Office Ladies - Shareholder Meeting

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

This week we’re breaking down “Shareholder Meeting.” Michael, Oscar, Dwight and Andy go to New York for a Dunder Mifflin’s shareholder meeting where Michael is being recognized as a top manager. Back at the office, Jim is having trouble getting the rest of his co-workers to respect his authority. Jenna shares costume designer Alysia Raycraft’s experience designing Recyclops, Angela gives us a deep dive on limousines with the help of Google Translate, and the ladies have a true Mom Detectives’ moment where they take on the case of mysterious gift bags sitting on Kelly’s desk. So enjoy this episode before Recyclops destroys us all!

I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on The Office together. And we're best friends. And now we're doing the Ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you. Each week we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you. We're The Office, ladies. Hello, everybody. Hi, you guys. Before we get going today, I want to say happy birthday to Mabia Fiff. Thank you, Angela. Yes. As I was arriving today, I saw Angela not open the door for me and instead run past the door. Listen, I did. Because she was up to something. I didn't think you saw me. Although Sam and Cassie, I did say there's a chance she might

have seen me. I did say that. Yes, you did. I did that right after I swatted plastic cutlery out of Sam's hand. It was the most aggressive thing I've ever seen you do. No time. No time. No time. She's here. Get the cutlery out of the way. But we love you. We wanted to say happy birthday. Oh, I loved it. I got a giant bouquet of flowers. I mean, humongous, so pretty. And Josh made me some gluten-free treats. He did. Because you get desserts on your birthday at office, ladies. I like it. And then, Angela, you gave me just a beautiful gift. It's an inside joke, I guess we should say. But also, guys, I made the card with my second grade level skill set. And it was an elaborate homemade card, and I loved it. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, what are we talking about today? We are talking about shareholder meeting, which is Season 6, Episode 11, written by Justin Spitzer and directed by Charles McDougal. Action! Action! Charles McDougal. Here's your summary. Michael heads to a shareholder meeting in New York City, and he brings Andy, Dwight, and Oscar with him. Michael is shocked when he and other higher members of the company are booed while on stage. And he tries to improve the situation by suddenly and publicly making promises that management cannot fill. Meanwhile, back at the office, Jim realizes that nobody takes him seriously as a real boss. That's our summary. Michael, on a stage in front of people, what were you thinking,

corporate? What were you thinking? They must have been very desperate, clearly. Fast fact number one. This episode ran on November 19, 2009, during NBC's Green Week. Also known as Green is Universal. Yes. For, you know, NBC Universal. I remember we went to like a party for NBC around this time, and the red carpet was green. Yes. The green carpet. They turned their logo green for this week as well. For Green Week, the net work as shows to incorporate this theme into their episodes somehow. They also ran news stories on environmental issues like hybrid vehicles and hydrofracking. Al Gore made an appearance on 30 Rock. On Community, the college that they attend. Greendale. It's Greendale

Community College. Well, they changed their name to Environdale. They were already green. I know, but they changed it to Environdale. And then they plan a green concert. This was my favorite tie-in. On Law and Order SVU, they had, quote, an accused killer has to resort to alternate means to make money after too many people have started recycling their own bottles and cans. Wow. Which I thought was, um, it's kind of like too much recycling led to, uh, killing spree. Yeah. Feels like a message, maybe not what Green Week was hoping for. Feels a little forced, guys. No judgment. Feels a little forced. Our contribution to Green Week was recyclups. We have a whole cold open. Oh, rain is recyclups. He really

got into it. Well, we got a lot info on that. We're gonna break it down for you when we get there. Okay. Fast fact number two is a location breakdown for the shareholder meeting. They were not in New York City. What? Yeah, we didn't fly there and hire all those people in Manhattan. We did not, lady. Where was it? This hotel, all the interiors and the exteriors were shot at the downtown Marriott Hotel on South Figueroa in Los Angeles. Now Marriott sold this property some years back, and it is now called the LA Grand Hotel. We shot at the hotel for three days. On Monday and Tuesday, we were in the main ballroom, and we used 405 background performers each day. And then on Thursday, we were in the

lobby and the hospitality suite and the kind of drive-up area. The valet. The valet. The drive-up area. Take me to the drive-up area. Hi, could I claim my car from the drive-up area, please? Thank you. I have my thingy for my drive-up area. Well, Randy told us that the hotel provided us with breakfast and craft services for all of our background performers, but Sergio and Alan of Big Time Catering made lunch for everybody. We had to have three serving lines like we did for Company Picnic. It's a lot of people. They went all out. Yeah. All right, let's move on to FastFact number three. I'm very excited about FastFact number three. Me too. Here's the thing about FastFact number three. Tell

him. At 15 minutes and 35 seconds, there is a scene with Jim and Ryan back in the Annex. Jim is asking Ryan if he's finished this spreadsheet that he's asked him to do, but Ryan is playing Tetris. This is all part of that Jim Ryan storyline where Ryan is goofing off and no one takes Jim's authority seriously. Seriously, this episode could be called shareholder meeting slash Ryan's ass. It really could. It rolls off the tongue. Well, in the scene of Ryan playing Tetris, I noticed there were a ton of gift bags on Kelly's desk, and I was like, what are all these gift bags about? I just, I had to know what's up with the gift bags. Yeah, I noticed it too. I counted four gift bags. What the heck are these gift

bags about? I was thinking, is there something in the shooting draft? Maybe something that was deleted that could explain this. Well, when I went to check the shooting draft, the entire Jim Ryan storyline, otherwise known as Ryan sass was missing. I mean, it's just not there at all. Completely not there. So I went to the shooting draft because I didn't know Jenna was going to the shooting draft. And then I'm like, Jenna, what the heck? The Ryan sass is gone. And we started trading all these messages about it. You guys, we had a text flurry. We really did. And we decided to get to the bottom of it. Folks, fact number three is going to be a real mom detectives moment. Sam even made us an intro

for it. It was a cold and rainy night when someone dropped that package through my mailbox. So many clues, so much chaos. It had been a long time since I saw this big of a mess. But because it wasn't a far drive. And because it wasn't a school night. And because there was only a little bit of evidence so I could fit in a small amount of pockets. And because I had snacks in case they got hungry. And because it wasn't chilly out. God helped me. I knew who I needed to call. Mom detectives. I love it so much. It cracks me up. Every piece of that makes me laugh,

Sam. I love that it starts in a thunderstorm. I love the small amount of evidence that can fit into tiny pockets. And because we have snacks. There were restrooms nearby. Oh, yes. Yes. Well, here it is, folks. I reached out to James Carey and writer Justin Spitzer. And I dug into my digital clutter and I found an email from Randy Cordray. That said, team office. It is looking like we need to shoot some additional material for shareholder meeting. Additional material. What does that mean? I said, Jenna, I found an email. I quickly texted her. Randy goes on to say, we are planning these scenes for Monday, October 19. Webisodes will be moving to Tuesday, October 20. Thank you, Randy Cordray. Well, Jenna, this was

a big deal because we were supposed to go on hiatus. Yes, right. We had this big long hiatus starting October 19, all the way until after the new year. A few of us were going to work on the webisodes, but the majority of the company was officially on hiatus. So Randy was basically saying like, don't go out of town. We might need you. Yes. I found out that Steve was scheduled to shoot the movie dinner for schmucks. So we were shutting down production early that year. I spoke to James Carey, who uncovered the call sheet schedule for shareholder meeting. And it's true. We shot most of this episode the week of September 28, but we did not shoot the Jim Ryan scenes until Friday, October 16.

I had to know why. The plot thickens. Writer Justin Spitzer told me that the Jim Ryan storyline was a part of his original outline for this episode, but it was eventually cut from the shooting draft in favor of staying at the hotel for more scenes of the shareholder meeting. So that plot, that Jim Ryan plot was then shortened and repurposed as a cold open for Scott's tots. What? We actually shot it during Scott's tots, but then it was cut from Scott's tots and it was rewritten again. And we added that shoot day and it went back into shareholder meeting. So Justin said that when they were editing shareholder meeting, they just missed not checking in on the group back at Dunder Mifflin. He also said that in all of these

iterations of the Jim Ryan storyline, the one thing that always happened was that Ryan ended up in a closet. And the reason for this was that they wanted to get BJ out of the background of scenes that were happening in the bullpen. Sneaky. Yes. So that scene that we saw Angela that's in the annex with Ryan playing Tetris. Yeah. That was actually shot during Scott's tots. That is the one scene from that cold open that remained. And then we added all of this other stuff about people not taking Jim seriously and we flushed it out. Well, this was clearly a puzzle, but we haven't figured it out yet. We are still wondering about these four gift bags on Kelly's desk. I was curious which Webisode we were

shooting that week. So I reached out to Randy and he said it was the mentor in this Web Episode series. Aaron decides she wants to learn to be an accountant. I rewatched it and here's how it's set up. Sometimes I do get bored at reception and I wonder what it's like to be an accountant. So I guess what I'm saying is I really want your life and I don't know how to get it. Are you good with numbers? The count used to be my favorite part of Sesame Street. Van Apple, two apples, three apples. Yeah. Maybe it's not for you. I could be your mentor. Okay. You know, I can do it. I have to do everything else around here. So really? Yes. Great. Oh, uh-huh. This whole Webisode series is Angela Martin teaching

Aaron how to be an accountant and grooming her. How does that go? We actually had so much fun. Of course, it doesn't turn out the way Angela hoped, but it was a blast to shoot. Randy also shared the call sheet with me. We filmed the Webisode on Monday, October 19th. Here were two fun details on the call sheet that day. Quote, Today, Monday, Scare Tober 19th. Today is the second annual Michael Scott Dundermifflin Scranton Office Memorial Cast and Crew Fun Halloween Costume Contest for the Dull Drums Cure. Yes. That's because we were not going to be shooting over Halloween that year. We had to move up our Halloween parade. Yes, our costume parade at work. It also said, Quote, A video crew from NBC.com

will be on set today. While this explained another email from my digital clutter, I had found an email from Joya Balfour who worked for NBC.com saying she was coming to set with a bunch of bobbleheads for me to feature in one of my Adventures with Angela segments for NBC. She even shared with me a mock-up poster for the sale of the bobbleheads that we're going to go online. I'll put that in our stories. But here's the thing I was curious about. She ended her email by saying, Quote, Has Mindy played her new Webisode song track for you? If not, go bug her because it's amazing. I've been humming it all weekend. Well now that got me curious about what song she was talking about. So I looked it up.

In subtle sexuality, the Webisode series was about to air on October 29th. And Joya had seen an early edit of it. So I went to re-watch that. Jenna, Joya was right. The song is so good. Just listen to the chorus. I can't get it out of my head. Wait, is that an original song and Mindy is singing it? Stop it. Isn't that so good? Why is she not outperforming that at clubs all the time? That is so catchy. It is really a fun song. And both of those Webisodes were so great, but they still didn't explain the gifs. Yeah. Were they in any of the deleted scenes? I saw no gift bags in any deleted scenes. I still don't know why Kelly has them on

her desk. I even read the shooting draft for Scott's Tots because the scene came from that episode and there is nothing in that episode about Kelly and gift bags. Well, a few folks also caught this and there is a fan theory online about it. You slash Stolatron21 posted this theory on Reddit. And Jenna, it kind of makes sense. Okay. You Stolatron21 said, Jim forgets Kelly's birthday part two. When Michael is at the shareholder meeting in New York, Jim as co-manager is left solely in charge and makes Ryan his office in the closet. When Jim's talking to him, Kelly's desk is seen in the background with birthday gifts implying Jim forgot her

birthday again. Maybe, maybe did Jim forget her birthday twice? Maybe. I would think that would be brought up. I don't know. Listen, what we're getting at here, folks, is that while we uncovered a lot of interesting information, we're still not sure why Kelly has gift bags on her desk and we may never know. We may never know. It's very on point for mom detectives. It kind of is. We have a lot of fun trying to solve it. We have snacks and texts and laughs along the way. Yeah. It's ultimately about the journey. It really is.

Well, there you have it, guys. Mom detectives, we solved a lot of things, but not the thing in question. You're welcome. Put that on the poster. We solved a lot of things, just not what you asked. All right. We're going to take a break and we'll be back to talk all things recyclops. The show starts with Dwight entering dressed as a robot and demands everyone bow down before recyclops. It's time to recycle, guys. It's very over the top. Yes. And then Jim has a talking head where he explains that five years ago, Dwight started dressing up as this recyclops character as a way to,

I guess, corporate had this mandated recycling program and this is Dwight's answer to that. Yeah. I guess that's how he's going to help motivate people to recycle during this Jim talking head. I noticed something. What is that? Here I go with some train stuff. Oh my gosh. What? I know. Did you notice, you guys, when you rewatched that the train poster behind Jim in his office is gone? No. Train enthusiast Jim has taken his train poster down? Exactly. Why? Why would someone who loves trains as much as Jim Halpert take this poster down, Angela? I don't know, but I did find out something about the train poster.

That's not even there? That's not even there. You Googled the poster that is gone? I didn't Google it. Well, Google's only been around for a little while, so how did you research it, Angela? You know what? You know what? Sit down, lady. You sit it down. I'm not the only one who is excited about trains, Jenna. Nicky, who runs the Office Ladies Facebook fan page, shared with me that a member of the Facebook group posted information about Jim's train poster and she thought I should know. Well, tell us. This is a shout out to Eric Slekovac. He is an actual locomotive engineer for a railroad that is around the Scranton area. He wrote that the poster in Jim's office is actually a painting of the Phoebe Snow.

It was a famous passenger train run by the Erie La Coana Railroad. It serves Scranton and that painting depicts the Phoebe Snow stopping at Scranton. The Scranton station is still standing and is now a beautiful hotel called the Radisson, which is mentioned throughout the series. Eric goes on to say, I hope you all enjoyed another train nerd out. And Eric, I did. Thank you so much for sharing. Mouth agape? Yeah. I loved Eric's info. Right? And I am so impressed by our set dressing team that they put such a wonderfully specific painting in Jim's office, which is now gone. We don't know why. We don't know why. I guess who's going to be tracking it? Mom detective? Mom detective. So we'll never

get to the bottom of it. We'll never get to the bottom of it, but we're going to look for it. Put this on a card. Where is the Phoebe Snow? Yeah. Where is the Phoebe Snow? Where is the Phoebe Snow? That's literally an episode title. I know. Okay. Back to this episode. I really loved that. Eric, thank you. I know. And Nikki, thanks for letting us know. We're going to start a series of flashbacks. We are going to see recyclops evolve over five years. This was really fun because the first time we see recyclops, he's up at reception and we got to go back to our old hairstyles and our old wardrobe. They scrunched up my hair and they had a hard time. They had to like really like make John's hair go like

all in that like floppy mop do. Right? It was really cute. And then I don't know if you noticed, but next up, Ryan is at reception. Remember when Ryan stepped in? Oh yeah. What was so fun about all these flashbacks is seeing all the different like iterations of receptionists over the years. Well, the next year when recyclops has really started to take shape, Ronnie is at reception. Remember, she was played by Dale Raul. But the only problem with this is that this recyclops event is supposed to be an annual event in February for Earth Day. And Ronnie was actually the receptionist over the summer when Pam was at art school. Oh, body mom detective, the shiitake out of that one. Yeah, thank you very much. You're welcome.

Then recyclops, you know, ends up in this final stage, very elaborate. But it seems like he's now like turned to like a terminator. Yeah, he's now actually destroying things with aerosol spray. And Stanley has this great dialogue where he's like, wait, I thought you were killed by Polluticorn and Dwight's like Polluticorn wishes. I know. Rain loved dressing up in that like terminator outfit. I took a picture of him. Jenna, it's on our book. I know. He was like a kid. He was like a kid getting to play dress up. I connected with our costume designer, Alicia Raycraft, to ask her all about this amazing transformation of recyclops. You know, we've said before that Alicia was particularly gifted at building

costumes from scratch for very little money. Although she said for this, she had a pretty good budget. But I found out she worked in the theater. And this is why she was so talented at building these costumes. She worked for Blue Man Group, and she did the puppet maintenance on the Lion King on Broadway. Oh my gosh. Yeah. To get started on this, she told me that she would take a picture of rain and then she would sketch like an overlay on top of it. So she could really see what rain would look like in all these different costumes. I found that sort of amazing. It is amazing. And Alicia is a great artist. Yes. She even shared her sketches with us. We have them, all of her sketches of recyclops. The first

thing she would do is show her sketches to the writer. And in this case, they really did break down in some cases, what recyclops should look like. So for example, for the very first recyclops, in the script, it said, Earth Day 2005, Dwight is wearing a think green T-shirt, a bandana over his mouth and a third eye on his forehead while lecturing everyone on recycling. So Alicia told me that her first concern was that that description reminded her a little bit of this character called Green Zoo from 30 Rock, who was played by David Schwimmer. Green Zoo was 30 Rocks. Recyclops? Yeah, kind of. He was this environmental activist. He wore like a green shirt. He wore a green baseball cap. So when she was sketching

out Dwight's first costume, she wanted to make sure no one was going to think this was Green Zoo. So then the script said, Earth Day 2006, Dwight is wearing a Love Earth T-shirt, a cape, wrist guards, elbow pads, knee pads, moon boots, a full motorcycle helmet, and a larger eye in the middle of his forehead as he lectures everyone in the office. And in Alicia's notes, she wrote this, which I found hilarious. She wrote, quote, I don't think this has anything to do with Earth Day anymore for Dwight. So like, she's like the costume needs to reflect that. But then the script got really vague. The next two for September 2006 and February 2007, they just say Dwight isn't a much more serious costume

or the costume is more elaborate. And so she just really had to start making things up. She really did. But the present day recyclops was scripted like this. He wears heavy green body armor, which makes it difficult to walk. There is a blinking LED display on his chest. He has aerosol cans taped to his hands, which spray a red mist. A weapon belt holds Chinese stars, boomerang, samurai sword, fencing epi. On his head, he wears a helmet with a hole in the middle showing his one giant eye. So for this, Alicia said she researched skateboarding and hockey equipment as well as lacrosse equipment because she wanted the whole thing to have sort of like a subterfuge ops sort of feel. She said they gathered everything and she didn't want to

force rain to like try on all this equipment. So Alicia put it on herself. And she sent me a picture of herself. Oh my gosh. And they built this costume onto Alicia. And then once they got it approved, they put it onto rain. And she also said there was like a lot of back and forth about what the LED box should say. And then they finally settled on kill. And that is how recyclops evolved and ultimately came to be. And thank you, Alicia, for digging through all of your digital clutter and sending us those amazing sketches. We're going to post them in pod stories. Yes, they're so beautiful. Like you really see what a just amazing sketch artist she is as well as being this, you know, my gosh, she can sew and sketch and do everything. I did notice

Jenna in the very first shooting draft for this episode. This is what it said about this whole cold open, very first shooting draft. Cold open to come, semicolon, recyclops, five exclamation points, end of cold open. That's all it said. Yeah, you know, when I was talking to Justin about the Jim Ryan storyline, he said this episode really came in pieces. That recyclops was added a little later. We did ultimately shoot reexcyclops while shooting this episode. But yeah, this one was, you know, bits and pieces, bits and pieces. Well, before we end the cold open, I just had a really random thought. What is it? What if Mindy was given four gifts and set them on her desk and forgot them there? And then they shot the Tetris scene and no one noticed them.

And they were actually gifts for Mindy, not Kelly Kapoor. Just throwing it out there. My god, I mean, the one person we didn't check with was Mindy. I know. We should send her a screenshot of it and be like, Mindy, was there something special happening? I'm just saying, what if it was a special day for Mindy and people had given her gifts and she left them on her desk and ran to get a snack and then they shot the Tetris scene. I don't know. I don't buy that theory because there is no way that VEDA would allow gift bags on Mindy's desk for no reason. She'd be like, what's up with the gift bags? No, you're right. You're right. Okay. Well, again, we may never know. But we learned a lot of other things. We will never stop wondering. It's our gift to you.

A sense of wonder and curiosity. All right. Well, listen, this episode is going to start with Michael. He's practicing waving and nodding. Should he stand? Should he sit down? Yeah. Should he twirl? Oh, no. Don't twirl. Do not twirl. He's trying to figure out what he's going to do when they announce his name at the shareholder meeting, when he's up on the stage. Everyone really just wants him to give a little wave. Yeah. Phyllis' reaction to the twirl is my favorite. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's like a thing. Clearly, there's history with this twirl. It's not the first time he's brought it up. I feel like from the very beginning, I think I have the first line and Pam's like, yeah, that's great. That's great. Do the wave.

I feel like that's because this is like the 15th thing he showed us. Oh, yeah. Here's the thing, though. While Michael is practicing waving, Oscar is looking up on his computer the stock prices for Dunder Mifflin, and it's not good. He would like Michael to take it seriously. Well, I have two background catches during this scene between Michael and Oscar at Oscar's desk. At three minutes, 28 seconds, please note the superb on-screen DMI stock page. You know, it's the one Oscar's looking at. That was created by our graphic designer, Henry Sane, and Randy shared with us the original of it. I'll put it in our stories. Second background catch. I'm calling it a solitaire catch. Is it Meredith? Three minutes,

32 seconds. Kate is playing solitaire on her computer through the whole scene. You can see her game. Yeah. She always did very well. She was very good at it. Well, Erin is going to announce that Michael's limo has arrived. His limo. No, no, no. It's a town car. She's like, I'm pretty sure it's a limo. Everyone goes and looks outside. It sure is. They sent a stretch limo. Everyone is super impressed. But Oscar, who once again is like, this is classic Dunder Mifflin. They don't have the money and they're just throwing it out there like that. This, of course, Jenna led me to bigcars.com. Oh, bigcars.com? Yeah, it did. It sounds, I don't know what it sounds like. I know. I know. It sounds like a random thing to have in my search history, but there it is because in 1889, the

first limousine automobile was introduced to Paris, France. Really? Yes. I had to know more. Where did the limousine come from, Jenna? I had to know. The word limousine actually comes from the French word. I'm not going to say it right. Limousine. Wait, wait. The word limousine comes from the French word limousine. I'm shocked. How did we come up with that? Listen, there is a thing that I want to share with you. It's relatively new. Like in the last six months, it's called Google Translate. Google just came up with it. They did. It's brand new. Oh, just like in the last few days? Yeah. It's literally, it's brand new. If you look it up on your app, it's, okay, one second. We're typing in limousine. What is Google again? It's a search engine that came about about five

years ago. I'll need you to show me how to use that later. All right. This is how you say limousine in French, according to Google Translate. Limousine. Wait, wait. That's what it says. That's what it says. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Maybe. Oh, I played the English. Okay, wait. This is how you do it in French. Limousine. Oh, limousine. I hope this is a reoccurring segment where you play it in English and go, oh, it sounds similar. Oh, lord. Lordy, lordy, lordy. Okay. Okay, everybody. Limousine. All right. Well, I had to know where the first limousine originated. It was a former province in France and the original limousine had a closed passenger compartment and the driver was exposed to the elements. The enclosed portion of the car was said to resemble the limousine cloaks that were worn by the countryside shepherds. So the shepherds

in a province of France called limousine were cloaks that were specific to that region of how people dressed because they were outside farming and shepherds in the cold and they would transport their goods in a type of like horse-drawn cart with part of it covered in the driver exposed. Okay. All right. That is when the word limousine, which referred to a chaufford type of transportation, was born. Historically, limos were delivery vehicles. Yeah. And it wasn't until Woodrow Wilson rode in a chaufford car that the limousine was used to transport people, important persons. Wow. And that sort of became the thing. A limousine showed the separation between passenger and driver. And then once chaufford transportation started being associated with the wealthy,

well, then it was the bigger, the more flashier, the better, right? Okay. The stretch limousine, for example, is an American-made limousine and that's like the one you would take to prom or parties and everyone would pile in. According to coldwire.com, here are the list of type of limos you can get now. Oh, okay. Standard stretch limo, sedan limo, Hummer limo, SUV limo, a limo bus, eco-friendly limo, convertible limo, tank limo, jacuzzi limo, and an old-fashioned limo. Oh. Is that a limo where I drink an old-fashioned? It should be. There you have it, guys. Limousine originated in limousine. Here's what I'm getting from that. In order to qualify to be a limousine versus, let's say, just a chaufford town car, there must be a separation between passenger and driver.

That is correct. And so that would be like the little window. Or in some other types of older limousines, the driver is actually outside of the enclosed car. Like you sort of see those, I think, sometimes like Buckingham Palace has an oldie, they'll pull out every once in a while. Right. That would be a limousine. Yeah. Fascinating. Oh, there you have it. I like learning things like this. You know, it makes me an interesting dinner companion, I think. You got lots of stuff. You can just throw out at a random cocktail gathering. I really do. It's one of the benefits of doing this podcast. I love tidbits.

We do love a tidbit. This limo seats eight people. Michael wants to bring the whole gang, but we're going to have to decide who actually gets to go to the shareholder meeting. I absolutely loved our limo driver. He was so good. Randy told me that he was played by our very own transportation captain, Mike Stork. He was so no-nonsense. I guess when it was time to cast the role, Randy talked to Allison about maybe using one of our transportation regulars because this person was going to have to actually navigate a stretch limo through Los Angeles traffic while we were rolling. So, Randy was like, it'd be great if we could have an actor with professional driving experience.

Well, I guess Justin Spitzer and Paul Lieberstein did a little mini-audition with Mike, and they loved his dry delivery. It was so perfect. It was so perfect. So, here's who ends up going to the shareholder meeting, Andy, Michael, Dwight, and Oscar. And they are living it up in the limo. They are so excited. There's drinks, and Michael says it's bigger than where he sleeps. Is he still sleeping on the bench? Is he still sitting on the bench, even though Jan's gone? I don't know.

That's what I thought, too. I found out a little bit about how we shot these limousine scenes from our own Randy Cordray. At six minutes, 12 seconds, we see inside the limo. It's really driving down the road. Randy said this was shot with Charles McDougal, our director, sitting in the front seat, and Matt Sohn inside of the back of the limo with the cast. He said, we drove the limo around Belboa Park, which is a very good palm tree-free zone. Now, then at six minutes, 38 seconds, we see the limo driving down the streets of Los Angeles, substituting for New York City.

And he said, for this, we shot car to car. Matt Sohn was in one car, hanging out the window, filming our limo from across traffic. And he said, for this scene, we rented four New York City-looking taxi cabs to be around the limo to help sell the idea that they were in New York. It was a nice touch, I noticed that. Yeah. Well, the fellows are going to arrive at the fancy building that the shareholder meeting is in. Did you see the people protesting in the lobby? Wait.

Right as they walk through, there's a whole bunch of people protesting the Dunder Mifflin shareholder meeting. At six minutes, 53 seconds, you can see them, they're all holding up signs. My favorite was Blunder Mifflin. I love it. I thought that was a great job by Phil Shea. And yeah, if they were paying attention, they'd notice right away, this is not going to be smooth sailing.

Well, they don't notice. They are greeted by Lori, who's going to take Michael up to the lounge. Lori was played by Amy Kale Peterson. And when Michael gets to the lounge, he is introduced finally to Alan Brand. Yeah. We're going to meet this Alan guy. Finally. He is the CEO of Dunder Mifflin.

He was played by Alan Fudge. In his 37-year career, Alan Fudge appeared on so many television series and in so many films. He had recurring roles on 7th Heaven, Murder She Wrote, LA Law, Matlock, and Colombo. You know, I've been loving my re-watch of Colombo. Oh, love Colombo, yeah. And the office was Alan's final on-screen acting job. He sadly passed away shortly after filming this episode. But we were so fortunate to have him.

He's great. Michael also gets introduced to congressman Chris O'Keefe. He bows when he meets him. Yeah. He says, you're eminence. And Chris O'Keefe was played by Chris Ellis. So there are lines forming in this big room that they've rented for this meeting. And Dwight is determined to get to the front of the line.

Yeah. He wants to give Michael a softball question. Early, because then he's got to go to the garment district to grab a crate of his shirts. He has a shirt guy. He does. Now we have figured out where Dwight gets all of the short-sleeve mustard shirts. He has a guy. Well, I guess there were some other things that Dwight might do with his extra time.

They were in our must-shoot candy bag for this episode. Oh, I love a candy bag. What was in there? So guys, these are the alternates that we would shoot for every episode. A must-shoot meant we had to get them. So here are two other things Dwight was going to do with his time. He says, I was hoping to lob Michael his softball question early. Then I was going to sneak away to the New York Public Library and see about this ghost thing for myself.

That's like a ghostbusters reference. Right, right. And then the other one was, then I was going to swing down to the diamond district and see what these are worth. And then it says Dwight holds out a black felt cloth with a bunch of small diamonds in it. So either shirts, ghost hunting, or getting some diamonds appraised. I love the shirt one. I love that we finally find out where he gets all of those mustard shirts. I agree.

Well, there's some fun stuff in the deleted scenes of Dwight in this line. You know, Jenna, he becomes classic Dwight. He has rules for his line. Oh, yeah. I mean, when the woman in line asks Dwight if she'll save his place so she can go to the bathroom, he says, no. And then, lady, there was a couplet of dialogue that I love where she says it'll just be a second. And then he says, if onlys and justs were candy and nuts, then every day would be earned to dunk fest. I did a deep dive on earned to dunk fest.

What is that? What is earned to dunk fest? Well, it's German, and it translates as give thanks for the harvest festival. And it's a real thing. It is very similar to America's Thanksgiving, just in that it is time to give thanks and appreciation for that year's harvest. It is traditionally celebrated on the first Sunday that falls after September 29th. And it is traditionally celebrated with a church service by the Catholic and Protestant churches. And then following that, there are parades and a feast.

Now, there is no one meal that served, but you'll usually find like a large chicken or a rooster, I guess, or a fattened hen that is served with root vegetables and bread. You eat rooster? I guess for earned to dunk fest, you can eat a rooster. You can. Okay, if you want. Well, I brought this up to Justin Spitzer. Earned to dunk fest?

Yeah. And I said, I just loved that line. And he wrote back and said, well, Jenna, there's sort of a code where writers aren't supposed to take credit for like certain moments in a script. But it was his. And I just write it. And it's really funny to me. So thank you for appreciating it. It was really funny. Well, listen, we got a little ahead of ourselves.

We should back up because we have to see Oscar and Andy enter this shareholder meeting now. Well, let's take a break. And when we come back, Oscar is furious and Andy is really encouraging him to say something. Music All right, we're back. And Oscar and Andy are making their way down the aisle. Oscar is incensed at the money that was spent on this event. Oscar actually has some really good ideas.

I know. And Andy says, you know, you should say something. You should go to the bike. I spotted something in this scene. What? At eight minutes, 15 seconds, I spotted a mic hide. A mic hide? Do you remember the way that they would hide the microphones inside the knot of the men's ties?

Oh, yeah. They would put this squishy thing around the microphone. It kind of looks like an earplug with a hole in the middle. They would stick the mic in that and then they would put that whole thing into the knot of the tie. And you can only see it if you know to look for it. But I think I could see it in Oscar's tie as he's walking down the aisle. Well, now you know about the mic hide and the tie. It'll be all that you look for, guys.

I know. You're welcome. Back in the office, we have a little bit of what I'm calling sass in the break room. Jim's having problems. I guess he asked Ryan to import all of their contacts into Outlook. But Ryan is like, isn't the company going under? Yeah. I mean, shouldn't we wait to find out?

Like, why do all this work if the company's going under? I mean, he kind of has a point, but he's also being a slacker. Yeah, I do see his point, though. I know. It feels like busy work. Yeah. Honestly, Jim, it feels like busy work. Five minutes, 48 seconds, we got a coffee mug call back.

What is it? Meredith is drinking out of her America's Got Talent Coffee Mug from Customer Survey. The problems for Jim are not going to get any easier. Phyllis is going to come back from her lunch, a long lunch. Two hour lunch. I mean, we know what Bob and Phyllis do in the bathroom at lunch. Oh, Lord, remember? I hadn't even gone there.

Yeah. I mean, this was a long lunch. I think we know what they were up to. She says she's a little tipsy, which she just admits that to her boss, Jim. Jim's like, why are you saying this to me? But Jenna, I have a question for you. What is it? How do you say the word fire?

Fire. Fire. Yeah. Sam. Fire. Cassie. Fire. Fire.

Because listen to how Phyllis says it. I thought I could hear a little bit of St. Louis in that fire. Hey Phyllis, are you just getting back from lunch now? Mmm, Bob took me to Capellos. We got a little tipsy. Okay. Shouldn't be telling me that stuff and also shouldn't be taking two hour lunches without telling me.

Oh, it's okay. Michael doesn't really care about these things. I care about them. And I'm just as much of a boss as Michael. What's so funny? I'm a co-manager. That doesn't make you a boss. It's not like you can fire people or anything.

What? Who? How did you? Who told you this? We can't say. Far. Far people or anything. Far people.

Far. You know what I need to do is ask my mom and dad to say far. Yes. To see what they say. Because she says far to far. Right. Far. I think maybe.

Mmm-hmm. Accent catch. Way to go. You're welcome. St. Louis. Limousine. Far. Far.

Well, by the way, this sets off a whole thing. Can Jim far people or not? Everyone seems to think he can't. Even Pam for a second. Yes. She forgot that she has to support Jim no matter what. That was a close one, she says. Back at the fancy shareholder meeting.

It's show time for Michael. Mmm-hmm. He's going to be introduced. Do his wave. He does. And he does do the wave. He doesn't twirl. Thank goodness.

Yeah. It's still a bit awkward. And that's it. Then he just sits down. In the audience though. And he will not stop encouraging Oscar to stand up and go to the microphone and say what's what. Yeah.

Andy says he's, you know, the guy that rallies other people to rebel. He once organized a walkout over standardized testing and got over 500 students to skip the SATs. Mmm-hmm. Andy chickened out and he took them anyway. He scored a 12-20. Yeah. He feels very lack-remose about it.

Mmm-hmm. Which means tearful or given to weeping. I looked it up too. So did I. I mean, I was like, I feel like I should figure out what that means. Yeah. Well, he got a 12-20 on his SATs. Mmm-hmm.

This led me to a many deep dive. Her, a website called Prep Scholar who did a survey in 2019. The SAT score range is 400 to 1600 for your total score. One section scores math while the other is a combined reading and writing. As you would expect the higher your score, the better you did compared to the other test takers. I wanted to know where did Andy rank. Okay.

I thought he sounded like he did pretty good. I did too. So he would have been in the 74th percentile. No. Very well. I know. I did not take the SAT. No.

I scheduled it. But my ACT was before my SAT. Mmm-hmm. And I took my ACT and I scored high enough to get into my College of Choice. So I just didn't take the SAT. I was like, wait, can I, can I get in with my ACT score? And they were like, yeah. I was like, cool.

I took both. And you know, now they're moving it to a digital online version, but I did the old fashioned paper and pencil. Me too. And a big auditorium where I had to sit every other row. Yeah. Super spaced apart. Exactly.

Yeah. I took both of them. ACT, SAT. After college, my college had this, um, they had this standardized test that you had to take to test out of college. You didn't have to pass it or get any certain score to leave the school, but they just wanted it like for their records, I think, just to show how people would score on tests after attending their school.

Right. Yeah. And I was like bitter about it. It was like a Saturday. I had to get up really early. And it was standardized weirdly. It was on a computer. It was all multiple choice.

And I started taking the test and it was going to be one of those two to three hour tests. And at a certain point, guess what? You left. Every answer was C. I just went C, C, C, C, C. I didn't do that bad on it. Oh my gosh. You just played the odds of hitting C over and over. I did. So I'm sorry to my university that I actually really loved that I just found it in on that

test, but I didn't want to take it. So that's why I did. Well, that's what happened. So they maybe didn't look so good on their stats that year. It wasn't bad though, I'll say. Don't make me take a test to try to make you look good. That's right. That's not my job.

My job was to pay you money and get an education. And then we just, we part ways. Well, I think that joke only works if Andy does well on the test. After he talked everybody else out of taking it. That's a good button for the joke that he was in the 74th percentile. Right. But he regrets it. He regrets taking it.

He does. The crowd is taken to the mic and they're angry and they're saying that the board of Denver Mifflin are criminals. And Michael is going to defend the company. He's going to do what Michael does best and pretty much burn it to the ground. He is going to share about how great Dunder Mifflin is. They sent him a limo and all this free food. Yes.

Can you believe it? The crowd gets even angrier like to the point where they're running these guys off the stage. So Michael promises that they're going to take a break, but they're going to come back from their break. This is my favorite thing with a 45-day, 45-point plan to get the company back on track. Now the crowd goes wild. Michael's got him in the palm of his hand. And he doesn't stop there.

He says, limo lady, this is the woman who was angry about the limo, we're going carbon neutral. Everyone cheers and they're like, get him off the stage, but he like runs back for an encore spin. Yeah. He got the spin in. He got the twirl and the wave, all of it. You know, that carbon neutral line, that was another little nod to green week.

But man, I love a 45-day, 45-point plan to get things done. It made me want to make one for my own life just to make it. Here's the part I love. One point per day. We get the 45 points and we are back in business. Exactly. You just get one point a day. Well, then when he goes up to the, up to the lake holding room and those guys are freaking

out, they're like, Michael, what have you done? He's like, listen, get me a pen of paper. The only answer here is to do what I said. So day 45, company saved. What's day 44? Yeah. He's going to work backwards. It's so amazing.

And he's like, we got 15 minutes. Let's do this. Well, I would say up in the lounge at 15 minutes, 44 seconds, I have a Fiji water catch. I knew you would and at 15 minutes, 51 seconds, I got a Gouda catch. What's a Gouda catch? It's an enormous plate of Gouda. There's so much Gouda. What if there is?

I couldn't get over it. I had to take a picture of the screen. I did not get the Gouda catch, but at 17 minutes, I have a New York Times catch. It's sitting out on the table. I thought that was a very nice detail from Phil Shea. Well, it's 1709. I've got a fabulous plant catch. What?

There are so many great plants in the scene. Okay. I just have to say, I love that I spotted water and a newspaper and you spotted some cheese and plants. That is all you need to know about us. That is everything. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Well, Michael has a plan. He's going to call Oscar. Oscar has all these great ideas. He's an accountant. He's going to get him up there to talk to everybody. This is not a bad idea. I know, but Oscar completely chokes. He's worried he's going to get fired if he tells the truth to these big bosses.

Yeah. Well, this really sets off the room. The congressman calls Michael a moron and Michael goes, I'm not a moron. Then after time, my branch leads in sales. I have personally won over 17 Dundee Awards, which guys are awards he basically gives himself. Yeah. Oh. Well, then congressman O'Keeffe says he's taken back the limo.

You guys don't get to ride the limo back to Scranton. Michael Hall's ass out of there. He gets the guys who's like, let's go, let's go. Load it up. Well, they jump into the limo. They yell at the driver to drive. They've got booze. They're celebrating.

Their hands go up out of the sunroof. It's very exciting. It's a big party. Few background catches here and some tidbits from Randy at 20 minutes, eight seconds at the limo loading area. Randy said they rented five additional limos for the day to make it appear that the Dundermifflin corporate people had truly been overdoing it. Right?

I like that. 20 minutes, 22 seconds per Randy. Can you see the hands outside the limo from the outside shot? Yes. The cast had already been released for the day, so those hands are Randy's, our stand-in Steven Socks, our PA Greg Ubaraga, and our PA Chuck Canzeroni. No way. I love that.

Yeah, and they all put on dress like suit jackets so they could match when their hands went out. Well, when the limo's driving down the street right after that shot, you see the Dundermifflin stock ticker go by on a building and you can see that it's dropping. The arrow, the down arrow. Yeah. Well, I guess creating this very small moment of this ticker on the side of the building took a lot of effort.

I was curious about it because I don't recall us having things like that in downtown LA, but they're very popular in New York. They wrap around like electronic billboard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we totally faked it. That is a fakey ticker. Like the sign doesn't even exist on the building.

Yes. Wow. He said they started by finding real buildings in New York that had stock tickers, and then they tried to find a building in downtown LA that kind of matched it. So they settled on the Brooks Brothers building. Just to be clear, there is no ticker on the side of this building. So our graphics designer, Henry Sane, created the fake ticker and then Stargate International, which was our go-to CGI company, they put it on the building and made it look 3D.

Fakey ticker. Well done, fakey ticker. Well that finishes out the fellas at the shareholder meeting. Back in Scranton, here we are. We're at that scene that we started with in mom detectives. 15 minutes, 32 seconds, count them, four mysterious gift bags on Kelly's desk. Ryan is continuing to be defiant, and Jim finally has the answer. Yeah.

He's going to give him a new office. And that office is the closet off the kitchen. The old supply closet. I remember when they built that closet. I do too. I do too. And it really was very tiny. It was.

When you would see BJ as Ryan in there, like at his little desk, it was really funny looking. And it really was very enclosed, like when you shut the door, it was pitch dark. Yes, it was. This episode has a tag at the end that sort of like takes us back in time. We would do this sometimes. We see Dwight finally getting his turn at the microphone, and instead of talking about Dunder Mifflin, he's going to give a speech about how to improve the line situation. We just used to like to do this.

If there was a bit, if there was a joke that didn't make it into an episode, sometimes we would use it as a tag, and that's what happened here. We got a lot of mail of people saying, wait a second, did Dwight go back to the hotel because he was in the limo? No. This was sort of like a flashback kind of tag. Yes, exactly. It was like sort of out of sequence.

Yes. Well, that was Shareholder Meeting. I hope you guys enjoyed it, Jen. I hope you enjoyed your cookies and your flowers. I did. I have had a wonderful birthday, I want to say. It's been stretched out in our family instead of doing gifts as much. Sometimes we do experiences.

So like my son took me to my first Lakers game. So fun. I know. And I got to see that game where LeBron James like scored all the like gazillion points. That sounds like LeBron. I know. Listen to me, like my first basketball game. You guys, LeBron James scored a gazillion points.

He's really good. He's a very good basketball player. Yes, he is. When I was there, it was funny because I turned to my husband and I said, these Laker girls are very good dancers. It's like truly like a person being there for the first time. But I loved it. And then my daughter arranged for me to have manicure pedicure with her.

Aw. So cute. And then you guys, my husband, Lee, I love you so much. He converted the little room off our garage into an exercise room for me. The little storage room? Yes. Are you going to get your work out on that? I am.

I told him that I've been wanting to have this goal of getting back into shape, kind of like just moving my muscles a little bit more. I took a long time off for the pandemic. Yes. Yeah. I think a lot of us did. We all did. Well, we had shoved our Peloton into this little kind of closet room and it was mostly

used for storage. And he cleaned it all out and he put down like the little like foam floor. Oh, wow. Yeah, and he got me some kettle bells and all this stuff. I made him a list. He said, what would be, you know, the stuff you'd want in this little room. And so I can take my iPad in there and watch my workout videos and I love it. So thank you.

And now I got all this stuff here today, but I had a great birthday and I also got great birthday wishes from people online and through the office ladies post. I mean, I just felt so loved. Well, you are so loved. Thank you, everyone. I know this is going to air long after my birthday, but thank you. I'm now 48. You're a sassy 48.

You look fabulous. We love you so much, lady. Thank you guys. Thank you. And Mindy, if you're out there listening and you know why there were four gift bags on your desk at 15 minutes, 32 seconds in this episode, let us know. We'd love to hear it. We'd love to know.

We're going to wrap up with Mindy singing because it's fantastic. I love that idea. We will see you next week. You're the male pre-Madonna, but I can't help but want you. I'm an independent diva, but I still kind of need you. Together we're apart. It's tearing up my heart. I'm an hell and a bonacla.

You're the male pre-Madonna. 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 Kieffer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubicoe. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad-free versions of Office Ladies, go to StitcherPremium.com.

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