Office Ladies - The Fight

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

Palm Reading, Armageddon and the 10 Rules of Karate. This can only mean one thing, we've reached The Fight episode of The Office. Jenna and Angela talk about the amazing Lance Krall, who played Sensei Ira, wonder where that door next to the urinal goes to, and reveal Micheal had two offices for shooting scenes. We want you to be afraid of how much you love this 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. We are just rocking out to our own intro. We were actually dancing and miming the words.

Hello, everyone. Today we are going to be talking about The Fight. The Fight. Season two, episode six, written by Jean Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, known to us as Jean and Lee. They're a duo. They're funny fellas. This episode was directed by Ken Quapas.

We love Ken Quapas. We love Ken Quapas. I don't even know if it's possible for people to understand our love of Ken Quapas. I don't know, guys. There are some directors that just are in our hearts, Ken Quapas, Paul Feig, Charles McDougall. Charles McDougall. For yelling action at us.

For a different way, though. Yeah. Like Ken Quapas is like a cozy blanket, Paul Feig you want to hang out with all day and drink martinis. Mm-hmm. Charles McDougall, you kind of want to get drunk in a pub with and yell at people. It's so true. We'll talk about Charles McDougall when we get to him.

We haven't really had a chance to talk about him, but that was a little preview. We have a special treat today. Our summary of this episode is going to be read by a fan. Dun dun dun. So here we go. Alexis is describing the fight. Dwight becomes assistant to the sensei at his dojo and spends the day bragging and telling everyone how tough he is.

Michael has a lot of papers to sign. Jim and Pam use the opportunity to trick Michael by saying they think Dwight is stronger than Michael is, so Michael agrees to duel Dwight at the dojo to prove his manliness and procrastinate doing his work. I thought that was very good. That was really good. I think she covered it. She was very concise.

I feel like maybe she wrote it down and read it, which is what I would do. So Alexis, I'm with you. You've made a friend. That's right. All right, let's get into the fast facts for the fight. Fast fact number one, this is the first episode from our new writing team of Jean and Lee. I emailed with Lee, Eisenberg, and he told me that before getting hired on the office, Jean was a part-time nanny and Lee was an assistant to a director.

This was their first staff writing job. They were over the moon and they were particularly excited about the free lunches. I can really relate to that because when I interned on Conan O'Brien, I got free food and I was so excited. Every time I got a job as an actor, when I was a struggling actor, I got excited about the free meals. The free food at work, I still get excited about it. I have to be honest.

The snack tables. I hate to break it to everyone at Ear Wolf, but I hit up that fruit bowl hard every morning when we come here. Yeah. Like apple, banana. Ear Wolf has a basket of chips that's really good too. When I worked in offices in real life, I used to get really excited to go in the break room and someone would bring in some Danish or some muffins or cookies.

I don't know. If you were anything like me, I would eat ramen noodles because you could buy nine for a dollar. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. You know, ramen noodles are really a great meal for family meals with kids. You can spruce it up. You can saute some brown chicken and put a bunch of veggies in with the noodles.

You can also not cook them at all and crunch them up and put them in a salad instead of a crouton. This is turned into a different show. Okay. That's like a, you can make a Chinese chicken salad. You can use ramen noodles as your crunchies. Wow. There you go.

Some more information from Lee about this being his first episode. He said they were terrified because remember we talked about how they break down the episodes as a group and then writers get assigned to write the episode. He said that since their episode was episode six, they had very little in their outline. He said they had fleshed out the other episodes much more than this one. And he thought that they were being set up to fail. And they were being tested. Yes, exactly.

Because he was like, how do you give the staff writers with the least amount of experience? The least worked on outline. Yes, exactly. He said after they turned in their script and they had to get their notes on their script, Greg had pneumonia and they had to go to Greg's house in order to get their notes. And he said the thing that really stood out to him was that he explained the idea of the Jim Pam subtext to Jean and Lee. They had written a really on-the-nose Jim Pam scene.

And Greg said, sometimes just a look is enough. And he said it kind of blew their minds and that Greg completely brought that idea to them. And in the episode, something I remember is when Pam is reading Jim's poem, that was a big deal. And that was how there was always this discussion, how can Jim and Pam physically touch without it being inappropriate? Right.

Well, lady, I think that was very intimate. I even looked up online about hand touching. And it is considered physical intimacy. That was some major flirting. That's a note card I have for later. All right. Should we move on to FastFact number two? Let's do it.

All right. FastFact number two, Sensei Iroh was played by Lance Crawl. Is it Sensei or Sensei? Oh, my gosh. It's Sensei Iroh was played by Lance Crawl, who's a friend of mine. And I have five note cards on him because he and I talked on the phone yesterday. You know that I was very starstruck by him when he was on our episode. I know.

He even said, I think Jenna watched a lot of Joe Schmo. Yes. That cracks me up that he said that. Because I did corner him at lunch one day and I made him tell me everything about the Joe Schmo show. If you guys have not seen this, please go look it up. The Joe Schmo show was a fake reality show contest where everybody on the show were actors except for one person.

The Joe Schmo guy was a real person and everyone around him was acting like they were in a reality show. Yes. They were acting in this house and they had to do competitions and vote each other off at the end. By the way, Kristen Wiig is on that show with Lance. A lot of great comedians and improvisers that I knew were on that show. I auditioned for that.

It was cast by Allison Jones and I was devastated when I did not get it because I thought what an amazing acting experience to live in a house and have to play this character 24-7. And by the way, this show is brilliant, so yes, I am starstruck by Lance. I can't believe you know him. I can't believe I didn't know that you know him. So I emailed him yesterday and I was like, Lance, we're going to be talking about the fight. Where are you?

Can you hop on the phone? And he was like, I'm actually in Atlanta. He has moved to Atlanta and he set up his own production company because he's really talented. He's an actor, comedian, writer. And he has a production company in Atlanta called Picture It Productions. How about that? How about that?

Get out at PictureItProductions.com. All right, Lance. So we met so long ago and I said, Lance, did we meet doing improv? I can't remember exactly how we met and he remembered exactly and it made me laugh so hard. What? Okay. So he was friends.

We had mutual friends and I went into an editing bay where a friend of ours worked and they were helping me with my acting reel. Okay. And I said, Lance, was this before the office? He said, no, Angela. It was like after the pilot, but you really didn't think the show was going to go. So you were trying to put some of your office like scene with Kevin and accounting in your reel.

Should we say what a reel is? Yes. Yes. So just for people who don't know, like, you know, actors have a headshot and on the back is their resume and you give that at auditions, but you also would send a link to clips of various performances you had been on and that's your acting reel. It helps you get jobs. Yeah.

So you're putting together your acting reel with some clips from the office and this really dates me and our show because it was all on VHS. Oh my gosh. And there was a guy actually editing. Yes. And I had brought in like a box of all of my footage and they were putting together a montage of my scenes and Lance said, Angela, it was so cute and charming because you turned to me and you said, Hey, will you watch this?

Will you? What do you think of my reel? And he said, Ang, it was every second you've ever been on screen. He said it was so long and also in some of it, you didn't even have dialogue, you just walked by. That is hilarious. There was like a commercial like I did for Chrysler where I walked by and I just went and like did thumbs up at someone.

I was like, Oh my gosh, Lance, it's so embarrassing, but that's the first time we met. So it was after the pilot when I thought the office wasn't going to go and I was trying to figure out how to get more work. That's very funny that then he ends up being on the show. I know. And then he told me, he said, Ang, did you know I tested for the role of Jim? He tested for Jim. What?

So I must have done scenes with him. He said you weren't in his group on his test day. Okay. He had a different group and Bob Odenkirk was in his group for Michael Scott. Oh, yes. That's right. I was in the Steve Carell test group. Well, you know, something that's funny about Bob Odenkirk since you brought him up, I knew

Bob Odenkirk when I was auditioning for the office and we were both called. I was called to do Pam and he was called to do Michael. So we got together and we practiced together. Oh, but then I wasn't in his test group and I had thought, darn it. We worked a bunch of bits together. We were so excited to show them off, but he did this very funny audition where he brought in his guitar and he sang a song to Pam and we had worked it all out and we were going to ask if we could do it if we were paired together, but we never were.

So Lance told me this great story that the day that he was screen testing, you know, he's in the lobby waiting. They were all kind of giddy that Bob Odenkirk was in their group. They were all really big fans of Bob's and Bob walked over to Lance and was like, hey, you want to run lines with me? And Lance was like, sure. And he said it was really cool and they like sort of went out in this lobby and ran lines like three or four times, like the scenes all the way through.

He just thought it was a really cool moment. So Lance said when he read for Jim, he was like, you know, I really felt like I just tried too hard. And he said then when he got called back, when we were, once the show was up and going for the fight, he read that it was like a martial arts guy and he goes, oh my gosh. Lance's background is actually martial arts. He was in the martial arts community for 15 years. He has a third degree black belt in Taekwondo.

He was the sixth in the nation in his like weight category in 1992. He trained junior Olympic gold medalists like he was. Did they know this about him? I mean, I think they didn't. I don't know. But he said when he saw who the character was, he was like, oh my gosh. He said, I am not going to try to go for the joke at all. I'm just going to go in as if I'm like working with one of my students and teaching a class.

And that's what he did. He put no pizzazz on it. He went in and played it really straight and they loved it. They always loved that. Those are the people they always cast for the people who played it real. This leads me to my third fast fact, Angela. I know you might have more to say about Lance. No, no, no.

Go, go. But this is a fan question. Is anyone on the cast trained in martial arts? That's from Will. So yes, Lance and also Rainn Wilson studied karate his sophomore year in college and is a yellow belt. I didn't know that. Yes.

And I asked Rainn if the writers knew that and he said no. What a weird coincidence that they wrote this whole karate themed episode and Rainn is a yellow belt and Lance was a black belt. Yes. That is so wild. Okay. Do you have more Lance stuff? Because I interrupted your Lance cards with my fast fact.

He actually had a really funny thing that made me laugh. He said that when they got to the actual fight and the choreography of the fight, he said he was so surprised because there was no choreography, there was no stunt guy. He said literally it was like, okay guys, just two idiots try to hit each other. This was very early on. We did not have a budget. That's what I told him. For these kinds of things.

I told him, I said Lance, this does not surprise me because they put Phil Shea, our prop guy in a box for hours. Yeah. There was no stunt person. In the early years of the office, I always felt like it was a show we were making in our garage for our neighborhood. I always felt like it was a one act play we were doing in someone's garage. As a kid, I used to do that, I used to put on plays in my garage and the garage door

was the curtain. I would put chairs out on my driveway for the neighborhood kids to come see my show. It was like a puppet show or a variety show. That's what the office always felt like to me. Just like a bunch of us making a show in our garage. This won't be the last time you see Sensei Ira. He does come back in season nine in the episode Junior Salesman. He does?

Yes. What does he do in that episode? He was actually there to interview for a job. Oh, I remember that. Dwight brings in a bunch of his old friends and weirdos to interview. And family members. Yes. Lance emailed me a great behind the scenes photo of him and the other people interviewing

for jobs in the conference room. He has his karate outfit on over a business suit. His tie is poking out. It's so odd. He was on season one and then on season nine, so he sort of had this great perspective of being on the bookends of the show. What a very, very cool thing. Yeah.

Thank you so much, Lance, for taking time out of your schedule in Atlanta to chat me up. And we're going to call you again come Junior Salesman. Yeah, I love it. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back to Break Town the Fight. And we are back. Hello. This episode begins with a prank. Jim pranks Dwight by putting his desk in the bathroom.

Oh, poor Dwight. This was a good one. This was a good prank. I like this one. You have to look for Kevin in the background at the end when he leaves one of the stalls. He has a lit candle and a newspaper. And for all of you office geeks, this was the moment that led to Kevin's line in Office Olympics about the bathroom candle smelling like cookies.

Also remember that in the dundies, he did win the Don't Go In There After Me Award. Yes. We see why. Also, though, guys, who is lighting candles inside the stall? Like, he doesn't come out and light the candle. He exits the stall holding a candle, a lit candle. Yes. And that candle really did smell like cookies.

I want to say that. Did you notice that there is another door by the urinal? Mm-hmm. Where does it go? We don't know. I like to think maybe... What is that door? Is it a utility closet?

I think that's what I think. I think there's like a mop in there or something. That's my guess. Yeah. Those bathrooms did not work. Nope. It was very deceiving. We would have people come visit us on the set like guests, family members, and they would

go in there thinking that they were real bathrooms and they weren't. No. In the next scene, Dwight calls his sensei. Jim asks if he's talking to his mother. I love that. I think John is really good in that scene. And then there is his whole talking head about being a sensei, an assistant to the sensei. What is it?

So yeah, Dwight says he's the senpai, which is basically like the assistant to the sensei. Yeah. Although... Not assistant sensei. Right. But also, actually, it's not him. It's like the girl, remember, because later in the episode, sensei Ira is like, there's my senpai.

So we learned that it's actually not Dwight. Oh my gosh, I missed that. Yeah. The girl that walks through the scene... Yeah. The senpai. Oh. I totally missed that.

All right. So next, we have Pam's talking head. And this is when we find out that today is the day that Michael has to sign time cards, purchase order approvals, and expense reports that they're all due at the end of the day. And this happens a couple times a year, and he always procrastinates wildly on these days. As a former secretary, I really relate to the dynamic between Pam and Michael in this episode because during one of my early secretarial jobs, I had a boss that would take so long to do his end of the month report that I would have to drive to the airport because the FedEx

at the airport had the latest drop time. I'm saying LAX Airport, which anyone who lives in Los Angeles, if I drive to LAX now, it's about a two-hour drive. So I would have to drive to the airport for like the 7 p.m. It might have even been 9 p.m. FedEx drop. Also, there's nowhere to park. And people are blowing whistles at you. Yes.

Like move out of the way. It's like chaos. I do love that Pam calls it the perfect storm. I do too. Also, though, Michael isn't having even to do any work. It's not like he's having to put together a report. All he has to do is sign them. No, that's right.

It's so basic. It's just his signature. It could take him like 20 minutes. Yeah. And he'd be done. This is why I would get so mad at my boss who couldn't manage to get his report done because I would think to myself, it's not new information. It's a boilerplate report that you have to do every month.

It wasn't a special project that sneaked up on us. Yeah. Time management, dude. You can see I'm still a little angry about it. Well, if I had to drive to the airport to mail something, I'd be ticked off for a long time. So next up in Michael's attempt to procrastinate, he tells Ryan to update the emergency contacts. So I enter that scene where Michael is telling Ryan to do the emergency contact list.

I was so concentrated on not laughing at Steve, who was being so funny in that scene. It took everything I had that when BJ would look at me and say the line, updating emergency contacts, I lost it. I started, it became, you know, in the scenes where you can't stop laughing and you have a trigger. Yeah. It was BJ turning to me and very sadly saying updating emergency contacts. I think I only got through one scene and I did it by not looking at BJ in the eye like

I stared at his forehead. I spent nine years looking at Steve Carell's forehead because if I made eye contact with Steve, I used to say he would just like suck out your soul. You made eye contact with him through comedy. I could not lock eyes with him or I would start laughing. So I would, I would look at his forehead. Every conference room scene. I would have to do that or look at someone's ear.

Yes. Or their eyebrows. Yeah. Their neck. Yeah. It's just not in the eyes. Not in the eyes. Well, I thought that was a major PAMSAS moment.

I think you have two really good PAMSAS moments in this episode and one of them is where you just walk out while he's talking and he's like, oh, she just left it. Well, he's finished talking, I was really channeling my real life experience working for that crazy guy. Michael gets Ryan's phone number in this episode. Oh, man. He's so delighted. He keeps calling him and doing voices and Angela flip phone, flip phone outdated phone

is very featured in this episode as is my favorite thing is when Steve is Michael Scott cracks himself up. It's like one of my favorite things. Yes. We talked about this a little bit in the opening PAM reading Jim's palm. Yeah. I have that's a note card I'm going to reach for six minutes, 11 seconds. You guys major PAM and Jim a flirt happening.

So touching someone's hand is actually like that, like how you were tracing his hand. Yeah. Is a sign of physical intimacy. Yeah. Yeah. I know. So that was like, I was like, what is happening? Did you notice on my computer?

Yeah. I saw it. I saw that's like your decoy though. That's your way in. Yeah. Listen, these are two people who shouldn't be flirting, but so desperately want to be flirting. So they have to find ways around it.

So listen out there. If you see someone at work who's like trying to read your palm, oh, they might have a crush on you. They might have a crush on you. But I thought it was really cool that the set deck people put the palm reading website on my computer. Well, they had to justify why PAM was doing it. Yeah.

So here she is, bored at front reception. She says, Jim, let me read your palm, flirty flirt, sneaky flirt. I know. I see a note card that you have that is my next topic. Do you want to say it? Well, wait, do you like that this note card only has one word? Yeah. What's that word, Jenna?

Stacey. Stacey. Six minutes, 17 seconds. Oh my gosh, Brian, you would crack me up every time you said Stacey. It's only one word, but it goes through like four octaves. And we used to, that was like, we would, that was a bit on the set. We would cheat him. We'd be like, Stacey.

At six minutes, 49 seconds, there's this whole scene with Jim and Dwight where they're talking and Jim is talking to Dwight about humans versus robots. Yeah. All right. In the background, Phyllis is at her desk. Stanley is not. Where's Stanley? Where is Stanley?

Stanley never leaves his desk. He was never missing. Never missing. He's actually one of the characters that is probably the most featured at his desk. We used to joke about this. We would say, why do we all have to be at our desks in the background of all the scenes? Do none of us ever go to the bathroom? Do we never leave to go downstairs for a reason?

None of us left our desk, but in particular, Stanley was always at his desk. He had to sit in the background of everyone's talking heads. He was always at his desk, but then you see as they pull back the camera that Stanley is at the file cabinet, but he never filed anything. To me, that was crazy. That's how I knew it was early on in the show, because after that, I think Leslie was probably like, yeah, no, I'm not filing. I'm sitting down.

I'm sitting down. At seven minutes, 40 seconds, Jenna, it's one of my favorite PAM sass moments. What is it? Okay. So Michael has a piece of paper and he's just like practicing his signature. Oh yeah. And then he taps on the glass and goes, you could practice on the forms. I mean, that is some really good PAM sass.

PAM is, it's such a great relationship between Pam and Michael because she is his subordinate, yet also his parent. Yes. In many ways. Oh yeah. She has to corral him, kind of like a sheep dog might corral the sheep. Yeah. Okay.

At eight minutes, 28 seconds. Oh man. This made me laugh so hard. We learned that Toby's emergency contact is still his ex-wife, even though her new last name is now Becker and he says, please don't put X. You don't need to put X. You don't need to put X. Okay.

I have a screen grab. I'm going to show you. I took it with my phone at nine minutes, 42 seconds, Jim. When Jim is saying, you know, a ton of 14 year old girls to Michael, there is a brown object in the top left corner. At first I thought, oh, it's a boom. And I froze the, you know, the frame. I don't know if it's a boom or like an elbow.

I don't know what it is. I'm going to show you a picture of it. All right. She's getting out her phone folks. Okay. All right. Tell me what the heck this is. And guys, I want you to look at it because it is what.

We'll put this on officeladies.com. Oh, okay. Now I, and then I zoomed in. Do you see it? Yeah. Now look at it close up. What is that? And it's only in that frame.

Is it Michael's shoulder or elbow or something? No. No. Michael is standing here. See his eye line? This is here. Michael's right here. I don't know.

It's a brown orb, everyone. It's a brown orb. And I'm perplexed. Okay. Sorry. We've presented a mystery with no solution. I know. No, that's part of my superpower.

I'll notice things. I won't give you answers. We have to talk about what happens at nine minutes, 48 seconds. We have to. What happens? What happens? We learned that Michael and Dwight spent New Year's Eve together. Oh, yes.

And that they watch, oh, they rented, that even dates the show. Yes. They rented Armageddon. Yes. And that Dwight cried at the end. Yes. Oh. And I actually.

But it was because, why did Dwight cry at the end? It's such brilliant writing. It's because it wasn't just the movie, it was that it began to snow. Yes. It began to snow. At precisely midnight. And it was like the perfect moment. I actually saw Armageddon with my dad because my dad's a drilling engineer.

And so he was like, oh, this, you know, has drilling engineers in it. And we went and saw it and all like throughout the movie, anytime it was anything drilling related, my dad was like, nope, that's not how you do it. Never happened. That's not, nope, not up to code. That never happened. I was like, okay, dad. I went down the rabbit hole last night, like I do sometimes, like I went looking for the

Joe Shmo show. I looked up Armageddon last night and I found a few different synopsises of what the movie was about. And it's too good to not read, Jenna. It's so, it's so classic, 1998 Michael Bay. Are you ready? I'm ready. When an asteroid the size of Texas threatens to collide with Earth in under a month, by

the way, NASA honcho Dan Truman, played by Billy Bob Thornton, determines the only way to stop it is to drill its surface and detonate a nuclear bomb inside the asteroid. This leads him to renowned Driller, Harry Stamper, played by Bruce Willis, who agrees to helm the dangerous space mission provided he can bring along his own ragtag crew. Among them is Cockshur, AJ, played by Ben Affleck, who Harry thinks isn't good enough for his daughter, Liv Tyler, until the mission proves otherwise. Wow. I mean, wow.

Come on. So your dad was Bruce Willis. My dad was Bruce Willis. The Driller, the drilling expert. And he felt that everything Bruce Willis's character had to say was inaccurate. I would say the two movies my dad got really mouthy about were Armageddon and Twister. Twister, the tornado movie. Yeah, because we live in tornado alley and they were like driving up on this tornado

and a truck flies in the air, like a giant semi truck flies in the air, cows are flying in the air, and the guy goes, I think it's Bill Paxson goes, we've got some debris and my dad goes, debris my ass. I don't know. Anyway. We have to discuss the fact that Pam wants French onion chips. I love French onion chips. Gross.

Was that, I have a question for you. Was that your personal pick or did Pam, was that scripted? I don't know, but I feel like it could have been my personal pick because a lot of times if you have to eat something, they ask you. They do. They ask you if you have any food allergies. The props person will call you at home and say, we're doing a dinner scene. Is there anything you can't eat?

Yeah. The whole show would have been like, Jenna, what bag of chips would you want in case you have to open them up and eat them? Yeah. So you said French onion chips. Yeah. This means you wouldn't have been flirting with anyone the rest of the day because your breath would be disgusting.

Well, that's a good point. I didn't really think of that. I also like a barbecue chip. I love a barbecue chip. Can I tell you a little bit of information about the chips? Yeah. Okay. The Hersh chips, H-E-R-R-S, and this is a local Pennsylvania company, the Hersh chip.

I'm flipping my papers because I was going to talk about this later. Maybe you should have written it on a note card. Oh, I see. No, I'm just saying. Look how easy it is for me to see my information. A little bit of Angela sass, everyone. A little bit of Angela sass. All right.

Here it is. I found it. Okay. It's in our vending machine, so you can spy them in there. I just think it's cool that we used local stuff to fill out the world. It's kind of a cool story, the story of Hersh chips. I went down to rabbit hole, Angela. Well, listen.

If I just read you the synopsis of Armageddon, you better tell me about Hersh. Guys, James Herr broke with his family's history of chicken farming. In 1946, he bought a potato chip company. He was only 21 years old, and he bought it for $1,750. Wow. Yeah. And now it's a huge successful company, and you can even go there and tour it. You would love that.

You can tour the facility. You love a factory tour. You know I love a factory tour. Angela, we've been invited to tour the sass factory in San Antonio. They said they would send us some shoes. I want them. I know. I want some sass shoes.

I'm excited about that. And then, I mean, listen, if we're talking factory tours, Jenna, I don't even know how to tell you this. You're going to be so jealous. But next week, I am going to the Tefshed factory. For yours. That's what she said. For mine.

That's what she said. I'm going to the Tefshed factory. I'm so excited. You guys, this is a weird thing that happens to us. I went and bought some tile. I needed some tile because I was doing a renovation outside. And I went to this tile showroom, it's called Arto Tile in Los Angeles, and they geeked out and they recognized me and they gave me a factory tour.

This is a really cool perk. Yes. If you like to see how things are made. I love to see how things are made. I love that show. How it's made. How it's made. It's so good.

I know. And so I've gone on quite a few factory tours as a result of my fame on the office. You have. This is my first factory tour. Tefshed is my first one and I'm very excited, Jenna. All right. I wish I could go with you. So something I have to talk about, Angela, before we go to break, is the scene at Michael

and Jim's desk when Michael talks about being in the damn rascals, his street gang. This is the same scene where they talk about Armageddon. But when Dwight punches Michael in the stomach, he does the double punch and Steve gets hit and he's like, that was John's weak spot. John would laugh so, so hard. And I think that's why in that scene, there is not a single shot of John's face. If you watch it after he punches Michael in the stomach, he, you never see John's face. Yes.

He couldn't get through that. He couldn't get through that. He loved whenever Steve couldn't get a word out. Yeah. Especially in pain. Like, yeah. We'll talk about that later. We'll talk about, but, you know, Kevin sits on Michael's lap when he's Santa.

Oh, yes. And Steve let out like a painful moan and I didn't think John was going to be able to get back from that. So this reminds me of that bit that Steve did on the Dana Carvey show, The Gnoshest Waiter. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You guys have to look it up. Steve did it for us one time when we were in the conference room together.

And this is, John couldn't handle it. I was crying. I thought John was going to die. I thought John was going to die, but we were we were weeping. We were, you know, when you start laughing, where all you do is shake and make no noise. Yes. Because Steve would do this thing. So the waiter, he's a waiter, but food makes him nauseous.

So he would walk up to a table and have to give the specials of the day. So he'd be like, so ask me, Jenna, what are the specials of the day? What are the specials of the day? Well, we have brah, brah, brah, like he would start, start to puke. As he listed off the specials. Yes. He'd be like, we have a delicious chicken with a cream sauce or cream, sorry, cream sauce.

It was so hilarious. It's so good. We are not doing it justice. We are not doing justice to it at all. Oh my gosh. If Steve ever comes on our podcast, do you think he would do that? Yes. Oh, I think he would.

I made him to do it. Oh, Steve, come on and do nauseous waiter for us. Yes. We would, we would make him do that. We loved that. Angela, I think we should go to a break. I think we should. I would like to go eat some chips, maybe, maybe some sour cream and onion chips from

the basket. Well, clearly you just want to be the gift that keeps on giving in here. Yes. All right, we'll see you in a second. We're back from break. Angela. Yes. I have a time code.

What? Yeah. I actually, I have three time codes. Jenna, I'm so proud of you. Thank you. I almost wrote them on note cards and brought in three note cards, but I didn't want to infringe on your note card thing. First of all, I don't own note cards.

I encourage you. I love it. Use it. I mean, Jenna, you don't own a list. I hate to break it to you. I might come in someday with a list. I think that's fantastic. What is your time code?

Well, I was very excited. It's 11 minutes, 50 seconds, and it is the scene where Pam and Jim are walking to the kitchen. John is snapping his fingers like he's from West Side Story, and we got tons of questions about these finger snaps, which I think is why I felt compelled to write down the time code. The question was, was this scripted or improvised? I remember it as being improvised, and I remember being so tickled by it because I'm a huge

movie musical fan, and I asked Lee Eisenberg, and he thinks it was also improvised. He does not remember writing that. I think it was improvised because it's just like John kind of playing around because earlier in the show, he had mentioned, oh, like a jet, and Michael, I think, thinks he's a jet. He's like, oh, you're a jet? That was the name of your actual gang. Yeah. So I think John is just playing off of that reference.

It was so fun. So then they go into the kitchen, and I have to say, this scene in the kitchen between Michael and Dwight, when they face off, might be one of my favorite scenes from the entire second season of The Office. In the kitchen, John and I almost started laughing about a million times, and if you notice, if you look at Mindy, she is constantly turning her back to the scene and looking into the annex. I could see you and John almost break.

When I watched this knowing you guys, I was like, oh, they were about to lose it. Seriously, watch Mindy through this because she cannot face the scene. It's amazing. Well, when Rainne grabs her and is like, all right, now from behind, she's like, wait, what? Amazing. I don't know how she got through that. And there's all these great things in this.

This is the misuse of common phrases like catch 22, tit for tit. That's your favorite. My favorite, this is the second time he has said it, tit for tit. So two hits, me punching you and you hitting the floor. So good. It was just so good. This leads me into my second time code, Angela. Okay.

13 minutes, 27 seconds. Well I have one at 1325. All right. What's yours? Let's see. Well, this is at 1325, you see who actually goes to the dojo because you see everyone pile into the elevator. And it is Phyllis Pam Meredith, Oscar Creed, Kevin, Jim, Michael, and Dwight.

And who does not go to the dojo, Angela, Stanley, Toby, Kelly, and Ryan. Is that true? So you did not go to, did you not film that day when we went? I had the day off. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was decadent. It was decadent.

Oh my goodness. So when I talk about being at the dojo, you're going to hear what you missed out on. Yeah. I have no idea. And you know, the thinking was that Angela and Stanley would not participate in this. It's like shenanigans and they are literally there to do work and clock in and clock out. Yes. And so Angela and Stanley are really two of the big bah humbugs of the office.

Toby and Kelly wouldn't go or Ryan because as you know, and I know they were writers and they needed to be in the writer's room and this was an opportunity for them to get some work done. Yes. It's so true. Well, when we all pile in the elevator, I don't know why I'm so tickled by it, but at 13 minutes and 27 seconds, just watch Kevin's face as the elevator doors close. Okay.

It just makes me laugh. All right. He's got this little mischievous look on his face like he's very excited to see what's going to happen. Totally like a little kid who got to leave school. Oh, that's so cute. I love it. All right.

Well, Angela, I'm going to tell you some stuff. The day that we shot at the dojo, it was really hot. I was going to say, were you guys all hot and sweaty? Yes. The air conditioning in our trailers wasn't working. Oh. So remember on the dundies when they had ants? This time they had no air conditioning and they were, they're metal.

So it was kind of like changing your clothes in a sauna. And we were just super sweaty, all of us, and gross. And I had to wear a sweater because we had established my beige sweater earlier in the office. And I remember thinking, oh my God, I am so sweaty and stinky. And John has to pick me up. This is, this is a thing that I think people don't think about. You know, anytime I would have a scene where I would have to whisper at someone or you'd

have to kiss, I would brush my teeth like three times and chew gum and eat a mint before. And anytime when you have to be close to someone, I would be very aware of my potential body odor. Yeah. At least our show wasn't a show with a bunch of close talkers because like you watch an episode of like the Sopranos, they get in each other's faces, they're like, listen here. And they're like right up to each other's face, like at least we didn't have that. That's true.

But when I watch those scenes because we're actors and we know, I think like, oh my God, there's no way they don't know what they had for lunch because that is some close talking. Well when Jim lifts Pam up at the dojo. At 14 minutes, 11 seconds. We got a lot of questions about this scene. I have questions. So go. Well, in Office Olympics, Angela has her bit about Pampong.

Yes. And that's kind of the first time that Pam is made aware that someone else is aware. People are noticing. Yes. And now in this scene, Meredith clocks the interaction between Pam and Jim and that is what freaks out Pam. Also, your shirt came up and you could see your belly. Now I remember as your friend that week, you saying to me, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, people

are going to see my belly. Because it said, you know, it picks up and your shirt kind of comes up and you are nervous about it. Yeah. So that was a fan question. Anthony asked, was it meant for your shirt to pull up when Jim lifted you or did it happen on accident and you went with it? It was in the script that my shirt would come up a little bit.

And that was all to make it even more of a vulnerable thing for Pam that she was literally exposed. Yeah. Something that you were really embarrassed about. Yes. And wow, I wish my stomach looked like that today. I watched that scene. I knew you were like, why was I not wearing midriff tops every day when I looked like

that? I know. I knew you were going to say that because I mean, listen, we've had babies and everything changes after that and you're, I mean, you look phenomenal today, Jenna. You look phenomenal then. But I know I remember our bellies before babies. I remember. Well, I am kind of glad that it was scripted that you see my belly because I've got it

on film now that at one time in my life, I had a cute little belly and belly button. So thank you, Jean and Lee for that. At 13 minutes, 56 seconds. That's my third time code, Angela. There is a poster in the background of this interaction between Jim and Pam. So we're all watching Jim and Pam. But in the background, there is a poster on the wall and it is one of my favorite things. It was like a favorite thing of all of us when we got to the dojo.

This was a set decoration poster that Jean and Lee wrote that set decoration had printed and put on the wall. It is the 10 rules of karate. Okay. All right. According to this dojo. I'm going to read them to you. Okay.

They're amazing. Number one, obey your parents. Okay. Number two, no junk food. Number three, do your homework. Number four, keep your room clean. Number five, maintain an indomitable spirit. Number six, don't fight with your siblings.

Seven, practice, practice, practice. Eight, treat others the way you would like to be treated. Nine, be loyal to your country. And 10, have fun. So Lee told me he still has this poster. He asked to have it. He said they spent way too long writing these rules. I was going to say, I bet they spent like hours like just like cracking themselves up.

It's amazing to me because I feel like it is this little detail that really hammers home that Dwight takes classes in a studio meant for children. Children, do your homework. These are kid based rules. And of course, you see that. You see that he's in a class with a bunch of 11 year olds, but I just think that is brilliant. Brilliant writing that poster. Okay.

So that was their version of the rules of karate, right? There's this thread on Reddit where people go back and forth. They were like, but Dwight says karate and then there's taekwondo this and there's this and this. So a little bit that the martial arts didn't quite line up in that dojo. Yeah. I think that makes sense too. I mean, Dwight is not maybe studying a pure form of any one martial art.

Right. I have to talk about the fact that at 14 minutes, 11 seconds, I think that Pam is sending Jim Mick's signals. Of course she is. And I totally judged her a little bit because she was being really flirty and then when Meredith noticed, it wasn't until Meredith noticed that then she like pushed Jim away and then the look on John's face, he does such a fantastic job of looking wounded and confused and not really, he was so happy, but now he's like, now what happened?

He did such a great job because Pam is sending him Mick's signals. She really is. But I mean, that's complicated, unrequited love for you. I know. What are you going to do? She's conflicted. She's conflicted. When Michael pins down Dwight at the dojo and is winning the fight, our director of

photography, Randall Einhorn, who used to work on Survivor, so I want to say literally nothing surprises this man. He is a total pro. He never broke. He lost it. He lost it. He was laughing so hard that he had to take the camera off his shoulder and hold it out with his arm so that it wouldn't shake.

He had tears like streaming down his face. Now it's the hardest I've ever seen him laugh. That's saying something because he was like a statue. Him and Oscar Nunez never break. Yeah. I have a question for you. Lance, when I was speaking to him, said to his knowledge, the fight was not choreographed and that he really believed that the stuff that Michael, that Steve was doing to reign

as Dwight, like holding him down and trying to spit on him and all of that, that Steve improvised that. I asked Lee about that. His memory is that they did bring in a stunt coordinator to work with them on set one day during a break. Yeah. So Lance wouldn't have been there for that. That's right.

And so- But that person did not go to the dojo. Did not go to the dojo. The day that you actually did it, they were not present. And so on the day, he said they just like Steve and Reign and Ken Quapas just came up with a bunch of stuff like the typewriter stuff. And just he said, he doesn't remember how many takes they did, but it was a lot. But he said it was also really hot and those guys got really tired doing all the fake fighting.

You can tell because they're winded when they're speaking to each other. They are. It's true. Did you clock Phyllis' disposable camera in the scene? Oh, yes. Where she's taking pictures and it's a disposable camera? Don't you wish we had those pictures? Yes.

Who has those? Someone must. Yeah. Phil Shea. Phil Shea. I don't know. All right. So after this humiliating defeat, we go back to the office.

And we see a scene from Michael's office that goes down into the parking lot. And he tries to call Ryan on his cell phone. That was a different office than the usual Michael's office. You totally, like it's completely different. Yes. So we had two Michael's offices. We had one Michael's office that was on our set and it had just like a scrim backdrop behind the window that was kind of blurry.

And it was just... It was fake. It was an old fashioned fake out the window kind of thing. But whenever we had to shoot a scene where Michael was actually looking out of his window into the parking lot, we would move over to the writer's offices. And they literally would shoot in a writer's office. Yes. And I was trying to remember, was it Mike Shearer's office or Paul Lieberstein's office?

They, one of the two of them, worked in Michael's office and it was loosely decorated as Michael's office. And then when it was time to shoot, they would get kicked out of their office and set dressing would come in and zhuzh it up. And then they would have to use that to shoot and they couldn't write in their office that day. But the walls are like kind of a green color. Yes.

That was always true. That don't match. Like I was like, guys, the walls are not the same. Well, it's funny too because all the other writers could decorate their offices. Oh, Mindy's office was so decorated. Oh, for sure. Of course. Yeah.

Of course. There were posters on the wall, but they couldn't do it. I feel like it was Paul's. I think it was Paul's as well. Because I remember. That's my memory. If it wasn't Paul's, then Paul just really didn't make a lot of effort to decorate. One of the two.

I remember his office being pretty bare. So next up, Michael tells the rest of us to sign the forms. He's given up. For sure. At the end of the show, the people who actually signed the reports are Toby, Stanley, Angela, and Pam. They're all grouped together at the reception desk, and I loved shooting that scene because everyone else had gone home for the day.

Except for Dwight. That's right. Who was at his desk. But most of the office was gone. And that group of us, we were very rarely in little scenes together, just us. And I have very fond memories of shooting that. Me too. Me too.

That was really, really fun. I have one thing that is a time code that was right before the end there at 17 minutes and 57 seconds. People are packing up for the day. Guess who's sitting across from Meredith? Who? Ryan. Yeah, that was his desk.

But where was Creed? Creed didn't really have a desk yet. I don't know. When does Creed take over Ryan's desk, and when does Ryan move back to the annex? These are good questions. I know. Did Ryan, well, eventually remember we turned that closet in the hallway into Ryan's office, I feel like.

A little bit. That desk was kind of the catch-all, right? I feel like I've seen Devon there, I've seen Ryan there, I've seen Creed there. When does it become Creed's desk? Also in this episode, at the end, when people are filing out, we see an appearance of Luanne. Oh, there's Luanne. Luanne. Luanne was one of our stand-ins slash extras.

Who would normally sit in the annex, and people always say who is that. So Luanne walks by. That's right. I feel like the two things I want to tell you guys we're going to be dedicated to tracking in this rewatch is Mindy's hair, and when does Creed get his desk? Okay, so just know that. Someone out there probably already knows. They're going to write in and say, you guys, Creed sits there in episode.

Tell us. Tell us. Solve this mystery. Okay, Michael takes Dwight into the conference room here at the end, and he says he's been testing him all day, and he promotes Dwight to assistant regional manager. He gets no announcement, no raise, and no new office, but Dwight is so happy. He wights out to the on all of his business cards. It's so pure and sweet.

I know. It's so sweet, although Michael's like, it's not really a real thing, but it doesn't really matter. Dwight isn't hearing that part. Dwight doesn't care. He doesn't hear any words except assistant regional manager. And then this leads us to the famous Michael talking headline, would I rather be feared or loved, easy, both.

I want people to be afraid of how much they love me. I have seen that stitched on pillows. I have seen that on shirts. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me. Good writers. Yes. Such good writing. And that was the fight.

That was the fight. So next week, we will be back with the client. The client. This is maybe my favorite season two episode, although there's also the injury. I love the injury. You love the injury, Jenna. You wore a shirt like that you've bought online of the injury. I bought a shirt from Etsy.

Yeah. Of a grilled foot. Yeah. That you would wear. You would wear it a lot. It was like one of your favorite shirts. She didn't bother you. It didn't.

Did I wear it too often? No, it didn't. But it just made me laugh. There was a day that you showed up in your shirt with the grilled foot and I had a shirt that was like an inside joke on our show of Creed as an action figure in Hong Kong. Uh-huh. And we both... Do we realize we were maybe too big a fan of them?

We're like, what are we doing? We're just walking around in shirts from our show. So next week, we will be talking about not the injury, but the client. We'll see you then. See you then. 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 Peefer. And our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad-free versions of the show and our bonus episode's candy bag, go to StitcherPremium.com. For a free one-month trial of Stitcher Premium, use code, Office.