EP. 85 — Frame Toby

OFFICE-085-20210617-FrameToby-SKv02.mp3

[00:00:03] Jenna I’m Jenna Fischer.

[00:00:04] Angela And I’m Angela Kinsey.

[00:00:06] Jenna We were on The Office together.

[00:00:07] Angela And we’re best friends.

[00:00:08] Jenna And now we’re doing the ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you.

[00:00:12] Angela 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.

[00:00:19] Jenna We’re the Office Ladies. Hi, Angela.

[00:00:25] Angela Hello, lady.

[00:00:26] Jenna We’re not in the studio together today, are we?

[00:00:29] Angela We’re not, but you look like you’re in a fancy studio.

[00:00:33] Jenna I am in the fancy New York offices of Stitcher.

[00:00:38] Angela Get out. You’re in New York City.

[00:00:41] Jenna Yeah. And guess what, lady?

[00:00:44] Angela What?

[00:00:44] Jenna Guess what?

[00:00:45] Angela What?

[00:00:46] Jenna Our picture is on the wall here.

[00:00:48] Angela In New York?

[00:00:49] Jenna Yes, in the New York offices. They have our Office Ladies picture on the wall. I took a picture with it.

[00:00:55] Angela Oh, that’s so cool.

[00:00:56] Jenna I know.

[00:00:57] Angela We have photos in two cities.

[00:00:58] Jenna In two cities. That’s the big time.

[00:01:01] Angela We’re bicoastal.

[00:01:03] Jenna We are.

[00:01:03] Angela Right now wait a second. Right now we’re bicoastal.

[00:01:06] Jenna Office Ladies has gone bicoastal.

[00:01:08] Angela That feels real boss lady.

[00:01:09] Jenna It does. I like it.

[00:01:11] Angela Me too. Well, since we’re talking about being in offices, Jenna guess who’s back at Dunder Mifflin?

[00:01:17] Jenna Toby.

[00:01:18] Angela Well, not everybody’s happy about it.

[00:01:21] Michael Scott No, God! No, god, please! No! No! No! No!

[00:01:30] Jenna That’s right. Today we are talking about Frame Toby. It is Season five, Episode nine. It is written by Mindy Kaling and directed by Jason Reitman. That’s a good duo. I’m going to give you a summary.

[00:01:43] Angela I was hoping you would.

[00:01:45] Jenna Michael reacts poorly to the revelation that Toby is back at the Scranton branch.

[00:01:51] Angela I like the use of the word poorly.

[00:01:54] Jenna I know. That’s an understatement. So he and Dwight hatch a plan to frame Toby for drugs that Michael has purchased from the two Vance refrigeration employees, Gino and Leo. Pam is incensed by a mess that is left in the microwave by one of her coworkers- we don’t know who. She leaves a pointed note which elicits mixed reactions from the fellow employees. Meanwhile, Ryan breaks up with Kelly and Jim surprises Pam with the news that he bought his parents house for them.

[00:02:28] Angela That’s a lot.

[00:02:29] Jenna It’s a lot. These headphones are tight.

[00:02:34] Angela Mm hmm.

[00:02:35] Jenna The headphones are tight in New York, I fixed them.

[00:02:39] Jared Do you want a different pair?

[00:02:40] Jenna No, I fixed ’em.

[00:02:42] Angela You guys, that was Jared in New York.

[00:02:44] Jenna Yeah. Jared is the Sam of New York.

[00:02:47] Angela Yeah. Sam, say hi.

[00:02:48] Sam Little dig at LA and our loose headphones.

[00:02:49] Jenna Why?

[00:02:51] Angela I think she likes them loose.

[00:02:53] Jenna I like a loose headphone.

[00:02:55] Sam Oh, in that case, take that, Jared.

[00:02:55] Jenna Jared’s all squeezin my brain with the headphones here in New York. Should we go into fast facts?

[00:03:04] Angela I think we should.

[00:03:05] Jenna All right, fast fact number one, you might remember because we shared this earlier that NBC ordered twenty eight episodes for season five. It was our longest season.

[00:03:14] Angela I remember. Jenna when we wrapped season five, we all got sick.

[00:03:20] Jenna Oh, yeah.

[00:03:21] Angela Like we all got the flu or something, because I remember the next week, like texting a few people and like, I have a cold. And Kate was like, yeah, me too. Like I think our bodies were just like, (FART NOISE).

[00:03:30] Jenna Yeah. A standard network television season usually runs on television from September to May. We work from July to March. Right. So that we can get the episodes ready. And a standard television schedule is usually where you do three weeks on, one week off of filming. So usually a show will take one hiatus week a month. But the writers always continue to work for that week. That week off is meant so that the writers and the producer, they have a sort of catch up week because they’re constantly writing, prepping, editing, delivering the episodes. They would have these episodes in multiple forms. They’re like doing an outline for one, but they’re writing another. They’re punching up another one. They’re doing post editing on another one. They’ve got like five episodes going at once. We would just like be like, what are we filming this week?

[00:04:22] Angela Right.

[00:04:23] Jenna This year with this crazy twenty eight episode season, Steve Carell also had a commitment to do a film, I think it was Get Smart. And he needed like a six to eight week break from the show in the middle of that July to March filming schedule so he could film Get Smart.

[00:04:41] Angela How did we ever do that?

[00:04:43] Jenna In order to do that, we had to film nineteen episodes in a row.

[00:04:48] Angela That’s when we got sick. That’s when we got sick. I just have a memory of a bunch of us getting a cold bug. That was it!

[00:04:57] Jenna Yeah. So Frame Toby was right in the middle of this crazy nineteen episode schedule.

[00:05:05] Angela Oy oy oy.

[00:05:06] Jenna And here’s why I think this is significant. It’s really crazy to me that they decided to bring Toby back in the middle of this nineteen episode stretch because remember, he was now our show runner because Greg was doing Parks and Rec.

[00:05:21] Angela So Paul Lieberstein is now show running and acting in an episode.

[00:05:25] Jenna Again because they gave him that break and now they’re like, Sorry bud, you need to be Toby again.

[00:05:31] Angela You’re back in the mix.

[00:05:32] Jenna So I reached out to Jen Celotta, who was running the show with him, and I said, Do you know why you did that? Did you just want Paul to never sleep? What was your plan there? And she said she can’t remember exactly the reasoning, but because Holly had left, they were either going to have to cast someone new or bring Toby back. And that dynamic between Toby and Michael was so beloved, she said as a fan of the show, she wanted Toby to come back to that role. As a co-showrunner, she was freaked out at the idea of Paul having to wear both hats, but she said he did it so well. And Paul said he doesn’t remember sleeping a lot. But also he enjoyed doing it. You know, he liked his time on set with us.

[00:06:18] Angela Well, I love Toby coming back just because watching Michael spiral is delicious.

[00:06:23] Jenna This is one of my favorite episodes of the season for that reason. So thank you, Paul, for doing that.

[00:06:30] Angela Poor Paul, but thank you.

[00:06:31] Jenna My fast fact number two is a big thank you to James Kerry because he gave us the shooting draft for Frame Toby.

[00:06:40] Angela Yes, James, this was so fun to watch it with the shooting draft. Jenna and I were texting each other and calling each other like, oh, my God, that’s not in, oh but this is, but did you see that? It was really fun.

[00:06:51] Jenna And this is a particularly amazing episode to have the script for, because this microwave runner, the dirty microwave runner, it was much bigger in the original script.

[00:07:01] Angela Yes. And it was full of Angela and Pam stuff.

[00:07:05] Jenna Yes. So we get to share about all that today. So thank you, James Kerry.

[00:07:10] Angela Thank you, James Kerry.

[00:07:11] Jenna We are also going to have some great location details thanks to Randy Cordray. He told me all about Jim and Pam’s new house. And I have to share something that Randy said in his email to me when I reached out to him about this episode. Are you ready?

[00:07:29] Angela Okay, yes.

[00:07:29] Jenna He said, a particular delight of looking forward to your questions each week is that I get to revisit each episode to refresh my memory of what we collectively accomplished. Here’s what his process is when I write him an email…

[00:07:42] Angela Ohh.

[00:07:43] Jenna He says, My process is to reread the shooting draft, watch the episode, watch any deleted scenes and listen to any commentary that might have been recorded.

[00:07:54] Angela Randy, this is what I do every week. This is what Jenna and I are doing.

[00:08:00] Jenna That’s what I said! I said, you are an Office Lady.

[00:08:02] Angela You are an Office Lady. And Jenna, every time you email him a question now, I’m going to be like, don’t ask him that. I don’t want to send him down a rabbit hole.

[00:08:09] Jenna I know. But he really said he’s really been liking it. And remember when our podcast for Weight Loss came out and Randy wrote us that nice email?

[00:08:17] Angela He wrote us the most lovely email.

[00:08:19] Jenna Yeah. He was just like, ladies, you nailed it. You got every bit of information that could be known about how we did that engagement scene with the rain and the parking lot. I’m so proud of you two.

[00:08:30] Angela I know. It was like we got an email from our dad. That’s how I felt. Like Dad thought we did a good job.

[00:08:35] Jenna Me too. I know. I want Randy’s respect.

[00:08:37] Angela I do, too, because I respect him. Look what he’s doing. Just off an email of questions. We got to have him on the show. He’s got to come on. He’s an Office Lady!

[00:08:45] Jenna We need to have Randy and James come on.

[00:08:48] Angela Yes.

[00:08:49] Jenna Because they worked together. OK, Future Revisited, everybody.

[00:08:53] Angela Did you hear that, Randy and James? I guess that’s my serious tone. What am I doing? Did you hear that? You’re coming on the pod, fellahs.

[00:09:00] Jenna I’m going to move us into fast fact number three.

[00:09:02] Angela OK?

[00:09:03] Jenna I think the world is going to be grateful for this fast fact because I was grateful for it.

[00:09:09] Angela Oh, no, somebody did a deep dive.

[00:09:13] Jenna This is how to clean a microwave.

[00:09:15] Angela Oh, Lord.

[00:09:16] Jenna This episode about dirty microwaves. And I thought, how could we clean this microwave?

[00:09:23] Angela This episode is about a dirty microwave.

[00:09:27] Jenna All right. Aynsley Bubbico, our associate producer, helped me with this and I love it. Here is how to clean a real dirty microwave.

[00:09:34] Angela OK.

[00:09:34] Jenna All right? Get a microwave safe bowl, fill it with two cups of water and two tablespoons of vinegar. Now, sidenote, if you’d like, you could add a drop of your favorite essential oil if you want.

[00:09:49] Angela If you want to be fancy.

[00:09:51] Jenna Yeah. You can clean your microwave fancy or regular.

[00:09:54] Angela OK.

[00:09:55] Jenna Now turn the microwave on. Obviously put the bowl in the microwave and then put it on high for five minutes. You want it to get real steamy in there. That’s what she said. After it’s done, don’t open the microwave door for fifteen minutes.

[00:10:10] Angela Why? Because you’ll burn yourself or something?

[00:10:12] Jenna No, because that makes all the baked on grime sort of soften.

[00:10:17] Angela And then you can wipe it off?

[00:10:18] Jenna Yeah. That’s step three. Wipe it off. Just wipe it out. Done. Your microwave is clean. You’re welcome.

[00:10:24] Angela You’re welcome.

[00:10:25] Jenna That’s it. We can go to break. You can clean your microwave while you listen to some advertisements. Or if you’re listening on Stitcher premium, you won’t have time to clean your microwave because it’s ad free.

[00:10:38] Angela Ooh, well, let’s take a break, because Jenna just told me the bathrooms in New York are real far from where you’re sitting.

[00:10:45] Jenna They are. And you need a key.

[00:10:47] Angela Oh.

[00:10:48] Jenna Yeah.

[00:10:48] Angela Well, in L.A., that’s a porta potty on the side of the road. So I’m going to go. No, I’m kidding. Sam is applauding. All right, guys, we’ll be right back.

[00:10:59] Jenna We’ll be right back.

[00:11:03] Angela Well, we are back and everyone’s real excited because there’s brownies in the conference room.

[00:11:08] Jenna Every time I worked in an office and someone brought in a baked good, it was a whole exciting moment.

[00:11:13] Angela Heck, yeah.

[00:11:13] Jenna I loved it.

[00:11:14] Angela We’re not sure why there are brownies, but everyone’s real happy about it.

[00:11:18] Jenna It’s true. We had a fan question from Jessica L. that says, Why are there brownies in the conference room at the beginning of episode? Was it someone’s birthday? And then Jessica would like to know, did Angela bring the brownies? Because we’ve heard a lot of references to Angela’s famous brownies. Well, I looked at the script. Because I had it.

[00:11:40] Angela That’s right.

[00:11:41] Jenna It says Phyllis is giving away brownies, but there is no further explanation as to why. But it does make a note that Angela is not eating the brownies.

[00:11:53] Angela Yeah, in the script, Pam is like, Angela, why aren’t you having any? Pam, a little bit of a (BLEEP) stirrer.

[00:11:59] Jenna Andy says, she’s dieting. My baby’s trying to fit into a child size wedding gown for our big day. And Jim says, why and why do those exist?

[00:12:11] Angela Yeah, and then Angela says, It’s from my pageant days. I was Miss Tiny Midatlantic Bride when I was ten. What was Angela’s childhood?

[00:12:21] Jenna I don’t know.

[00:12:22] Angela Seriously. And you guys remember this is a callback. Remember Performance Review season two? Angela had a talking head where she said, and I quote, I actually look forward to performance reviews. I did the youth beauty pageant circuit, and I enjoyed that quite a bit. I really enjoy being judged. I believe I hold up very well even to severe scrutiny.

[00:12:43] Jenna Well, we know that you won Miss Tiny Mid-Atlantic Bride when you were 10.

[00:12:49] Angela Mm hmm. And that’s my wedding dress. There it is.

[00:12:54] Jenna I wonder how many more of these that you won. I wonder were you a big winner in your mind as the character of Angela, do you think she won quite often?

[00:13:04] Angela Yes. I think that Angela Martin, like, peaked at 13, like she was it. She won all of the young pageant junior pageant and then she retired.

[00:13:16] Jenna I see. OK, let us move on. While we’re in the conference room, Kelly is going to take two brownies.

[00:13:23] Angela One for Toby.

[00:13:25] Jenna Right. And Michael kind of scoffs at this, but nobody else seems to think it’s a joke.

[00:13:31] Angela Yeah, he calls her a weirdo. He’s like, whatever weirdo.

[00:13:34] Jenna I know. And Jim is like, Michael, Toby is back. And Michael’s like, OK. And so he walks back to the annex and no one’s there. But then suddenly someone is there and it is Toby.

[00:13:48] Angela It is Toby. I want you guys to know at one minute twenty three seconds, as Michael turns to see Toby and he has that look of horror in his face, if you look at the wall behind him, you will see that there are three framed sort of things on the wall for Toby. There is an award for Toby Flenderson, a certificate of achievement, and a diploma from the California Coastal College. So Jenna, he had been back long enough to hang up his framed items. And in the script, Toby had a talking head where he said this: I’ve been back for six days. I think I’ve even talked to him.

[00:14:26] Jenna I wish that stayed in.

[00:14:27] Angela Me too.

[00:14:28] Jenna I wish so much it had stayed in.

[00:14:30] Angela For my background catch folks. The California Coastal College. I don’t think that’s a thing. I Googled it. I couldn’t find it. I did find the California Coast University, which is a private online university based in Santa Ana, California. There you go, my background, people.

[00:14:48] Jenna Well, we got a lot of fan mail. People wanted to know if Michael’s screaming no and all of that was improvised or if it was in the script. In the script, it just says Michael turns and screams in all caps.

[00:15:03] Angela Yeah.

[00:15:04] Jenna But that whole like no, no, God, no. That was Steve. That was Steve’s interpretation of that script note.

[00:15:11] Angela And how funny was that, you guys, if you read that, you scream, I think most of us would just be like ahhhhh, right?

[00:15:18] Jenna Yes.

[00:15:19] Angela But Steve made a meal out of that moment

[00:15:21] Jenna in the best way.

[00:15:23] Angela He’s a comedy genius.

[00:15:25] Jenna Yes. You know, screen rant did a list of the top fifteen pop culture references created by The Office, and the meme of Steve saying no is one of them.

[00:15:35] Angela I don’t doubt it. I have been online where I see people that I don’t even know, like respond to other people with just Steve’s face going, no!

[00:15:44] Jenna It’s amazing.

[00:15:45] Angela Well, the episode starts and Michael is spiraling. He’s going to call David Wallace. He’s watching stupid Toby as he shows his stupid photos of Costa Rica to Phyllis.

[00:15:56] Jenna Yeah, he manages to get David on the phone by texting him nine one one. Call me. But you know what Michael said? He’s learned that people will not return his calls unless he texts 911.

[00:16:08] Angela and now everybody does because they think something horrible has happened. So.

[00:16:12] Jenna I had a pager when I first got to L.A.

[00:16:14] Angela So did I.

[00:16:15] Jenna You had to because you didn’t, like, really have cell phones. You had a pager. And the only reason you had a pager was so that your agent could page you if

[00:16:26] Angela you got an audition. And then you would have to go find a phone.

[00:16:29] Jenna You’d have to find a payphone.

[00:16:30] Angela To call them back. Yeah.

[00:16:31] Jenna I used to keep a Ziploc bag full of change in my car for two reasons. One, for all of the metered parking that didn’t accept credit cards, just coins. And two, so that I could find a pay phone and call my agent back when my agent paged me, which was maybe twice a year.

[00:16:50] Angela Oh, yeah. I remember one time distinctly I was driving through Santa Monica with some friends and my pager went off and I almost swerved off the road. I was like, wahhh!

[00:17:01] Jenna My career is happening. I’ve hit the big time. I’ve been paged.

[00:17:06] Angela We were supposed to be going to the beach. I was like, I we can’t do that now. I have to find a payphone. So we’re all like driving the streets looking for a payphone. I pulled over, I ran up to the pay phone. I put my quarters in, called them and they were like, all right, have you ever needed any kind of glasses? I’m like, What? No, and they’re like, we have an audition for you for LensCrafters, they would like people who wear glasses. I’m like, that’s not me. All right, bye.

[00:17:35] Jenna Yeah, that’s pretty much it. But then I did have a boyfriend once who was not calling me back.

[00:17:42] Angela Did you light up that pager?

[00:17:44] Jenna I sure did. With a bunch of nine one ones, you know it.

[00:17:48] Angela Did you really, Jenna?

[00:17:49] Jenna Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I did.

[00:17:52] Angela Were you a psycho girlfriend?

[00:17:55] Jenna You know what? He was cheating on me that night.

[00:17:58] Angela Oh, so you knew. You knew.

[00:18:00] Jenna I knew it. We broke up after that.

[00:18:03] Angela Oh, man.

[00:18:05] Jenna Yeah.

[00:18:05] Angela I wouldn’t light up the pager. I’m like sitting here calling you psycho. I wouldn’t light up the pager, but I would drive over and like, hide out in a bush.

[00:18:13] Jenna That’s so much more elaborate than texting nine one one. Here was my plan. I was like, I know he’s cheating on me. So I’m going to light up that pager and make it buzz so that while they’re whatever they’re doing, the pager is just like neeeee. Yeah, I’m just going to ruin their good time. He probably just turned it off.

[00:18:34] Angela I guess I’m just going to jump out of a bush and be like, hey, what are you doing? Gotcha. Now I’m going to go home because I got twigs in my hair and I’m embarrassed.

[00:18:44] Jenna Is this a plotline for mom detectives? Should we set mom detectives in the past where all we have are pagers and bush hiding?

[00:18:51] Angela Yes. Oh, bush hiding.

[00:18:55] Jenna Uh oh, that could be something else.

[00:18:58] Angela What’s wrong with us? Can we call it Bush hiders?

[00:19:01] Jenna No, we can’t. It doesn’t make any sense.

[00:19:07] Angela It doesn’t make any sense.

[00:19:10] Jenna You go pitch it. Hi. Our show, it’s called Bush Hiders.

[00:19:12] Angela And if you don’t want to but you’re an (BLEEP) because this is gold.

[00:19:16] Jenna And they’re like, what’s it about? And we’re like it’s two mom detectives.

[00:19:20] Angela It’s two older women in comfortable clothing.

[00:19:23] Jenna Yeah. We’re not wearing any designer clothes. We want like thirty minute wardrobe sessions.

[00:19:27] Angela It won’t be fitted and we want a lot of old tech that no one watching it will really understand.

[00:19:35] Jenna And we’re going to hide in some bushes.

[00:19:36] Angela Yeah.

[00:19:37] Jenna Do you want it?

[00:19:40] Angela Oh OK. Where are we?

[00:19:43] Jenna We shouldn’t have shared that on the air because someone’s going to steal it. I guarantee you in two years you’re going to turn on HBO Max, and there’s going to be two twenty year old’s starring in a show called Bush Hiders. Mark my word. Mark my word, and they’re going to be young, hot detectives in designer clothes. That’s how it works in this business.

[00:20:04] Angela That’s right,

[00:20:05] Jenna I’m not jaded. All right. Should we move on? What’s happened to me in New York? Who am I here?

[00:20:12] Angela I don’t know. You just took a big swig of coffee and you’re like, that’s how it works in the business. Well, listen, you know what David Wallace tells Michael? He’s just going to have to deal with it. And he couldn’t believe that one of his employees had been back so long and he didn’t know. And Dwight and Michael let him know the annex is icky. It’s icky back there.

[00:20:29] Jenna Yeah. And he really wants David to get rid of Toby. And David says, I can’t get rid of him without cause. And Michael says he has cause it’s because I hate him.

[00:20:42] Angela Because.

[00:20:43] Jenna But that is not obviously cause

[00:20:46] Angela well, they’re going to find something. But Jenna another issue is happening. It’s a day of drama in the office.

[00:20:53] Jenna Pam is preparing food in the kitchen and she discovers a mess in the microwave.

[00:20:59] Angela Jenna.

[00:20:59] Jenna Yeah.

[00:21:00] Angela Did you see what Pam was preparing?

[00:21:02] Jenna I know what Pam was preparing.

[00:21:04] Angela Share.

[00:21:05] Jenna This is maybe one of my most frequently asked questions outside of what was in the teapot note.

[00:21:11] Angela No way.

[00:21:12] Jenna Yes. People are like, what is Pam microwaving in the episode with the dirty microwave? Here are some guesses. We got mail. Here are what people are guessing that I was microwaving.

[00:21:24] Angela OK.

[00:21:25] Jenna Apple juice. A probiotic drink. Egg whites, bone broth, soup, milk, porridge and yogurt.

[00:21:36] Angela Well, I had no idea so I looked at the script. But Jenna you tell us.

[00:21:42] Jenna It’s egg whites.

[00:21:43] Angela It’s egg whites which I, by the way, knowing my BFF in real life thought was kind of fitting.

[00:21:49] Jenna Yeah. Because you can buy egg whites in these little cups and that’s what she’s doing. She’s going to microwave herself some egg whites. A lot of people also asked what was in the microwave. That is also in the script. And it just says like a saucy mess, basically.

[00:22:06] Angela I typed it out. It says Pam opens the microwave door to put in some egg whites, but the microwave is splattered all over with red sauce. Now we’re in the break room. And what would we title this? Jim’s exposed the break room? No, that doesn’t sound good.

[00:22:23] Jenna Exposure in the break room,

[00:22:25] Angela exposure in the break room. Andy, I guess, has peepers like a hawk and read Jim’s email and found out that Jim is buying his parents’ house and hasn’t told Pam.

[00:22:35] Jenna Yeah. Or as Kevin puts it, the same house he used to pee the bed in

[00:22:40] Angela Phyllis thinks it’s romantic until she asked Jim where it is. Jim says it’s on Linden Ave. And Phyllis makes a face. And then in the background you see me kind of roll my eyes like, ugh. I looked up Linden Ave in Scranton. I couldn’t find a Linden Ave. I found a Linden Street. But it’s sort of like in the heart of the city, there’s like shops and churches and definitely no quarry nearby.

[00:23:03] Jenna Oh. Hmm. Interesting. We got a lot of questions from, for example, Britney Y and Jenner B, whose house did they use for Jim’s parents’ house? Was the interior a set or was it the actual house that they used for the exterior? This is where Randy Cordray really came through for me, Ange.

[00:23:22] Angela Bring it home, Randy.

[00:23:24] Jenna I remembered that it was two different houses. We used one for the interior and one for the exterior. And Randy said that our location manager, Kyle Alexander, had found several choices and that Randy had really hoped that they could find a single residence, that they could do both interior and exterior just because it would be so much easier to shoot at just one location. But it didn’t work out that way. Randy said everything they looked at either worked for the interior but not the exterior or vice versa. So for the exterior, we used an occupied home on Calvert Street in Van Nuys, California, but the interior was not suitable to shoot. This was because it was absolutely adorable inside.

[00:24:14] Angela And it needed to look a little janky.

[00:24:16] Jenna Yeah, it was so cute. And when we were shooting there, they would let John and I step in to the house to kind of get our makeup refreshed and touched up. But we would just stand right inside that front door and then we would go back outside again. And that was it.

[00:24:31] Angela And it was cute inside?

[00:24:33] Jenna Oh my God, it was so cute. It was decorated like, oh, like an English professor’s home like it just-

[00:24:41] Angela Cozy,

[00:24:42] Jenna cozy, literary, bookshelves, just beautiful kind of restored home inside. So great.

[00:24:51] Angela I did something similar one time on the show called Hater’s Back Off. We filmed the exterior in one house, in the interior and another. And when we were filming the exterior, it was cold and kind of misty raining, and they let us step inside just the front room.

[00:25:06] Jenna Yeah same.

[00:25:07] Angela While we waited. We didn’t go throughout their house at all, but we stepped in the front room and I was with Steve Little and we weren’t really sure what to expect. We opened the door to step in and there was maybe 4000 tiny dolls.

[00:25:19] Jenna What?

[00:25:20] Angela Yes.

[00:25:20] Jenna What?

[00:25:21] Angela There were dolls in cases, all kinds of fancy dolls in every kind of case you could imagine. Cases on the wall, little case stand on the ground. They were everywhere. And Steve and I stood right on the other side of the door and we’re like, OK, so somebody likes dolls.

[00:25:38] Jenna Oh, my gosh. I would be like, run.

[00:25:41] Angela I know.

[00:25:42] Jenna And run now.

[00:25:43] Angela I was like, OK, all right.

[00:25:46] Jenna If you have that many dolls, there’s a very good chance that one of them is going to come alive and try to kill you. I mean, if we’ve learned anything, one of them is possessed,

[00:25:54] Angela one of them is possessed. And you know who’s on the case? The mom, detectives.

[00:25:57] Jenna The mom detectives, we got that covered!

[00:26:00] Angela We got it covered. We’ll hide in the bushes. We’ll figure it out.

[00:26:03] Jenna That’s right. So this house was so cute. What Michael Gallenberg did, our set designer, he added a broken rain gutter to the outside. He changed the front door so that it would match the other location where we go inside. And he also added that swinging screen door that bangs into the overhead awning.

[00:26:25] Angela Oh, that was really funny.

[00:26:27] Jenna I know. And then they also asked the homeowner to turn off their sprinklers for a week leading up to the shoot to make the grass look kind of dry and weather-beaten. And they did. They kind of killed their lawn for us. Thank you. Now for the interior of Jim’s parents house and for the garage scenes, they found an unoccupied home on Allott Avenue, which is also in Van Nuys. It was only a few blocks away from the other house. And for this one, they went in, they added the shag carpeting, they added the wood paneling. They changed the front door. Like they bought a front door and they put it on both houses so it would match, you know, so he was able to go in and completely set design the interior of the home.

[00:27:08] Angela Is it Allot?

[00:27:11] Jenna Alott.

[00:27:13] Angela And you say it a lot or allit? All ott.

[00:27:16] Jenna Owlet allit. So from everything I said, the thing that we’re going to discuss is the street name and how to pronounce it?

[00:27:26] Angela I want you to know something. Whenever I think about, like where I’m going to live, I think about the name of the street and having to tell it to like the pizza delivery guy. I live on a lot. A lot. A lot. No, not Allitt. Not Ilet. A lot. I play it out in my head. You guys don’t do that?

[00:27:45] Jenna Clearly you’d rather live on Calvert Street.

[00:27:47] Angela Calvert. Yes.

[00:27:49] Jenna Much easier for you to get your pizza on Calvert.

[00:27:52] Angela That’s right. I’m not spelling that every single time.

[00:27:57] Jenna It’s you, this is like how strongly I felt about pocket’s in women’s clothing. This is your soapbox moment, Angela.

[00:28:07] Angela Yeah, I can’t tell you, like, how many times I’ve had to spell my street name out. It’s annoying. Not going to say it. Don’t need the creepers.

[00:28:17] Jenna You don’t want anyone in your bush.

[00:28:19] Angela I don’t want anyone- Well, I might want someone in my bush, but I- it’s a special someone.

[00:28:22] Jenna I think he already lives with you.

[00:28:23] Angela I think. Oh, Jeez Louise. Oh. Oh, my gosh.

[00:28:32] Jenna I don’t know what’s happening to us today.

[00:28:33] Angela I don’t know.

[00:28:34] Jenna Should I go to New York more or less. I don’t know.

[00:28:37] Angela I don’t know. Oh my Lord.

[00:28:40] Jenna All right. We had some more questions because, Jim, during this talking head, he’s showing us his parents house. And Sam K would like to know, please explain the clown picture in Jim’s parents house. Please explain. In the script, it just says Jim examines a hideous painting of some clowns putting out a fire. He tries to pull it off with all his might. Nothing. Jim grimaces. Randy Cordray told me that that clown painting was provided. It was made original for us by one to Phil Shea’s go to artists. He did not have the artist’s name in his files, so we’d like to put it out there. If you are listening and you are the person who painted the clown painting, will you contact us on Office Ladies Pod? We want to know more. But Randy Cordray said that the artist actually provided them with multiple preliminary choices and that Mindy, Greg, Paul, and Jen all had to stand and look at multiple clown paintings. And that’s the one they chose.

[00:29:55] Angela That was their job that day.

[00:29:56] Jenna Yeah. Pick the clown painting.

[00:29:58] Angela How was your day? I had to pick a clown painting.

[00:30:01] Jenna So crazy.

[00:30:02] Angela It cracked me up that it was on the wall like that and that he couldn’t remove it because I feel like that’s such a dad move. You know, it’s like that moment where your mom is like, that painting is always tilted, it’s always tilted, and then your dad goes and super glues it to the wall because he’s tired of it tilting. It just made me laugh. I want to know the story behind why they bolted it down.

[00:30:23] Jenna Yeah. What is the story there? There’s a story. We don’t know what it is exactly.

[00:30:29] Angela We don’t know.

[00:30:30] Jenna Well, now guess what? Oscar and Andy discover a note on the microwave. It’s a very shaming note.

[00:30:38] Angela It is.

[00:30:41] Jenna They think that the note is worse than the mess,

[00:30:45] Angela Angela likes the note.

[00:30:47] Jenna She does. Meredith thinks that the person who wrote the note is definitely rich and should get off their high horse. I love this moment with this note on the microwave.

[00:30:57] Angela I do, too. It’s so relatable. If you have ever worked in an office, there is at least once in your time of working in that office, a note stuck to something about something that people are like ehh.

[00:31:10] Jenna Yeah. And also the note where the person leaving the note has clearly reached their limit.

[00:31:15] Angela Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:16] Jenna They can’t take it anymore.

[00:31:18] Angela No, the note is masking a deep like river of anger. They’re just pissed.

[00:31:25] Jenna Well, I think this is such a fun moment because we get to see Pam and Angela in agreement about something. I think Pam starts to doubt her note a little bit when she realizes that Angela is on her side. Do you think?

[00:31:39] Angela Yeah, I do.

[00:31:41] Jenna Well, the cool thing is that this moment at the microwave would have continued. In the script, there are two talking heads here, one from Pam and one from Angela. And lady, I thought we could read them.

[00:31:54] Angela I did too and they really further the story. It’s so fun.

[00:31:58] Jenna OK, here was Pam talking head from the script. She’s holding up the note. This is the front of the note. And then it says Pam holds up a memo. This is the front of my latest office memorandum. This can only lead anyone to believe that I wrote the note, which I did.

[00:32:16] Angela And then immediately it would cut to Angela’s talking head. And this was what was in the script. Everyone keeps asking if I wrote the note on the microwave. It was so perfectly worded and a little bit snotty. I wish I had written it.

[00:32:34] Jenna Now, there were even more candy bag talking heads, which we’d filmed as well, and they ended up in deleted scenes. But these are the two that were in the script.

[00:32:44] Angela Yes. And you guys, what cracks me up as well, I don’t know if you noticed this… not only are Pam and Angela kind of oddly on the same side of this argument, did you notice, Jenna, that they’re dressed alike?

[00:32:56] Jenna Yes, I noticed that Pam is doing that thing that Angela always does where she wears like a weird short sleeve sweater over a blouse.

[00:33:05] Angela They both have V neck, short sleeve sweaters over short sleeved blouses. Angela’s is like brown on brown and Pam’s is black over purple. But what the what is the short sleeve sweater?

[00:33:18] Jenna I have to believe that was a genius wardrobe choice by Alicia Reycraft.

[00:33:24] Angela I think so.

[00:33:25] Jenna Because that is funny.

[00:33:27] Angela I screengrabbed ’em. I’m going to put them on side by side in stories.

[00:33:30] Jenna Well, we got a fan question from Maddie and Laura. They asked in the episode, both Pam and Angela agree that the note on the microwave was acceptable and correct. Where do you guys stand in real life as Jenna and Angela? Note or no note?

[00:33:49] Angela You go you go first.

[00:33:51] Jenna You go. Why are you making me go first?

[00:33:52] Angela Oh, I’ll tell you what, I’m probably a no note. I’ll just sort of like stew and resent you forever. I’m probably a no note, but here is my reaction to the note. When I see the note, I’m like, you know what, you needed that whoever you are out in the world, you needed to get it out. So I’m OK with it. One time, Jenna, I’ll never forget this. I was in high school and I had finally gotten my driver’s license and we went to the mall. You know, you’re going to go to the mall. And I think Jenna because I was so excited, I had my friends in the car with me, we’re at the mall. I was a little distracted and maybe I didn’t do the best parking job. And after our day of going to Claire’s Boutique and hitting up 5-7-9, maybe the candle store, we go back out to my car and there was a note.

[00:34:39] Jenna I’m so sorry. You you bought candles as a teenager? It goes that far back for you?

[00:34:46] Angela I love a candle. And the candle store had-.

[00:34:48] Jenna Teenage Angela went to the mall and she went to the candle store.

[00:34:52] Angela She loved Yankee Candles, Jenna.

[00:34:55] Jenna Oh, OK. I’m sorry. Go on. You get to your car.

[00:34:59] Angela Yankee candles. It was right next to the Hallmark store. I could get myself a card, maybe a knickknack. Go get a candle.

[00:35:05] Jenna I’m sorry, how old are you? You’re you’re you’re 16 in this story.

[00:35:11] Angela I’ve been a grandma my whole life. Anyway, I walk back out to my car with my friends. This is my first outing in my car to the mall, there’s a note under my windshield wiper.

[00:35:23] Jenna What’s it say?

[00:35:24] Angela This is what it said. Hey, dickhead. Next time, leave me a can opener so I can get into my car.

[00:35:38] Jenna (LAUGHS) Sorry.

[00:35:39] Angela I was like, what? I must have sandwiched the guy’s car, I don’t know. But you know what, I was like, he needed that. Whoever he or she was, they needed this. They needed to get it out. Okay.

[00:35:55] Jenna So basically where you stand on notes is you wouldn’t write one yourself, but you don’t have a big kind of reaction. You don’t take them personally when they’re out. You’re sort of like that person needed to get it out.

[00:36:10] Angela Think about the time it takes to sit down and write a note or type it out and print it on a piece of colored paper like Pam did. She had two different colors. She had black ink. She had red ink. It was on a yellow piece of paper. She clearly needed to be heard in this moment.

[00:36:27] Jenna Yeah.

[00:36:28] Angela So I would just hear her.

[00:36:30] Jenna Would you clean the microwave if it was dirty?

[00:36:33] Angela I probably would.

[00:36:35] Jenna Wow.

[00:36:36] Angela I would probably just clean it because I mean, who needs. And then that’s done.

[00:36:41] Jenna Wow.

[00:36:41] Angela I would just clean it. If I go into the little kitchen here at Earwolf and there’s like a mess around the sink and it’s not my mess, I just wipe it up.

[00:36:48] Jenna Here’s what I would do.

[00:36:49] Angela OK, you look very serious. That’s why I’m like, OK.

[00:36:52] Jenna Well, I’m thinking about it in my head. I’m really trying to, you know, ask myself, who am I? What would I do? I’m a problem solver, right? So if I kept going in the kitchen and there kept being a dirty microwave and there was no system in place for who cleans it, I would want to create that system or create that rule.

[00:37:15] Angela One hundred percent Jenna you would make a chore wheel.

[00:37:18] Jenna Yes.

[00:37:18] Angela And we would all like on Mondays I would be in charge of cleaning the office sink.

[00:37:23] Jenna Yes. Or it’s Monday microwave day. We’d give it a fun name and that’s the cleaning day and it would rotate around. And, you know, part of that would be the cleaner you keep the microwave, the less work on the day you have to clean it. So it’ll incentivize us all to keep a cleaner microwave because no one’s going to want to clean it on their clean day.

[00:37:48] Angela I like that very much about your. You’re solution based.

[00:37:51] Jenna I am.

[00:37:52] Angela Well in the script, the microwave storyline continues. There is now another note on top of Pam’s original note, and it says this. Hey, anonymous coward who left the note, be a man, spend less time writing notes and more time cleaning up the microwave.

[00:38:10] Jenna Yeah, and then it continues. Throughout the episode, there would have been more notes piling up on the microwave, not just on the microwave, they’re on the cabinets.

[00:38:21] Angela They ran out of space in the microwave. They’re taping them to the cabinets around the microwave.

[00:38:25] Jenna There are so many notes that clearly people have written multiple notes because there’s not even that many people in the office to weigh in on this. Right?

[00:38:32] Angela Right.

[00:38:32] Jenna So here’s one of the notes. Hey, whoever was bashing the first note? Grow up. The microwave is filthy and no one here is a maid.

[00:38:40] Angela And then there’s another one that says, you are all a bunch of idiots and privileged ass wipes who weren’t raised right. If I find you, I’m going to knock your teeth out. That’s got to be Meredith, right?

[00:38:51] Jenna Do you think it’s Creed?

[00:38:53] Angela I think it’s Meredith.

[00:38:55] Jenna I mean, Meredith is the obvious choice, but I think we could find out that Creed wrote it. Lady, I think we should take a break, because when we come back, Michael is about to serve up some high caliber acting. I mean, watch out, Kurt Russell.

[00:39:12] Angela Yeah, Michael Scott’s coming for you.

[00:39:14] Jenna He sure is. All right. We’ll be right back. It’s time for Michael to do his best. This is Michael’s best. Michael approaches Toby’s desk to welcome him back. He’s asking questions about Costa Rica. Toby says it was amazing, but he came back because it was kind of hard to meet people. It was hot, but Michael can’t stand it. He cannot stand this incredibly innocent small talk with Toby.

[00:39:45] Angela No, he can’t. He goes back to his office. He has this talking head where he’s like, I tried. I tried. I tried to talk to Toby and be his friend. But it’s like trying to be friends with an evil snail. I want to know who in the writers room came up with Evil Snail because it’s so funny.

[00:40:02] Jenna It’s such a good description of Toby.

[00:40:04] Angela It’s a good description. And then he goes on to say he feels like Neve Campbell in Scream 2. And he has this very funny talking head where he learned a lot, I guess, from the Scream movies. But Jenna, there was another talking head in the script. So the one you see with the Neve Campbell, that was not in the script. So that must have been an alternate talking head they handed him on the day. In the script, this is Michael’s talking head. It’s almost the same right up until the evil snail.

[00:40:30] Jenna So evil snail was in the script.

[00:40:33] Angela Yes, evil snail was a keeper.

[00:40:35] Jenna We’ve always had that.

[00:40:37] Angela But this is how it changed in the script. The last four months without Toby have been absolute bliss. I fell in love with a beautiful blond woman. I fell out of love. I tried scallops. The office was broken into. I became a father. I grew a goatee. The Olympics were a great success for China. And now that I’ve tasted freedom, I can never go back. I’m going to kill him. No, too far. But I will do something. No, too little. I will get rid of him.

[00:41:03] Jenna Oh, I like it.

[00:41:04] Angela I love his breakdown of what all happened and I love that he included he grew a goatee.

[00:41:11] Jenna Me too. It’s true, in fact, that Michael is going to try to get rid of Toby. He is looking for firable offenses.

[00:41:20] Angela As Dwight says there are two that he can find in this binder, workplace violence or sexual harassment.

[00:41:27] Jenna So I guess Michael’s first plan is to try to get Toby to sexually harass Pam. He goes up to Pam’s desk, he hands Pam a note and he says, go give this note to Toby. Don’t read it. Don’t read it. Pam reads it. In the note, it’s written as if it’s from Pam and it says, Please hug and kiss me no matter how much I struggle, I’m too shy to confess my love to you.

[00:41:54] Angela Can you imagine if Toby had read that note?

[00:41:56] Jenna His brain would have exploded. Yeah, well, that doesn’t work.

[00:42:02] Angela Yeah. Pam’s like, no, I’m not going back there.

[00:42:05] Jenna So now the new plan is to get Toby to beat up Michael.

[00:42:11] Angela Yeah. So they march back to the annex and Michael’s sort of confronting Toby and trying to sort of antagonize him to hit him and Dwight’s, like, hit him. And then Kelly jumps in so quickly, hit him!

[00:42:23] Jenna I know. First of all, her and Ryan were making out. But they’ve stopped making out so that they can weigh in and they’re for a fight. They’re like, do it. Hit him, hit him. Toby refuses. It’s not working. None of these plans are working. So you know what they’re going to have to do?

[00:42:40] Angela They’re going to have to go big.

[00:42:42] Jenna They’re going to have to frame Toby for drugs like on the Shield.

[00:42:47] Angela I love that Dwight said I’ve framed many animals. I framed a raccoon opening a Christmas gift. Oh, Dwight.

[00:42:56] Jenna Well, Michael thinks it sounds mean, but sometimes the end justifies the mean. That’s such a good line.

[00:43:03] Angela It’s such a good line. It’s so smart. It’s smart funny.

[00:43:07] Jenna It reminds me of this gem. I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little bit stitious.

[00:43:12] Angela Yes.

[00:43:14] Jenna That it’s right in line with that.

[00:43:16] Angela So yeah, Michael’s going to go and hit up Leo and Gino over in Vance Refrigeration for some drugs. They give him what they say is two pounds of weed and they want five hundred dollars. Michael has five hundred dollars in his wallet?

[00:43:30] Jenna I thought the same thing.

[00:43:33] Angela That’s a lot of cash in your wallet. And for my background, catch people, did you see the Lackawanna Library card?

[00:43:41] Jenna in Michael’s wallet?

[00:43:42] Angela Yes. When he opens his wallet, there’s a Lackawanna County library card.

[00:43:47] Jenna Do you know what I found recently when I was cleaning out my closet?

[00:43:50] Angela What?

[00:43:51] Jenna Pam’s wallet.

[00:43:52] Angela You did.

[00:43:54] Jenna And in it there’s a credit card that says Pam Beasley, there’s all these cards they made for my wallet, my prop wallet. I’ll take a picture. We’ll put it in pod.

[00:44:05] Angela Yeah, we have to put it in stories. That’s so fun.

[00:44:08] Jenna How crazy is that? They did that. That’s how detailed Phil Shea was. If you had a prop wallet, it reflected your character. Although, is Michael going to the library and why? What’s that for?

[00:44:21] Angela I mean, I feel like Michael’s probably had that library card for like 20 years in his wallet. Maybe there was a time where he didn’t have Internet and he’d have to go to the library. Oh, wait, we didn’t have Internet.

[00:44:34] Jenna I know.

[00:44:35] Angela Maybe he used to go to the library to make copies because the copier in the office is crap.

[00:44:40] Jenna We’ll get to that next week. So Ange, you know how when sometimes we’re watching an episode or we’re breaking down our document to prep to do the podcast we’ll get curious about something and we’ll do a deep dive?

[00:44:53] Angela Did you do one on something?

[00:44:55] Jenna I didn’t. Our associate producer, Aynsley

[00:44:58] Angela Aynslee, what’d you deep dive?

[00:45:01] Jenna This is what she wrote me. She said, according to a regretable Google search, the price of one pound of recreational marijuana in Pennsylvania ranges from nineteen hundred dollars to two thousand five hundred and fifty dollars. She had to know. She was like, OK, they’re selling Michael two pounds of weed for five hundred dollars. Aynsley got curious, how much is a pound of weed in Pennsylvania?

[00:45:28] Angela And now I looked and we shot this in September of 2008. So how much was it in 2008?

[00:45:34] Jenna I’m not sure. But today that’s going to run you quite a bit of money. With today’s prices, Michael got a deal because it would cost him close to five thousand dollars to get two pounds of weed today. I also want to say that’s clearly not two pounds of anything in that baggie.

[00:45:52] Angela No.

[00:45:53] Jenna It’s green, but it’s not two pounds. I mean, two pounds. I have two pounds of things all over my house, like two pound weights, two pound bag of flour. That’s not two pounds of anything.

[00:46:05] Angela It’s not.

[00:46:06] Jenna I’ve had a two pound bag of spinach in my house before. It’s much bigger than that. It takes up the whole crisper drawer.

[00:46:11] Angela You’re very passionate about painting a very clear picture of what two pounds is.

[00:46:17] Jenna I mean, it’s so glaringly obvious that that’s not two pounds. There are so many signs that Michael is missing.

[00:46:24] Angela Don’t get Jenna started.

[00:46:25] Jenna Don’t get me started on what two pounds of something is.

[00:46:28] Angela I’ll tell you about my two pounds of spinach.

[00:46:31] Jenna I just ordered two pounds of Epsom salts, and that was a large package as well.

[00:46:36] Angela Where are you making?

[00:46:38] Jenna Warm, soothing bath.

[00:46:41] Angela Well, listen, we’re about to find out that Pam has an ally in this whole microwave business.

[00:46:47] Jenna Does she? She has Ryan who is pretending to be an ally, and he’s laying it on thick. And I love it.

[00:46:54] Angela Yeah, he says, I’m totally on your side, but the truth is he went to make a cup of noodles and the microwave is still a mess and he wants her to clean it up. And she delivers some real Pam sass.

[00:47:04] Ryan Hey, Pam, I just want to let you know I’m totally on your side with the whole microwave situation.

[00:47:11] Pam Thank you.

[00:47:12] Ryan I was just back there to make some cup of soup. The thing is still a huge mess.

[00:47:15] Pam I know. Can you believe it?

[00:47:16] Ryan Yeah, it’s crazy. But I guess the thing is, at some point, notes or no notes, someone’s going to have to just get in there and clean it up.

[00:47:27] Pam I guess that’s why we have a temp, huh?

[00:47:31] Ryan Oh, no, trust me, I, I would just make it worse.

[00:47:34] Pam How would wiping it with a paper towel make it worse?

[00:47:36] Ryan I would find a way.

[00:47:38] Pam You’ve seen things cleaned before though, right?

[00:47:40] Ryan Pam, I am hopeless at that stuff.

[00:47:43] Angela I mean, that’s some good Pam sass.

[00:47:45] Jenna That was all scripted. I know it sounds like Jenna sass.. It was scripted. I just brought myself to it.

[00:47:52] Angela You brought some real truth to it.

[00:47:54] Jenna I did. Well, Ange, we got a lot of fan questions asking who did clean the microwave? Because this never gets wrapped up. We never find out. Did it get clean? Who cleaned it? This would have wrapped up. It’s in the script. And we filmed a big scene that would have explained all of it.

[00:48:13] Angela It was a fun scene, too.

[00:48:15] Jenna It was. And it has a great Pam Angela moment at the top.

[00:48:19] Angela Yeah. So it starts with Angela. She’s storming in from the kitchen. She’s super ticked off and she’s holding up a note. Someone has drawn a penis on the note. And she confronts Pam.

[00:48:32] Jenna I know, she thinks Pam drew the penis.

[00:48:35] Angela Why does she always blame Pam for this kind of stuff?

[00:48:38] Jenna I don’t know. Here’s how it went…

[00:48:41] Angela Martin Pervert.

[00:48:44] Jenna Angela, I didn’t do that.

[00:48:45] Angela Martin So is this what they taught you at your fancy art school?

[00:48:47] Pam Why would I draw penis on my own note?

[00:48:49] Angela Martin Why do you wear bright colors? For attention, Pam.

[00:48:53] Pam Everyone, I have an announcement to make. I’m the person who put the first note on the microwave.

[00:49:02] Jenna Yeah, Pam comes clean, and I remember shooting this because Pam kind of goes on to take charge of the room after she admits that she wrote the note, she’s like, and I guess I just have to say, what’s so wrong about the note? Why is everyone so offended by this note? Shouldn’t you be more offended by a consistently dirty microwave? She gets on her soapbox. It’s Pam’s Soapbox.

[00:49:27] Angela It’s Pam’s Soapbox. And you guys, as an actor, when we got to have a moment where we commanded the whole bullpen, it was exciting. And also we were kind of terrified.

[00:49:37] Jenna Oh, yeah.

[00:49:38] Angela Because you’re in charge of, like, the pace of the scene. This only happened to me a handful of times when Angela makes a big announcement or something. But I remember, Jenna, watching you and you were so good in this moment because everyone is like throwing you little curveballs, you know, Oscar and Stanley and Kevin, you know, they’re all kind of sassing you.

[00:49:55] Jenna And, you know, the last time that I had a scene like this was back in Beach Games when Pam was going to confront the whole group about her feelings and how they didn’t come to her art show. But in this instance, people were interrupting me and they’re coming at me. And I got such a window into what Steve’s every day was. At one point, the group starts hazing Pam about being in New York and Pam gives this speech that kind of takes Jim off guard. And I think we should hear it.

[00:50:26] Kevin Listen, New York. That might fly-

[00:50:27] Pam Why? Because I went to New York for three months.

[00:50:32] Andy That and the black sweater, Manhattan.

[00:50:34] Pam OK. Yes, I went to New York, everybody, I’m not going to apologize for it. I experienced more there in one week than I experience here in three months. I love New York. You know, I especially love that people there cleaned up after themselves.

[00:50:47] Angela Well, Jim has just heard her say all that.

[00:50:48] Jenna Yeah. And the camera is pushing in on his face and he’s realizing at the end of today, he’s going to tell her he bought them a house in Scranton. She’s not going back to New York any time soon. This place she loves.

[00:51:01] Angela I really wish this moment had made it into the show because I feel like it just sets up the stakes for Jim because he’s doubting his decision from the very beginning. Did I do the right thing? Is she going to like this? I don’t know. And I feel like he needed to hear this. And I feel like the audience needed to hear it.

[00:51:16] Jenna I do, too. I think it’s a shame that it got cut out. And, you know, at the end of this whole scene, Pam says, fine, I’ll go clean it. So it is Pam in the end, who cleaned the microwave.

[00:51:29] Angela Yes, in the script, the very last line of this big scene says this. Pam marches over to the kitchen and Stanley starts to slow clap.

[00:51:41] Jenna Oh, yeah.

[00:51:43] Angela We had a slow clap that didn’t make it.

[00:51:46] Jenna Oh, yeah, that’s right. Oh, that’s bringing back that memory of me walking to Stanley’s slow clap. Mmhm. So good. It’s time for Michael to plant what he thinks is two pounds of marijuana in Toby’s desk and at the same time Dwight is going to call the police and report that there is a drug dealer named Toby Flenderson on the premises. And when asked to give his name, Dwight says his name is Andy Bernard.

[00:52:17] Angela Dwight is going to throw Andy under the bus any chance he gets. There was this deleted scene Jenna that for Michael to be able to have the time to go plant the drugs, they needed to get Toby away from his desk. So Dwight asked Toby to show him his photos from Costa Rica. Let’s go to the conference room, I’ll look at your photos. Toby is thrilled that someone wants to see his photos. And then Michael sneaks off to plant the drugs. But in true Michael fashion, he can’t keep the secret. He has to share with someone that he might have just done something. This is what he said.

[00:52:50] Toby I think it’s really cool that you wanted to see my photos.

[00:52:54] Dwight What’s think pink thing on that white oval?

[00:52:55] Toby That’s me. I was boogie boarding. I gave it a try.

[00:52:57] Dwight Who took this picture? Did you make some friends?

[00:53:02] Toby Oh, I hired a local kid to snap it.

[00:53:06] Dwight Tell me about this monkey.

[00:53:12] Michael Scott Oh, I’m not I am not at liberty to talk about it, let’s just say that I something something in somebody’s something and if discovered, then someone will get something’ed. I may have said too much.

[00:53:30] Angela He can’t not say anything.

[00:53:31] Jenna He can’t. Containment is not his strong suit.

[00:53:34] Angela No.

[00:53:34] Jenna And then I have to say that scene with Dwight and Toby, to me, it sounded like Rainn Wilson improvising questions, trying to stump Paul Lieberstein.

[00:53:45] Angela Jenna, you’re not wrong. I’m looking at the script right now. The part with what’s the red thing crawling on that oval that was scripted.

[00:53:52] Jenna OK.

[00:53:53] Angela But the tell me about this monkey is not in the script.

[00:53:56] Jenna OK, also, what about that question? Who took these pictures?

[00:54:00] Angela That’s in the script.

[00:54:01] Jenna Oh it is?

[00:54:02] Angela Yeah.

[00:54:02] Jenna That’s a funny line.

[00:54:03] Angela The improv moment is the monkey.

[00:54:05] Jenna OK, now the police arrive and they are going to look into this possible narcotics situation. Pam doesn’t know anything about it. Dwight’s going to take charge.

[00:54:16] Angela And then Michael starts freaking out. And then they realize it’s a ziplock of maybe like, what, a Caprese salad?

[00:54:22] Jenna Yeah. It looks like there’s definitely some cheese in there and some salad dressing. I’ll have you know, the police officers were played by Patrick Fosset and Michael Harrity, and neither of them have been on Monk. I checked.

[00:54:38] Angela Oh, good call to check, though.

[00:54:40] Jenna Also, can we talk about how when the police first arrived, Creed stood up? As if he was going to be handcuffed.

[00:54:47] Angela And then put his hands behind his head. And then is talking head. He’s like, just keep talking to me until the police leave.

[00:54:55] Jenna I love it.

[00:54:56] Angela So good.

[00:54:56] Jenna I love it so much. We got some fan mail, Brooke L said that Toby seemed very concerned about police officers searching his desk. Could this be because they might find evidence of him being the Scranton Strangler? I don’t know.

[00:55:12] Angela At sixteen minutes twenty seven seconds, we have a very rare side by side talking head.

[00:55:20] Jenna So rare. How did they get through it?

[00:55:22] Angela I don’t know. Michael and Toby side by side.

[00:55:26] Jenna I know.

[00:55:27] Angela I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in that talking head because you know- I looked for the bloopers. I was like, surely, surely there’s something on the blooper reel.

[00:55:33] Jenna I looked too! Yes. Because I was like, I know these guys. I know Steve and Paul together. And they were as tickled by the Toby Michael relationship as the audience was. As we all were.

[00:55:45] Angela Yes. And they would mess with each other. You remember in a scene there’s a blooper where Toby has to hand Michael a piece of paper and Steve and him start cracking up because Paul wrote (BLEEP) you on it.

[00:55:56] Jenna Yes!

[00:55:58] Angela So I know they were giving it to each other. And I wish there were some bloopers from this.

[00:56:02] Jenna There is footage somewhere for sure.

[00:56:05] Angela Somewhere.

[00:56:05] Jenna Well listen. In the annex, Ryan and Kelly are making out again.

[00:56:10] Angela Oh, it’s such a sloppy make out, too.

[00:56:12] Jenna It is.

[00:56:13] Angela Not that a tidy make out would have made it any better at work.

[00:56:18] Jenna Exactly. Well, Ryan wants out. He doesn’t want a sloppy make out. He doesn’t want a tidy one. He’s going to Thailand with some friends from high school, a high school. You know, he has to break up with her because if he doesn’t, he’ll always resent her if he didn’t go. He would like them to be adults about it. Maybe they could have sex one more time. And does she have any cash?

[00:56:41] Angela The let’s be adults about it but we could also have sex one more time. It’s such a dude move.

[00:56:46] Jenna I feel like I’ve heard that so many times.

[00:56:48] Angela I know.

[00:56:49] Jenna Do you want to have some goodbye sex? No.

[00:56:51] Angela No. Just good bye. Get your sorry ass out of here.

[00:56:56] Jenna Yeah, exactly.

[00:56:58] Angela Yeah.

[00:56:59] Jenna Fan question from Gracie R, When Ryan is telling Kelly he’s going to Thailand, why are they both wearing different clothes? I’ll tell you, Gracie, because this scene was originally supposed to be the tag at the end of the episode and it was meant to be a new work day. So in the script, this scene was not during the same day that we were framing Toby. It was the next day. But in editing, they moved it up and we are going to end instead with a delicious Dwight talking head. We’ll get to it. But first, Jim needs to show Pam what he’s done.

[00:57:40] Angela That’s right. Jim is nervous but excited. He is, as my daughter says, nervouscited. And she’s like, why are we stopping at your parents house? And he says, I bought it. And then Jenna at eighteen minutes two seconds, Jim says, Let’s go inside. I’ll show you inside. What? Has Pam never been inside the house?

[00:58:00] Jenna We got so much mail about that. People wrote in. They said if Pam knew they were at Jim’s parent’s house when they pulled up, wouldn’t that mean she’s been there before and she’s probably been inside?

[00:58:10] Angela You would hope Pam has been inside his parents house. They’ve been dating for a while. They live in the same town.

[00:58:15] Jenna Yeah. And it’s interesting because his parents have moved out, but they’ve left some furniture. Also how rough were they on this house?

[00:58:22] Angela I know. And Jim says I was helping my mom out. Where’s his dad?

[00:58:28] Jenna I don’t know.

[00:58:29] Angela I have a lot of questions.

[00:58:30] Jenna There were a lot of questions, Rachel M and Megan L said, question for Jenna, in this episode when Jim is showing Pam his parents house, I was wondering what went into how you decided to play the scene, because she seems really worried and unexcited. But then in the end, she says she loves it. Any input you could give about how you decided to play this or what the director told you would be super appreciated. Well, guys, we’ve already discussed my personal opinions on someone buying someone else a house without telling them. So this was a little bit of a mental gymnastics for me to get Pam to the place where she’s going to say she loves it and where she says that line, I mean, you bought me a house… Because it was like not how I would react as Jenna. You know, I had to really play the character and play the character’s truth. And in the script, I was being told that my character’s truth was that she loved this gesture and it made her feel loved.

[00:59:38] Angela Yeah, well, I mean, I think we often did that. Obviously, we had to play the truth for the character. I mean, I hope you guys know I’m not very much like Angela Martin in how I would react to things, but it made sense to me Jenna for Pam, you know, and Jim made the garage into this art studio and he’s really putting down some roots with her. And I think Pam wanted a family and she wanted all of these things that Jim is offering her. She had wanted that.

[01:00:07] Jenna Yeah. You know, I had thought a little bit back on the talking head where Pam discusses what her perfect home would look like, how she always wanted a home with a terrace.

[01:00:18] Angela Mm hmm.

[01:00:19] Jenna You know, picking her home seemed like something that Pam was attached to. So I did bring that up. I said, you know, we’ve established that Pam has daydreamed about what her home would look like and now this person has taken her out of the process.

[01:00:37] Angela You brought that up to the writers at the time of when we were filming?

[01:00:40] Jenna Yeah. And so I was saying, like, help me understand why Pam now is so happy and so excited. And Angela, we got to exactly what you just said, which was that it was a vulnerable thing for Pam to give up the art school track. And she did that because of two reasons. One, graphic design wasn’t what she meant she wanted to do as an artist. And two, she’s ready. She’s very, very ready to start living this married life, to be in the season of family and marriage with this man that she’s been waiting years for. And so this home is her fast track to that season of her life. And she’s just ready.

[01:01:31] Angela Yeah.

[01:01:32] Jenna And, you know, they’re going to get to fix it up together. So there’s still that element of nesting that’s going to get to happen. And so that’s kind of what I was thinking was like, I’m ready.

[01:01:43] Angela Yeah. And you have to think when Pam talked about her dream house with this tower and the terrace and all of that, she was in an unhappy relationship. When you’re in a place you feel stuck in life or you’re unhappy, you daydream and you daydream about these fantastical things and they’re coping mechanisms. And then when you’re with someone you really love, you don’t need the fantasy anymore.

[01:02:08] Jenna That’s such a good point, Angela.

[01:02:11] Angela You’re just ready to have a life

[01:02:12] Jenna And she’s ready to have that life. Now, we did get some mail about that garage, Katie C and Chris G said, when Jim is showing Pam his parents’ house, he says the garage has great lighting. He then proceeds to open a windowless garage door, revealing a completely windowless garage space. Where is the great lighting, Jim? Where?

[01:02:34] Angela OK, well.

[01:02:35] Jenna I thought that was really funny.

[01:02:37] Angela That is really funny. I want you guys to know that I have a garage that we use as a home office and for a long time we would just raise the door and then there would be amazing light, you know. So it did get great light, but you had to raise the door. And then years later we actually just removed the door because we’re like, this is never going to be a garage again. You know, we’ve sort of made it into this little home office and put an actual sliding glass door. But I get it. It does have great lighting. You just have to open it up.

[01:03:09] Jenna But he does present it like this garage has great lighting, as if the other garages that you open, the whole side of the building wouldn’t have great lighting. He’s presenting as if it’s like a special feature that kind of applies to every garage that doesn’t have like a giant tree planted in front of it, which it wouldn’t because it’s a garage.

[01:03:31] Angela Right.Most garages are just boxes with no windows.

[01:03:35] Jenna I have to tell you two things about shooting these scenes at the house. The scene where Jim is trying to take the clown painting off the wall for Pam is one of the hardest I’ve ever laughed on the show. It is the second hardest time. The first was when we did the scene in Dinner Party where Michael’s showing us the tiny TV on the wall. This is the second. Every time John tried to lift the painting on the wall, I could not stop laughing. I don’t know what it was. Tears, tears, choking on our laughter. We laughed so hard. I looked for it in the bloopers and it’s not there. And I’m so upset it’s not there. It took us like an hour to shoot that tiny moment of him

[01:04:19] Angela trying to take that painting off the wall?

[01:04:21] Jenna Trying to take the painting off the wall.

[01:04:23] Angela John is also so funny at physical comedy.

[01:04:26] Jenna Yes.

[01:04:26] Angela I laughed out loud when he pulled back that fake wood paneling and it kind of startled him.

[01:04:31] Jenna Yes. So then at the end of the scene in the garage, when we’re hugging, I improvised the line, what about the clown? And it made John laugh. And that’s why he’s like burying his head into my neck. And then when he said, yeah, I can’t do anything about that, it made me laugh. And so I’m like smashing my face into his shoulder. You can totally tell we’re breaking. And that’s why. It was because we were still- any time we brought up the clown painting, we lost it.

[01:05:02] Angela I love that moment. It made it intimate and funny and sweet.

[01:05:06] Jenna I think it’s time to talk about the greatest Dwight talking head of all time.

[01:05:10] Angela That’s saying a lot because there are some amazing Dwight talking heads. But this one really is like top five.

[01:05:18] Jenna He’s going to describe his perfect crime and I think we have to hear it.

[01:05:22] Dwight What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany’s at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No, I go for the chandelier. It’s priceless. As I’m taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It’s her father’s business. She’s Tiffany. I say, no. We make love all night. In the morning, the cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico, but I go to Canada. I don’t trust her. Besides, I like the cold. Thirty years later, I get a postcard. I have a son and he’s the chief of police. This is where the story gets interesting. I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris by the Trocadero. She’s been waiting for me all these years. She’s never taken another lover. I don’t care. I don’t show up. I go to Berlin. That’s where I stash the chandelier.

[01:06:06] Angela Yeah, I do not know how Rainn got through saying, this is where the story gets interesting.

[01:06:13] Jenna I know.

[01:06:15] Angela Every time I watched this episode I laughed at that line and I watched it like three times.

[01:06:20] Jenna This entire talking head was scripted and it was delivered as scripted. I think this is one of the most brilliantly written pieces ever. It’s just so good.

[01:06:31] Angela It’s so good. And who better to deliver it than Rainn Wilson as Dwight? It was just perfect.

[01:06:37] Jenna I agree. There you have it, everyone. That’s Frame Toby. Did you have anything else, Angela?

[01:06:41] Angela I don’t have anything else. I do want you guys to know because Jenna and I both watched the bloopers, next week on The Surplus was one of the hardest I’ve ever laughed in a scene.

[01:06:52] Jenna Oh, I can’t wait. Thank you so much to Randy Cordray, James Kerry and Jen Celotta and Paul Lieberstein. I traded some emails with them as well. Man, that was fun.

[01:07:04] Angela That was a delight. I will be trying to clean my microwave using your method.

[01:07:09] Jenna Thank you.

[01:07:11] Angela And we’ll see you here next week.

[01:07:13] Jenna I’ll be back in L.A. next week. I wonder, will I bring New York Jenna home with me? We’ll see.

[01:07:20] Angela I don’t know. New York Jenna might get the E next to our podcast.

[01:07:23] Jenna Sorry. What can I say? See you next week, guys.

[01:07:29] Angela See you next week.

[01:07:33] Jenna Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fischer, and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Codi Fischer. Our producer is Cassi Jerkins. Our sound engineer is Sam Kieffer, and our associate producer is Aynsley Bubbico.

[01:07:48] Angela Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

[01:07:51] Jenna For Ad free versions of Office Ladies, go to Stitcher premium dotcom. For a free one month trial of Stitcher premium, use code: office.