idea, but it was sort of a collective, one of your group mind things, Ang. Oh, I like group mind. Well, he said he does have a very distinct memory as they were circling closer and closer to something that felt like an episode. Lee Eisenberg suddenly blurted out a product recall. It's a product recall. And after Lee said that, they knew it was going to be like a defective product and a mini scandal. But here's the thing, Ang. Here is why I asked. I did a little Googling. This episode aired in April 2007. And the crazy

thing is that in August of 2007, there was a massive historic Mattel toy recall. A huge product recall. What did they recall? They recalled 19 million toys. What was it? Some of them were recalled because they had lead paint. Was it a GI Joe? No, I don't know what it was. A bunch of toys that were shown to have lead paint. And the other was because there was a tiny magnet that kept falling off and it posed a choking hazard. But also in 2007, there was a massive crib recall. One million Greco and simplicity cribs were recalled. And I even read an article that called 2007 quote, the year of the recall. Well, that's crazy. I wonder if it was in the zeitgeist. It was in the group mind of the world. And it went into Lee's brain and he shouted it

into the writer's room. And it became an episode of the office. Major group mind. That's some global group mind. Okay, lady, I'm going to move us along to fastback number three. I'm calling it location alert. Okay. As part of this episode, Jim and Andy go to a local high school to apologize for the obscene watermark. And Kentipedia let us know because we got some mail. People wanted to know was this the same school where we shot Diwali? People love to know about locations. They love it. This was filmed at a different school than Diwali. This time we filmed at St. John Paul Academy in Burbank. In real life, it is a private Catholic STEM immersion high school. The school colors are white, blue and red and the real students at the school wear uniforms.

For our shoot, we hired background performers to play the students. We did not use the actual students of this school. I feel like that is a thorough answer to this location question. Yeah. You know, I went to a Catholic high school. It was not coed. It was all girls and I wore a uniform and our colors were green and white and gray and navy. I think we're the colors we were allowed to wear and yellow. That's a lot of colors. It's really only five and you're only allowed to wear those colors. Seems like a lot. Let's kill it back. Do you wear? How many colors do you wear? I just grab whatever's, you know, there. Right. So imagine you're getting dressed in the morning and you have to limit it to only these five colors. Well, listen, a friend of mine did that thing.

Remember when ladies would get their colors done? Oh, yes. And you find out if you're like a summer or a winter or something. My mom did this. My mom was a summer. Okay. So a friend of mine recently did this. It's sort of what they're still doing this. They're still doing it. It sort of went out of fashion, but whatever. She did it and she found out that she's like shades of blue and coral and white and she just filled her closet with those colors. She's always in those three colors. So what do you know what she is? Is that summer? Coral, blue and white? I don't know what it is. Maybe spring, but listen, it's a commitment to stay in those three colors. I'd have a hard time. Oh my gosh, this is literally what I was saying. I said I could only wear five colors and you're

like, it's a lot of colors. I don't see what the issue is. And now you're like, I would have a hard time only wearing a few colors. My point was if you're going to have a school that has uniforms, you can't have a lot of options. Why? Because you're- You can't have personal expression within uniform? No. Oh my gosh, you're taking a stand. You clearly not thought about this at all because you are taking multiple positions on this one subject. What's the point of having a uniform if you can have multiple colors and freedom of expression? There's no point. Either have a uniform or don't. All right, well, we had to all wear the same skirt. It was the same. There was no choice or navy pants. Or a yellow shirt or a green shirt or a white shirt. We have to be done talking

about this. On top, you could wear the different colors, but they had to be a collared shirt and you couldn't have any logos. No logos. Not even like, you know, some people, they would try to sneak in like a little polo on their lapel and that would be a no. Well, lock it up uniform. Lock it up. Lady, where are we? Well, we're ready to take a break and then we're going to come back and break down this episode. Well, before we take a break, I want to just share one thing about this episode. Well, I'll just get to it. What is it? I had the hugest zit on my cheek and I remember being really bummed out because I had a nice big storyline and I woke up with an enormous zit on my cheek and they tried to cover it with makeup. Jenna, they didn't splurge for CGI and

scoochy it out. It's in the whole episode. There's so much makeup on it. It's like an orange patch on my cheek. I did not notice it one time. It's on my left cheek. Watching this. Do you have time codes for it? Is that something we can look forward to after the break? Yes. Yes. Well, there you go, guys. If you want to close up. Well, listen, I'm sure you're riveted now. You can't wait to come back. We're going to take a break and come back with this episode. Okay, so we start off this episode with a very funny cold open. I think it is one of the classics of all the cold opens on the whole series. 100%. It is Jim dressed as Dwight, acting like Dwight, and it makes Dwight crazy in some of the best lines right here in this cold open.

Lady, I remember filming this episode and John Krasinski was so funny. We could not hold it together. Well, we all knew how great he was at impressions and so when he got to actually flex that a little, we were just like, ah, I can't wait to watch. Well, Angela, I think this cold open has two of our most quoted moments for sure. Number one, Bears Beats Battlestar Galactica. I mean, how many t-shirts is that on? It's on everything. And also, identity theft is not a joke, Jim. Millions of families suffer every year. That's right. I see that all the time. Identity theft is not a joke. Don't we sell pencils that say identity theft is not a joke? Don't we have a pencil pack on OfficeLadies.com? Yes. And we have that quote, right?

We have that quote. And we also have Bears Beats Battlestar Galactica. It's just one of my favorite quotes. It is not my favorite quote of the whole episode, though. We'll get to that. But this couplet is so fun and I have seen people at conventions and stuff say this, false black bear, like the whole thing. Oh, yeah. We should play it, Sam. Yeah, let's play it. Play this clip. Question. What kind of bear is best? That's a ridiculous question. False. Black bear. That's debatable. There are basically two schools of thought. Fact. Bears eat beets. Bears beats Battlestar Galactica. Bears do not- What is going on? What are you doing? I love it so much. I want to know what are the two schools

of thoughts about bears. We never find out. We don't. Listen, we had a fan question from Ashley Trick, Emily Dennis, Faith L, Rianne Holib and Tara LaPorte. Basically, they all said the same version of this. Please, please, please tell us everything about the cold open. It is one of the best sequences on television ever. How long did it take John and Rain to get through it? Here's what I found out, Angela. Okay. Kentipedia thinks we only did about eight takes of this. He said it went a lot faster than we may realize. Well, it was a quick beat. You know, it was a quick scene. And then I asked Justin and he said that he and Brent did not write this cold open. They wrote a cold open where Michael is getting scammed by a telemarketer. But during the rewriting

process, Jean and Lee are the ones who came up with the idea for Jim to come in his Dwight. And they wrote the cold open and it was Mike Shore who pitched the line bears beats Battlestar Galactica. Applause. This is why you need a whole writing team. Look at that. That's how the magic happens. It's a collaboration, people. I have two other observations about this cold open. Not as popular as the obvious ones, bears, beats, Battlestar Galactica, all that. But I have you know, there is a new plant at reception. No, get out of here. What is going on? I am telling you, I don't know when I'll have time to do this, but I am going to screen grab every plant on reception for the whole series. What is it this week? It's a real sad looking plant. It's

only got a few leaves on it. It's in a purple pot with, it looks like some polka dots. And it is through the whole episode. I noticed it's in the cold open, the tag and the whole episode. And in Jim's talking head where he says he created that whole look for $11. We have an old tech alert. Old tech alert. We have the old calculator watch. Oh yeah. Now I know that Dwight always wears one, but just to see Jim actually use it, like you, you hear the beeping as he's adding on it. I just thought it was really fun. How often do you use the calculator on your phone? Surprisingly a lot. Same. Same. I see why they made a calculator watch. Yeah. Because you, you know, I use it. I mean, I remember like, because I'm a hundred years old that, you know, boys would have it at

school and they would be told in math class they could not use it. You know, I spent a year where I refused to let myself use a calculator and I had to do all of my math problems by hand. It was just a weird commitment I made to not, you know, I don't know. It was a weird commitment I made I should be able to add 26 and 97 without a calculator. Like just, you know, carry the one or whatever. And how old were you when you made this commitment? I was in my 30s. Really? Yeah. I was really expressing you to say I was 24. No. I just got disappointed in myself for relying on my calculator for simple math problems. So did I know you when you made this commitment? Because I knew you in your 30s. Yeah, I guess you did. I guess I never added anything or subtracted

anything around you. My best friend in her 30s took a year off from calculators and didn't tell me. I do weird stuff like that sometimes. What is that about me? I think you like to make hurdles for yourself. What is this? This is horrible. I just speak to a therapist about this. What am I doing? Why am I making it really harder? You get you get into a real cushy stride. You're like, Hey, these are clipping along. I'm having a great run here. I'm going to give myself a hurdle. Yeah, I don't deserve too easy. I'm going to stop using a calculator. I don't deserve this because she's stride right now. I'm not allowed to use a calculator. Oh, my God. All right. It's okay to use a calculator.

Well, I use one now. I mean, that was one of the dumbest things I've ever done. That was one of my one of my dumber goals. I'm sure there's a mathematician out there somewhere that's like really into that, Jenna. That's like, Yeah, way to go. You know what I'll say, at the end of the year, I was no better at adding, subtracting or multiplying than I was when I started. You can't say that. That can't be your button. There was no skill gained. There was no speed. Nothing. I was still, you know, counting on my fingers to carry the numbers. I mean, it was like it was for nothing. You just had a year where you were slightly more irritable. Okay, let's get into this episode. Speaking of people being irritable,

everyone is on the phone with very upset customers. I want to share with you that there are a lot of delicious deleted scenes and one of them starts off in customer service with this speech and Kelly repeats it over and over and Ryan is like dying inside because he's right behind her and then it cuts to a talking head of Ryan and he's got it fully memorized. But this is what Kelly says right at the top of the episode had it stayed in customer service. This is Kelly. Oh my God, I am so sorry. That is so messed up. Everyone here is so upset. You have no idea and rest assured, your voice has been heard. Okay, I'll be thinking about you all day customer service. This is Kelly. Oh my God, I am so sorry. That is so messed up. Everyone here is so upset. You have no idea

and rest assured, your voice has been heard. Okay, I'll be thinking about you all day. Wow, she says it on a loop and Ryan looks like he wants to just explode. Well, Michael has a talking head where he explains what happened, why everyone is so upset, why everyone's on the phone. I guess a disgruntled employee sent out 500 boxes of their standard paper with a pornographic watermark of two cartoon characters engaging in a sex act. Yes, he said it's a beloved duck doing something to a mouse. Yeah, now was he talking about Daffy duck and Mickey Mouse because he says never been a fan, not a fan. Well, I think he would be talking about Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse.

Oh yes, because Daffy is part of the Bugs Bunny. Oh, I can't keep my duck straight. I just like the idea. That is the quote of the day. Oh, I just can't keep my duck straight. There's so many. There's so many. There's so many cartoon ducks who can scrooge McDuck. There's so many ducks. But I love the idea. It just makes me laugh that Michael has never liked Mickey Mouse. I know. Not funny enough for him. I don't know. I guess not edgy enough. Not enough jokes. Well, Michael holds up the piece of paper to the light and shows the watermark. Guess who did a little bit of a deep dive on watermarks? You? Because it wasn't me. I weren't the only people on this podcast. Sam Cody? Anyone? No one?

Nope. It was me, folks. It was me. And listen, I don't know if this is going to be interesting. I found it fascinating. I'll do a quick overview. Okay. So we all know what a watermark is, right? A watermark is basically this image that's applied to a piece of paper, right? And you hold it up to the light and that's how you see it. The term watermark comes from the way these designs are created. It's during the wet paper stage of making paper, right? It's almost like a damp. That was really fascinating. A damp water spot. Here's where it gets interesting. Ready? Yes. Did you know that watermarks were first introduced in Fabriano, Italy in 1282? Yes, I did. You did not. Of course, I did not know that. Why did I believe you? I wholeheartedly

believed you. I did my delivery was very good. You're a very good actress. I should have won that Emmy that year. I was really mad you didn't. I cursed on national television. And they're not really sure why exactly watermarks started in Italy then. It could have been to show maybe it was the service of the king or to convey a secret message or prove authenticity of a message, right? But now wait, they were deliberately invented. So one thing I'm curious about is that the watermark was not an accident that happened one day in the wet paper making stage of paper making. And then people were like, oh my gosh, what if we did this on purpose? Someone purposely watermarked.

Well, Jenna, I don't have the fellow's journal from 1282. It might have been a thing where he was like, hey, that's my thumb. Hey, that's cool. We should do that. Oh, I bet the king would like this because then everyone would know it's his paper. I love how this paper maker in Italy in the 1200s journals exactly like you. Exactly. Oh my God, my thumb. Oh, hey, I should tell the king about this. He might like to have his official paper. Oh man, gonna have a glass of wine. Okay. Oh, look at the hummingbirds. XO. XOXO's. Paper maker guy. Smiley face. So Cartier Miliani Fabriano claims to have innovated three techniques, which are still a part of paper making today. But here's the fun part, Jenna, put this on our bucket list. You and I can go and visit

the Paper and Watermark Museum of Fabriano in Italy. Oh, that is 100% happening now. How much fun would we have walking through that, getting a tour? How perfect would it be? These two people who are on a show about paper going to one of the oldest paper mills in the world. I can't wait. That is bucket list for sure. Let's get back. Well, let me tell you what Brent told me about this obscene watermark. Oh, yes, let's hear it. Brent, our writer, told me that this watermark for our show was faithfully created by our prop department and that it really did look like a blank sheet of paper. But when you get up close, you can see this little caricature. And he said after the episode, he asked the prop department

to have one of the sheets of paper and he framed it and it hangs on the wall of his office. And he says, people come in all the time and they say, why do you have a blank piece of paper framed on your wall? And he says, it's a keepsake from the office. Look closely. And then they lean forward and they inevitably say, oh my God. Because, you know, on the show, we put the little black bar up to hide the real obscene part. But on the actual piece of paper, I think it's there. It's all there. Yeah, there you go. And that was that was Phil Shea job that week. That was his job. How was your day? Well, I had to have a duck and a mouse do some stuff. Anyway, how was your day? Exactly. I want to point out something before we get too far. Remember, we said at the very

beginning of this episode, everybody's on the phone and they're talking to customers and they're like really trying to do damage control. I wanted to point out that at one minute, 55 seconds, Creed is holding the phone up to his ear, but he isn't saying anything. It's a little bit of foreshadowing, I think, for the fact that Creed knows he's responsible. He's just he's pretending to be on the phone with a customer, I think, but not really. He could also just be Creed being Creed. Yeah, not doing his job again. Exactly. So Michael gets everyone in the conference room, you know, this is like crunch time. And he he says, Creed, you really messed up. Yeah, quality assurance. So I feel like we we officially hear Creed's job title.

Quality assurance. Creed says every week he's supposed to stop by the paper mill, give it a check. The one year he blew this off. So good. So he hasn't gone for a whole year. Well, I know I said at the beginning of the podcast that Michael is in rare form in this episode, and he truly is in this conference room scene, but also Creed absolutely crushes it in this episode as well. He does. So we get back into the conference room. Michael has just great stuff. He's, you know, he was speaking in acronyms, crimson, squaw, FNC, not saving any time as everyone points out. And he's really I mean, Michael's really freaking out. He tells everyone this is threat level midnight. Yeah, midnight Oscar. Yeah, threat level midnight. This is such a fun

call back to the client. Yes. And everybody gives little looks to each other because of it too. Yeah. Well, then Michael says today Kelly will be training everyone on how to do customer relations. And Angela, you have a talking head where you just take a pill and you say you don't have a headache. You're just preparing. Yeah, I loved, I love this back to back talking heads because Mindy is Kelly is like this day it's bananas. And she's so perky and happy. And then it cuts to me just taking an aspirin. Yeah. And my kids were really hung up on this. They really wanted to know was that a real pill? Did I have to take it? They were like, it looks like you take it. You

swallow water. Oh, Angela, we got so much mail about this. Okay. Carlos L, Teya C, Emily W, Angela B, and Lily N all said, what did you take instead of a real pill? Well, I will tell you, I did a few takes of that talking head and I had to take sugar pills. Wow. So I guess that's a props thing. I've never had to take fake medicine on a show before. So that's weird. Yeah. Phil Shea brought it to me. He said, listen, it's just sugar. It's like a sugar pill. So you'll be totally fine. So I guess I just had a little spike in sugar that day. So also during this conference room scene, Angela, we find out that Jim's client is a high school and they printed their prom invitations on this paper.

Yeah. So Michael tells Jim he has to physically go to the high school to rectify the situation. He says you have to bring someone. Ryan volunteers, Michael says, no, you have to bring Andy. William Doolittle at your service, AKA, will do. And there we go. We said we were going to bring you accents. We didn't lie. And Jim is like, yeah, I'm definitely going alone. And Michael's like, no, no, I need two men on this. That's what she said. No time, but she did. No time. That is like such fantastic dialogue. Is that your favorite quote? Is that the one? No, still not yet. Still not yet. Well, I remember John could not keep it together in this conference room scene. And anytime John starts to laugh, it is a very bad sign for the rest of us, because

you just know that we're never going to make it through. But Steve does something in this conference room scene that makes John lose it. I'm going to guess. I have no idea what you're about to say. Okay, I know people can't see me, Jenna. Oh my God, Sam's filming. This is what Steve does at four minutes, two seconds, just to mess with all of us. Yep, there it is. Angela just put her foot up on the table and then leaned into her crotch. Do you know how hard it is to lift your head leg this high when you're short? That table's kind of high. Yeah, Steve took his foot and he put it up on the conference table. And I remember the first take he decided to do that. John lost it. Yeah, because we had no idea. Anytime Steve did that. Steve used to do that to John's desk

all the time. Yes, he would. And you know what, Jenna, I remember in this scene when I lost it. I completely lost it when Michael goes, here is your headline. Scranton, area, paper company, Dunder Mifflin apologizes to valued client. Some companies still know how business is done. That's what I'm saying. It's like the greatest hits of Michael in this one conference room scene. In this episode, it's so good. Well, now Michael reveals that he has invited Barbara Allen one of Dunder Mifflin's oldest customers into the office. He's going to offer her a personal apology. He says if the press wants a story, we'll give him a story. Yeah, there's a great deleted scene of Dwight calling CNN. And like no one, no one will take his call. It's like,

it's really funny. Oh my gosh, I love it. I love that Jim is like, did the press ask for a story? Nope. No. No. Michael explains in his talking head, when a company screws up, the best course of action is to hold a press conference. You got to control the spin. You got to control the story. Well, this had me look up crisis management, Angela, because that's a whole thing now. Now, I did a very shallow dive on it. All I found out was that this really became popular in like the 1980s. And this idea of getting ahead of the story is all part of the crisis management public relations handbook. So Michael has it a little bit right here, but he has it wrong in the sense that literally no one knows about this right now. Yeah, if Michael had not made a big to do,

it would have just gone away. But no, he's going to blast it and it's going to blow up in his face. Yeah. So now we see Creed is trying to do his own kind of damage control. I mean, Creed says that this job is the only thing separating him from being a homeless man, because he was a homeless guy. Yeah. I have to say Creed calling up this paper mill and asking who wasn't there last week so that he can then pin it on this employee is kind of genius. Oh, Creed's a survivor. I mean, he's smart. He's actually, he's very smart. He's cunning. Yeah. I was actually impressed. Yeah. I was like, wow. Wowzers. Who thought of that? It's exactly how I got my internship on Conan O'Brien, by the way.

But how did, wait, what? You know this story. Oh, yeah. You called up and I just kept, I would call and I would get like an answering machine, you know, because I wanted to do an internship at 30 Rock and in New York and you in back in the day before like big internet message boards and things like that, because I'm a hundred, you would have a phone number you would call and it would, I would say hi, it'd be like 30 Rock fellow center. And I'd be like, hi, I would live to apply for an internship. Hold one moment, please. Transfer you to a machine. If you would like to apply for an internship at 30 Rock a fellow center, please leave your name and phone number and someone will call you. I got that message every day for three months. And so one

day I called up, I got the woman in BC, you know, what 30 Rock fellow center? I said, yes, I was just speaking to a woman about my internship and we got disconnected. She said, oh, Barbara? I said, yes, Barbara. She said, let me transfer you. I said, thank you. Got to Barbara. Barbara was like, hi, Barbara. I was like, Barbara, I was just talking to someone about my internship and got disconnected. And she was like, Oh, were you talking to Nancy? I was like, yes, I was talking to Nancy. Transfer me through to Nancy. Nancy answers, hello. I'm like, hi, I was talking to someone about my internship. And she goes, how did you get my number? Did you tell her? I told her. I said, well, for three months, I called and I got your voicemail and no one called me back.

So today I called and I lied and I said that I was talking to someone and that person transferred me to Barbara. And then I told Barbara a version of that lie and she transferred me to you. And did Nancy say you're hired? Nancy said, can you be here Monday? And I was in Texas. It was a Friday. I was in Archer City, Texas, very rural area, three hours from a big airport. I said, sure thing. What time? She said, I'll see you Monday at nine. I said, great. I got off the phone. I said, mom, dad, I got to go to New York. Lady, that is what it takes. That's what it takes. I think you just like, when you're starting out and especially when you're like the lowest person on the totem pole, you got to have a little hustle. Got to have a little hustle. Guys, you heard it

from us. Get that hustle. Okay. So there is a whole bunch of deleted scenes with Kelly and accounting. There's like a whole runner. It's really fun. I mean, at one point, Kelly and Angela get into this huge fight. And Kelly says, you look old enough to be my mother. And Angela then calls her a slut. Oh my gosh. I know. And then they make up, Kelly apologizes. And then she's like, oh my God, we're best friends. And Angela's like, I don't know about that. But there's a whole other journey that Kelly and Angela have that you don't see. Well, now should we go into the car with Andy and Jim driving to the high school? Yes. Is this it, Angela? This is leading up to it. Here are some things we learned on this road trip with Jim and Andy. Number one, we learned that Andy

says, beer me when he wants something. Beer is like a verb. Like get me that. Beer me that water. Right? Yes. We also learned that Karen is one of Andy's oldest friends. What? I think that's just because they worked together at Stanford. Yeah. Yeah. And we learned that do not ask Andy to play music. Because he just, he just sings. Like some acapella version of Drift Away. Well, this beer me line is another one of our most quoted. And Jim even says Lord beer me the strength. That's my favorite line. That's yours. Of almost like I think about lines from the whole entire show. And one of my favorite lines from the whole entire series happens at seven minutes, 51 seconds, and it's Lord beer me strength. I love it so much. I love it. I don't know if it's

because growing up, there's been so many times where I've been like Lord, give me strength. And just to have Lord beer me strength, it just tickles me. I just love it. Well, I reached out to Justin and Brent because I was very curious who wrote this beer me joke. Oh, I would love to know. All right. They told me that their memory is that Ed Helms had a friend in college who used to say beer me. And it was Brent who expanded it and wrote the joke beer me a water. But this was based on a story from Ed Helms. They said he also had this friend that would do the root to do. And confirmed that right. I'd said he had a friend who would do like a gibberish thing to cut people off. Yeah. All right. Well, I texted Ed and Ed is like, I don't know what they're

talking about. I don't have any memory of a friend. He was like, yeah, they're reading it to do, but I have no memory of a friend saying beer me. I don't know. Oh my gosh. This is like that moment where, you know, something happens and you ask five people what happened and they all have a different story. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. The one thing we know is that Brent did write the joke beer me a water. So Jim has sort of suffered through this car ride with Andy. Now they're in the high school and they're walking through and Andy's like, oh my God, what's my girlfriend doing here? And Jim's like, oh, is she like the counselor or something? And he's like, no, she works part time at the frozen yogurt place. Yeah. She's that girl standing by her locker. Her locker. Yeah.

And Jim's like, oh, Andy. Oh, Lord. So Andy goes up to confront her and she's like, I have to go to Spanish class. Andy's mind is blown. He had no idea that she was a high school student. Andy does let us know that they did not do anything illegal except knock over a few mailboxes with her friends. There's also a deleted scene where Andy talks about how they met in a talking head and he was at like a convenience store and she asked him to buy wine coolers for her and her friends. Oh boy. Well, the actress who played Jamie was Shira Scott Astroff and Lady. She was a contestant on the Bachelor season 16. What? The one with Ben. Bachelor Ben. I don't, I've never watched The Bachelor. Okay. Well, she's a part of Bachelor Nation. So I looked her up on Insta

and I slid into her DMs. Oh my gosh. What'd she say? Okay. Well, first of all, Shira and I have a mutual friend in common and it's actor Michael Rosenbaum. So I think it was slightly less creepy when I slid into her DMs because I saw on her Insta that she was friends with Michael. So I was able to lead with that. That's good. Yeah. I'm always trying to find the least creepy way to slide into someone's DM. Hey, what's up? Remember when you were on the office, you want to talk about it? I haven't talked to him a while, but what's up? Okay. Okay. So we emailed her, she emailed back and she told me all about her time on the show because, and whenever there are these scenes that happen on a location and we weren't there, I like to get details. I want to know a

little bit about it. No, I love it. Every time we reach out to someone in scenes like this, it's always so fun and just kind of fills in the picture for us. All right. So here is what she told me. She said that when she got the audition for this, she had never watched the show before. Really? Yeah. So she said she watched one episode and then went to her audition. It was a cold read, meaning they would not give her the material ahead of time because they didn't want the storyline to leak. Oh, that's so hard. So she had no idea. But then she got the job. And also she told me because she had never really watched the show, she thought that she was going to be playing Michael's girlfriend. So when she got to set, she was expecting to see Steve Carell,

and that's when she met Ed and John. Now, here is the thing that I found absolutely fascinating. In this episode, when she shot this, she was three months shy from turning 28. Oh my gosh. She was 27 years old. She said she was older than John Krasinski and only five years younger than Ed Helms. Babyface. Oh my goodness. She said she had the absolute best time filming this episode. It is still one of the best experiences she's ever had. And after she filmed it, she went home and watched every single office episode from season one. She totally binged it. And so she was super excited by the time her episode finally aired. She was like a super fan. That is so fun. But she said to this day, people still write her about being on the

show. And she's so proud to say that she was part of the office. Well, listen, guys, Shira was so lovely to tell us about her time in the office. She has a new film coming out called Half Brothers. She's also going to be in a pilot on Amazon called On the Spectrum. Her Instagram is at Shira Scott Astroff. But here's the plug I can't wait to give. She is the founder of an animal rescue organization called the Animal Rescue Mission. They rescue abused and neglected dogs and cats in Los Angeles and all over the world. She just rescued like 70 dogs from Death Row in Tijuana and placed them in homes. So she said, if anyone wants to adopt an animal or donate, you can go to the Animal Rescue Mission and check them out. I love that. We have four rescues.

I love little rescue animals. That makes me so happy. I know. Should we talk about Dwight preparing for the big press conference back at the office? Oh, yeah. Well, you know, he equates this to beat sales. You got to put the money beats. Those are the attractive beats. You got to put them up front. That's right. He has set up the conference room for a giant press conference all for one man. This is Chad Light from the Scranton Times. He does the lighter side of life. Yeah. And the obits. Right. And there's a great deleted scene with him in Creed where he recognizes Creed. He's like, wait, Creed Bratton from the grassroots. Jenna, he basically calls Creed out as himself. Oh my gosh. And it got deleted again. This origin of Creed keeps getting deleted.

It got deleted out of Booze Cruise. It got deleted out of what was the other episode where we found out that he stole his name from someone in prison, the convict. And now again. So Chad Light goes, Creed Bratton from the grassroots. And Creed's like, yeah. And he goes, I wrote your obituary. And Creed was like, oh, yeah. Creed has this great talking head that he faked his death so he could get like an insurance claim or something. He gets money. And so yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Well, Chad Light was played by Anthony Russell. And I found this in Anthony's bio, which I thought was absolutely so charming. It said, as a child, he played harmonica, ukulele, guitar, trombone, and piano. He worked his way through college singing in a show band. And after he graduated

Montclair State College with a major in trombone and a minor in piano, his band was booked as a Las Vegas lounge act for many major hotels. Well, I played the trombone. What? No, you did not. Oh yeah. Stop it. What are you talking about? Yeah. When we moved to Archer City, it's a very small town. Like in football, it was class 2A, super small town. So to have a marching band, pretty much everyone had to participate. And so all my friends in the town was, you know, I graduated with like 34 people. So my friend Shannon was like, are you going to play in the band? And I was like, I don't know how to play an instrument. She goes, it doesn't really matter. We just need people. And so I was like, well, what do you play? Now, my best friend was six foot

three guys. She was like star basketball player. I said, what do you play? She said, I play trombone. I was like, four, 10. I was like, yeah, okay, sounds good. I'll do what you're doing because I wanted to be able to sit next to her. There was only three people in the trombone section, Shannon, Bill Crutcher, and me. And I said, the first day I sat next to Bill, and I said, Bill, what, what are you playing? Because all I could hear was like, and he goes, I just played letter F the whole time. I said, okay. So Shannon was the only one that could really play. But I did learn how to play tequila. What's that? Yeah, I learned how to play that. It's really fun on the trombone because you can, you do this big slide. And then I could never reach the last position,

you know, seventh position, because I was too short. My arms didn't extend. Jenna, you wouldn't, you wouldn't use a calculator for the year? I was in a band playing a trombone for a few months of my life. Very poorly, by the way, very poorly playing the trombone. I'm speechless. I don't know. Where are we? Oh God, I don't know if anyone even is listening anymore. Well, listen, I'll tell you where we are. Chad Light has gotten level three security clearance. Don't get excited. It's level three out of 20. And they're getting ready for this big press conference. Meanwhile, Kevin, Oscar, and Angela are busy apologizing to customers, and it is not going well. Well, because Angela refuses to say the words, I'm sorry,

she will not apologize. She keeps saying things like, our official position is one of apology. Like she's like, we'll not just say we are so sorry. I love it when like Kelly is just patiently trying to coach her to say like just to make conversation. And she's like, where are you from, Ohio? That's nice. She just does not want to be talking to these people. No, no. And also, by the way, in the meantime, Creed has found out that Debbie Brown did not show up to work last week. And he spins a whole tale for Dwight. He says, well, now she told me that she had an emergency dentist appointment. And Dwight gives a look to camera, which I think is a little bit of a callback to his lie to Michael about his dentist appointment. Remember the dentist? Yes. But then

he says, well, then Debbie told the people at her work that she had the stomach flu. So she's clearly just making things up to avoid taking responsibility for this watermark. He's really laying it on thick. Creed is vicious. Yeah. Well, Ms. Allen arrives. And before we get into this really embarrassing press conference, why don't we take a break? Yeah, we need a moment before we get to this. We promise we're going to just talk about the office for the rest of the show. Why would you promise that when we know it's not true? We'll try. We'll try. All right. So we are back. We are laser focused. And we are in a press conference. Oh, it is not going well. No. Michael apologizes to Mrs. Allen and he offers her a giant certificate, which you know he loves.

Remember in Casino Night, he was like, Toby, are we going to have one of those giant checks? He's so. Yes. I mean, it's a novelty check is what he calls it. It's a novelty check. It's big, huge. It says six free months of paper or 25 reams, whichever comes first. And Mrs. Allen does not accept the apology. Mrs. Allen gives zero Fs, as the kids say. Oh, yeah. She literally says, I do not accept your apology. It's so good. Michael doesn't know what to do with it. And, you know, Chad is back there taking up all the notes on this press conference. He's ready to write his article. Oh, he's his hand is flying across that notepad. He's jotting everything down. So this back and forth between Mrs. Allen and Michael, it just starts to escalate.

And then he just asked her to leave and she just storms out and says she's going to call the Better Business Bureau. And Michael's like, oh, yeah, well, I'm going to call the ungrateful biatch hotline. It really, really did not go as planned. I mean, I don't think there's any other way to say it. I don't know. It could have gone worse. I really don't. Well, lady, Mrs. Allen, the woman who played Mrs. Allen so very well was Lisa Dar. And she has done a ton of stuff like Curb Your Enthusiasm. She was a regular on Life As We Know It and Popular. She also had a recurring on Strong Medicine, which is the show that I had a one day guest role on where my brain melted. But I found this very fascinating

because I ended up doing a deep dive on her IMDB page. This is crazy. Are you ready? Yes. She appeared in three episodes of Murder She Wrote. But each episode was in a different season and she played a different character. And then she was in two different seasons playing two different characters of CSI. So she is such a good actress that she can appear multiple times in the same television show playing a different character each time. I felt like that was very telling of her talent. It is. But also, would she change her look? I don't know because I didn't do that deep of a dive. I didn't like YouTube out of her appearances. But I mean, I found that significant. Yeah. And unusual. Yeah. Unless I feel like that happened more back in the day,

like on Bee Witch, weren't there two Darren's and like it was never explained or something? Well, that's like a major character change. This is like a guest role, right? But they hired the same actress in three different guest roles. They loved her. Clearly. Clearly. Well, I loved her. I thought she was great on our show. She was so good and she really just, I mean, pushing Michael over the edge. Oh my gosh. You know, Jen, I did say what could have made this press conference worse. And Dwight, once again, does not help. He says he thought both animals were smiling. There is a fantastic Dwight talking head where he talks about growing up on a farm and he has seen a lot of animal action. And he says really matter of factly,

whoever drew this got it exactly right. Yeah. He tries to tell Mrs. Allen that the cartoon did seem to depict a consensual sex act because they were smiling. And Dwight would know. Right. Because of his farm life. Right. Well, Michael is really upset. He starts to vent to Pam. I mean, that things got out of control. It's going to be a national story. She's like, Michael, this is the Scranton Times. And he's like, no, we need to do an apology video. Well, then Michael pulls out the video camera and Jenna, the look on your face is Pam. It's so brilliant. It's so brilliant, Jenna. It said so much history. How many videos has Pam had to film of Michael apologizing for things? I will tell you in the deleted scenes,

there's a runner of videos and they're fantastic. I was going to say that, that we shot a whole bunch of former apology videos and they didn't make it in the episode. I will tell you that shooting the scene with Steve and Rain and then also these old apology videos is some of the most fun I ever had on the show. It was so hard to get through these. It was so difficult. I don't know how you did it. And everything about your expressions, Jenna, are perfection. You don't give away much, but it says so much about what Pam is thinking. I just thought you did a phenomenal job. And I loved these scenes. I love seeing the deleted ones. I want to see more. I could just see a clip show of all these videos that you guys had to do. And I love the small touches. I love the American

flag behind him, clearly made out of four pieces of paper together. And I loved that from 15 minutes, 55 seconds to 16 minutes, five seconds. Dwight, it's just spraying Michael's hair. 11 seconds of silence, except for while he sprays the hair. I couldn't get through that. I laughed so hard. I broke constantly. It was very, very difficult to get through that. When you think about the real estate of a show, like every little moment counts, you're trying to just jam it with as much as possible. And I loved that our show would take these beats like this. 11 seconds. No one's saying a word, just an aerosol can. Longer than you have to stay on a bull.

That's true. Thank you for bringing my measurement of time back to bull riding. Well, also, I don't know if you noticed in the scene, I kept my gaze on the camera. I never looked up to Steve. And I did this for two reasons. One, because it just felt like I'm in charge of operating the camera. And so I was going to make sure he stayed in frame. And that just seemed like sort of my job. But the other reason was because I could look at the little plastic corner and then I wouldn't have to actually see Steve. And it was easier for me not to laugh. I wondered about that. I was like, Hey, it looks like you're really operating a video camera. But how lucky were you that you didn't have to make eye contact because you would have

burst into laughter. Also, when rain drops one of the cue cards and it makes a thud on the ground, that made me laugh. It was like when I was rewatching the scene, just I was breaking constantly. Those poor guys, I mean, they must have been like, Jenna, you need to leave the room. Well, there is a deleted scene of, you know, Michael does the first video and he's not happy with it, right? Well, in the deleted scenes, Jenna, there is his second take at the video. You know, you guys shoot the first one. Yeah. And he doesn't like it. He doesn't like it. And there's a deleted scene. And Jenna made me laugh so hard. Michael goes on to say, I need this job. My mortgage is hundreds of dollars a month. With this job,

I can barely cover that. I have a company car, but I still have to pay for the gas. Gas prices are high. And I have no savings whatsoever. Oh, Michael, what's kind of fun for this for those folks who like to catch things on the background? Is that deleted scene dialogue is on the cue card? And their second attempt is right there. You can zoom in and see it. Yeah. A lot of people wrote in to ask, how come what Michael is saying isn't what is printed on the cue cards when they go back and forth? It was just because we cut some stuff out. We trimmed out some stuff. Yeah. He actually said everything that was on the cards. We just had to lose some of it for time. Yeah. Well, over in accounting, we had someone write in, Megan Almond said,

17 minutes, six seconds, Kevin Sass. Yeah. Serious Kevin Sass. Like he's been holding it in for so long. He just couldn't wait. And now he's got something on her. Yeah. Angela is critiquing Kevin's math skills. And he then gives some sass by insulting your customer relations skills. Yeah. And then I call them apes. And then Oscar's like, apologize for that. And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, you're both morons. And they're like, but you said sorry. It's like I'm sitting with my two junior high brothers. Yeah. That's what they're like. And I want you to know that Brian and Oscar improvised their sort of little high five at the end and that they don't quite get it right. They were so tickled by that moment. Brian kept cracking

up. I love that. They had, they like did a few different tries at it. And it just was like their favorite thing. Okay. Well, I loved that moment. It made me laugh. Me too. Because why couldn't they have just high five? They were kind of doing like a coronavirus high five, where you don't actually touch. Well, and they were trying to do like a fist bump and air and but they're right there. They could have easily touched one another. But that's what it made me think of. I think they love the Jim Pam air high five. This is their dude version. Also, it would have meant that one of them would have had to get up or lean over awkwardly. And so I just, they were like, eh. Oh, okay. Well, I guess it was an optical illusion because it seemed like maybe they could have just

made a connection. It would have required one of them getting up. Okay. Well, there you go. Well, maybe we should go back to the high school for a second because we forgot to mention that Andy and Jim do meet with the principal. And it doesn't really go well because Andy is so preoccupied by learning that his girlfriend is at the high school. Yeah, I don't really know. Did they get this account back? We don't know. It just seems like Andy's about to have a breakdown and Jim is just trying to get them out of there. Well, the principal was played by Jim Jansen, who also played Reverend Skinner on Gilmore Girls. A little bit trivia. Oh, that is good trivia. I know. And yeah, we don't really find out how that went. But as they're driving home in the car,

Andy is still clearly bummed out and Jim wants to cheer him up. I mean, Jim really, really goes for it here. He just starts going, oh, weem away, oh, weem away, oh, weem away, oh, weem away. Yeah. And Andy's fighting it. He's fighting it. But then he just, he can't resist. He's like, he can't not jump in. Do you remember that time on the show when we all sang that in the bullpen? Was that for an episode? Or were we just doing that one day? I think we just started doing it. Yeah, because it is kind of infectious when someone starts it. Yeah, we were just a little loopy. I think so too. In the jungle, the quiet. Yeah. Oh, one last thing now before we end this episode and get to this

amazing tag is Creed. Yeah. Creed got this woman fired and he's going around the office collecting money for her. He's going to put it in a card. You know, why do bad things always happen to good people? He asks. And then he tosses the card. He puts the money in his pocket, Creed is diabolical. Yeah. And we also find out that in Pam's opinion, Michael made the best apology video ever. Yeah. That ended with an ultimatum. You have one day. What? Yeah. And where are these videos going, Jenna? Oh, they go nowhere. I'm pretty convinced that Pam never sends them anywhere. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, now we have such a fun tag and Rain had so much fun doing this. Yes. Dwight arrives for work the next day dressed as Jim. But it backfires a little bit because everybody just compliments

him on how great he looks and he gets a little frustrated. And he tries to do like the Jim look to camera. Yes. But it's like so awkward. Yes. Well, I want to tell you that this was originally in the script as the alternate ending to the cold open. Dwight had a little talking head where he said to defeat your enemy, you have to become your enemy. And then he showed up to work dressed as Jim. But in the editing process, we split it up, which I think was genius. I love that. I love that we end with it. I remember how much fun Rain had doing this scene. But I also remember him talking with Randall, the director, about how Dwight couldn't be as good of a mimic as Jim. So whereas Jim could come in and just do the spot on impression, they sort of felt like

Dwight's version of Jim had to be a little messier. But like, how do you thread that needle, right? Like, how do you do an impression? But it's Dwight doing the impression because Rain could do an amazing impression of Jim Halper. But he had to do it as Dwight. So I remember them playing with that a lot on the set when they were shooting this. Yeah, I feel like those moments would come up for us where it was like, your character steps out of its comfort zone a little bit to do something, but you still have to do it as your character and through that filter. Yeah. But it was fun. It was fun for us to watch those fellas do that. Well, you guys, that was product recall. Thanks for taking that journey with us. We got off topic a few times,

but you know, there's some real nuggets in this. Lord, beer me strength. Oh, yes. And listen, identity theft is not a joke. Millions of families suffer every year. All right, guys. We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week. Someone beer me a snack. I'm hungry. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earble, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Our producer is Cody Fisher. Our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubakow. 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 of Stitcher premium, use code office.