Office Ladies - Garage Sale

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

This week we're breaking down “Garage Sale.” Dunder Mifflin is having a big garage sale and Michael plans to propose to Holly. Meanwhile Dwight goes on a quest to get the most expensive item at the garage sale by starting out with trading only a thumbtack. Jenna breaks down where the inspiration for this episode came from, and Angela gives us a table-by-table breakdown of everything the Dunder Mifflin crew is trying to sell, including Michael’s unforgettable tiny broken plasma screen TV and more. Then, Jenna does a deep dive on Boccardo Jewelers, Angela gives us international Garage Sale info, and the ladies answer fan questions about Michael’s big proposal, and yes there is a safety meeting involved. Office Ladies listeners, this episode is great and you don’t even need to save up 3 years worth of your salary to enjoy it. Paper Clip For A House TED Talk link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s3bdVxuFBs 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. Hi there.

Today we're going to talk about garage sale. We are. And you know what? I have to say, it kind of feels like we're sitting in a garage sale. It really does. We need to share for a minute, I think, that we are recording on the very last day that Ear Wolf has its studio. As we sit here, there are folks moving tables out.

There's a whole area where there's just misplaced cups and coffee mugs and different things. And it's like, there's a little sign, take if you want it. Yeah. They're being packed up. I just boxed up my desk. My desk that I was so excited to get just a few months ago. I know. They're taking pictures off the walls.

It kind of feels like we're sitting in a rummage sale. And I'm a little sad, I have to say, to say goodbye to this place where we created the podcast and we had so many wonderful memories in this little studio. And truth be told, we don't even know where we're recording next week. But that's what we're doing this afternoon. We're going to try to find a new place to record and the show will go on. And thankfully, me and Jenna and Cassie and Sam, we're all in it together. We will find a place, even if it's just a nice, you know, hang out in one of our garages.

But we're a little sad today, sad, mad, sad, sad, mad, sad, mad, sad, mad. Yeah. Jenna does not like change, you guys. No. It makes you sad, mad. It makes you sad, mad. All right. But this is a wonderful episode.

I just wanted to share with you guys, though, what's going on around us as we record garage sale. We're sort of sitting in a garage sale. Well, this episode was season seven, episode 19. It was written by John Vidi and directed by Steve Carell. I was so tickled to discover that he directed this episode that included such a momentous moment for his character. Yeah.

Wow. I had forgotten that. Me too. And then when I saw it, I was like, oh, then I had all these memories, you know? And he took such care with all of those scenes. We'll get to them. Well, here is your summary. In this episode, Dunder Mifflin is throwing a garage sale in the warehouse.

Dwight tries to trade his way to the best item in the garage sale, but gets bested by Jim. Meanwhile, Michael plans to propose to Holly. However, she might need to move to Colorado to take care of her aging parents. So let's get into fast fact number one. This was Amy Ryan's last episode of The Office. This was it, her last appearance. And here's a fun tidbit.

Holly's first episode that she appears in and her last episode both contain proposals. There's Andy and Angela in her first episode, which was Goodbye, Toby. And now Holly and Michael in this one. Oh, that's such a great detail. I know. Amy did an interview with Fulcher and she said this about the episode, quote, the script was so sweet that it made us all have a good cry, coupled with the fact that it was the start of Steve's departure and it was my own, yeah, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

And that was so true. So true. And boy, when I watched this episode, Angela, I sobbed. It came over me. I wasn't even expecting it. Same. I went back and I read the shooting draft. You guys should know, usually when I go back and look at the shooting draft, there's also

the table draft and there's maybe one or two little rewrites and tweaks. And then we get to the shooting draft, right? This episode was pretty much exactly as it was at the table read. Wow. Yeah. And there's barely any candy bag alts at all. There was like one for Pam. That was it.

It is as it was written. It is so beautifully written. I cried reading the shooting draft. Angela, do you remember the AV club writer, Miles McNutt, who we talked about last week? Yes. How he did not care for Todd Packer? No, Miles was not a fan. Well, he gave this episode an A minus.

Hey. And he called it a quote, spiritual successor to Casino Night. So Miles really liked this one. Yeah. And so this episode was voted the 20th best overall episode of the entire series by Office Tally fans. And I mean, we made 201 episodes and this was number 20. This was a very well liked episode is what I'm getting at.

Now, fast fact number two, you know, at the end of this episode, Michael announces that he's moving to Colorado with Holly while following the airing of this episode, the governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper, issued a press release appointing Michael Scott to the position of director of paper distribution in the Department of Natural Resources for Colorado. He said, quote, Scott's success in selling paper will help Colorado effectively and efficiently move the large amount of bark beetle lumber from the forest and into the marketplace, creating tons of jobs and making lots of money. He also said, quote, this is a unique opportunity to resolve Colorado's forest health and budget

issues. We've hired Michael based on his skills, personal drive and love for that's what she said jokes. Now how many people that heard that thought maybe there was someone named Michael Scott that was hired and not a television character? I know it's so true. Like I feel like my grandmother might have been like, oh, yeah, we just got Michael Scott. He's going to help with the with the paper.

And then, you know, a year later, they're like, what happened with that guy is doing nothing. Well, I heard he liked dirty jokes. Exactly. All right, that brings me to fast fact number three. Maybe one of my favorite fast facts ever, because in this episode Dwight trades his way from a thumbtack to a pouch of magic beans, well to a telescope, but then some legumes. Yes.

This storyline was based on a true story known to many people as the story of the red paper clip. Back in July of 2005, a Canadian blogger named Kyle McDonald started with a red paper clip that he found on his desk and he traded his way to a house. He blogged about his journey and it became this really famous story. And he even did a TED talk about it. And here's a clip where he explains how it all began. 10 years ago, I was looking down on my desk and I saw a red paper clip sitting there and

I said, you know what, I remember this game called bigger and better where you start with something small and you trade it for something bigger. And then you repeat. I wonder what would happen if I took this red paper clip and tried to trade it. So I posted a picture of that red paper clip on a website called Craigslist and two girls named Ronnie and Karina responded and said, hey, that's pretty cool. We'd like to trade with you. We've got a pen shaped like a fish.

I was really excited. This was a cool pen. This was bigger and better than a red paper clip. How far can I go with this idea? Anybody want a fish, a pen shaped like a fish? Absolutely. My name's Annie and I've got a doorknob with a crazy face on it. Two trades in, I've already gone way up from a paper clip and I was thinking like, how

far can I go with this? How far can I keep going until like one day owned a house or something from this? So he did. He kept making trades until he got a house. It is such a great Ted talk. If you guys haven't seen it, we'll put a link to it in our stories, but it's amazing. It really is. And something that's fun is that with each of the 14 trades, that's how many it took.

He has a picture of himself with each of the people that he traded with. So here's what happened. He found someone who traded him a camping stove for that crazy doorknob. For the camping stove, he got a Honda generator. He traded the generator for an instant party, which was basically an empty beer keg with a promise to fill it up and a neon Budweiser sign. The instant party got the attention of a radio personality who traded him his worst snowmobile. Oh yeah.

Which was really funny because I guess like I had a lot of snowmobiles. He gave them this crappy one. I'll give you my worst one for this instant party. He traded the snowmobile for a two-person trip to the Rockies in British Columbia. He traded the trip for a box truck. He traded the box truck for a recording contract. Then, he found a woman who had a duplex and only half of it was rented. And this woman was like, I will give you one year free rent in my unrented side of my duplex.

For that recording contract. And he was like, great. So when the renter of the other side of the duplex found out, she was like, I would like a year of free rent in the duplex I'm already living in. What if I traded you an afternoon with my boss? And Kyle was like, who's your boss? Well, it turns out that her boss was Alice Cooper. And Kyle explained that Alice Cooper's tour manager called him and said, why don't you

come on down, see what an afternoon with Alice Cooper is like, and then you'll know what you're trading. We'll offer one for a trade. And the video in the TED Talk is so cool because you see him on stage with Alice Cooper and Alice Cooper brings out a giant red paper clip. Yeah, he's so into it. It's so cool. So now here's the crazy part.

This is where it got a little bit like, why? Yeah. He trades the afternoon with Alice Cooper for a kiss snow globe. Yes. But he had done some research. Yes. He was able to trade the snow globe for a role in a movie. And here's how.

And this was the only time during the entire project where I had another trade lined up. Every other trade had come along serendipitously, and it had just been this amazing experience. However, two months previous to all this, this guy had called me up and said, hey, my name's Corbin Bernsen. I'm a huge Hollywood actor. I'm making a movie, and I would like to offer a paid speaking credited role in a Hollywood film. Would you be interested in trading for that?

I had just done the recording contract trade, and I was like, yes, absolutely. This sounds perfect. He hung up the phone, and I'm like, Corbin Bernsen, who is this guy? Turns out he is very well known. He's been in many major movies, and he also, according to Wikipedia, has the world's largest snow globe collection, over 6,500 snow globes. Since it was Wikipedia, I knew it was true, and I just sort of kept it in the back of my head.

And when Mark said he had a kiss snow globe, I was like, oh, this is perfect. Called Corbin Corbin. Do you want the kiss snow globe? He's like, send me a picture. I sent him a picture. Corbin called back. Not only do I want it, I need it. So yeah, he kind of knew if he could get his hands on a snow globe, he'd be able to trade

it for this movie role. A really unique snow globe. Yes, exactly. So now he's got this role in a movie, and here's how he trades that for a house. Following this, the economic development officer of the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, a fellow named Bert Roach, called me up and said, we see that you've been doing this project. Our town has a couple extra houses that we own. Would there be a potential that maybe we could trade one of these houses for something you

have? And I said, well, right now I have a role in the movie. He's like, oh, that'd be perfect. What we were thinking is having a huge housewarming party, a huge celebration, inviting everyone in the world to come to Kipling, and we could offer an opportunity. We'll call it Kipling Idol, and we'll have live auditions for the movie role here, right in town. And I said, that's absolutely perfect, Bert.

What do you need to do to make this happen? He's like, well, we need town council approval. And I said, all right, well, if you can get it, that'd be great. He called me back two weeks later, and he's like, I did it. I got town council approval. We can make the trade. Turns out town council approval is getting two people to put their hand in the air. But full credit to Bert, he made it happen.

And we traveled to Kipling, and there we are. That's how you trade a paperclip for a house. So Kyle actually moved into the house. This is the part I was curious about because I watched the Ted Talk, but I was like, so what happened after? He moved to the town of Kipling. He lived in the house. They put a giant red paperclip on the front lawn, and after a few years of living there,

he decided to give the house back to the town, and the town turned it into a cafe and a tourist attraction. Aw. Yeah. He thought at first he would trade the house for something, but then he thought about it, and he thought, no, I think the house had already become kind of a tourist attraction. In fact, in the listing for the house trade, he said, please know this house is a tourist attraction.

People will be driving by this house all the time, taking pictures with it, and there's a giant red paperclip in the front lawn that you can't move. But in the end, he decided to just return the house back to the town, and it's a really cool thing for this town that they have this story. Well, I really enjoyed that story. I loved watching the Ted Talk, and then the piece of it that he spoke about, about the human connection along the way. Yes, me too.

Here is a clip of how Kyle summed up the experience. The best part about this whole project, though, is fun making the trades for things. It's easier to tell the story with the objects, but it was the people behind it saying, yes, let's build something. Let's do something together. Let's collaborate. Let's see what happens. That was what one of our paperclip was all about.

If I hadn't traded away that red paperclip, I'd just be a guy sitting there at his desk holding a paperclip in his hand, wondering what would happen if I did something with the paperclip. If you have a paperclip, trade it away. You might only get a fish pan, but it might be the single step that leads to an amazing journey. Yes, that's what I was talking about. I love the whole journey.

Well, lady, that's all I got. Should we take a break and then we'll be back to Breakdown Garage soon? Yeah, because I have a table by table breakdown of what all the Dunder Mifflin crew is trying to sell. We'll be right back. We are back and there is a garage sale underway in the warehouse. Everyone is setting up. There is a great aerial view of the warehouse as if the camera operator was up at the little

top of the fakie stairs looking down. At 0.2 seconds, you can really get a great view of the room. I'm sure you caught this too, Jenna, but even in this wide aerial view, I could see Michael's broken plasma TV. Yes. We'll see a close-up of it later. Everyone has such great stuff at their tables. When we get to each person's table, Jenna, we'll share about what's on those tables.

Well, Randy said there was a lot of licensing and legal clearance issues on this episode because of all the products shown. I bet. This all fell on our production coordinator, the wonderful Meg Shave, and it starts right away when Pam notices those Will and Grace DVDs on Oscars' table. Phil Shea purchased an actual Will and Grace DVD and NBC gave us clearance, but you might note that it is in a group of other DVDs, and per Meg, we were allowed to verbally mention the pile of CDs as long as we did not show a close-up of the DVD cover.

This was the rules. The rules for this table, and each table had different rules. The other items on Oscars' table were an umbrella, an old side-by-side DVD VHS player. Remember those? Yes. Oh my gosh, that's old tech. That's old tech. A rainbow kite, a fake lobster, some autumn fake flower arrangements and baskets, and

did anyone else catch the set of owl figurines? I did not. He's got lots of owl chotchkeys. Now of the things on Oscars' table, which thing would you have bought, Angela, because I know immediately what I would have wanted. I mean, I probably would have snagged one of those owl figurines. They're kind of amazing. I didn't see them closely, so that could be the case.

But what I would like is one of those fake autumn flower arrangements, please. You would. You would. You do love a fake flower arrangement. I just cleared a fake autumn flower arrangement off of our desks that you brought in from home. Yes. Pam is going to have a talking head that sort of explains what's happening here.

She says Dundramiflin is having their very first garage sale. Like many Americans, we realize we have a lot of things that we really didn't need, and 10 cents of every dollar is going into the party fund so they can throw parties for themselves. All right. I'm going to have a question coming up, because Dwight opens the doors to the warehouse, and when he does that, there is a sign revealed. Yes.

Here's what the sign says. Dundramiflin employees charity garage sale today only, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. no early bird. Charity. Charity. What's the charity? The party fund? Exactly. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Maybe Pam is more corrupt than we thought. Oh my gosh, you might be right, Angela. We had a fan question from Nicole W. in Boise, Maryland. Are they having a yard sale in the warehouse during a work day? If so, that means not only are there no sales being made, but also the warehouse can't fulfill any deliveries because they can't get any products in or out of the warehouse. These are very good points.

I know. It didn't occur to me till I read the fan question that we're completely blocking off the giant door for delivery trucks. No work is being done on this day, and I do think it's a work day because everyone is dressed for work. You're not in your casual Saturday, I'm going to a garage sale close. No. Dwight's going to start by walking over to Meredith's table.

She has a crooked sign. The sign says, Jeans $10, you wash them. That was scripted. Oh yeah. There are a bunch of other things on her table. We have some random toys, some bike helmets, some CDs, a basketball, a globe, you know, like the globe of the earth, of the world. Yes.

Yes. A stack of blue jeans, like you mentioned, a stuffed deer head and a valley view banner, like a school banner. What are you buying from Meredith's table, I have to ask? Blue jeans. I thought of blue jeans for your mom. Yes. So she could make stuff.

My mom makes throw blankets out of old blue jeans. She also makes these adorable Christmas trees out of old denim. I thought pile of denim, I need to buy that and send it to Birdie. I have never, ever gotten rid of a pair of blue jeans my whole life because my mom's like, I can use that. Well, Dwight is going to trade, Meredith, a thumbtack for her crooked sign for a half of a candle. It's a used candle.

Yeah. He's like, listen, you're not going to sell anything with that crooked sign. This candle's been used. What do you care? Meanwhile, Kevin's going to walk up to Michael and Holly's table. He is very interested in that St. Pauli girl light up sign. Remember the one that Jan and Michael got into a huge fight about at dinner party. But it's very clear that Michael does not want to sell it.

Oh no, no. Michael's like, it's priceless. Holly says $10 to which Michael says, no, I paid $500 for that and Kevin offers him $200. Insane. Michael says, no, $500, Holly says $20, Kevin says $45, Michael says, get lost. And then Michael says, that's how you do it. Yeah.

And then this next line, I had to rewind it to make sure I heard it correctly. Holly says, you know, we don't have to sell that if you don't want to. If it's a problem with the neon, I can have my neon guy look at it. I was like, wait, Holly has a neon guy? What is a neon guy? Why does she have one? I have so many questions. How much neon is she getting worked on?

I don't know, but it's just another example of how she's perfect for Michael. Well they get into this conversation about just in case. Yeah. Holly tells Michael, you know, we can put the sign in storage instead of selling it just in case. Because he says it belongs in a bachelor pad. Yeah. Just in case he wants to go back to that.

Michael says he doesn't have it just in case and neither does Holly. It's this really sweet moment. But right at this sweet moment, a woman walks up and asks about a slip-and-slide and Michael tells her to get lost. This slip-and-slide woman was played by Barbara Bennett and we had to get permission from the slip-and-slide people. Meg Shave had to call the COO of WAMMO and they said yes, we could both say slip-and-slide and show a slip-and-slide.

Thank you WAMMO folks. Mm-hmm. Here's the rest of the stuff at Michael and Holly's table. We have a lobster hat, we have a sombrero, we have another straw hat, we have a mini slot machine, we have a tambourine, this slip-and-slide like you mentioned, and a bunch of other board games. It looks like one that says Shark Game, I don't know if you guys caught that, one that says Margaritaville, Coffee Mugs, that St. Pauli girl neon sign, and of course the Cracked

Plasma TV. We got a letter from Kaylee N. in Indonesia. Apakabar, Kaylee! Who said, I love that you can see the Cracked Plasma TV from the Dinner Party episode. I would like to applaud the crew for their consistency. Yes, I thought that was amazing. The next scene after this is Michael calling Holly's dad. You know, he knows now there's no Justin Case, they're both in it to win it, which by the

way is what I said to Josh. Have I ever told you this story? No, you said, I'm in it to win it or you said I have no Justin Case? I said, I said, babe, I don't know about you, but I'm in it to win it, and he said, I'm in it to win it. Oh, that's so sweet! And I said, all right, let's do this, and then a few months later he proposed to me. I want to get you like glasses that say, in it to win it or something for your anniversary,

now that I know this. Anyway, I just thought of that when they were like, no Justin Case, I was like, I'm in it to win it. But yes, Michael is very confident now about proposing to Holly, and he is going to call her dad and ask for her hand in marriage, and Jenna, I really felt like we needed to hear how he went about this, please. Yes, hello, Mr. Flax, this is Michael Scott, your daughter's boss. I am calling because I am going to have to fire your daughter, Holly, because she's such

a terrible employee. I'm just kidding, I'm kidding, I'm actually calling because I'm in love with her. I love your daughter, and I have for some time, and I would like to discuss my intentions with you, which are to ask her to marry me, and I was just hoping that you would give me your approval, and this isn't a joke. So call me back when you get this, and I look forward to speaking. Thank you. I love the reveal that it was a voice message.

I just cringe that he is still fake firing people. When has that worked for you, Michael? Never. He cannot get past that bit. And he's so tickled by it. But yes, he left all of that on a voicemail, which is another thing that he's done over the years. He's left really personal stuff on an answering machine.

Back at the garage sale, Dwight has come up to Kelly's table, and he manages to get a trade of the candle, the used candle, for a book collection for her Helen Fielding and Jennifer Weiner book collection by convincing Kelly that this half-used candle will make Ryan jealous. I would like to point out, I think Dwight is playing apples to apples here. What's apples to apples? Apples to apples is a board game. It's fantastic, and you basically play the player.

You try to guess how you're going to answer, Jenna, and if I guess correctly, then I win. So he's playing the player. So for anyone who doesn't know, Helen Fielding is an English novelist and screenwriter. She's best known for creating the Bridget Jones series, and Jennifer Weiner is an American writer who, among other things, wrote the novel In Her Shoes, which was made into a movie starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette and Shirley McClain. And according to Randy, Meg said, we were allowed to verbally reference the books only. We were not allowed to show them.

There's your clearance report. So many rules. Well, let's talk about what else was on Kelly's table. It looked like she had a rack of clothes next to her table. It looks to be maybe a statue of Vishnu, some type of dragon head, a wooden jewelry box, an old alarm clock, three handheld fans, Jenna. You would have bought the fans. I would have loved one of those fans.

Looked like some fabric, a palm reading statue, then she had two of these like plastic table centerpieces for like a party, a disco ball, and a bunch of miniature glass vases. I think I would have bought the most items at Kelly's table. I think I might have found something on the clothing rack. I could imagine going through there and finding a really great brightly colored blazer. I would have taken the book collection that Dwight just took. Definitely one of the fans. I don't know.

Maybe the palm reading thing. If I was in a mood, you know, when you go to a garage sale, sometimes suddenly you're like, I'm a different person. I need a palm reading kit. You're absolutely right. Because as I look at her table, my first thought was I have to have that disco ball. Right? What are you doing with that?

Why do you need it? Where am I putting that? Next up is Kevin's table. Andy and Daryl walk up to check out what's there and guess what they see? A board game. They really want to play. Dallas. Yes.

This Dallas board game is real. It was scripted and Phil Shea found it on eBay. Here are some details. It was made in 1980. It's for ages 12 and up, two to seven players, two to seven, not two to eight. Yeah. What an odd choice cut off. The playing time is around 120 minutes, 120 minutes, two hours.

It takes a long time to play the Dallas board game. Holy crap. Here's the quote on the box. Take on the role of a character from the TV series in a race to amass the most wealth. That's the idea. Let me tell you, this was the biggest clearance issue for Meg. Really? Because the game had been discontinued.

It was not being sold anymore. Oh, so she had to like do a lot of hunting to figure out who the heck to reach out to? Yeah, like who has the rights to this game? Yeah. Well, it was originally made by a company called Yakinto Publishing, but that company had been sold to Cardamundi, who told them that the game was probably commissioned by Laura Martellivision, which is who made the TV show. And maybe they owned the rights to the game, but Laura Martellivision no longer existed.

It had been absorbed by Warner Brothers and then dissolved. So Cardamundi said, we don't know if we have the rights, but sure, use it. I was going to say at that point, can you just say we'll roll the dice and see if someone comes after us? Yes. I think that's basically what they did. I think this Dallas board game nowadays would be called succession. Yeah, exactly.

Well, here were the other things at Kevin's table. Did you guys see the big train set that went through a mountain? I did. I'm not sure I'm buying anything at Kevin's table. Yeah, it's a tough sell. I think the board game was the best thing. Yeah. Even though it doesn't end up having all the pieces.

Right. Or the instructions. Well, Dwight is going to walk by Jim and Pam's table, and he is very surprised to see a packet of Dr. Copperfield's Miracle Legumes, but Jim won't sell them to Dwight. No. Even though he acquired them under mysterious circumstances, he was in Jamaica when, and a guy knew everything about Jim and then sold him these beans. And when he turned around, the guy was gone, he had disappeared.

Oh my gosh. Well, there was more to the scene between Dwight and Jim. It's in the shooting draft. It's just a small couplet of dialogue, but I thought it was great. Jim is really trying to bait Dwight, right? And in the shooting draft, he would have also said this, Pam must have put them out. She wants them out of the house. Of course it was Pam.

Oh, that's good. Yeah. And Dwight's like, no, terrible try, you know, and he walks away. The next scene, we have Holly back in the annex. She's at her desk. She's on the phone with her parents because Michael has called and her mom's like, what is this about? And Holly says, wait, can I talk to dad?

Jenna, did you hear what her dad said to her? You know I did, Angela. Oh my gosh. It was so sweet. It was so cute. This is how it read in the script. Holly's mom says, yes, here, and she passes the phone to Holly's dad. Mr. Flack skits on the phone.

Hollis, hi dad. There was a program on TV about India. Okay. Did you connect with Michael? Hollis. Hollis. He calls her Hollis. That was what was on her name plate.

Yeah. On her desk in the first episode that she was in. Yes. And we were like, oh my gosh, is her name Hollis? It is. It is. It is Hollis. Although I don't know if you notice, the name plate that's on her desk in this scene

that's right under her computer monitor says Holly Flack's now. It doesn't say Hollis. Want to give a little shout out to the voice actors here. Holly's mom was voiced by Bonnie Bartlett and her dad was voiced by John O'Leary. Did you see it five minutes and 49 seconds, Jenna? A shot of Holly's Faber Shea egg. Yes. It's right next to her name plate.

Yeah. What is this egg? She's not selling it at the garage sale, so it's clearly very important to her. Well if you notice that Pam wasn't with Jim when Dwight walked up to their table, it's because she's grabbing coffee for them at the caffeine corner. She asked which one is decaf, which really pisses Hank off. Well, because he clearly doesn't know and he's going to have to remake the coffees. We had a fan question from Natalie F. in San Antonio, Texas, who said, I love when Pam

asks Hank which coffee is decaf because it shows how much her character has grown and how much confidence she has gained since the Cocktails episode when she had to really challenge herself to take her beer back and ask for a light after she was given the incorrect order. She really pushed herself in that moment and took so much courage and now she doesn't even hesitate to make sure she gets what she wants. Pam's character development is one of the most inspiring things in the series. Go Pam.

Aw. I just loved that letter. I did too. It's such a great observation. Yes. I got another fan question from Rachel P. in Wilmore, Kentucky, who said, I've always noticed in this episode that Pam has started to wear her shirt untucked and that when she orders coffee at Dwight's caffeine corner, she asks Hank which one is decaf.

Is this a hint that Pam is pregnant after her and Jim's Valentine's Day walk at work? I know that Jenna announced her pregnancy back in May of 2011 and this episode aired in March of 2011. I was just wondering, is the decaf coffee for Pam or Jenna? Well, Rachel, I was pregnant when we were shooting this episode and I had to untuck my shirt so that no one could see my little growing belly. And also no one knew I was pregnant. So all of a sudden, I just stopped tucking in Pam's shirt starting this week.

Not only did you do that, but we've shared this before. You just went and started buying your own shirts to look like Pam's shirts so that people wouldn't know you were going up a size. Yes. At a certain point, untucking my shirt and I was, had been like not zipping my skirt up all the way. I was sort of like safety pinning it. Yeah.

It was using a safety pin attached to a hair tie. Yes. I showed you that move. And eventually these two tricks weren't working and I went out one weekend and I just bought myself a whole new outfit at J Crew and I insisted that I had to wear it. This is what Pam would wear this episode because if you do a fitting, they know, they measure you in your undies and they're going to see the belly and they're also going to be like, oh yeah.

Wow. Jenna, you're totally pregnant and I didn't want to tell people yet. So this was the beginning of my pregnancy hide, Rachel. You totally noticed it. Totally caught that, Rachel. Michael is prepping for his big proposal, which I guess includes a bunch of gasoline that he's pouring around cars. Maybe he's spelling out, will you marry me and gasoline and then he's going to torch

it. We don't know because thankfully Pam stops this. Yes. Hopefully you all know that was not gasoline, that was just water. But I loved doing this scene. I had a very hard time not laughing because the way Steve was performing, Michael, so earnest, so earnest. And I have to say, I really love where this ends up going.

Oh, I did too. Well, I guess if you want any pesto or salsa, you better head over to Ryan's table. He is selling Mama Sally's homemade pesto and Señor Chico's hot cha-cha salsa. Yes. The pesto has a photo of Phyllis on it and the salsa has a picture of Oscar. He has a talking head where he explains that his mom makes the best pesto, but she would never sell it even though she'd make a fortune. So he decided, he'll sell it.

He tricked her into making him hundreds of jars of pesto by telling her he was going to have a pesto party for his friends. And Phyllis just kind of looked like the mom he wanted for the jar. And Ryan says, and my mom was like, oh, okay. In the shooting draft, it says said in like a dumb voice. I am sure you can imagine that this talking head created a back and forth with good old standards and practices. Lip flap.

Yep. We got a bleep Ryan's completely with no beginning or end consonant sounds, blur the visible lip flap or stage this. My favorite is when they say the third option is stage this off camera stage a talking head off camera. What is the camera on? What's the camera looking at if he's off camera? I don't know.

And then of course we turned it in and we got a as previously noted, blur that lip flap. Dwight is still making his trades and his next target is Ryan. Yes, he explains in a talking head that he traded his thumbtack for Meredith's candle. Then he traded the candle for Kelly's crap, which he traded for Phyllis's garbage for Oscars trash for Stanley's crap. What he got from Stanley was an old photo album and he's going to trade that with Ryan in order to, I guess, get some pesto. Yeah.

That's going to eventually lead him to getting something from Creed and finally a really cute squid that Aaron had. You know, Jenna, at eight minutes and 31 seconds during Dwight's talking head where he's listing all of the trades he made. You can see in the background that both Phyllis and Aaron have wooden spice racks on their tables. Really? Mm-hmm.

Well, there was a scene that got deleted where Phyllis is not happy that Aaron is selling the same things that she is. It's in deleted scenes. Phyllis is so perfectly annoyed. This is how it read. Aaron sits at her table, which has a spice rack labeled $10. She looks over to Phyllis's table, where Phyllis is setting up the same exact spice rack offered at the same amount of money.

Aaron looks to Phyllis. Looks like we're in the spice district, Phyllis, tightly. Yep. And then later in the episode, you see Aaron slashing the price of hers to $9 to try to undermine Phyllis. Well now Dwight is going to return to Jim's table and the beans are still there. Yeah. Professor Copperfield's Miracle Legumes.

Jim's going to destroy them. He has had it. He crumples them up. He stomps on them. He's got to throw them in the trash. Let's talk about what else is on Jim and Pam's table for a second. Please. It looks like a glass lamp fixture, just the top of a lamp.

Oh, no, no. That's, you know, the thing that you hang from the ceiling. Was it, I wasn't sure. A hundred percent. I swear I had one of those in my house growing up. Oh yeah. It was over our breakfast table. Right.

And you're a breakfast nook. Yes. So we have the glass lamp fixture, a bike helmet, golf clubs, a bird feeder, a big green ball. What is that big green ball? I don't know. Legumes, did you catch Jim and Pam's clown painting? Yes, I did.

We also got a fan catch from Haley W. and Charlotte, North Carolina, who said Jim and Pam also have some clown figurines for sale. Yes. And they're really creepy. They're little and they're all stacked in a row. Yeah. Haley said, did Jim's parents also have creepy clown figurines? And if so, why are Jim's parents obsessed with clowns?

And why did Jim and Pam keep these for so long? Haven't they been living this house for a while now? I have so many questions. Maybe this clown obsession of his parents explains why he has to prank Dwight. That's deep, Angela. I know. I feel like that would be something Jim would talk about in his therapy. I mean, maybe his parents pranked him his whole life with creepy clowns.

What would you buy from Jim and Pam's table, Angela? Anything? Come on. Come on. Who are you talking to? What? A bird feeder. Oh yeah, that's true.

Of course. What am I thinking? What are you thinking? Nothing. I mean, for the first time, I don't want anything from this table, really. Maybe I would buy a creepy clown figurine and then I would wrap it up as a white elephant gift. There you go.

Pam is now going to invite Michael to the conference room for a meeting he called, but he doesn't remember calling any meeting. My favorite thing is when he walks in the room and he's like, hey, everybody, I just wanted to talk to you. We're going to talk about recycling. And Pam's like Michael. He just went right into some like shtick. Pam is going to start to say to Michael, so look, about this proposal, he's like, no,

no, no, you will not talk me out of this. And Pam's like, she's perfect for you. Oscar says she's the one. Jim and Ryan, they're all like, she's amazing. And Pam explains they just want to help him with the proposal to make it safe and responsible and realistic and doable. And Michael says, I had a great idea until you ruined it. And then Oscar has the speech and I loved it so much.

Oscar says, here's how you do it. You take her out to dinner, go down on one knee. If you were in costume, you did something wrong. If at any point you find yourself tying a ring to a dog's collar, stop and look at yourself. We had a fan question from Carrie B in Minnesota who asked in the conference room scene where Michael is figuring out how to propose to Holly who decided which actors got to be in the room. Ryan seemed like an odd choice given his not so great history with Michael.

Well, Carrie, the idea here was that Pam chose who would be in the room based on who would help her achieve her goal of this safe, doable, realistic proposal. So I think she picked Jim and Oscar because they are the most level headed thinkers. And I think she picked Ryan because Michael respects Ryan's opinion. And if Ryan agrees, then Michael will believe it's cool. Right. You know, the scene ended with an extra beat. It's in the shooting draft.

It didn't make it into the episode. But as they're wrapping up, Ryan's like, hey, next time could we, you know, get lunch for one of these meetings? And Michael's like, yeah, yeah, of course, and he starts listing out the food he'll get. And Ryan storms out and goes, I can't eat any of that. It's like such an odd way to end the scene. Well, lady, I think we should take a break. And when we come back, Kevin and Andy and Darryl have started playing the game of Dallas.

They have some sort of wager on the line. They've got a couple of money. And we're going to learn what's on Phyllis's table. And we're going to get to that ultimate proposal. We are back and Holly is now shopping at Phyllis's table. She wants to know if most of these items were Phyllis's mom's stuff. And this leads to a really moving conversation where Holly says to Phyllis, how is she doing? Sort of implying that Phyllis has maybe shared that her mom is now in a home.

And you know, Holly wants to know, when do you know if it's the right time? And Phyllis shares with her, if you're waiting for your parents to come to you, that's not what's going to happen. But that her mom is doing better now. And it's a very touching scene. And it ends with Phyllis saying, I have a box of bras. Would you like to look at them? And Holly immediately says, yes, yeah.

Here are the other items on Phyllis's table. The spice rack, as we know, lace curtains and table linens. Those were written in the shooting draft that she had to have table linens and lace curtains. Fake flower arrangements, Jenna. It looks like a makeup mirror, some jewelry, and of course, a box of bras. What would you have bought at Phyllis's table? Was the makeup mirror one of the like magnifying makeup mirrors? It looks like one of the ones that's like, it's like an oval and it stands on your table

and it looks like it flips for the magnified side to the other side. I'm having a problem right now, which is that without my glasses on, I can't see my face very well. So I'm kind of putting makeup on a blur. And the other day, I held up my glasses so that I could see my eyebrows and oh my gosh, they were the hottest of messes. And then though, when I took off my glasses, they looked great. And I can't tweeze my brows because in order to tweeze my brows, I have to take off my

glasses. It was a whole thing, I eventually managed to get the tweezers underneath my glasses while wearing them. Long story short, I think I need to do the magnified makeup mirror thing. It's time. It's time. Let me tell you, I have one that I hold with my hand, but then that's also kind of tricky. And I remember years ago, my mom got a super magnified mirror that lit up.

Yeah. It's on an accordion arm and my dad screwed it into the wall next to her little vanity area in their bathroom and she could pull it out. Like in a hotel. Hotels have those. Yes. I love it when I go to a hotel. My brows after I've stayed in a hotel.

Forget about it. Amazing. Amazing. You look like a different person. I do. I can tell when you've been on vacation because you look a little tidier. Well, I guess that's what I would buy. What about you, Ange?

Oh, you know. I love some table linens. I would take a look at those. That was my second choice. Well, now we're going to go back to the conference room and we're still trying to figure out how is Michael going to propose to Holly. I really loved this line where they're trying to figure out about blogging. We want to know what do the blogs say.

Yeah. Pam says, Ryan, didn't you read in one of your blogs that animals are out? Yeah. And Ryan says, blogs are out. But people are texting each other that animals are out. Yeah. I loved that. I loved it.

Michael has a great idea. It involves a corpse. Yeah. Throwing a corpse off the roof. It's going to hit the ground. The head will pop off and then that is going to lead him to his line. Are you ready? I lost my head when I fell in love with you.

It'll be easy enough to get a corpse, he says. So this is when he gets out the ring and it's, I mean, Pam's reaction, Jenna, you were so funny. You were like, holy s**t, is that real? And then Michael says, yeah, three year salary. Let me start with this standards and practices. Of course, same note, bleep Pam's s**t remark completely with no beginning or end consonant sounds and blur the visible lip flap or stage off camera.

And again, after we turned in the cut, we got the as previously noted. So the box that is holding Holly's engagement ring, the ring box, the ring box is from a real life Scranton jewelry store called Bacardo Jewelers. No way. Here's what it says on their website. Our store is a 4,000 plus square foot building on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Spruce Street in historic downtown Scranton. We have free store side parking.

We also have a refreshment bar with a flat screen TV. Hey. And it looked like on their website, they're really known for selling luxury watches. They sell other jewelry, but they're really proud of their watch sales. Sandy Bacardo was the founder, started the jewelry business in 1938. He eventually opened a jewelry repair trade shop, which he had for many years. Then in the late 1960s, he opened the first retail jewelry store on Washington Avenue. He was joined by his two sons.

And then the Bacardo family purchased a building on Spruce Street. They stayed there till 2007. And then in January of 2008, they got this big freestanding building with the refreshment bar and flat screen TV. So they're on their third generation of being jewelers, having the Bacardo jewelry store. Well, congratulations on your new building. I have a question for you, Bacardo folks. Do you have a spot where Jen and I can record our podcast?

Yeah, you have a very large building. It sounds like maybe. Maybe we could have our own spot. I want to point out two tables we have not visited. Okay. Andy's table has a big wooden decorative sailboat, a Cornell banner, what I think looks like a trombone, an accordion and a sailboat steer wheel, you know, that you use to steer the boat.

What do you call that? I don't know. It's a big wood one. You're just gesturing it, which is really cute. I'm like, you're tending to drive a, I'm like, I'm a pirate. A steering wheel. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. Like the wood one. Yeah. And you just spun it. You just spun it. Also, it said in the shooting draft that Andy would have a stack of colorful sweaters. Oh, that tracks. Tracks.

Jenna, what would you get from Andy's table? Maybe that wheel. I could see myself doing something like hanging it on my wall. If I'm going with a nautical theme. I don't know where I'm doing this, but, you know, I did hang a giant fork and spoon in my kitchen. A giant wooden fork and spoon like they have in the TV show, Everybody Loves Raymond. My grandmother had the same fork and spoon.

My grandmother also had a giant fork and spoon on her wall. What was that decor choice back in the day? But you're sticking with it. I'm like, I am bringing it into this new century. What about you? What would you buy? Well, Jenna, I know you know that I moved around a lot as a kid. I was often the new kid.

One of those times when I was new at a school, I decided, and Jenna, I don't know if you know this, to go out for the marching band, I thought it might be a way to meet people. You were in the marching band? What did you play? Were you a baton twirler or were you an instrument player? I didn't know how to play any instruments. So what did you do in it? They assigned me to the section that had the fewest people, which was trombone.

You play the trombone? I sat next to who ended up being my best friend, Shannon, who was very tall and could play the trombone. I didn't even reach the seventh position, you know, that far out position. I don't know anything about the trombone. I was sitting next to this guy named Bill, and I said to him, I think you're supposed to be in a different position on the trombone. And he goes, oh, I just play F the whole time.

And I said, okay. The one song I learned how to play was Tequila. Doesn't go to position seven. It does. How'd you get there? I just would fling it out, but for a trombone player, that's a really fun song because you have the big slide. So yes, I played the trombone for a few months, and then I switched to being the school mascot.

That's better for you. So do you think you would buy Andy's trombone? I think I would, and I think I also have my eye on that decorative sailboat. Is the trombone a dirty joke in the American Pie movies? I think it's a dirty trombone. Oh, no. It's a rusty trombone. Oh, a rusty trombone is a sexy move.

More filthy than sexy. Oh. You want to cap this one off right here. Okay, Sam. Thank you. What is it? Picture the ways that you could use somebody's body like a trombone. The potential combinations.

I can't figure that out, Sam. I think I am getting there. Okay. When you act it out. So I am behind a man. Okay. Imagine you're behind him. Okay.

And then what part of their body could you kind of stroke like a trombone while you're blowing into another part of their body? Wait a second. Wait a second. Does this save them from drowning? It doesn't. It does not. Is this the kit, remember?

Yeah. The thing with the fee-hee-hee-hee. Yeah. Is that the same part of the body? Yeah. Yes. It is the same part of the body. It's blowing in that same area.

Can I ask you both, on our potentially last year here, what song are you playing? On the trombone? During this rusty trombone. I'm playing Tequila. Well, that's a good yank. That's what I'm playing. I'm playing Imperial March. Excellent choice.

Thank you. What is Imperial March? Come on. Is that like when world leaders come in? No. One of them. What? I know this song.

I know this song. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Why? What is that? Who could that be? Who could that be?

It's Darth Vader. Oh, yes, of course. Yes, of course. Yes. That's my sexy yank. It's amazing. It's sensual. Mm-hmm.

Very gentle touch. Yeah. It's sensual. It's sensual. Very gentle touch. Yes. They're going to love it, Ann. Should I include this part?

Yes. Oh, my gosh. I'm going to get the E. All right. Okay. Collecting myself. Did you say there was another table we haven't seen, Angela? Yes.

There is another table full of ****. Okay. Yes. There is another table we haven't seen. Mm-hmm. It is Angela Martin's table. She has a bunch of cat tchotchkes. Every kind of cat figurine you could ever want.

Her pricing is a bit much. Explain. Her cat figurines are priced at $30 and $29. How much did she pay for them? I don't know, but these are really high prices. Also on Erin's table, in addition to her spice rack, you can see she has a miniature doll beautician chair. Mm-hmm.

Those are some other items you might have missed. Well, Holly is in the break room and Michael's going to go in. She wants to talk to him about going home to Colorado to be with her dad. Yeah. And she says, but Michael, based on our conversation earlier, I want you to come with me. And then she starts to propose to Michael.

And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. Mm-hmm. This takes us to a talking head where he's like, I am not going to be proposed to in the break room. That is not going to be our story. Uh-uh. I should have burned this place down when I had the chance. I loved that line.

What is he referring to? I think when he was putting gasoline all around it. Down in the garage sale, you know, these guys have been playing this Dallas game. They've just been making up the rules because there's no instructions. Kevin's getting so annoyed. He says he's never going to play games with them again.

And it turns out all the cash is missing now. Mm-hmm. Where did it go? Kevin. Kevin stole it. And he says, and that is Dallas. And he should know because he's been on Dallas. He has.

He's also been on Hawaii. Yes. Well, Dwight has come a long way from starting off with attack. He's managed to trade all the way for Stanley's telescope. And he's going to walk up to Jim's table. But he's kind of bragging. Mm-hmm. And oh my gosh, the legumes are back.

How? How did they come back from being stomped on the ground and wadded up? Well, he can't take it. He's going to trade for the beans. He knows better. But he does it. And this kind of ends our garage sale.

Did you notice? Mm-hmm. This is kind of it. We had a fan question from Maria F. in Austin, Texas. What's the best thing you guys have ever gotten at a garage sale? We've sort of talked about what we would take from this garage sale, Angela. But do you have an amazing garage sale find? I do.

And I love it. Share. I have a, this sounds like my character. I have a tuxedo cat cookie jar. That you got at a garage sale? Yes. What was this garage sale? It was somewhere in Texas.

So here's the thing you need to know about my mom. You know how, like, people have a bumper sticker that says, we'll break for sunsets. My moms would say, we'll break for a yard sale. Mm-hmm. My whole life, we had to pull over, go into someone's yard, our garage, our estate sale. We hit every one.

It would become like a thing. If my dad drove, he'd be like, now, Barty, I don't only stop at one yard sale on this road trip. And she would be like, but Bill, you don't know what's there. So I just grew up loving them. I don't know exactly where we were, some back road in Texas, driving from my parents' house to our family reunion. But I found a tuxedo cat cookie jar.

It has a little chip on the ear, but who cares? My mom is the same way, Angela, my whole life. Same thing. And when I got my very first department, my sophomore year in college, you know, I had to get stuff for the kitchen. Oh, yard sales are so great for that. My mom took me to a garage sale. And I got this amazing set of stainless steel cookware

that I still have today. Yeah. That's how great this cookware was. I still have it. I got these really cool old like vintage glasses, like the big thick ones. Yeah, yeah. And they're sort of an amber color.

Still have them. Now, Jenna, I have some fun garage sale stats. Oh, according to the internet, each year it says that Americans host an estimated 6.5 to 9 million garage sales. Oh my gosh. That's according to the New York Times. And if you put some thought and planning into your garage sale, you can make between $500 and $1,000.

Wow. Mm-hmm. My friends, Michael and Tobias do a big yard sale every year. And they go in with a few friends and they always make great money. That brings me to this. What do you think does the best at a garage sale? Books. Clothing.

Clothing, especially children's clothes. Mm-hmm. Vintage dishes and glassware. Yes. Yes. Power tools and garden tools were one of the number one things on every list I could find. Hmm.

I know. Sports equipment, bicycles, electronics, household items and furniture. Just for fun because I love to find out what things are called in other countries. In the UK, a garage sale could be called a car boot sale or a boot fair or a jumble sale. I was talking to my friend Michael who's from Australia and he said they call it a rummage sale or a trash or treasure.

Oh. And according to the internet, the biggest yard sale in the world happens in the United States. It's called the world's longest yard sale. It's 127 yards. It covers 690 miles from Addison, Michigan to Gaston, Alabama, and it hosts vendors all along the way. This year is going to be between August 3rd and 6th.

I mean, we're going to that rate. That's a long road trip. 690 miles of yard sales. They have a whole website where you can find out everything about it. I'll put it in our stories. And if you have a garage sale in your area, will you let me know what it's called? I find it so fascinating.

Well, I love that, Angela. Should we get into the proposal? Mm-hmm. It's so wonderful. It's so sweet. Michael comes down to the warehouse. Holly is packing up the stuff. They made $13.

She also apologizes for earlier. She's like, you know what, Michael? You're my life now. I'm not going to go to Colorado. And he kind of stops her and he says, you know what? Will you take a walk with me? Yeah, the first stop on their walk is the lobby. Michael explains that this is where Toby announced that he was going to Costa Rica

and it was the happiest day of Michael's life until he met Holly. Now, Angela, we had a fan catch. OK. From JCF in Kansas City, Kansas, who said, I have been waiting this whole podcast to point out this continuity catch. What? When Toby announced the news that he was going to Costa Rica, Michael was in New York with Ryan and Dwight.

How could he know that this is where Toby announced he was leaving? It's true. That is true. Michael wasn't there for the announcement. Oh, wow. That's a great catch. I know. Well done.

He is then going to lead Holly to the stairwell where they first kissed and first made love. Now they're up in the bullpen. They're outside of Michael's office because that is where he first saw her through the blinds. It's also where he called her on the phone to tell her that he had herpes and was still in love with her. And here's where we find out the news that it was not herpes. It was just an ingrown hair.

The conference room is where they led their first meeting together. And this leads them to the water cooler. Nothing happened there. But Michael shares with Holly that he would pretend to get a cup of water so he could stare at her through the window. And then he acts out getting his cup of water and looking at her through the blinds. Here's where it gets good. Jenna, I went to the shooting draft because I wanted to see how the next part of the scene was set up.

It says, interior kitchen. Michael and Holly enter. The entire office is in there lining both sides of the kitchen, creating a pathway. The blinds are shut on the far door and they each hold a lit candle. Holly says, hi guys. Michael says, this is where our love face its toughest test. After this, smooth sailing for the rest of our lives. And then it says, Holly is nervous with anticipation.

Michael, confident and cool, takes her arm and walks her through the room. And then one by one, different people ask Holly if she will marry them. And she has to say no to each person. This was my line in the episode. Yes, look, you marry me. And I loved this. I don't know if you noticed in Amy Ryan's performance, but from the minute that door opens and she sees all of us holding the candles, she immediately gets tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat.

Like you can just hear it and you can see this flush on her face. It's just beautiful. Every single minute of the scene, Amy is like a masterclass in acting, just watching her. So after they get through this row of people, they get back into the annex, which is lit with more candles than I've ever seen, ever. Clearly Michael had help because how do you set up this many candles? It's like in a reality TV show when the bachelor or whatever takes them back to the mansion and there's like 400 candles. I'm always like, okay, can we call BS on how many candles?

Well, Michael and Holly both get on their knees. And he's about to say this is where we fixed that broken chair. But then the sprinklers go off and douse them with water. But Michael still pulls out the ring. He proposes in his Yoda voice and Holly accepts in her Yoda voice. And we all burst through into the annex. We're all soaking wet and this is the line that when I saw it in our rewatch made me sob. And I don't even know if I can say it now because I remember how it felt when we did the scene.

He says, you know, she said yes. And then he says, Michael says, and I'm leaving. Yeah. And it was the first time Steve had really said it out loud to us. We all knew. We knew he was leaving. We knew it was coming. But when he said it in the episode, I remember when they cut to the looks on our faces,

that was because we were hearing Steve Carell, our friend, say, I'm leaving to us. It was so real. Really for the first time. Yeah. It was so real. Yeah. And I just like, I experienced that emotion all over again in this rewatch. I remember so clearly that moment because we were all so happy when she said yes.

We were like, we were as fans of our own show. We were so happy that Holly and Michael found each other and the water was so cold and we were all really reacting to that. We all got soaking wet. So there was this huge sort of well of emotion of happiness and, oh my God, it's so cold. And then when Steve, as Michael said, I'm leaving, it was like the air sucked out of the room. It was just so many things happening at once.

And it was so powerful as just Steve's friend and co-worker. You can imagine we got a fan mail flurry about this scene. Kyle S. in Victoria, British Columbia said, I have so many questions about the technical side of this proposal scene. Were all of the candles really burning in Michael's proposal or were any of them CGI? What was the safety meeting like for shooting that scene? And what went into preparing the set of the annex for being completely destroyed by water so that it could either be reset for another take or another episode?

Well, we got all the details from Randy. We sure did. First of all, all of the candles were very real. I like to remember Kelly saying something like this. Safety meeting. We have 372 lit candles. That's crazy. Randy mentioned, though, that lighting all the candles, like you said, Angela, Michael

must have had help. Well, this was not the job of one person. Here's how we did it. Randy said that it took a special effects team of three people plus our set dressing crew of four people, plus all of our prop and art department crew consisting of eight people. So what is that? Eight plus four plus three, 15 people to make this moment happen. Yes.

Every person got a fireplace lighter and Kelly Cantley after her safety announcement would say go and those people could light all those candles in just a few minutes, you know, because they had to do it right before action because we couldn't leave those candles burning. Randy said there was actually a significant amount of heat and fumes caused by these candles. We had actual fire alarms that they would trigger if we let them burning too long. Randy said that Michael Gallenberg, who was our production designer, and Tim James, our construction coordinator, actually installed special exhaust fans and air scrubbers above the annex to cycle the air, but we couldn't run them while we were filming.

So that's why we had to light the candles and start shooting really quickly. And then in terms of the sprinklers, I did not realize how much work went into this. When we got these details from Randy, I was, wow. I mean, they had to soak all of the annex plus the kitchen. It was crazy. Here's what they had to do. The previous weekend, Tim James's crew took all of the furniture and set dressing out of the kitchen and annex.

They removed the walls and the carpet down to the bare stage floor. Then they added a waterproofing floor liner to go underneath and then rebuilt the entire set to sit inside of a pan, which is like a low bathtub thing that would collect all the water. So it wouldn't ruin our actual stage floor or any of the adjacent sets because you don't want to get that water stuck in there and get mold and stuff. Then all of the lighting and electrical cables had to be grounded, waterproofed, and they had to have a safety inspection from a rep at Universal Studios.

They had to build a huge grid of PVC pipes over the annex and kitchen with sprinklers that would believably sprinkle the water. But we also had to prime the sprinklers beforehand because where the water tank was was kind of far away from all the pipes and we needed the water to come out right on cue. So we couldn't wait for that lag time. So they would turn it on and put big buckets down to collect the little bit of sprinkle, turn it off, and then when they said action, then it would come right out. I guess the special effects team used a boiler tank so that the water would not be like totally

freezing cold. But Randy said during our setup, the water cooled inside the pipes, so the first blast was really cold. He said as evidenced by Amy Ryan's face and reaction. I thought it was so perfect, though. I mean, that water was cold. I remember it being very cold. Plus, our soundstage was freezing.

Yeah. So you're already cold and then it was cold water, but it made for such a cute, sweet, fun reaction. We got another fan question from Brianna L and Katie Texas who wanted to know how many times did we have to get soaking wet for this proposal scene. Randy said we shot the scene on Wednesday, February 2nd. He said we were prepared to do a massive cleanup and go again the next day and then again on Friday if we needed to.

So we had three chances to get it, but there was no way to turn it over in a single day. But Randy said we got it on the first take. Yeah, that was my memory, too. I remember, though, that they did turn off the sprinklers for a second and we all put on robes and we were kind of shivering and they were watching the footage to make sure we had it. Yeah. And then they turned the sprinklers on again and they got a couple of extra reaction shots

and then we were done. Yeah. I watched this episode with my daughter and she was like, Mom, you're so happy for Michael and Holly because I run in with everyone else cheering. And I said, yeah, I think, honestly, Isabel, even Angela Martin was happy that Michael found his person. Maybe happy that he's leaving. Maybe one of the people.

Well, Angela, we got one more piece of fan mail about this proposal scene from Madison C. in Baltimore, Maryland, who said, I don't have a question, but I wanted to share a story related to this episode. My husband proposed to me on December 31st, 2018, and he recreated the Holly and Michael proposal from this episode. He had our friends line up holding candles and recite the lines that the characters said in the episode. I was so surprised and it was such a cool proposal since I'm such a huge fan.

Love you ladies. So cute. Yeah, I love that. So creative. Thanks for sharing. I love that. Well, this episode is going to end with more of Jim's prank. Dwight is watering five big planters of the legumes he's planted them.

And when he steps away, Jim sneaks around the corner with almost full grown potted plants. Yes. As if after Dwight watered them, they immediately grew. Well, they're magical. I know. Of course. We did have a fan question from Little K. in Israel. Dwight has a huge farm.

Why would he plant the seeds in pots in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot? This is a good point. This is a fair question. This is a fair question. I had not thought of that. You know what? I thought when I saw this because I love plants. I've been planting quite a bit of new plants in my backyard.

I want to know what Jim's prank budget is. And does Pam know about this prank budget? Because those mature plants are not cheap. You're so right. I'm just saying. How much money does he spend on pranking Dwight each year? Yeah. Well, listen, guys.

That's garage sale. Thank you so much for listening and sending in your questions and comments. Thank you always to Randy Cordray for great behind the scenes information. And I guess we're going to go get our boxes and we're going to move somewhere. We don't know where. We really don't know. That's what's crazy is we're recording an episode next week. And we're not sure where we're recording it.

We'll let you know next week where we landed. All right, you guys have a great one. We love you. See you then. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Cody Fisher. Our producer is Cassie Jerkins.

Our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer. And our associate producer is Ainsley Bubbicoe. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad-free versions of Office Ladies, go to StitcherPremium.com. For a free one month trial of Stitcher Premium, use code, OFFICE.