Office Ladies - The Search

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

This week we’re breaking down “The Search.” When Jim leaves Michael at a gas station to attend to baby Cece, Michael wanders around Scranton causing Dwight, Erin and Holly to go look for him. Meanwhile, the office has a caption contest to Pam’s drawings even though Gabe keeps trying to institute unfun rules. Brent Forrester sends in clips on what it was like to write this “The Office” meets “Sleepless in Seattle” episode. Jenna wonders about the meaning of doodles, Angela talks about the animals cast in the pet shop and the ladies break down who’s who in the pictures on the “THIEF!” wall. No need to send out an APB … Ask Pam Beesly… Did you see what we did- nevermind, enjoy this episode!  “The Meaning of Doodles” - https://99designs.com/blog/creative-inspiration/meaning-of-doodles/ Take a Writing Class with Brent Forrester: https://www.brentforrester.com/ Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestionFollow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPodCheck out Office Ladies Merch at Podswag: https://www.podswag.com/collections/office-ladies

I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on The Office together. And we're best friends. And now we're doing the Ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you. Each week we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you. We're The Office, ladies. Hello, Angela. Hi there. We need to go on a search. We sure do. For Michael Scott, who is just wandering around Scranton today. Yeah, he's going on a walkabout. It is season 7, episode 15. It's called The Search. It was written by Brent Forrester and directed by a new director, Michael Spiller. So nice. So nice. Michael is the loveliest. Well, you

know, he was a cinematographer and a director, which made him perfect for our show. Here's something that I didn't know, though. He was the cinematographer for the first four seasons of Sex and the City. Oh. Why didn't I know that? So I could pepper him with questions. I would have had so many questions. Right? This is before we Googled. I know. It wasn't before Google. Google was there, but it's before you and I Googled. We were not ladies who Google yet. Mm-mm. Michael also won an Emmy for Outstanding Direction for a Comedy Series for Modern Family. So we were in very good hands. How about a summary? Yep. When Jim leaves Michael at a gas station without his phone or wallet, Michael goes on a walkabout

around Scranton. Meanwhile, Dwight, Aaron, and Holly set out to find him. Back at the office, Pam's artwork on the office fridge inspires some silly captions from her coworkers, resulting in a caption contest at Gabe's expense. Are you ready for FastFact number one? I am. Well, this one is coming at you straight from Brent Forrester. Brent is awesome and his enthusiasm about writing these episodes is always such a delight. I love hearing from him. I know. He loves writing in general. He loves storytelling. Well, he sent in an audio clip about how this episode is the perfect rom-com. I got so lucky when I was assigned to write this episode because it's the climax of the Michael Holly romantic

subplot that's been running through the show for years. And the episode itself is structured like a classic rom-com. Holly denies that they're made for each other, but each beat of the story seems to prove that they are made for each other. And then they meet in this classic romantic comedy trope, the meeting on the rooftop of the Empire State Building from an affair to remember and sleepless in Seattle. But because it's the office, it's not a glamorous art deco setting. It's this seedy rooftop in Scranton. All of that story material was just handed to me. Greg and the writing staff came up with it and I was assigned to write it. And I get to say, written by Brent Forrester. It's funny when I saw that rooftop

kissing scene at the end of this episode, I had the thought, why did they pick such an ugly roof? And it was clearly intentional. They're like, this is the office version of the rom-com right Empire State Building. I recently rewatched sleepless in Seattle. It's so charming. It totally holds up. I don't remember that one. I think I'm mixing it up in my mind. Tom Yanks and Meg Ryan. I thought that was you got mail. Well, they did that later. They did that later. But sleepless in Seattle is so sweet. Oh my gosh, you have to watch it. Maybe we should watch it together. Maybe we should watch it and break it down. Okay. Put a pin in that. Brent also shared with us the caption contest storyline in this episode.

He said that idea came because Justin Spitzer, one of our other writers, had submitted a caption to the New Yorker Cartoon Contest, and they kept waiting to see if his caption was going to get picked, but he didn't win. And so they got to talking about it, joking about it, and they thought that seems like something Oscar would do. Oscar would submit a caption for a contest, but that eventually grew into this B story. And Brent said he thought it was perfect because every character was going to get at least one memorable moment because we were going to get to hear their caption or hear their thoughts on the contest. And it really worked. He said it was a great group B story storyline. Fast fact number two, you might notice Jim is not around much in

this episode. I noticed he was still off in Alaska shooting Big Miracle. You know, it was directed by Ken Quapas. We mentioned that last week. I got curious about the film because I'm like, John's been gone now for like three episodes. Yeah, what's he doing? What's he up there doing? I remembered that the movie was based on a true story of three California whales that got trapped in the ice in Alaska, and then everybody banded together to save the whales. But I found an audio clip. So he starred in this movie with Ted Danson, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Bell, and Ken Quapas starts out the audio clip. Here it is. In the northernmost town in our hemisphere, off the coast of Alaska, three California gray whales were discovered trapped in the ice. You

got to see this. Three gray whales are now trapped in walls of ice six inches thick. You have whales in trouble and you didn't call me. I didn't call you because there's nothing you can do. There's always something you can do. NBC put it on national news that evening. Within 24 hours, every news service sent reporters to Alaska. There were over 150 journalists that flew to Barrow to report this story. This media circus sort of grew on the ice. It captured the imagination of the world. And so everybody comes to the table to start an effort and a movement to save these whales. The Inupia people, oil companies, United States military. You ready to do this? Russia, Greenpeace activists. Why won't you give us a chance to get them out? Everyone is doing it for

their own reasons. But that's not always bad. We are all more similar than we're dissimilar. The right cause at the right time will always win out. There's so much like us. We get scared and we're vulnerable and we need help sometimes too. It is a really beautiful story. Okay. Thank you for listening to that whole clip of them promoting this movie because after I found it, I was crying. I was like, yes, the world needs this. This is so wonderful. Everyone came together. This movie got great reviews. It has a great tomato rating. It is a family film. I'm going to watch this with my family. I'll report back. Okay. Are you ready for Fastpack number three? I am. This one is a fan question from Jessica N in Rochester, New York.

Jessica would like to know, where did you film the Michael Lost in Wandering Scenes for this episode? Was it all in one area? Were there multiple locations? They did a really good job of stitching it all together so it looked like the same place in the same time of day. Well, Jessica, we checked in with Randy Cordray on this and guess what? This episode was a quote logistical nightmare. I bet they went to so many locations and they would have to move everybody every time. Yeah. There were 10 different locations for this episode. That's including actual restaurants and shops, but also just cars and shots on the street of Michael Wandering. We filmed this not only over multiple days, but over multiple weeks.

In order to clear John for his movie, we actually shot the scenes of him and Steve driving and then the scenes of them at the gas station the previous week when we were shooting the seminar. So we had to match that. Then a week later over multiple days, nothing was within walking distance from one another. That's a real gamble. Think about it. What if the day they shot with Steve and John the week before was super sunny? Then what if we got some weird weather surge and it was all overcast and stuff? Yeah, I know. Or if it had rained, which never happens, but could happen. Could happen. In fact, the minute you schedule something like this in film or television, this happens. Randy must have been so stressed out.

He had a big thank you. He said, quote, this episode truly showed the expertise of our beloved location manager, Kyle Alexander and his team. Randy said, I have raved about Kyle in the past, but this particular episode was a massive challenge, one that he delivered with perfection. He said, Kyle not only had to find suitable spaces to satisfy the needs of each scene creatively, but he also had to consider the entire shooting company in terms of parking, base camps, trailers, generators, proximity. Like we moved a couple times, but not too many times. He said he had a very small team. It was just himself, Christian Krieger and Anna Coates, just three people. Wow. Randy went on to say that they were one of his favorite departments to work

with. They were always drama free, which is good. He says, as I always say about putting together a crew for a comedy, quote, the last thing I want to see is drama. I will share more about each of the individual locations as we break them down, but we were everywhere from North Hollywood Studio City all the way to downtown LA. I can't wait. I love your location breakdowns, lady. Well, I got some fun little tidbits about them too. Okay. I love a tidbit. But before we go to break, Angela, I got this fan question in the fan mail inbox. I don't know where or when to ask you this. Oh my gosh. But it is a question for you. What? So I thought I'd throw it in. Okay. It's from Shannon S. in Grand Haven, Michigan. I watched a new girl episode about Jess's birthday.

In that episode, Angela guest starred. And as she was speaking to Zoe's character, she called her lady. Angela, was that scripted or just you? Just me. Yay. New girl was so much fun. I know I've talked about it before, but it really felt like our set in the way that we got everything as it was written. And sometimes we could play around a little bit and some improvs would make it in. But that was a fantastic and fun show to be a part of. And those guys are doing a podcast about that show now too, right? Yeah, they sure are. Hannah and Zoe and Lamorn, it's called Welcome to Our Show. Well, Shannon, you might want to check it out as a new girl fan. I'll have to go on it when they do my episode. You will. Call her lady again.

I have one little tidbit before we go to break. The original title for this episode was Lost. Oh, not the search, but Lost. I think I would have found that confusing. That makes me think of Lost the TV show. Oh, I would be. I don't know. I'm glad they changed it. Me too. I feel like the search is a little bit more positive sounding than Lost. Also, he's on a search. Yes. It's layered. Yes. A search for love. Really? Yeah. In the end. All right. Well, let's take a break. We'll be right back. Yeah. Kelly and Ryan are going to make a very important announcement. They got divorced over the weekend. And the whole bullpen is like, wait, what? When were

you married? Like, what are you talking about? I have some background catches for y'all. Yeah. If you go to three seconds, you will catch two people who are not ready for this scene to start. Who are they? They are not in character. They are. Number one, Rayne Wilson. He is putting his phone away quickly in his top left desk drawer. Okay. That's where he'd keep his phone busted. Number two, I am surfing the internet. Wow. Yeah. And at 41 seconds, Creed was playing Solitaire. Hmm. Angela, we got a fan question about this cold open from Kristen Pee in Indiana. Kristen wants to know, was there a different cold open originally planned for this episode? I noticed Jim and Michael are not in the cold open. Have they already left for their sales meeting?

Or maybe this cold open was originally meant to take place somewhere in the middle of the episode. That is a great question, Kristen. And really good background catches. I noticed that Michael and Jim weren't there either. I did go to the shooting draft because I was curious. And this scene was always the cold open, always in every draft that I read. But it was longer and it was immediately followed with Jim trying to get Michael out the door. Interesting. I want to read to you guys the extended part of the scene that was in the shooting draft because it really made me laugh, the Kelly and Ryan dialogue. So the line, Ryan, I changed my mind that Kelly says, would have been followed up with this. Ryan would have said, I know I'm ignoring it because you

change your mind every two seconds. And then Kelly would have said, well, I'm not going to have sex with someone who's not my husband. Then Ryan says, we should take baby steps, maybe start dating again. And Kelly said, I don't date divorced guys. There's always something wrong with them. This is very funny. And then it would have cut to Jim saying, Michael, come on. Interesting. All right. Michael is not leaving, by the way, because he's in the kitchen and he's asking Holly, when can they start dating? She broke up with AJ and he doesn't understand. Like, why can't they date? They're like magnets. They're meant to stick together. Holly says to Michael, look, I can't just date someone every time I move offices.

I get that. I don't know. I'm with Michael. We just like get together already. So we know these two are meant to be. Holly, you know it. I know it. We all know it. Before Jim leaves, he has a cute little flirty flirt. There's a flirty Jim Pam moment. Yeah, we threw one in there. He's taken one of Pam's doodles, which by the way, that's a big doodle. Can we talk about that? Aren't doodles usually little things you do in the corner of a piece of paper? This was a huge doodle. It was a whole printer. Maybe he enlarged it. Maybe it was smaller and he used the enlarge button. Also, they say that you can tell things about people about what they doodle. There's like personality tests. So Pam's doodling a printer. I'm so bummed right

now in this moment that we didn't Google that we didn't deep dive. I know what doodles mean about you. Yeah. I usually doodle a flower. What does that mean? I don't know, but I usually doodle a little cartoon of myself talking. Sam, Cassie, do you guys doodle? That's based on my old cartooning days. No, not really a doodler, Cassie. I doodled a lot in high school when I was listening to lectures, but I did just look up an article about what specific doodles mean. Oh, what do they mean? So this is 99designs.com. There is a people category. So drawing human figures indicates a successful person, someone with a healthy self-image who connects identity to a complete body. Wow. Yeah. That's great. What about people who draw plants or flowers? My second most popular doodle

is a tree. Okay. I drew a lot of trees in high school too, but I did find flowers. It is one of the most popular drawing motifs. I'm basic. But it does say specific types of flowers. Do you remember what types of flowers or what they look like? I do like daisies. Okay. So circular flowers with rounded petals. And sometimes I do them on a vine, you know? Okay. So circular flowers is one of the most positive flower doodles. Hey, you're a positive person. That sounds a lot like Angela. Yeah. Did you find out anything about trees, Cassie? Yeah. I'm trying to look that up. If you draw trees next to homes, it's a sense of security. Oh. And it also represents growth in life. We're very positive doodlers. That's what I found out. Oh, that's the title of our next book,

Positive Doodlers. Wait, I have a question. What does it say about people who draw appliances or like... Yeah, or electrical equipment. Equipment. I'm not seeing... I'm seeing vehicles if you draw like trucks or boats. That's like you want to escape. You want to go on vacation. Okay. I often doodle a palm tree on an island. Same. Same with the ocean and the sun. It's even in our book, The Office BFFs, because I doodled while I was in the background of seeing a palm tree on an island. I don't want to know the meaning of Oscar's doodles, which you also put in our book. I know, he always would draw me and Brian, but he would draw us as the accountants, like up to Mischief. Well, Cassie, let us know if you find out why Pam was compelled to doodle a giant

printer on a full-sized piece of paper. Yeah, like size of doodle. Yeah. Well, Jim is very proud of Pam's doodle, and he has put it on the fridge. Yeah. We are now in the car with Michael and Jim. I'm going to call this scene under the nose camera angle. Sorry, fellas, but that lipstick camera was real low. Yeah, we used an insert car for this. That meant that we were actually towing Jim's Subaru. The camera was all lipstick cameras, like you mentioned. We also had LAPD working some traffic control for us as we pulled that car down the street at four minutes, 13 seconds, you know, when Jim turns on the radio for some music. That was a track that was owned by Universal Music, so we were able to get by with only paying $1,500. Oh, I know. Remember last week,

we talked about music budget. Big money, big money. Yeah. So there is a moment in this scene that I felt like was me on any road trip. In fact, I feel like I have said this out loud or a version of it, maybe not so angry to my husband. I really need you to hear it. It's when Michael says he has to pee. I need to pee. No, you don't. Yeah, I do. My word against yours. All right. Well, we'll be there in 10 minutes. What part of I need to pee? Do you not understand? I'm upset. My bladder is full. There is no telling what I might do right now, all over the inside of your precious little car. All right. Well, if I see a gas station, I'll pull over. Well, I hope I make it. I feel like I've said, well, I hope I make it. I feel like I have. Oh, you guys,

I'm horrible on a road trip. I can't drink anything because I have to pee like every 30 minutes. Even if I don't drink anything, I have to pee every 30 minutes. Well, this is why I like road tripping with you because you don't sass me at all when I have to pee. You're like, let's find a spot. I know. Let's do it. Well, Jim does stop and while Michael is in the bathroom, Jim gets a phone call from Helene. Guess what? She locked CeCe in her car on the way to the doctor. Yeah. Jim freaks out. He's like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I got it. I'll be right there. Yeah. He knocks on the door. He tries to get Michael's attention. Nothing. Nothing coming from the bathroom. It must be the most soundproof door in the world. So Jim just leaves.

Well, he does tell a man that's getting gas. Listen, there's going to be a guy come out of there, please tell him I had to go. And then of course, the guy just makes no effort and leaves. Yes. He has a shirt on that says Ben. So I'm calling him Ben Gas Station Guy. He was played by Jesse Mackie, a great actor. He's been on better things. This is us, Parks and Recreation. He played the dad and the revival of Saved by the Bell. It's very clear that Jim thinks he works there, maybe, but he doesn't. If you go to five minutes, 40 seconds, I don't know why this made me laugh, but you guys, it made me laugh every time I watched this episode and I rewatched this episode like three times. And every single time when Michael walks out of the bathroom with that

giant blue stick that's attached to the key, I one time you guys went to get my teeth cleaned and I had to pee and I asked the dental hygienist, do you guys have a bathroom key? She's like, yeah, one second, let me get it for you. It was attached to the biggest spatula and I was like, what's up with this? And I guess people kept leaving the key in the bathroom. So they just were like, what do we have here? And then in their kitchen, they just tied it to a spatula. I loved that detail when I saw it and made me laugh. We've all carried that giant thing. We've all had to carry like a spatula to the bathroom. We had two fan catches. I guess I'm calling them story logic questions because Don W from Clifton, Virginia said,

Jim leaves Michael at the gas station, but why didn't Jim tell the documentary crew to relay the message to Michael rather than talking to a random person? Oh my gosh, yes. And then Jessica M from Dayton, Ohio says, we don't see the documentary crew in the backseat of Jim's car. So we have to assume they drove a separate car to the gas station. Why didn't they just take Michael back to the office? In both cases, I kind of get it. I think the documentary crew really doesn't get involved. If Jim left Michael, they're not supposed to. They're supposed to literally just watch and not participate and not change the outcome of things that are happening. I would have maybe though, actually loved a moment where Michael looked at them and said,

where'd Jim go? And they're like, maybe he calls them out like seriously guys, come on. I agree. Jim is now going to call Pam and let her know about CC. He's like, don't worry. It's all okay. I have a background catch. I have one too. It's a busted. Is it at five minutes, 56 seconds? Is it you playing Presale in the background of this whole scene? Yes, I move a whole stack of cards over. I'm not trying to hide it at all. Not at all. Jim is going to tell Pam that he left Michael at a gas station on Bennett Street. I went to Google Maps. There is a Bennett Street in Scranton, but I could not find a gas station. Yeah. Pam says, don't worry. She's going to put out an APB and ask Pam Beasley. And then she's like, nothing like Jim is silent. She's like,

did you not hear me? He goes, no, I heard you. I was like, so harsh. Pam had some candy bag alts for this line. You know, she did. What? Yeah, you did. Just for this APB? That's right. Okay. All right. What else did I say? You said, got it. I will pass that information on to someone who cares even more than me. Pam says, here's another one. Got it. Give me the address and I will organize a search party of people that are not me. Okay. And here's another one. Oh, speaking of babies in crisis, what's the address? I'll form a search party. Okay. Which I don't think Pam would have said because. No. You know what? That brings up remnants of the Tittay. The Tittay. The Tittay from the birthing episode. And then the last one was,

I'm sure he's smart enough to find a way. Actually, you know what? You better give me the address. I like that line. Speaking of the gas station, the employee who works there, who was played by Eugene Cordero, who's been in everything, the good place, crazy ex-girlfriend, Veep, Brooklyn 99, he will not let Michael use the phone. No. But then Michael will not give up. So he's like, fine, you can make a call. But then Michael doesn't know the number for the office anyway, because he can't use his speed dial. He only has it on speed dial. I mean, how many phone numbers do you know? Because I feel like this is me. I know like my parents phone number. I know obviously like my husband's phone number. Jenna, I don't think I know your phone number. I have

actually number in my head and I don't know if it's yours or my sister's. I do know it. I can see it. Okay. But yeah, I know like four phone numbers, I think. Is yours? No. Whose number is that? I don't know. Wait, is yours? Yes. Oh my gosh, that's great. Well, you know. Hold on, what is your number? I have to know. You were close. I was. No, we're near. You got the area. Oh, I got the area code. I mean, big whoop. What number was I called? Oh, it's my accountant. Hey, I mean, come on, that's close. Oh my God. That is hilarious. That's my accountant's phone number. I mean, listen, listen, I have to call that number a lot. Like when I'm in a bind or I have a question. But technically you're calling an accountant. I'm calling an accountant. Well, when we reached out

to Brent about this episode, he wanted to share with us about a joke he pitched for the scene and what he learned about writing for our show in this moment. So we're shooting the scene where Michael Scott is stranded at the gas station and he borrows the gas station attendant's phone to call the office. And we had written in the script that Michael realizes he doesn't know the number to the office because he always just presses the word office in the contacts on his phone. And Steve Carell was prepared to perform that. And right before we were going to shoot it, I pitched this extra joke. I said, what if Michael looks at the guy's phone and he sees contacts and he sees the guy has office in his contacts and Michael presses office and then the phone on

the counter in front of the gas station attendant rings and the gas station attendant glares at him. And I felt very clever for pitching this. And Steve said, no, Michael is not that dumb. He knows that the number to his office is not on this guy's phone. So comedy fans, there's a great lesson here. The office is revered in great part because of the tone of realism, what we sometimes call naturalism. And the secret of naturalism is when you must choose between funny and real, air on the side of real. That's the great lesson that I learned from the great actors on the office. Well, Angela, I have two more things to offer about this scene. Okay. I've got a gas station location tidbit. Not a breakdown, a tidbit. It's a tidbit. It's a breakdown slash tidbit. And then

I also have a standards and practices. Which one would you like first? Standards and practices, please. All right. Fan question from Corey E and Denver, Colorado. In rewatching this episode, I noticed that when Michael goes into the gas station over his shoulder, there is a grasshopper lawn care sign behind him. That is my friend's Pennsylvania based lawn care company. I asked her about it and she said, you guys did a prop drop. Oh, this is true. Phil Shea got this actual sign from a local company. He had it put up in the background of the scene to give it a kind of local credibility. However, Randy said that originally the sign had the real phone number for the business. It was like 1-800-LONECARE, I think, and it is on the sign. And standards and

practices flagged it. They said this is not a cleared phone number and you're going to have to digitally remove it and post production. So much sass from them always. I know. But at least this time they didn't have to type any lip flap curse words. I wonder if they were bombed. I wonder if they're like, oh, just a sign. Actually, I think that their email said, please digitally remove the f***ing phone number from the sign. It is not cleared. As previously stated. Exactly. Please lose the f***ing phone number. Here is your location tidbit. We shot this at Civic Center Gas Station in Minimart. It's in Van Nuys. It is now closed, but their Yelp review page is still up. And it had one four-star review and three one-star reviews. Were they at the bathroom?

Here is one of the one-star reviews. Okay. Quote. Bathroom gets seven out of ten, mostly for a quiet, enjoyable time. What? What are you doing in there? My friend was banging on the door to get my attention and I couldn't hear a thing. Oh, come on. Come on. Made my experience peaceful. The cashier is another story, though. Not only was he rude, suggested my friend abandoned me there, my best friend, but when I needed to use his phone, he didn't have any of my numbers on speed dial for me to call a ride. Turns out my friend did leave me something about a baby emergency. Who wrote that? Was it one of our writers or was that a fan of the show? No, it was just a fan of the show. That's brilliant. Brilliant, right? Yes. I really liked that little

tidbit. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Well, Michael's going to have a talking head where he says, you know what? This is good. I'm actually going to take this opportunity to go walk about and no cameras. He shoots the cameras away, which he never does. There was a candy bag alt for this talking head. Oh, please. This is what Michael says. This was not the day for one of your prankaroonies, Jim. I would have loved this yesterday. I would have laughed my butt off. But you know what? This is a blessing in the skies. I'm going walk about blessing in the skies. A blessing in the skies. I really like it when Michael gets phrases wrong. I do too, because I can relate. I might have said blessing in the skies. Back at the office, a search party

is forming. It is going to consist of Holly, Aaron, and Dwight. Yes. Dwight is going to say that he can't drive though, because he's got a car full of Foxmeat. I can't even tell you how many alts they had for that line. For why he can't drive? Like two pages of alts. I'm not even kidding. I don't doubt it. I'm just going to give you three, because there were so many. Okay. Here they were. You drive. I have a car full of Scarecrow heads. You drive. I have a car full of pennies. Stupid bank only lets me convert 10,000 a day. You drive. I have a car full of Christmas ornaments. I'm returning 30 days and I have the receipts. There were two pages of these. I want more. I wish there were more. There were. I just didn't know if I would bore you

guys if I just read a ton of them. They're very funny. My goodness. Well, listen, I think we should take a break. When we come back, we're going to learn all about sticky quips. Oh, yes. And we're going to see who has the best instincts for finding Michael. We're in the kitchen at eight minutes, five seconds. We get a nice shot of Pam's doodle. Randy shared with us that at this time, Henry Sane, our graphics designer, had left our show to direct a feature. We all loved Henry. He was amazing. But for this episode, we added a new member to our art department, Michael Bay Youth. And he would be our graphic artist for this episode. So that is who designed this doodle. Pam is very tickled because she

notices that people have added captions to the bottom of her doodle. Yeah. And they're quite funny. So she's actually going to walk into the bullpen and say, guys, these are fun. This starts a whole caption contest runner for the episode, and everyone really wants to get involved, especially Daryl. Yeah, apparently Daryl writes his own captions for Family Circus, and his daughter cracks up. He's really good at it. I did a little mini deep dive on caption contests. Oh, I knew you would. So first of all, this episode of The Office appears on the Wikipedia page about caption contests and the history of caption contests. Yes. So according to this Wikipedia page, the first printed caption contest seems to have appeared in Life Magazine,

which ran from 1883 to 1936. But this was fascinating to me. Okay. They were not called caption contests. They were called picture title contests or picture headline contests. And here's why. Why? The word caption didn't exist. Come on. It didn't. Who invented the word caption? I don't know, but it did not show up in the English language until the first half of the 20th century. Huh. Now you go on Instagram, people post a photo and say caption this. Yeah. You better be careful when you write that sometimes. Well, that is true. And I've got a little fun fact as well. Okay. OfficeTelly.com ran a caption contest after this episode aired. They put up the drawing of the saber printer and people could submit captions. And here were a

couple that I thought were fun. Was there a winner? There was. And the winner got a prize package. They got a DVD, The Office Overtime, a Creed Thoughts shirt, and a Dunder Mifflin coffee tumbler. So fun. Right? Let's hear some. Okay. So the contest page is down, but some people had also submitted their captions in the comments, which are still up. Brick wrote, quote, I work so hard so my son can become a scanner. That was one. And then Jordan went with, Hey, look over here. I'm just about as white and square as Gabe. So he really went. He really went for Gabe. In the direction of the episode. Dwight, Holly, and Aaron are searching for Michael. They start with the gas station. They asked the gas station attendant which way

Michael went. And as it turns out, it's exactly where Holly would have gone. She had predicted that he might have gone in the direction of the bakery just for the smell. And that's the way he went. Yeah. At nine minutes and 37 seconds, you see this sign for a bakery. The thing that Holly sees that was a fake bakery doesn't exist. We made that sign. And I guess past the bakery, Michael's going to wander into a pet store where he's going to start talking to the animals. This was a real pet store on Victory Boulevard in Burbank, California. It was filled with animals, but we didn't use their animals. We brought in our own animals. They were provided by Bob Dunn's Animal Services. You know, we used them all the time. Our head trainer was Denise Sanders.

Randy sent us the photos of the puppies that they cast. It's so cute. I'll put it in stories. We have all the pictures of these little dogs. That's the job I want. I want the job where I look through the puppy pictures and I pick puppies for a day of work. We don't know the names of the tiny golden retrievers, but the Yorkie was played by Amos. Michael talks to a macaw who was named Hook. He talks to a snake. We don't know the snake's name. Sorry, guys. And we used two puppies to play the quote licking puppy. They were very cute. You know, we got a fan question from Natasha C. in Dallas, Texas. When Michael was in the pet store holding the puppy, the puppy licks his nose. Was the puppy trained to do this or was this just perfect timing and improv on Michael's part?

I'll tell you what, Natasha, all of the little pet store vignettes were scripted. They sound so off the cuff, but everything, the things he says to the snake, the thing he says to the macaw, all scripted, including the part where the puppy was supposed to lick his nose. The puppy licks his nose exactly in the spot it's supposed to. I don't know how they did it. How did they pull that off? I don't know because it's not supposed to lick them at first. It's supposed to lick them in the middle, all scripted. And Steve did such a great job of making that just feel like 100% spontaneous. I know all of it. Back at the office, Pam was like, well, if I knew you guys loved caption contests, I would have drawn something different that you could really have fun with.

And so she does. She draws two large dogs on an island with two palm trees. But before anybody can give their captions, Gabe kind of shuts it down. Yeah, he's a total fun stopper. He says they can do it if they can agree on some ground rules. Number one, no insulting the company. Number two, no pop culture references. And finally, they have to write their captions on Dunder Mifflin Saber's sticky quips. Yes. And then Gabe has a talking head. He says sticky quips are fun. They're safe. They're handy. I like to use sticky quips as regular post-it notes when I'm in a fun mood. I mean, not every day. There was an alt for this talking head where Gabe simply just said,

I don't have a lot of responsibility here. Oh, wow. We had a fan question from Joshua P. in Cincinnati. Did sticky quips already exist out there somewhere? Or did Phil Shea have to find a way to create them? Well, Joshua, they did not exist. Let's give you a visual of a sticky quip. It's basically a post-it note, but it's shaped like an idea bubble. Like an idea bubble. Yeah. And Phil Shea had to design them. And he used Earl Hay Press to manufacture and package them. But I found what I'm calling a Reddit catch. Oh. When I googled sticky quips, I found this catch on Reddit. It's pretty fantastic. Let's hear it. It says, at 15 minutes and 32 seconds in the pilot episode of the office, Jim has a doodle taped to his

computer monitor. It's while he's eating some jello. Okay. And there are four mini sticky notes with word bubbles drawn on them with captions inside. So someone has captioned this doodle, or four people have captioned this doodle using sort of the original sticky quip. Huh. It was kind of cool. Yeah. Well, we asked Brent about the name sticky quips. And this is what he had to say. He said, that's just one of those two word phrases that comedy writers love. It's got multiple K sounds, plus a T and a P, five plosives in two words. That's comedy power, people. Angela, could you write a good caption for a picture? Because I could not. I just am not that clever. I do enjoy it. I like it. Yes. And they often do it at school. You know, our son is in

sixth grade, they do a caption contest and he won one week. Really? Oh my gosh. I'm very impressed by that. I think maybe that is the same thing that would hold me back as an improviser. I just get in my head about it. And I can't, it doesn't flow for me. Oh, I love a good caption contest. Well, you're an improv person. I feel like that makes so much sense. Michael's getting hungry. He's going to stop at a hot dog stand, but he doesn't have any money. So he offers his watch. The hot dog guy says no. Michael's like, well, what do you do with the unsold hot dogs? And the guy says they throw him away at the end of the day. And Michael's like, why don't you throw one into my mouth? Right. I loved the hot dog guy. Yeah, he was fantastic. He was played by Chris Denuzio,

and he's been on the mentalist new girl law and order, but I stumbled across his bio and listened to this. Quote, after graduating Princeton with a bachelor's degree in history, Chris had a brief stint in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills. What? Then he moved into the investment banking world. And during this time, he also embarked on an acting and writing career. Such like a diverse background. I know. History degree, NFL, investment banking, actor. I feel like you've covered all of it. Here's a little location breakdown for you of the hot dog stand. It is a real place called Larry's Chili Dog. It is on Burbank Boulevard in Burbank, California. It has 4.5 stars on Yelp. It is open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. They also serve breakfast.

I looked at the menu and here are some of the hot dogs you can get at Larry's Chili Dog. For breakfast, you can get them from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Okay. They also have breakfast burritos. They have breakfast food. But if you want one of their hot dogs for dinner, you're out of luck. But here's what you can have. A chili dog, a corn dog, a veggie dog, just a regular hot dog if you want. But then you can get the New York dog, which comes with grilled onion sauce and spicy mustard. You can also get a Chicago dog, which includes green relish, mustard, tomatoes, onions, celery, salt, dill pickles, and spicy peppers. Gross. Chicago, what are you doing? What's happening? Settle down. Chicago, what's going on? Would you like a Reuben dog? Because that comes

with sauerkraut, Russian dressing, and melted Swiss cheese and spicy mustard. Oh, my Lord. I mean, it's worse than the Chicago dog. And finally, the Hawaiian dog. Does it have pineapple? It does. Grilled pineapples, onions, and barbecue sauce. I'm intrigued. I might try that one. But here's the kicker. You can also get a puppy patty. If you bring your dog, they'll give you a little beef patty for your dog. And they serve Starbucks coffee. I don't know how, but they do. We'll put this on your tour of Dunder Mifflin Sides, guys, if you come out this way. Yeah. Go get a hot dog at Larry's Chili Dog in Burbank. Michael's going to move on because he sees a huge banner advertising a giant egg roll. This catches his eye. I'll let you know these two spots were

miles away from each other. There was no way that he could actually walk between these two places. Dwight, Erin, and Holly are still searching for Michael. Now we're at a grocery store with them. Dwight comes out and Holly, I guess, is signing up for a new cell phone plan at a little kiosk, like a pop-up tent in the parking lot. Yeah, she's really only doing it because she wants to get the little stress ball. I guess they're giving away free stress balls because she's given a fake name, Fanny Smellmore. And the cell phone lady is like, wow, you must be friends with Orville Tutenbacher. These two are so meant for each other. Yeah. Orville Tutenbacher is Michael's millionaire character who farts popcorn. Dwight and Erin

know immediately that Michael's been there. Dwight starts to realize that Holly might just be the key to finding Michael because the two of them think just alike. Yes. So they're going to ask Holly, where did he go next? Where? And Holly sees the same giant egg roll sign and says, are there egg rolls really that big? She's going to wander over there and Dwight and Erin follow her. Before we leave this scene, I do want to give a shout out to our guest star who played the cell phone lady, Amy Height. She has a couple of office connections. She was in Hello Ladies with Stephen Merchant and Rutherford Falls with Ed Helms. Look at that. She was great. I love it. They just miss Michael at the Chinese restaurant. He's just finishing up his food and he's going

to have to do a dine and dash, or at least he tries to. Yeah, he's too honest for that. I know. And he thinks he should get some points for that honesty. They're like, no, you tried to steal food. And he ate a lot of food. The number three. We had a fan question from Bennett H in Salt Lake City, Utah. Was the Chinese restaurant where Michael tried to dine and dash a real restaurant? And if so, which one? Yes, it was a real restaurant. It still exists. In the show, we called it Mr. Choose Chinese Food Restaurant, but it is actually Kung Pao China Bistro. It is on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, California, although it is now called Mr. O's. Do you remember back when we did the christening episode? I told you about the woman who has a blog. It's called I am not a

stalker and she visits locations from TV shows and movies. All right. She went here. Yeah. She got all kinds of pictures of the restaurant. She said the owner was so nice and told her that the reason the office picked this restaurant was because there was a big parking lot next store for all the production vehicles. That sounds right. Yeah, that's why they got picked. Shortly after Michael leaves, Dwight and Aaron and Holly show up. And guess what? They see Michael's photo hanging on the wall. He's holding a little sign that says thief. Go to 16 minutes, you guys, because you are going to see a lot of familiar faces or at least a lot of familiar faces for us, I guess. We had a fan catch from Sessia Z in London, Ontario, Canada. Who noticed that you

can see Creed's picture on the wall? But if you look to the picture on the left, it looks like there is another picture of Creed with a black wig on and he's smiling. I found this hilarious. Then we had a fan question from Amy D in Kirkland, Washington. Who were the people in the thief pictures? Jessica N from Rochester, New York wants to know if any of them are crew members. Yes, you guys. I spotted Kelly Cantley. She's in the top row, third one over. I spotted Laverne, our makeup artist. She was next to Creed. That's who I noticed. I had a hard time seeing the pictures clearly. It's so quickly. I tried to even take a picture of it and zoom in, but then it got blurry. I don't know. Did you notice anyone else? I thought I saw Brian Whittle,

but again, it went by so quickly, but Laverne gets a nice big featured shot. She does, yes. I really want to give a shout out to Ben Wang, who played the Chinese restaurant waiter. He has been in Legion, fresh off the boat, law and order and law and order SVU. You know, I love a law and order alum. Ben was really awesome. Back at the office, nobody is using Gabe's stick equips. They're not doing the caption contest that he wanted because guess what they are doing? They're instant messaging each other. Phyllis stopped being able to minimize her screen or make it go to sleep was the funniest thing. And this is when we noticed that people were using stick equips. Angela, they were using them to

put notes on Gabe's back in a very juvenile manner. And we got a fan question from Mikayla G in State College, Pennsylvania, who said, when you see the stick equips on Gabe's back during the caption contest, why is douche spelled D-O-O-S-H? Could it have been an issue with standards and practices? Oh my gosh. Please tell me you have an email about this, please. Here's what Randy said. I was shocked. He said, we did not get any standards and practices notes over the captions or about the word douche. He says, I can't remember why the spelling was changed, but it must have been a choice made on the day. So believe it or not, standards and practices had nothing to say about this. And Randy shared with us the graphic design they

put on all of our computers to look like that we had been IM-ing. And I'm going to put those in stories. Oh yeah, because they have all the captions. They have tons of captions that different members in the office came up with. Gabe starts reading all the captions from the IM chat. And basically, they're all either at the expense of Saber or Gabe himself. Yeah, they're not very nice. Completely against the rules. They're really awful. Why is everybody so mean? So mean to Gabe. I didn't get it. The winning caption is, quote, is that a palm tree or did Gabe get skinnier? Either way, let's pee on it. No one knows who wrote it, you know, because their screens have been shut down. Yeah. Gabe won't say. Well, we know. Angel's going to have a talking head that says,

please, it was easy once I decided I wanted the dog to piss on Gabe. Very crass of Angela Martin, I think to say the word piss, don't you? Yeah, now that you mention it. Well, I had to know where their candy bag alts for this talking head. And yes, there were. There were a lot. I'm going to share two of them. All right. Angela, please, I'm quite humorous. These people would know that if any of them made my Christmas card list. Oh, Angela does a funny Christmas card, but doesn't send it to anyone in the office. And then the next one is, please, I know for a fact, Gabe has had far worse things written about him on the walls of our bathroom, and many other bathrooms around Scranton. Oh, so there's there's something in the women's room

at Dunder Mifflin about Gabe. Well, Michael is still lost. He's wandering around, but he's going to try to escape the camera crew. He's going to run down an alley. Yeah. This scene was shot in downtown Los Angeles. That's where we are now on location, but we don't know where he's going. We don't. But guess who has an idea, even though she doesn't realize it. It's Holly. Yeah. She's going to say maybe we should go up somewhere high and we might be able to see Michael wandering around down below. Dwight thinks that's a ridiculous idea. And Holly just wanders off on her own. She's going to do it herself. Yeah. Dwight is going to go to a bowling alley. Erin is going to follow Holly. Is Erin going to finally come around? I mean, she started off this

episode with such a snarky talking head about Holly, but I think she's starting to get it. Well, I'm sorry. If you do not warm up to them as a couple after you see this next scene, I don't know what's wrong with you. Even Randy in his email to us, he was writing out all his facts about this episode and he said, I have to pause here and tell you that I sobbed when I saw Michael and Holly reunited on this roof. It's so emotional. It's such a sweet scene. I do want to point out that Holly apparently had to climb 15 flights of stairs. I know. What? You know, we had a fan catch from Yamina in France. Quote, we clearly see Holly walking in high heels all throughout this episode. But when she's walking up the stairs and finally sees Michael, her shoes are different. The heels

are not as high when they're kissing at 20 minutes and 38 seconds. Why was this? I do not know why. What a fantastic catch. But it is true. If you look at 19 minutes and 24 seconds as Holly is walking away from Dwight, she has high heels on. But then when she's in the stairwell and on the roof at 19 minutes and 34 seconds, she's in some little kitten heels. I think it's a safety thing. I think they didn't want her wearing high heels on the top of a building. Or on those stairs, which looks a little precarious. As she's walking up the stairs, she's actually only walking on her toes because I think the stairs had little slats and I think her heel would have gotten stuck. Oh, there it is. I think you're right. It was a safety issue. We mom

detective it. We really did. Mom detectives of it. How do you say that? Detective did it? We mom detective did it. We did it. We did it. We did it. The location for this romantic reunion was the rooftop and stairwell of the May Fair Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. If you're visiting, it's on Seventh Street. Brent shared with us about this scene. I thought this was such a cool thing that he pointed out. He talks about the tone of all the scenes and how this one is different from any other in the whole episode. Let's hear it. I remember the energy of the actors in the A story was very fun. It was Rainn Wilson, Ellie Kemper, Amy Ryan, and Steve Carell. We're zipping around the city and shooting these fun little set pieces in a parking lot, in a restaurant. The energy is

very elevated until the scene on the rooftop. Normally, when you're shooting on location, there's a fair amount of shouting among the crew. They're trying to convey info outdoors, but on this set, on that scene, the crew was whispering. I remember I walked on to set like a doofus yapping about something, and I immediately went silent. I looked around. Why is everyone being so quiet? I saw Amy and Steve in the distance. The crew had given them a lot of space out of respect for what they were doing. They were great actors enacting real love between these two characters. The energy was sacred. It's such a great scene. They have this moment where she just finally melts and they kiss, Erin sees it, she's smiling, and you just know

finally, finally these two are back together. Also, just as a fan of the show, I was a total audience member when I rewatched this, and I was so emotional for Michael that he finally met his someone. Oh, so awesome. We had a fan question, though. Oh, well, this doesn't sound good. What? From Jade B in Nova Scotia, Canada, who said, How could Michael get lost in the small town that he's from? Why would he need to go to the top of a building to figure out where he is? This never made sense to me. And Mariah L from Colorado Springs agrees. Mariah added, In the client, Michael made fun of Jan for not knowing her way around Scranton and said he spent his whole life here. I realized that the writers wanted to find a way to get Holly to realize

that Michael really is her soup snake. So maybe the story makes sense if you think that Michael is so depressed and out of sorts that he really could get lost in his own hometown. I have to say, why are you making that face? She's making that face like, you know, like when your mom is maybe talking about someone, but your mom doesn't normally gossip, but maybe she's saying something gossipy and she makes a face like bless his heart. I don't think they're wrong. You don't think they're wrong. I think it's a little bit of a stretch. And by the end, I don't care. By the time they're kissing, I don't care. But I will admit, I thought about it. I thought, how is he so lost in his own city? You know, what's interesting is when I watched it,

I didn't think about that at all. Really? Yeah. I watched it and I just thought, this is someone who is having a little bit of a life crisis, right? He thinks he's at a big crossroad with Holly and things are finally going to happen. And when she keeps pushing him away, he just really is searching for it all to make sense. And to me, it just worked. It's like he comes out, he could have found his way back to the office, but I think he wants to go on this walkabout. I think it's intentional. You disagree. I just think like there's got to be some sort of, I mean, if you were lost, wouldn't you go up to a person and ask how far am I from this landmark that we all know? Well, here's what I'm saying. I don't think Michael was physically lost. I think

he was emotionally lost. Oh, look what I did there. I guess. I don't know. Jade, Mariah, I see you, I hear you, but doesn't the kiss just make you not care? Oh, the minute she sees him. I mean, she sobs. She's crying. The minute you see her know. Amy Ryan, my gosh, and Steve Carell. Very good. Very good. This episode ends with a tag. We're back at Dundra Mifflin, and Gabe is reading all of the captions. Guess what? We're going to end this episode with standards and practices, Angela. I bet. Because at 21 minutes and six seconds, Gabe says, bullshit. And here was the note. Please tell me it says lip flap. As previously mentioned, please bleep the underlined completely with no beginning or end consonant sounds and blur

the visible lip flap when Gabe says bullshit and shit is underlined. So we're allowed to see and hear bull, but we have to bleep the underlined, which was the rest of it. Nothing makes me happier than these standards and practices emails. I could almost just put them in a book as like a coffee table book. Oh, that's a good idea. Well, listen, thank you so much for joining us on the search. A big thank you to Brent Forrester and Randy Cordray. That's right. And you guys, Brent has some wonderful comedy writing classes. You can find them at BrentForrester.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next week with some major PDA major. Oh my gosh. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.

Office Ladies is produced by Ear Wolf, Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Cody Fisher. Our producer is Cassie Jerkins. Our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubico. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad-free versions of Office Ladies, go to StitcherPremium.com. For a free one-month trial at Stitcher Premium, use code, OFFICE.