An excerpt fromThe Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s.
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The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000sby Andy Greene is out March 24.
Theyre like, Should we putThe Apprenticeon?
Im like, No,The Apprenticeis fine and its got that audience already.
Itll do well, but its not gonna do that much better there.
What asset do we have that can also grow, sustain, and help really drive the night?
That caused us to think a little differently than we normally would about the show.
We ended up throwing out a bunch of story ideas and we never did that before or since.
It was very important.
We were given a lot of mandates and they didnt even come from NBC.
They came from Greg [Daniels, producer].
Its very important to have a really grabby opening.
Warren Lieberstein, writer:It needed to be an electric opening because we were concerned about channel switching.
Basically the idea was that Jim loses Pam in a poker game.
He was like the father of us all and we were like, Dad …
Were not so sure about it.
Lee Eisenberg, writer:But we started breaking the poker game episode.
Gene Stupnitsky:We went pretty deep into it.
Lee Eisenberg:It was a show that needed to be small, real, and relatable.
And then it was like, Okay, he loses her in a poker game… .
Ben Silverman:The fire drill was insanity.
When it happens, how do people not change the channel?
Kate Flannery, actor:That scene was a big deal.
Anthony Farrell, writer:Greg was like, Its the Super Bowl episode.
A lot of it wound up getting shot.
Randy Cordray, producer:All of the characters think they are going to die.
And she throws Bandit up to Oscar, who doesnt want anything to do with Bandit.
And then moments later the cat crumbles through a panel of the drop ceiling and falls back down.
This was a big sequence that Greg really wanted in the show.
Well, you cant injure an animal, and so we had to figure this out.
We had to build a stuffed animal to match Bandit.
They had thought that it would just be like a stuffed cat.
Oscar would extend his leg out from the ceiling to kick the cat back down.
I thought that that would seem really mean-spirited.
We ended up using two real cats.
We talked at great length with them.
They absolutely will protect their animals.
The animals are their livelihood.
And you just dont want to hurt an animal in filming.
Its illegal, its a felony, its unethical, and none of us want to do that.
When Greg floated it, Randy was like, No way, cant do that.
Randall Einhorn, director/cinematographer:That whole scene was pandemonium to shoot, but really fun.
Jeff Blitz:Theres a moment when they start to run and the camera goes down.
I think thats an actual take where Randall didnt mean to fall, but we just used it.
But a zany fire drill scene wasnt enough for NBC.
They wanted the episode to feature big-name guest stars to draw in a bigger audience.
Lee Eisenberg:The data pipe was insistent that we get celebrities, and that was really complicated.
I remember wanting Matt Damon or Ben Affleck to be on it.
Its Matt Damon or Ben Affleck versus Michael Scott.
Randy Cordray:Greg was really at odds with NBC over this.
His point was, How does that fit into a show based in an office in Scranton, Pennsylvania?
What would celebrities be doing interacting with a paper company office in Scranton, Pennsylvania?
Why would you pitch that idea?
That makes no sense.
What would celebrities be doing in Scranton?
His way of doing that was to make a movie within the movie.
Andy had access to stream a movie on his laptop and so we created this movie.
Halsted Sullivan:The Officealways shied away from stunt casting.
The pirated film that Andy shows Jim and Pam,Mrs.
Black falls madly in love with Leachman and they furiously make out in a bathroom.
But then they landed on this weird Mrs. Robinson thing.
The day we shot it felt very un-Office-like.
Warren Lieberstein:I love theHarold and Maudedynamic.
Halsted Sullivan:This was probably the most difficult episode to write that season.
I remember for a long, long, long time we did not have an ending.
And I came up with the idea for the roast.
Thats because I grew up in Atlanta and my father was president of a medical school.
Pam is freaked out and wonders what Jim could have possibly said to him.
She finds out in the end.
He said that you told him how much you love me, a teary-eyed Pam tells Jim.
I guess hes never felt that with my mom, even at their best.
The Jim-and-Pam scenes are as dramatic and heavy as the rest of the episode is goofy and absurd.
And theres a huge swath of people that liked the antics of Dwight.
Twenty-two million people watched the full episode and 37.7 million people watched at least some of it.
It was the highest-rated NBC show in nearly five years in the coveted eighteen-to-forty-nine-year-old demographic.
Paul Feig, director:My greatest regret fromThe Officeis that I so badly wanted to direct that one.
I always feel like, Oh, I almost had an Emmy.
Jeff did a great job though.
Its a really good episode.
Ben Silverman:That really propelled the show.
It exposed it to a whole new audience that showed up and kept watching and grew.
Copyright 2020 by Andy Greene
