Office Ladies - Suit Warehouse

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

This week we’re breaking down “Suit Warehouse”. Clark brings the office a new espresso machine causing everyone to have way too much caffeine and they get wild. Meanwhile, Darryl goes to Philly to interview for Athlead and Pam tags along. We hear audio clips from the director of this episode and “The Office” cinematographer, Matt Sohn, who shares some fun tidbits about making this episode! Angela breaks down how the Athlead office was made and Jenna points out all the times the carpet had to be replaced on “The Office” set. So it’s time to pay your wig storage bill, celebrate with a mid-range basketball shot and enjoy this episode because YOLO!  Check out Office Ladies Merch at Podswag: https://www.podswag.com/collections/office-ladies Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestionFollow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPod

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. Hey, good morning. Office, ladies. Hello. Hey, good morning. Did this episode make you want to buy a new suit? No, it did not. Did it make you want to throw a basketball into a fish tank and electrocute a bunch of fish? No.

Of course not. Did it make you want a lot of coffee? It did not. I did laugh at this episode. I laughed a whole bunch. Yeah. It is Suit Warehouse, Season Nine, Episode 11, written by Dan Graney and directed by Matt Sohn.

Here's your summary. With Jim working out of town, Dwight enlists Clark's help to help play a father and son in order to land a new client. Daryl heads to Philly to interview with Jim's new company and Pam tags along. And finally, the arrival of a new Nespresso machine throws the entire office into a caffeinated state of chaos.

I mean, it was mayhem. They started taking the place apart. Literally. Mm-hmm. All right, fast was mayhem. They started taking the place apart. Literally. Mm-hmm. All right, fast fact number one. Like I said, this episode was directed by our very own Matt Sohn. Yes, you guys have heard us talk about Matt Sohn

for years on the show. Oh yeah, he's been with us since the beginning. Matt was also the one that knew you were pregnant when you thought you were fooling everyone. Yeah, he said, Jenna, I look at you through a camera all day long. I could see all of it happening. Yes, and he's also a father of two. Yes.

So he knew the signs. So I actually reconnected with Matt recently and he, Jenna, he hikes, he goes on all these hikes. I know he recently went on a hike with Chris Haston, who is Kate Flannery's longtime boyfriend and our NBC photographer. goes on all these hikes. I know, he recently went on a hike with Chris Haston, who is Kate Flannery's longtime boyfriend and our NBC photographer, and David Denman. The three of them went on a big old hike recently.

Oh yeah, so he said to me, I should wanna go for a hike. And I was like, yes. No. But you don't want that. He goes so fast. He's like, he's like sporty. And as it came time for the hike, I really lucked out because we got all that rain. Remember LA just got like a downpour

of rain. Yeah. And so I was like, how are those hiking trails looking with my fingers crossed? He goes pretty muddy. And he said, want to do a neighborhood walk? I said, yes. Yes. Oh, you lucked out. I lucked out. And you know, we're neighbors. So we live in the same neighborhood. Yeah. So we just went on this wonderful walk and he let me point out flowers and different like awnings I like. He didn't go too fast. He didn't go too fast. It was a stroll. Nice. Anyway, Matt is wonderful. And on this walk, we were talking about the podcast and he was saying how much he's enjoying it.

He said, you know, when you get to Suit Warehouse, I would love to share with you some behind the scenes details. And I said, Matt, we will 100% hit you up for that. And he was so gracious. He sent us in a ton of audio clips for this episode. He did, and they're great. He has some good details.

So buckle in for that. All right, fast fact number two, Building Athlete. Yes. This was a big episode in so many ways, but one of the biggest things in this episode is that we revealed Jim's new business for the first time. His swanky new office. I know and it's really impressive Steve Burgess said we spent a very long time designing it and it was expensive He said but we were able to spread the cost over a bunch of different episodes. Mm-hmm So some sneaky budgeting I guess we also asked Matt zone about being an athlete for the first time and Having to direct this new space. And here's what he had to say.

This episode established the athlete offices. They were built on our lot in our warehouse set. I believe Matt Flynn was the production designer at this time. He had taken over for Michael Gallenberg. Athlete was built to look just the opposite of the Dunder Mifflin set. It had high ceilings, lots of windows and nice views.

It had exposed brick and the set design was also much hipper. There were cool desks, chairs and artwork. It was an alluring place for both Jim and Daryl. I feel like the crew only had a few weeks to build this set, and I think they were a little bit behind because we ended up having to shoot the scenes there at the end of our episode, you know,

to make it fit within our schedule. You know, it didn't really occur to me how kind of not great the Dunder Mifflin office space is until Matt started describing the athlete of high ceilings, lots of windows. Alluring. Yeah, I was like, oh, yeah. Well, Jenna, Matt's own mentioned Matt Flynn. And you know, I had reached out to Matt Flynn when we broke down pool party to get all the details about Robert California's swanky pool house.

Yes. And that's two swankies, Dr. Thibodeau. I've already said swanky twice. But anyway, so Matt Flynn told me when you get to the fancy athlete offices, I want to share about it. And so here's what he had to say about building that set. Ooh, I'm very excited. I'm leaning in.

All right, I quote, "'This story arc gave the art department "'a great opportunity to show how many changes "'had occurred in the workplace since the office first aired. "'Slick and with much less clutter, "'textured with a completely different color palette, "'no stacks of file boxes in the corners, "'a reliance of laptops and with much less clutter, textured with a completely different color palette, no stacks of file boxes in the corners, a reliance of laptops rather than clunky old equipment like

fax machines, for example. And we were able to show the athlete office space in a couple of episodes where it was being converted from a raw, unfinished, and maybe even a little spooky environment, allowing us to get a grip on Jim's anxiety about making such a big career change. Wow, I love all this detail. Oh, there's more! Matt Flame goes on to say, a couple of things stand out as this set came together. Early discussions had found the need for a separate conference room unnecessary, keeping the space more open and less cubicle-like, another contrast from Dunder

Mifflin. Then there were changes in the script that did indeed require for a separate space for meetings and more private encounters. Well, there was no such space in this now almost finished and decorated space. Wow. They built the whole thing without a conference room. So all these scenes that happened with Daryl at the interview were kind of like a late-breaking idea.

That's right. Matt goes on to say, Our wonderful art director, Yvonne, knew every square inch of Stage 2, having drafted and laid out numerous configurations of scenery over several seasons, and she realized that behind one wall of the newly built athlete office was 12 feet of unused space. Wow. So if we pushed that wall back and added some sliding glass doors, we could maybe now accommodate a conference room. And with the great construction crew and scenic artists we relied on, it could be camera ready in under 48 hours. You know what blows my mind is that most of the scenes at Athlete end up taking place in this little room that they added in 48 hours. Yeah. This extra little 12 feet of space. Thanks to Yvonne for knowing every square inch of that space.

Yeah. Matt goes on to say, another addition to the set, which we were mindful of keeping on budget, was a steel stairway leading to an unseen upper floor of athlete office space. Late in the process, my construction coordinator, Tim James, crunched the numbers and yes,

we could afford to add that element in the background. Significantly helping increase the sense of scale to the space and we added some animation as employees were able to come down the stairs. It might seem an insignificant element, but we took great pleasure when it was installed again in about less than 48 hours. Okay, I completely noticed that staircase. Same. And I loved it.

And it did feel like, I don't know, everything, it felt bigger, it felt more important, it felt more energized. Yeah. Wow. Thank you, Matt Flynn. We love those behind the scenes details. I loved them. Thank you, Matt.

And Matt. Thank you, Matt and Matt. All right, moving on to fast fact number three, I want to give a big shout out to Ed Lauter, who played Mr. Stone of Stone and Son Suit Warehouse. He was fantastic. He is a film and television legend. He is a prolific character actor. We were so lucky to have him on our show.

He passed away in 2013 and The Office was one of the last things he worked on. He was also a recurring character on Shameless at the time and he had filmed a couple of movies that came out after he had passed away. He worked as a stand-up comedian before getting into film. He appeared in more than 200 film and television episodes over his 40-year career. He was in four films with Charles Bronson. He was in Death Wish 3, Death Hunt, The White Buffalo, and Break Heart Pass. He was also in an Alfred Hitchcock film called Family Plot.

And he appeared in three films that were nominated for Best Picture. He was in Born on the Fourth of July, Seabiscuit, and The Artist, and I found this interview that he did in 2003 and it had a quote that I was completely charmed by. He said, quote, someone said to me, Eddie, you're a turn actor. That's when a story is going along and your character shows up and the story suddenly takes a major turn. I love that. I love that term turn actor.

Yeah, I do too. I've never heard that before. And you know exactly that moment when you watch a movie when everything shifts. Yep. Like someone comes to town and there's information dropped and you're like, uh-oh. Yeah. That's a great term. I love it.

Well, I just wanted to honor him, his body of work, and he was great on our episode. Yeah. All right, well, that's all I've got for Fast Facts. Well, why don't we take a break? Because when we get back, Dwight is gonna get a new instant message. Old tech alert.

It is the oldest instant message I've ever seen. I know. We are back and like you said, this episode is going to start with some old tech. Dwight is at his computer and a bright red message box pops up in the lower right-hand corner says, new instant message. It's from David Wallace. And that Stone and Sons Suit warehouse contract with their paper supplier expired. David Wallace is like, go get it. Yeah.

Dwight has a talking head where he explains that he and Jim had a tradition whenever they were pitching to family-owned businesses, they would pretend to be brothers. And they did this for a law firm, they did it for a construction company, for a motorcycle store. I have a costume breakdown. Oh yes, because they would dress the part. They sure did. For their family-owned law firm, they both wore very nice suits, much nicer than they normally wear, and they slicked back their hair. Yeah. A little bit of a Gordon Gekko, Wall Street moment happening. Then when they were a family construction company, they wore flannel t-shirts, they wore flannel button-downs, Dwight wore a hard hat, Jim carried his hard hat, but then

had like a messy hair look. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because when you're a paper salesman selling to a construction company, it makes sense that you bring a hard hat? None of it makes sense. None of it makes sense. Then for a family owned motorcycle store, and this is the most elaborate costume, they wore black leather pants, black jackets,

boots and helmets, and they had a motorcycle. Dwight also goes on to say that their names were Jim and Dwight Schrupert. And Dwight says, I was the dynamic likable winner that was doted on by mom and Jim was the closeted foot fetish pretending to belong. Of course, the client never knew any of that, but I knew it. And Lady? What? Oh my God, is Dwight doing that actory thing where he gives himself a backstory

to motivate his sales character? Sounds like it. Sounds like he did a little Jenna acting journal. He did, sounds like he had a little document for himself. That cracks me up. I love how the backstory of their brotherhood can travel from scenario to scenario. Oh, yeah. The Schrueperts.

Mm-hmm. Well, Dwight is giddy. He calls Jim, and I loved this whole exchange. It was great. He says, I hope you've been paying your wig storage bills, Jimbo. How many wigs, how many costumes do they have? Well we know Dwight has a lot because he pretended to be people in the office. That's true, that's true.

Well Jim reminds him, I am not there. I'm in Philly, I'm not going to drive to you and go on the sales call, get someone else, maybe Phyllis can pretend to be your sister. And Dwight says, Phyllis, my sister? More like my dead great-great-grandmother who died of stupidity. And Phyllis goes, I have ears, Dwight. And then Dwight's response to me is like an 11-year-old boy on the playground. He goes, oh, really, Phyllis, you have ears like all human beings. Well, we asked Matt Sohn about this cold open, and here is what he had to say.

I have a handful of funny memories from the episode. The run at the beginning of the show that has Jim and Dwight in the different outfits playing brothers was great when they're walking out of the front of Dundermiflin. But the one that had us laughing the most was when Rain and John are both in full leather apparel and on the back of the motorcycle.

Something I noted from that moment was that they never take off. Oh yeah. They just rev it. He's just revving it. Oh, yeah. You never see that motorcycle move. I'm sure Steve Burr just was like, we're not paying insurance for these guys to be on a

motorcycle together. Angela, we got a very interesting fan question from this cold open from Sean K in Lisbon, Wisconsin. Sean says, at one minute, 23 seconds, when Dwight is mocking Phyllis, you can clearly see Angela yawning a huge yawn. Long day sitting at the desk in the background or just life? I saw it. Sean, did you see it?

Yes, I saw it. I was so embarrassed. I was so embarrassed. I clearly was just really tired because it's a really big yawn. Yeah, one minute, 23 seconds, everyone. It was an early morning. I missed it the first time. All right, so now this episode is going to begin,

and Darryl enters the bullpen. He's dressed up real spiffy. And we find out he is heading to Philly for his interview with Athlead. Pam wishes him good luck, and then Darryl says, why don't you just come with me? And she realizes that their office has no manager and there are absolutely no consequences to her leaving for the entire day. Yeah, I thought about this too, because I don't think normally when you're at a job that you would announce to everyone that you're

going to look for another job. I know. Like, could you imagine like coming in, in like a suit and whatever and here and being like, guys, I'm looking for, could you imagine, like, coming in in, like, a suit and whatever and here and being like, guys, I'm looking for another podcast. Bye or something. Yeah, exactly. On that note, Angela, in the next scene, a taxi is going to pull into the parking lot and Clark gets out. He's carrying a duffel bag.

He's arriving back to work after being away with Jan. Yeah. So I have two questions for you. Okay. Number one, why did Daryl even come into the office today? Why did he stop by just to leave? And second, why does everybody come to the office after returning for a trip? From a huge trip with their luggage.

With their luggage. He didn't want to stop at home. Yeah, I know. And also, like, Daryl didn't want to just leave from home? Darryl is the only one I can wrap my brain around, because what if he was like, OK, I've got to do a few last minute things in the office, then I'm hitting the road?

Sure. OK. But coming back from the plane straight to Dunder Mifflin in the morning. Yeah. What was this flight? I don't know. A red eye? Yes, it was a red eye. But yes, Angela, you're right. Maybe Darryl stopped in he did like an hour of emails. Yeah. And then he took off. Then he left. But anyway, Pam is going to go with him. Yeah. This is is gonna be fun. Speaking of Clark, everyone is really happy to see him back.

Dwight says, oh, Dwight Jr's back. And Kevin wants to know how it went down with Jan. This talking head is so funny to me. It's so brilliant. I had to put in all caps, oh my gosh, Clark Duke crushes this talking head. I went to the candy bag alts, there were none. This was it.

Don't need them. Don't need them. It's perfect. This is what he says. A gentleman doesn't discuss such matters, especially when the feelings of a lady are involved. Women reached their sexual peak at whatever age Jan was last week.

It's such a funny line. That is such a funny line. I mean, it was like making love with a wild animal, but not like a cougar, like you might think. It was like a swarm of bees. And then this line got me, bees that just find something wrong with every hotel room. That is such good writing.

That is such good writing. Oh my gosh. Like, as an actor, when you get handed that piece of writing, you are giddy. You cannot wait to do that talking head. Yeah. And Clark does such a great job. Meredith is going to chime in and say, talk classy, act nasty. That's what her mom used to say. That's right.

Motherly advice. And this is when Clark clocks that her hair is totally different and asks her if she has a wig on and Meredith is like, oh, is it on backwards? And then she lifts it up and adjusts it. You can see the bald cap underneath. For that three second joke, maybe it's two seconds. Kate had to come in at 330 in the morning and get that bald cap put on. Three hours to get that on. Yep.

And yes, Meredith is a brunette this week. Guess what? Clark has a gift for the office. It's from Jan. Yeah, apparently on the Amalfi Coast, Jan and Clark drank a lot of espresso. They became fond of it. So Jan has sent Clark back to the office

with a new Nespresso machine as a gift. Oscar is so delighted. We got a fan question from Maddie R in Dallas, Texas who said, the way Phyllis and Oscar talk about the Nespresso machine and the way the box is perfectly facing the camera makes me think that this was a paid product placement, was it? And if so, how did this come about? Well, we asked Matt Sohn about this and here's what he had to say. On a fun side note, Phil Shea, our prop master, again scored for us. He was able to get Nespresso to sign off and let us use one of their actual machines and their name, which is surprisingly more rare than not.

Usually you have to make up a name for a product. But they were excited about the script and they loved the episode. Yes, Angela. Steve Burgess said that once Phil got permission from Nespresso, they still had to get NBC sales to sign off on it because we were basically giving Nespresso a free commercial. This was not paid product placement. This was us writing an episode and just asking permission to use their machine.

And Steve Burgess said they were a little reluctant because, you know, it was just like free advertising, but they did say okay. Oh yeah, NBC I'm sure was like, show me the money. Cause it is, it's like an amazing ad forever. I know, it's true. And Maddie is right, that box is placed perfectly on reception and we see this machine throughout the whole episode. Well, it sounds like they were office fans and I just think it's great. I'm

glad that they said yes. Well we got more fan mail about Nespresso from Carrie L in Stillwater, New Jersey who said, I don't have the full breakdown of Nespresso but I do want to tell you that they are big on recycling and when you're done with your coffee capsules, they come to me. I work at a food waste management warehouse in New Jersey named AgChoice. Not only that, but my specific job is the manager of our program Capsule Connections. I work with local high school students with disabilities on gaining job skills. We have 12 schools and close to 70 students in a work-based learning program

who help us recycle these each day. And the coffee then goes to our local compost site to turn into topsoil. It's an amazing job with some great hardworking students plus the perks of coffee. Carrie says, be sure to use the free recycling bags from Nespresso and it will get shipped to us and be recycled properly and stay out of a landfill. Thank you, Carrie. Yeah, I love that. I did a little mini deep dive on this and I watched a bunch of videos and I was seeing this recycling program and this real attempt to be more environmentally conscious. It was really cool. So when you get Nespresso,

because I don't have one, it comes with the little recycle bag, and then you send that back. Yeah, and so you save your pods, and you don't have to clean them out. You don't have to separate them. You don't have to do anything. You just put them in the bag, I guess. I mean, according to these videos,

and then you send it, and then it all gets taken care of. They separate it. They recycle it. They do all of it. That's great. I know. Yeah, I just really liked Carrie's letter, and it all gets taken care of. They separate it, they recycle it, do all of it. That's great. I know.

Yeah, I just really liked Carrie's letter because I loved how much she loved her job. I always love when people love their job. I also love to learn about new jobs. Now that Clark is back, Dwight's will's are turning. He sees a new opportunity here for a sales team, and he goes back to the Annex and he says, you know what, Clark, you did a great job in helping us land those white pages. How would you like to be Dwight Jr.

and pretend to be my son to help me land a sale? Clark says, if it helps me break into sales, I'll do it. Yeah, Clark is wanting to climb the old corporate ladder. That's right. Get out of the annex. Yeah. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, everyone's enjoying the new Nespresso machine.

But we have a little awkwardness in the kitchen. Erin and Pete enter. And I think Erin is still kind of reeling from the whole lice thing, from the whole head massaging and all of that. Well, I think so. She's very self-conscious. She's very self-conscious.

Also, though, we missed one thing we should bring up, which is, I mean, before Pam left, she said, Erin, just so you know, we're gonna get a shipment of pins today. And Erin's like, what do you mean? What do you mean shipment of pins? I haven't been trained for this. She starts to spiral and Pam's like, ha, okay.

I can't believe we didn't mention it because it's one of my all-time favorite scenes. It's so funny to me. Yeah, but this detail has completely overwhelmed Erin the character. Ellie does such a great job with it. But Erin's gonna have a talking head where she says, you know what, I have a lot going on right now

with the pen shipment, and I don't have time to think about Pete, you know? I have a lot of people like counting on me and I don't wanna break anyone's trust about the pens. Yeah. You know, there would have been a Pete talking head that would have come right after Aaron's. Oh.

It's in the deleted scenes. And Pete is basically saying, I thought things were going well, but I don't know. Maybe something happened. Maybe I said something that offended her, but I couldn't have said anything more offensive than anything anyone else says here in the office. And he says he's been like playing over the conversations in his head to try to figure it out. I know. Sweet Pete. Sweet

Pete. We love him. Mm-hmm. Well in the next scene, Daryl and Pam are driving to Philly together and Daryl's nervous. Yeah, and Pam is going to try to comfort him. She's like, listen, this is a tiny startup with a bunch of dorky guys like Jim. He can't be scared in a room full of Jims. She's like, I love him, but he's basically Gumby with hair. And they kind of have a laugh. And once again, it's clear to me that Pam doesn't know anything about Jim's life in Philadelphia. Wouldn't he have shared with her about the office, photos, anything, how it's coming along?

I mean, you know, I know I joked in the lice episode that I kind of fall apart if Lee goes out of town and maybe I don't share completely with him all of my stress of him being gone because I don't wanna burden him with that, I don't want him to feel guilty or whatever. But at the same time, like, I do know what's going on with him and he knows what's going on with me. He knows I don't do well when he's gone. This is not a secret in our marriage. And similarly, like, I can hold that he's off doing

an exciting thing while I'm dumping trash on the street. Like, you know, and so it's hard for me to relate to this idea that, like, Jim hasn't, I don't know, like, shared photos of the office in an excited way, like that he's not sharing his excitement over this opportunity with her. Yes. And it's been weeks. So I just think about the little home remodel that we did, you know? And how when I had to go out of town, the week that like the floors went in, Josh sent me pictures, floors are going in. It's exciting. Oh my gosh, we got faucets today. You know what I mean? Yes.

And I feel like- But also, also he probably shared the frustrating parts with you too. Like, floors went in today, they showed up three hours late and didn't have all the materials. Like I'm making that up. But I'm saying like, sure, the whole process gets shared. That's what I'm saying. That's what I have a hard time with. They invested $10,000 of their savings that along the way over these weeks where construction

was happening that there wasn't like a photo of like, hey, look, we now have a logo on the conference room door. We're official. Are we weird? I mean, that's what we would do. I don't think we're weird. I don't know. Sorry to go off on that, but I just couldn't believe that Pam had no idea what this office

looked like. Well, she's about to walk in and find out and she is surprised. Sorry to go off on that, but I just couldn't believe that Pam had no idea what this office looked like. Well, she's about to walk in and find out and she is surprised. Should we jump to that? Pam and Daryl arrive and she is clearly surprised. I want to read you how the scene was described in the shooting draft. Lady! What? I have the same thing. You did?

Yes, because there is a big moment that got cut out of Pam and Darryl's arrival, and I remember having to shoot the whole thing. Go ahead, read the description. Okay. Pam and Darryl step out of the elevator and into Athlead. The place is bustling as they make their way up to the receptionist, who is on the phone. The receptionist smiles and holds up a finger to say, one minute, please.

There are two big leather armchairs and a coat rack. Pam and Daryl look around at the energetic, fashionably hip employees. Pam's old puffy parka, and then in parentheses it says from taking out the trash episode, is super dorky in comparison to their sleek looks. She takes it off and hangs it on the coat rack where it covers the leather jackets that were already hanging on it. Daryl, making light of the fancy armchairs, bows formally to Pam and gestures for her to have a

seat. They both sit and watch the energy. Pam looks for Jim. Ready for this? Jim enters from the back hall with a client. They walk towards reception. The client is tough and Jim's all business. They approach Darryl and Pam. Pam starts to smile and give a wave, then thinks better of it. Jim winks at her. at her. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so most of all of that got cut, but we got a fan question from Luke M. in England who said, at the eight minute mark, Jim greets Daryl and Pam at athlete,

and he says goodbye to Dennis, who then awkwardly searches for a coat behind Pam and then just disappears. What was that? Well, that was, if you look close, Pam's giant puffer coat is covering all the other coats on the coat rack because of this long entrance that ended up getting cut. Yes. The script went on to describe that moment saying that this awkwardness of Pam's coat

covering the sleek coat was all part of making Pam feel like she was out of place. And I don't know if you noticed my wardrobe in this episode, but it was very intentional that I'm wearing kind of one of my older sweater shirt combos. One, we said Pam didn't know she was going to take off from work and go visit gym. And two, we really wanted to try to contrast her with the way the people at Athlead were dressed. That's right. Well, we should probably go back

because Dwight and Clark are over at Stone and Son. But before we do, I just wanna give a shout out to guest star Ross McKenzie, who played Dennis, the man looking for his coat. Oh my gosh, what has Ross not been in? He has been in Scrubs, ER, New Girl, Grey's Anatomy, Veep, Modern Family, Mad Men, Arrested Development, and Monk. Hey, Monk crossover.

At Stone and Son, the owner is delighted to be meeting a father and son paper company. Dwight and Clarky are really trying to bond with Mr. Stone. They're talking about hunting. I want to give a shout out to Set Design because Mr. Stone's office is perfect. And so specific. So specific. I became obsessed with it.

So many details. Well, there's one detail that we got a piece of fan mail about. This is from Angela C. in Grove City, Ohio. Angela asked, is the mallard on Mr. Stone's desk the same one that Dwight used to bug Jim's office? Well, Angela, I looked it up. I did a side by side.

So did I. It's not the same. It's not the same. We'll put it in stories. But Angela C. went on to say, I wish I knew someone with a podcast who would want to do a deep dive on mallard ducks. I did not do this.

I did this. I did this, Angela C. I did this, Angela C. First of all, I just want you guys to know there is a fantastic website called allaboutbirds.org. I highly recommendbirds.org. I highly recommend it. Okay. And they give a great mallard overview.

So when I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, my parents had and still have a cabin at Lake of the Ozarks, tons of mallard ducks. I know a few things. Well, last year I had a mallard that came and stayed with us for about two weeks in our swimming pool. Did you have a pair or a single? I had a single then a lady joined. Well you know, here's the thing I know about them. They mate for life. Well I have some things that are gonna rock you to your core. Oh my

gosh! Go ahead. Okay, according to allaboutbirds.org, mallards are perhaps one of the most familiar of all the ducks in North America and Eurasia. The male's gleaming green head, gray flanks, and black tail make it very distinguishable. And chances are if you have a pond or marshy area on your property, mallards might be attracted to your backyard. Occasionally mallards have been known to show up in people's swimming pools. Yes, that is true. Here are some stats for you, though. Are you ready?

Okay. Mallard stats. Mallard pairs are generally monogamous, but paired males pursue females other than their mates. Wait a second. Mm-hmm. I will continue. So-called, quote, extra pair copulations are common among birds and in many species are consensual. But male mallards often force these copulations, with several males chasing a single female and then mating with her.

Oh my God! They have their main lady, but then they have this side s*** going down. Oh my gosh! I did not know this! Yeah. This is really bumming me out! I know! Ugh. Okay, what else do you have? Mallard ducks are strong flyers. Migrating flocks of mallards have been estimated traveling

at 55 miles per hour. Wow. The standard ducks quack as the sound of a female mallard. Males don't quack. They make a quieter, raspy sound. Interesting. This I know from my two weeks with my mallards because the male just swam around, he swam around, and then the lady showed up and it was like, wah, wah, wah. Like she was so loud and super chatty. She's probably yelling at him about all the side stuff he's up to when he goes out. Yeah.

The oldest known mallard was a male and at least 27 years and seven months old when he was shot in Arkansas in 2008. Are you ready for this? What? It goes on to say he had been banned in Louisiana since 1981. How do you get banned?

How do you get banned? What did he do? As a mallard from the whole entire state. What did they do? Did they move him? I don't know. From Louisiana to Arkansas? There was no more information.

How did they check this? I don't know. I'm sure he was tagged. I was tired. I really wanted to get into the banned Louisiana mallard. Lady, you're not leaving that there and moving on. I know. The band Mallard.

I know. I know. I was tired. I will definitely find out why the Mallard was banned. Yes, you will. There will be a part two. Meanwhile, there is a duck and waterfowl ID course online. You can get training in identifying waterfowl from all angles and take your bird skills to the next level with Bird Academy. I don't care at all about Bird Academy. I just wanna know why this mallard,

and then he was shot by a hunter? He was shot in Arkansas in 2008, but he'd been banned from Louisiana Since 1981. All right, clearly I have some more deep diving to do but Angela see there you go all about birds org is a site for you to check out my childhood lake of the Ozark self Who had this? I, I'm sorry. By this new information about the male mallard duck.

Sorry. I now see them totally differently. I had this romantic like they mate for life, look at this loving couple, like they're gonna grow old together, little duckies. I had no idea. Yeah, I'm sorry. Even when you and I were trading messages, you were like, oh, Mallard's made for life. I have stories. I was like, oh, this isn't gonna go over well for her. Well, there you go, everybody. All right. Mom detectives are gonna to go on the case of the band

Mallard. The Louisiana band Mallard. What have I got? I can give you a little bit about this location of Stone and Son. Yeah. Matt Stone sent in an audio clip, and this was a very unique location.

I'll let him tell you why. To my knowledge, this was the only episode in the entire nine seasons of the show that we shot in Hollywood. The suit warehouse store that we used was a shop on Hollywood Boulevard. We only had one exterior shot. I think that's just Dwight and Clark walking out and down the street. But the rest of the shoot was done

in the interior of that location. This story was fun because it gave Clark Duke a meaty story to dig into, and he really had fun with the episode. Well, I followed up with Matt because I was shocked that we shot on Hollywood Boulevard in season nine. They just sent Dwight Schrute walking down the street. I said, what happened? Did this cause a stir? You guys, Hollywood Boulevard is so congested. There's

so many tourists. It's that walk of, you know, the walk of fame, the stars. It's, it's so full of people. Yes. Matt said they didn't have a problem. They shot that exterior shot in a window. They didn't have anybody bother them. All those people who flew in from out of town, they probably had no idea that the office was shooting right there as they were walking by looking at the stars on the street.

Crazy, crazy. Oh lady, I think we should take a break. And when we come back, everyone is trying the Nespresso and they are going to make a pact. Yeah, because you know what? What? YOLO! YOLO! We are back and pretty much everybody who is still at Dunder Mifflin is in the kitchen

and they are buzzed on this coffee. Yeah. Oscar suggests that they try every flavor because how else are they going to know which one is their favorite? Everyone's super receptive to this idea. Everyone is going to agree. They're going to put their hands in the middle and they're going to do that thing where they're like, we agree.

We make a pact. Yes. Angela doesn't want to put her hand in the middle. She's like, can I just agree without putting my hand in the middle? Yeah. She grabs a napkin. She puts the napkin on the pile of hands and she puts her hand on top. They all say, we all drink them all.

We all drink them all. At the end, Phyllis's ring is missing. Creed has clearly taken it. He's like, I'm sure it'll turn up. We got a fan question from Martha B. and Malta who said, was Angela licking her fingers before grabbing the napkin scripted or something you came up with Angela. I thought it was a very Angela thing to do. I did that.

That was not scripted. So the only thing in the script was that Angela places a napkin on top of everyone's hands and puts her hand on top of it. That's all that was in the script. But when we were filming, I had to quickly grab the napkin and walk over and they were sticking together. So I would go to grab one and there'd be like a few.

So I licked, I didn't even know that I had done it. I licked my fingers to separate the napkin. And yeah, that was me. You know, there's a lot of behavior from Angela around germs that as we watch it post pandemic doesn't seem as odd. Like oh, you know? Like I am very aware of like shaking hands now or putting my hands in a pile.

Right? I think we all are. Yeah. I mean, I have hand sanitizer everywhere. Like if I go to the grocery store, I get in the car, I spray my little hand sanitizer. Were you always like that? No. Right. I'm saying Angela Martin was ahead of the curve.

Yep. Back at Suit Warehouse, Dwight sends Clark to go get a brochure from the car. And that's when Mr. Stone reveals that he doesn't have such a great relationship with his own son. Yeah. Dwight's like, oh no, we've got to change gears here.

So when Clark comes back in, he's like, what were you out there smoking pot, you idiot? Like he's like, Clark's like, what is happening? He kind of whispers, we don't have a good relationship. So they have to pivot. Yeah, Clark catches on. So now Clark starts giving it back. Yeah, this takes a real turn. It really does.

I have to say in this scene, which was very funny, I couldn't help but notice a detail on Mr. Stone's desk. It was very distracting to me, I think maybe for personal reasons. Did you see the number of fresh brand new pencils with full erasers that were in Mr. Stone's pencil cup? Yes, I did.

Is that because we have kids who are always doing their homework looking for pencils with full erasers that are like new pencils? That's my life. Yeah, I mean, in my house, everyone's searching for that one pencil that still has an eraser.

You know, my mom gave my daughter this gift. It was part of like a Valentine's Day thing. My mom sends little boxes of presents and treats for the kids on the holidays. And she sent one for Valentine's Day this year. And it was a pencil that never needs to be sharpened. It's like an always ready pencil. I don't know where she got it.

I've never heard of this. I know my mom goes to like craft fairs and art fairs and she finds these treasures and it's been wonderful but what I need now is also a pencil with an eraser that never disappears or pops off or can be chewed off. Right. So we've solved the one problem but now I'm looking for that other thing. So I was really drooling over this just cup of beautiful pencils with erasers. Pencils. I guess you know my life now, but I believe there's someone out there listening who can relate deeply. Yeah, I can relate. I'm right here. Okay. You're looking at her. Yeah. Back at Athlead, you know, Darryl is really impressed by the offices. And Pam says, yeah, Jim, you kind of undersold this, made it sound dinky.

Yeah. Jim says, hey, listen, it's only a startup. I haven't even gotten a paycheck yet. I mean, these things go down all the time." And that's when Daryl says, Well, I'd like to go down on with it. Yeah. We got a fan catch from Janelle W. in Northampton, Pennsylvania, who said the look between Pam and Jim seems to imply that Jenna and John are breaking. Was this a scripted line or did Craig actually have a blooper that made it into the final

cut? Janelle, this was scripted. Yep. Craig just delivered it so well. So well. Mm-hmm. Back at Dunder Mifflin, Erin now has a big box of pins on her desk. She did it!

Yeah! The delivery went amazing! She's not going to unpack them then. Or should she unpack them? She's not sure if she should be a busybody or a lazybones. Her brain is ping-ponging with this question. Also, she's never had espresso before. So she's really amped up.

Well, and fan catch from Maura L. in Long Island, New York, who said, I've been waiting the whole podcast to make this catch. Erin says she's never had an espresso before, but Michael makes her an espresso in Cafe Des Cans. Great catch, Maura. Well, you know, there was more to this pin delivery moment. There was a whole scene where the pins are delivered by a delivery guy named Mike.

It's really funny, and you can tell how caffeinated Aaron is. Let's hear it. Hello. I'm here to- Is this pens? Is this the delivery of pens? I don't know. I don't know what in the box is. Oh my gosh. It is the pens. It's the pens. Mike? Is it? It's the pens, Mike. We did it! Oh my gosh. Wait. I don't have any cash. How do I... What do I...

It's okay. It's all paid for. You motherf***** lifesaver. Get your sweet ass out of here before I do something crazy. Bye. She says, you motherf***ing lifesaver. Oh my gosh. This is crazy. She did it. She accepted a delivery of a box. There's a perfect storm happening for Erin, which is this delivery plus caffeine.

Yeah. And it's just going to keep getting ratcheted up. I have to ask you a question, Angela. If you were you, not if you were Erin, but if you were you, would you put the pens away or just accept the delivery? Would you be a busybody or a lazybones? I'd be a busybody. I'd put them away. And then maybe you would come back and be like,

that's not where I intended them. And I would be like, oh, well, that's where the other ones were. I guess I'd have sass too. You'd be a sassy busybody. I would be a lazybones. Lazybones, just accept the delivery. That's what I was asked to do. That's what I'm going to do. And it's not because I don't like to go above and beyond, but I assume other people might have their system. And so I'm not going to get in the way of your system. I hear all of that. I just feel like pins. Like, I imagine

she has seen Pam restock the supply shelf. It's you though. Yeah. Oh, right. Sorry. It's me. It's not Erin. Okay. I would probably be a busybody. Hmm. Mm-hmm. What are you out there? Are you a busybody or a lazybones? I once had a coworker who called me Angela Two Cents. Why is that?

I had to put my two cents in everywhere. How'd that go? You just had a sidebar comment? I guess I had a depension about how things were done. That doesn't even seem like you. Well, sit next to me in a cubicle all day. And then you're going to be Angela Two Cents? Then I turn into Angela Two Cents.

Hmm. This might be an interesting flavor to your mom detective's character. If I'm dropping everything and you're Angela Two Cents. Yeah. I'm liking this. It's growing. Well, listen, in the kitchen, the taste test is continuing.

And energy is very high. This scene is going to end with Kevin lifting you, Angela. Yeah, like I'm a barbell. That was scripted, right? Yes. That he's lifting you up. It is. It was hilarious because I had to really make myself rigid, you know, like how you make

your arms stiff at your side? Sure. So that he could do that many repetitions. Oh, uh-huh. You know what I mean? Were you jumping a little bit? Were you helping him a little? I was a little.

Okay. Can you tell? No, but I know the tricks of the trade. Yeah. Well, because he had to do so many. And so to set me down all the way and get all, so I would just kind of spring down when, I think it was a real workout for Brian. Well, Angela, we got a fan question from Shalee D

from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania about this scene. Shalee wanted to know, was everyone actually having shots of different types of espresso? What were you actually drinking? Shaylee, no, we were not actually drinking espresso because I think we'd all get sick if we had to drink it all day like that. Thank goodness. We were drinking water. And if you got close to my cup, mine had iced tea in it.

Oh, could you kind of pick your beverage? Yeah. Or they would like color the water. Mm hmm. But it was mostly just water. We were all drinking water. I do remember having to pee. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in this scene, Nellie says her favorite so far is Viennese amaretto and her least favorite is Alpine Select. I looked these flavors up to see if they were real. Mm hmm. I mean, it's hard to say because I noticed that they do change flavors over the years. And this has been a long time ago now. It has. I did find an Italia Amaretti, so maybe that's the Viennese Amaretto that she likes, and I also found an Alpine Espresso

Martini flavor. Oh, I didn't stop there. Okay. I followed a link to Food and Wine because they had a ranking of Nespresso pod capsules and they said that the best overall original capsule is the Ristretto Italiano. Why is that? Well, here's a review. For a strong, bold shot of coffee that stands up to milk, the Ristretto Italiano is your best bet. The roast works well as a latte but is also delicious on its own. The roast is medium to dark with an intensity rating of 10. I don't think I'd like it.

It sounds like it would get you going. Yeah, I don't want an intensity rating of 10 on my coffee. It doesn't say 10 out of what, 10 out of 100? Sure, 10 out of 10? No, thank you. That's my sidebar. You don't even drink coffee. I don't even drink coffee.

This is a big thumbs down for you. Exactly. Well, there were more moments of everyone being over caffeinated and apparently caffeine Toby gets the courage to call the prison where he put a fella away. No. What? Yes. This is hilarious.

I laughed so hard. I read it in the shooting draft. I immediately went to deleted scenes to see if it was there. It is. You have to hear it. Is this Waynesburg Prison? Yes. I'm calling actually for George Howard Scubb. You may know him as the Scranton Strangler. Well, just tell him it's someone who believes in second chances. Now, why would you forward a cryptic message like that?

It is Toby Flenderson, juror number eight. The guy who held out for as long as he could and then gave to pressure and sent him away for the rest of his life. Yeah, I can hold. Yeah, I can hold. Imagine you're the person on the other line receiving that insane phone call. I know. Yeah, I can hold. Oh my gosh. That's not all. Overcaffeinated Creed and Meredith are gonna start a dance team. You gotta hear this. I just watched the show and I'm like, yeah, I do think I could dance. You know what I mean? We should start a dance team. Yes.

Are you a poppin' locker or do you do floor work? Oh, I do floor work, all right. Ha! You're a firecracker. I love it. Are you a poppin' locker? Or you do floor work? While all this is going on, Dwight and Clark are continuing to be,

I guess, a bickering father and son. Yeah. Yeah, they're both trying to one-up each other on, like, who is the worst person in this duo. And then out of nowhere, Dwight accuses Clark of eating, quote, treats from the litter box. Yeah, it's a very long, very specific. Share. Yeah. And it's right around this time that Mr. Stone's son enters. Oh yeah. And this is when we're gonna find out

that it's Sam Jr. who Dwight has been insulting ever since he arrived, is the real head of the business, that Father Stone has, I guess, maybe retired, he doesn't really work there, and Clark is gonna be like, hi, and just starts talking business to the son, luckily. Well, I've got a guest star alert. Mr. Stone's son was played by Will Greenberg.

He is a very successful comedy actor, and he can do impressions. Oh, yeah? Yes, according to his IMDb bio, he can quote, recite Shakespeare as Matthew McConaughey and sell Subway sandwiches as Denzel Washington. That is so specific. Yes, apparently he did both of those things

in an audition for Saturday Night Live, and his Saturday Night Live audition tape went viral at one point, you can find it on YouTube. Okay. I also looked at all of his, you know, filmography and I found a crossover connection. Will Greenberg has been on The Grinder, that show with Rob Lowe that came out. I thought you were saying he was on the webs... what's it? It's an app. Oh, OnGrinder. OnGrinder, it's not a website, it's an app, and it's a hookup app. But there's also a TV show?

There was a TV, Jordan just laughed so hard I could hear her through the wall. What was it, Jordan, that tickled you? Was it Angela's description of the Grinder app? Yeah, it was the... Description of the hookup app. They're both in there laughing so hard at us. I also thought it was a website, but it's not. It's an app, like on your phone.

Definitely not a website. Okay. But I thought it was for gay men. It is for... Oh, okay. Didn't we learn that on the podcast? We did. Someone explained it to us. Because they shut down, oh, the Olympics were happening and Grindr got fried.

What happens when an app gets overrun with requests? I don't know. It shut down Grindr because there were so many people out and about, I guess, looking to meet someone. I think it should be called Pride. I think that's perfect. Anyway, I think that's when we learned about it a while back. That does not ring a bell for me.

Oh. I feel like we had a guest came on and told us about Grindr. I don't remember. I can't remember. Anyway, clearly we didn't retain much of it. But well, this is not that this is a TV show. Okay, I just want to make it known. Will Greenberg was on a TV show called The Grindr. Was it about? It has literally nothing to do with hooking up. Okay, there you go. Okay, it's just a comedy TV show. It was starring Rob Lowe. Okay. And it was starring Mary Elizabeth Ellis.

It was so funny. I was obsessed with it. And I ran into the cast of The Grinder at like some party where we would, when we, in our other life, when we used to go to things. Yeah. I ran into them and I kind of stalked them.

And I said, I want to be on your TV show. And I came on strong, like a little too strong. You? You? I did. And then I had my manager follow up and I eventually did get a role on the show. What?

How did I not know about this? Oh, lady. And the thing was, was that my- You were on Grindr. I was on the Grindr. The Grindr. And my role on the show was of was that my- You were on Grindr. I was on The Grindr. The Grindr. And my role on the show was of this kind of like intense stalker woman. Oh.

Which I think maybe was because that's how I had- Of how you approached them. How I had come on so strong. But the crazy thing about me being on The Grindr was that it starred Rob Lowe, and it was my third project that I had done with Rob Lowe. I have this crazy connection to Rob Lowe. So the first movie I did in LA, I had three lines in this movie.

The movie was starring Rob Lowe. I had no scenes with him. It was this indie film, and I'd actually been cast in a reading of the movie that we did for a bunch of investors. That's where you get interest. And I had the lead role opposite Rob Lowe in the readings. That's how I met him for the first time. But then when they got the money to do the movie,

they recast me with like a name actress. But they did give me three lines and I got my side card. Okay. Okay. I saw Rob Lowe on set. He was really nice. He said, I'm sorry you didn't get to be the lead of the movie, but I hope you do well in the business. Okay. So then cut to after we finished doing The Office, I got cast in this TV show that shot in London. Yes. And Rob Lowe was one of the other leads of the TV show. We had no scenes together.

Oh. Didn't see him a single day on set. OK. It was not until The Grinder. Oh. Third project together. Technically fourth, if you count the reading. Did you have a scene together? We had a scene.

I was his crazy ex-stalker fiance. Oh my gosh. It was set in the past, and we all had, like, funny past hairdos and stuff. I was only on set for one day. It was the grinder. Okay. Not the app. How did I miss this information? I don't know. I wonder what you were up to when I was on the grinder.

I don't know. I have a picture. I'll give it to you for stories lady. Well, I have a Rob Lowe story. What's your Rob Lowe story? I played him in ping pong for Clayton Kershaw does a charity called Ping Pong for Purpose. I've gone to that. And Josh and I played against Rob Lowe and another Dodger baseball player. And we only lost by like two points. They won? They won, but only by two. It was like back and forth. Yeah.

So I have played ping pong with Rob Lowe. But yeah, he was very nice. He had good sportsmanship. He had good sportsmanship. That's such a mom thing to say. Right. Well, I loved that nice young man with the good sportsmanship. You know what?

They were a classy team. They had good sportsmanship. You know what? They were a classy team. They had good sportsmanship. Clean language. Good, clean fun on the field today. Well, that was a tangent. It was. Well, thank you for going down memory lane with me. The podcast is kind of fun, and because we

are kind of solidifying for all time some of these stories that I mean I could imagine maybe we would forget them when we got older. So when we're old we can re-listen to our podcast and remember stuff? We can remember everything about every episode we shot of The Office and some extras. Okay. So before the podcast is over if there's anything you want to commit to memory make a list and we'll go through it on the pod. I feel like that's another podcast. Things we don't want to forget. With Jenna and Angela.

Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, you know what Sam Jr. thinks? Clark needs a new suit, a new nice expensive Italian silk suit. Dwight is like, nope, no he doesn't. But yeah, Sam Jr. will insist. Clark definitely wants the suit. If he wants a tie, it's gonna be $9. Check out the sign in the background.

I didn't see that, that's great. You can get five for $35. The guys make the sale and they both get a suit. So at the end of the day, Clark came through. He sure did. It was because of Clark they made the sale, frankly. Yeah. The sale went well, but Darryl's interview is not going well.

It's not. And you know what? Jim tries to help him out. He says, I find it helpful to picture everyone naked. I thought that was so awkward. It was so awkward. To stay in a room of people. You know, we've seen this before with Darryl in interviews. He kind of chokes. He's not great.

He freezes. He does. And he's our best employee. He's one of those people who just doesn't interview well. He would really benefit from some interview coaching. But everyone's really encouraging. Darryl says, listen, I shouldn't even be here. I just manage a warehouse. And everyone's like, what are you talking about? Like, they name all their other jobs they had before starting this company. So Darrell sits back down and he kind of composes himself. He hands out this very impressive booklet he's put together on his thoughts for the company. I have something to share. Yes? While Daryl's interview is going on, there is a wonderful scene of Pam waiting for Daryl at front reception. When I reread the shooting draft, it made me laugh out loud. It is not

on the DVDs, but I want to read it to you. Oh, I remember shooting this. Go ahead. Interior Philadelphia office reception area. Pam sits on the leather sofa in the front, a little bored as she waits for the interview to finish. She leaps through magazines on a table. ESPN magazine, Golf Digest, Baseball Digest, Sporting News, none of which she has any interest in. She takes out her iPhone, tries to surf the web, the receptionist walks over from the outer office. This made me laugh. The receptionist says to Pam, our wireless password is athlete, all lower case

except the A's, and then the L is a one, and the H is a B, and the D is three ampersands. Pam tries and then gives up, says, I'm okay, thanks. Pam tries and then gives up, says, I'm okay, thanks. One of the things, Jenna, that when we started the podcast, when our offices were at Earwulf, every single time we went in, we'd have to log on to get internet. Oh, I hated that system. And the password was so long and ridiculous. And when I read that, it just made me think of that. You know, you mentioned the receptionist.

We got a fan question from Liv H in Sweden who said, I feel like if Athlead is a startup company and Jim doesn't even have a paycheck, how do they afford this receptionist? Like what does he do? Do they really need one? It felt like a weird priority. You know, I wonder if this person is an intern. Like, a lot of startups will get, like, unpaid interns, and then they get, I don't know, like, credit for school or something.

Yeah, that made me wonder, because it's a good point. The receptionist was played by René Goubet. He's a comedian and he is currently working as a writer and co-executive producer of The Bear. And before that, he was a co-executive producer of Justin Spitzer's show Superstore. Well, Darrell's presentation has gone really well. He's really turned things around. Everyone agrees. And sort of in the moment he grabs a basketball that was there and- A signed basketball. Why would you shoot that in the first place?

I don't know. Go on. I know and he tosses it to a basketball hoop, which is oddly placed near a light and a fish tank. He misses, it knocks the light into the fish tank and electrocutes all the fish. We got a fan mail flurry. I bet. People want to know how did we do this? Did we have a safety meeting? That spark looked so real. Um, how many takes was it to get the ball to hit the basket and the wall and the light and the tank? Were the fish fake?

Tell us everything about this scene. Well, luckily Matt Stone had a lot to say about this scene. Let's have a listen. Let's see, the moment where Daryl accidentally electrocutes the fish was a fun gag. We had rigged the lamp to fall into the fish tank and to pulsate, you know, to sell the electric shock. The floating dead fish really sold that moment. We had to work backwards on this bit. Phil Shea found the dead fish that we ultimately used.

You know, some were floating at the top of the tank and some were tied to monofilament. So they would float in the middle of the tank. The challenge that we had was to find the live fish to match the dead ones that Phil had found, which we ultimately did, so we could sell that there were live fish in the tank in other shots before

Darrell throws the basketball. And I believe that Craig made that shot on the first take, but we did ultimately reset and did it a second time. I'm sorry. Yeah. You can buy dead fish. Well, I had that question. Uh-huh. I followed up with Matt. I said, do you mean real dead fish? Well, I had that question.

I followed up with Matt. I said, do you mean real dead fish or fake dead fish? Here's what Matt had to say. OK. The fish that Phil Shea found were real dead fish, and they were sent to us frozen and packed. By about halfway through the shoot, most of the fish had thawed out and had started to smell.

So it wasn't the most pleasant odor on set. That is so gross. Yeah, I mean, were these dead fish that you could eat? Are these fish edible? I don't know what kind of fish they were. Like your mallard story. We may never know. We're left with questions. Steve Burgess added that the light that fell into the tank was rigged so it could only fall in the tank. And we added a safety to the light, kind of like the GFI in your kitchen, so that no one would get hurt when it sparked.

It was a grounded safety thing. Probably not the technical term. Grounded safety thing. Yeah. I loved all of that behind the scenes detail about that one stunt. That's amazing what all went into that. Well, Darryl now joins Pam at front reception. He's really down in the dumps because he just electrocuted everyone's fish. Why are you laughing?

Down in the dumps? Is that a bad expression? I haven't known when to tell you. What's on me? Is something on me? Some cheese. Oh, I have a cheese on my boob. I have cheese.

It's actually a cracker. It's a cracker. I should have maybe just. I ate it off my boob. You know what? I remember you doing that early on the podcast. I remember you doing it. You got a little thing.

Oh, it was me. It was you, it wasn't me. Sorry. I don't have any problem with eating stuff that's fallen off. Off your clothing. I know. That's fallen onto you. I don't have a problem with that.

I had a little snack, guys, and I guess. My dad used to say, well, you have a hitchhiker. You had a hitchhiker, lady. I had a hitchhiker. All right. Anyway, as I was saying, Darrell is down in the dumps, and Pam is trying to reassure him.

She's like, you know what, at the end of the day, you have a great job where people love you. Yeah. They start really bonding. He's like, you know what, I don't even think I want to live in Philly. And Pam's like, yeah, it's not in New York or London or Paris.

Who needs Philly? Jim comes out and says, guess what? You got the job. Daryl loves Philly. All of a sudden, Daryl's super into Philly. Two, one, five, or die. Yeah. Pam has a talking head.

She says she's not upset. She's happy for Daryl, but she's a little disappointed they'll be losing him. Yeah. Pam has a talking head. She says she's not upset. She's happy for Darryl. But she's a little disappointed they'll be losing him. Yeah. Back at Dunder Mifflin, Erin decided to be a busybody. She goes to unbox the pens, and everyone gives her grief about it. She gets all flustered. She puts the pens back in the box. She is not gunning for Pam's job, okay? But it's also, it's getting sweaty over an accounting. It's getting real sweaty. Here is how the scene was described in the shooting draft. Interior office accounting area.

Kevin is fidgety at his desk. He has his suit jacket off and he has gigantic armpit sweat stains as well as sweat beads on his forehead. We can hear an off-screen banging. Camera pans left to reveal Oscar, who also has huge armpit sweat stains. Camera now pans right to reveal Angela leaning over towards the window,

and we realize the banging has been her smacking the window to try to open it. She turns towards them, and we see that she, too, has enormous armpit stains. Everything to do with the armpit stains is in all caps and bold. They were very serious. They wanted us to have giant armpit stains. We got some fan mail about this scene. Angela, people loved it. Allie P from Idaho said, I love how high pitched everyone's voice gets, the deeper you get into the episode and the more caffeine they've had.

And Levi D from Michigan said, Angela, how many takes did it take for you to get through that line? I do not understand the point of windows. The messy hair and sweaty pit reveal was so funny. Well, Levi, the first thing is when they wrote this scene, we did it at the table read, none of us realized or remembered that that window is covered by blinds. So we sort of had to figure that out on the day that I would tuck in behind the blinds. And it was great because it naturally messed up my hair.

Oh yeah, we should tell people that's a completely fakie window. Yeah, that window goes nowhere. I actually loved that the blinds were there because it gave me a bit of business to have to like wrestle with as I come out from trying to open the window. And we had so much fun in that scene.

So much fun. I think we only got to do a few takes of it, if I remember correctly, but we were having the best time. Well, Angela, Matt Zonehn talked about all that sweat and the caffeine corner storyline. Let's have a listen. So, Dan Grainy was the writer of this episode.

We had had several conversations on how to best sell the escalation of the caffeine frenzy of the people in the office. You know, it started with the cast slowly getting amped up. You know, they're all trying out the different espressos. They decide that they're all going to have this challenge and try each flavor. I think that also leads to Kevin picking up Angela. I think that moment had us laughing.

You know, there's also the moment of Stanley working away. He's very positive and upbeat and happy. You know, Kevin is rolling around on his chair in the office. Then things start to go a little wrong. That's when everybody starts to get the sweats. We had several different versions of the amount of sweat everybody had. You know, we started light and then went heavier. You know, and I think it was obvious that

the heavier, sweaty people made everybody laugh more. So that's ultimately what we went for. Do you remember that at all, Angela? Do you remember them like spritzing you with sweat and then they were like more. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah they also purposely had me in a long sleeve shirt so I could show more sweat because normally I wear like a little blouse. Sure. And hair and makeup were standing just right off camera and they had the spray bottles and they would come in and squirt us like to get us more damp. What'd you do at work today? I got squirted in my armpits with water bottles.

And then I watched dead fish get thawed out. What is your job? Well now that they have all this energy, Oscar suggests that they move the copier into the annex like they've always wanted to. Yes, I loved it when Kevin was like, goodbye noise. Isn't there already a copier in the annex? There is, but they just needed a project lady. I guess so.

Well, when they start moving this copier, it rips up the carpet and it reveals beautiful hardwood floors, which Oscar knew were there all along. Yeah, Oscar's so happy about it. Meredith yells for them to rip up all the carpet. Yeah. We need to see all the hardwood floors. Angela, I have to ask, what do you

remember about this scene? You aren't really physically ripping up the carpet, but what do you remember from shooting this? I mean, everybody had a really good time. I don't know what it is. When you're given permission to, like, rip something or pull something apart, I think everybody is like, I'm here for it. Get out some of your aggressions.

I just like that everything was giving Angela a headache. Yes. Well, she gets her headaches, you know. She does. We got a fan question from Jessica N. in Rochester, New York, who said, how did they get the wooden flooring underneath the carpet in the office? Did they set it on top of real gray carpet and then add another layer of carpet?

Whatever they did, I'm sure it was a lot of work. Steve Burgess said, it was a lot of work, I bet. That basically we picked the areas where we would see the flooring, we ripped up the carpet, we put down the flooring, we put carpet back on top of it, we ripped up the carpet. But in the end, we had to pull up all the carpet and replace it for the next episode. Matt said they had a carpet installation team standing by to fix it as soon as we wrapped, and Steve Burgess reminded me that

this is not the first time we've had to replace a bunch of carpet. He said, remember when Michael proposed to Holly and it set off all the sprinklers, he said we had to replace all of the carpet after that episode as well. And one square when Kevin spills the chili. Oh yeah, that's true. I think we had to replace the carpet in Michael's office when Packer put the poop in there too. Oh right. Anyway. We were busy.

We kept the carpet people busy. We did. Well, after they rip up all the carpet, everyone's going to try to leave simultaneously. And it doesn't go well in the parking lot. This scene really cracks me up. I went to the shooting draft, and this is how it was described. Exterior parking lot, moments later. From the upstairs window, we see people in their cars caught in a huge traffic snarl.

It's a cacophony of honking horns with a few people leaning out their windows and yelling, others gunning it then slamming on their brakes. Someone dangerously tries to weave between cars, etc. So there was no dialogue scripted for us. Everything that you see in the parking lot are heard. That was all improvised in the moment. Oh, wow Mm-hmm. Very good. Yeah, and Obviously all the car movements were completely planned. Everyone knew exactly where they were going in their car So there was no actual real fender bender so

Movement choreographed lines improvised exactly. Well, Daryl and Pam are back in the car. They're heading back to Scranton. Daryl is so pumped. So excited. He starts singing. Pam reluctantly joins in. She's having a lot of feelings. Yeah, she's in her head.

Mm-hmm. Matt sent us in an audio clip about this scene. Here's what he had to say. I know that Craig and Jenna had a lot of fun in the car, on the drive, back to Philly. Though it was ultimately an emotional scene, there were takes of them singing the song where they both broke up and had a really good time with each other and the song. I bet you guys had a blast. We did. It was rare for Pam and Darryl to be teamed up in a storyline. Just how I had had so much fun finally being teamed up with Kate for Lice.

I was so excited to be teamed up with Craig for this episode. Craig is a lot of fun and I had to pretend to be in my head but then you know if Craig sings you want to sing he's so infectious that way and I love that Matt said that because I just did a little project and Craig was in it mm-hmm I just filmed an AT&T commercial and it had a bunch of office people in it. It was me, Rain, Craig, Brian, Kate, and Creed. We got to shoot for two days together. And you said you and Craig got to do some fun stuff. Craig and I got to do a scene together,

and we got to improvise, and we had so much fun. The director actually came over and was like, oh, my gosh, you guys have a lot of chemistry. You guys are good together. And we were like, yes, we are. I just, I loved seeing this scene and I loved getting to work with Craig again to really work with all those guys again. It was crazy. And it just this commercial, it just came out like a few days ago. How fun lady. What a fun reunion. I know. And Angie, I know you had a thing that...

I did. I can't talk about it yet. I can't talk about it yet, but I had my own little mini office reunion shoot, too, and it was the same thing. I was so delighted to be back with my castmates from the office. We instantly fell right back in sync. It was so fun. That's how we were. Everybody was so good, and I have to say, it made me, like...

Miss the show? So much. Me too. Mm-hmm. Ugh. Ugh, well, anyway, if you're out there and you think that Craig and I should be in something together... Make it happen. We have good chemistry, y'all.

Make it happen. We also got some fan questions about this song that we're singing. Cammie D and Virginia said, did you have to pay just to sing Everybody Dance Now? And Allie P from Atlanta, Georgia noted that Michael sang Everybody Dance Now in an earlier season, and Allie was wondering, did we have to repurchase the rights? Or did we choose this song because we already had the rights from an earlier episode? Well Steve Burgess said we did have to pay just to sing it, and we had to repurchase

it. But because we just sang it and didn't hear any music, we only had to pay publishing rights, which were $17,500. If we had also heard the music, it would have been double. The day ends with Pam and Darryl returning to the office, and it's a complete disaster. Pam looks around and says, what happened? And Aaron charges past and says, pens happened. Yes, and then there's kind of a long pause

and then Pam has the line, are the pens here? Did you improvise that? Lady, I did. I thought you did. I was gonna go back and check, but I'm like, that's the end of the scene button improv right there. When I saw it, I remembered when I did it in the moment, everyone really liked it and I was really proud

because I almost never improvised. And if I did, it almost never made it in the moment. Everyone really liked it and I was really proud because I almost never improvised. And if I did, it almost never made it in. It's fine. I'm very proud of this. Yeah, I get so tickled when any of that makes it in. Well, guys, there you have it. That was Suit Warehouse. Yes, big shout out.

Thank you to Matt Sohn for sending in all of those audio clips and to Matt Flynn for describing AppL athlete for us. And of course to Steve Burgess, who is always there for us, always giving us insider information, and to all of you for sending in your questions. We hope you have a great day, and we'll see you next week.

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwool, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Our senior producer is Cassie Jerkins. Our audio engineer is Jordan Duffy. And our associate producer is Ainsley Bubbaco. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. you