EP. 79 — Baby Shower

OFFICE-079-20210506-BabyShower-SKv03.mp3

[00:00:04] Jenna I’m Jenna Fischer.

[00:00:05] 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. Are you ready for a baby shower?

[00:00:25] Angela I sure am.

[00:00:27] Jenna It’s Jan’s baby shower today.

[00:00:29] Angela At a company she no longer works at with a man she no longer dates and is not the father of her baby. It’s going to be a huge success.

[00:00:38] Jenna Oh, yeah. Yeah. All the elements are there.

[00:00:40] Angela Right?

[00:00:40] Jenna Yes. People she doesn’t really like are throwing her a baby shower

[00:00:44] Angela And they don’t like her.

[00:00:46] Jenna It’s gonna be great. It’s Season five, episode four. This episode was written by Aaron Shure and directed by Greg Daniels. I have a summary.

[00:00:57] Angela Let’s do it.

[00:00:58] Jenna Michael and the Party Planning Committee, still headed by Phyllis, throw a baby shower for Jan, but they are unaware that she has already given birth to her daughter, Astrid. Jan’s presence in the office causes Michael to be rude to Holly, and Dwight spends the day putting Jan’s luxury stroller to the test. Meanwhile, Jim and Pam feel the effects of their long distance relationship.

[00:01:24] Angela Oh, that was hard to watch.

[00:01:26] Jenna They were out of sync.

[00:01:27] Angela They were.

[00:01:28] Jenna You don’t like to see that.

[00:01:29] Angela No, I don’t.

[00:01:30] Jenna Fast fact number one, new writer Alert! Aaron Shure joined the writing staff this year in season five. Aaron had been a writer on Everybody Loves Raymond, which is one of my favorite sitcoms of all time.

[00:01:44] Angela It is such a great ensemble sitcom.

[00:01:46] Jenna Do you know that one where Marie goes to art class and she makes the sculpture and then- guys look it up, she makes a sculpture and she’s so proud and she unveils it and it looks like a vagina, but she doesn’t know. But everybody else is like, Marie, what inspired you to make this piece?

[00:02:06] Angela Oh, my gosh.

[00:02:06] Jenna It’s so good.

[00:02:07] Angela Her character was so good.

[00:02:09] Jenna So anyway, I was very excited to have Aaron join the writing staff because then I could ask him tons of questions about Everybody Loves Raymond.

[00:02:17] Angela And you did.

[00:02:18] Jenna I did.

[00:02:19] Angela You chatted him up a lot about it.

[00:02:21] Jenna Well, we have some news. Angela, do you want to share?

[00:02:24] Angela I do. So I reached out to Aaron. We had been trying to get a hold of him. You slid into his DM’s.

[00:02:29] Jenna I did.

[00:02:30] Angela And he was like, I don’t even know, do I have DMs? I’m like, yes, but I found an old email and we got in touch. And it was so fun to talk to him. He’s a huge fan of the podcast, Jenna. He told me that he listens to the podcast in the evenings and then sometimes when he drifts off to sleep, he dreams like that he’s in the podcast with us.

[00:02:47] Jenna Oh, my goodness. Is that is that a good dream or a nightmare? I don’t know.

[00:02:50] Angela I hope it’s a good thing.

[00:02:52] Jenna I hope so.

[00:02:53] Angela Aaron had lots of great stuff to share. We’re going to hit him up quite a bit. We have Aaron now. We have James and also Randy Cordray.

[00:03:00] Jenna Yes. When Angela told me that she got a hold of Aaron, I know you were going to ask him about The Office, but I had an Everybody Loves Raymond question. Still, this poor man, I cornered him on set and now you’re calling him on the phone. And my question is still about Everybody Loves Raymond. But here’s the thing. I remember that there was this episode that was based on a story from his real life, but I couldn’t remember all the details. It’s the episode. It’s called Tenth Anniversary. And Ray and Debra are celebrating their tenth anniversary and they want to watch their wedding tape and they get it out and they put it in the VCR. They press play. And Ray has recorded a football game over their wedding tape. And I remember that there is some story where I think Aaron recorded over his wedding tape with his wife.

[00:03:50] Angela That is true.

[00:03:51] Jenna I knew it.

[00:03:52] Angela That is true. So this is what happened. OK, so Aaron was a fan of Everybody Loves Raymond. It was a show he wanted to meet on. So he thought, oh, I’ll record a few episodes, watch them, really study the show so when I go in and meet, you know, I have all this information. So he popped in a VHS. Guys, this dates us all a little bit, and he hit record and it was his wedding video. Yeah. And back then, you guys, it’s not like you have multiple copies, like you get your wedding videotape and that’s it.

[00:04:20] Jenna Yeah.

[00:04:21] Angela Yeah. His wife was really upset.

[00:04:23] Jenna Oh no.

[00:04:24] Angela And he went in to meet on Everybody Loves Raymond and he told that story. He was like, I taped over my wedding video to watch Everybody Loves Raymond. So my wife is really mad. You got to give me his job. And he got the job.

[00:04:37] Jenna And then that story made it into an episode.

[00:04:40] Angela Yes.

[00:04:41] Jenna Oh, I love it.

[00:04:43] Angela A lot of Aaron’s life ends up in scripts, you guys. There’s a few episodes coming up that his actual life inspired things that Michael does. And I can’t wait to share those with you.

[00:04:52] Jenna I’m so glad we’re in touch with him.

[00:04:54] Angela I know.

[00:04:55] Jenna Fast fact number two, Angela, we shot this episode in August of 2008. And since we brought it up before, I thought it was worth mentioning that this same month, Steve Carell won his second surfboard at the 2008 Teen Choice Awards for TV comedy actor.

[00:05:15] Angela Steve, where did you put your surfboard?

[00:05:18] Jenna Back to back surdboards.

[00:05:18] Angela Wow.

[00:05:19] Jenna When we have him on the podcast, is it going to be weird if we ask him where his surfboards are?

[00:05:24] Angela It depends where he put them.

[00:05:27] Jenna It’s gonna be such a weird question. Well, also this same year, the movie Juno won best comedy movie and Rainn Wilson was in that. Also this same year, we won a SAG Award.

[00:05:41] Angela Yes.

[00:05:42] Jenna So this was like the awards and the surfboards were coming in now.

[00:05:46] Angela Yeah.

[00:05:46] Jenna Right. It was really cool. And I remember at the 2008 SAG Awards, we were sitting at the table and everybody was like, who’s going to give the speech if we win? And we all assumed it would be Steve, like Steve will give the speech. And Steve said, guys, this is an ensemble. I don’t want to always speak for the cast. That doesn’t feel right to me. This is an ensemble award. I think someone else should speak. And I mean, first of all, amazing, right? Like, Steve’s awesome.

[00:06:13] Angela So sweet.

[00:06:13] Jenna And so then Rainn said, I think Jenna should do it. And I feel like none of us really thought we were going to win because we’d won the year before and I said, OK, yeah, sure, I’ll do it. And then we won and I had to give a speech at an award show.

[00:06:29] Angela And you did such a great job. You were so articulate and well-spoken. I was in awe because we didn’t think we were going to win.

[00:06:37] Jenna No.

[00:06:37] Angela It was a total surprise.

[00:06:39] Jenna And then we won. And I’m like walking to the stage and I’m like, oh, my God.

[00:06:43] Angela Well, I know you guys are tired of me talking about being pregnant, but I was pregnant at that award show and it’s a very odd thing to be super huge and pregnant at an awards show. But you did such a great job.

[00:06:54] Jenna Thank you. I ended up kind of going down a rabbit hole of all the cool things that happened for our show in 2008.

[00:07:01] Angela It was a good year.

[00:07:02] Jenna It was a good year. James Kerry sent me the call sheet for this episode.

[00:07:07] Angela James a Pedia.

[00:07:08] Jenna James Pedia. And on the call sheet it said there is a screening of Rainn Wilson’s new movie, The Rocker at Universal City Walk for the cast and crew. All are welcome. So that was also happening.

[00:07:22] Angela That’s a lot happening.

[00:07:24] Jenna All right, fast fact number three, this episode is a baby shower. So I’m going to tell you some stuff about baby showers.

[00:07:31] Angela You did a deep dive on baby showers?

[00:07:32] Jenna I did.

[00:07:33] Angela What is there to know? It’s a baby coming. Get some presents, get everyone ready. What else is there to know?

[00:07:39] Jenna Well, baby showers are believed to date all the way back to the Egyptian and Greek civilizations.

[00:07:45] Angela Whoa.

[00:07:46] Jenna But baby showers, as we know them today, began during the baby boom era of World War Two. So traditionally, the baby shower was thrown by a close family member or a friend and the mother to be opened gifts in a decorated chair.

[00:08:01] Angela Well Jan has a very decorated chair.

[00:08:04] Jenna I noticed.

[00:08:05] Angela Yeah. Thank you party planning committee.

[00:08:07] Jenna Thank you, Phyllis.

[00:08:09] Angela Well, I think Angela did it because Phyllis is making her do everything. So thank you, Angela.

[00:08:14] Jenna OK, I don’t know. Well, listen, nowadays we have all kinds of ways that we can celebrate a new baby. And here are some new updated baby showers: a diaper shower. That’s where all you bring are diapers in different sizes. It’s like if you go to your baby shower, it’s like you went to Costco and bought out all the diapers. You just go home with every diaper because diapers are expensive.

[00:08:39] Angela What’s the next one?

[00:08:40] Jenna Grandparent’s shower. This is a shower that you throw for the grandparents and you give them stuff to keep at their house for when the baby comes over.

[00:08:53] Angela Boo. I have to say, I love you grandparents, but come on, grandparents, they love to go get that stuff.

[00:09:00] Jenna Yeah, I don’t know. Here’s another one. I’ve heard of these, a sprinkle.

[00:09:05] Angela What?

[00:09:06] Jenna You don’t have a baby shower. You have a sprinkle

[00:09:08] Angela It sounds like you’re going pee.

[00:09:09] Jenna It does. This is a shower that you throw for your second or third or fourth babies to collect maybe some of the things if you are having a baby of a different gender.

[00:09:21] Angela Right, right.

[00:09:22] Jenna Or if you need to refresh

[00:09:23] Angela Oh my God. I just got it. A shower and a sprinkle.

[00:09:27] Jenna Yeah.

[00:09:27] Angela It’s not a full shower.

[00:09:28] Jenna It’s just a sprinkle.

[00:09:30] Angela Every time you say it, I just think of tinkling.

[00:09:32] Jenna I do too. All right. The final one is a sip and see.

[00:09:38] Angela Does this involve wine?

[00:09:39] Jenna It does. It is a celebration planned by the new parents after the baby has arrived.

[00:09:45] Angela Oh, you sip and you get to see the baby.

[00:09:47] Jenna Yes. So I have to say, what we are going to see in this episode is technically a sip and see.

[00:09:53] Angela You know what? I have been to a sip and see, but I didn’t even know it.

[00:09:57] Jenna I love the name sip and see.

[00:09:58] Angela Sip and see.

[00:10:00] Jenna Can I have a sip and see for my new puppy? Can I do that?

[00:10:05] Angela Yes.

[00:10:05] Jenna OK, good. That’s all I got, Ange. Anything you want to add, do you have a Kinsey tidbit today?

[00:10:11] Angela Well, here’s a little Kinsey tidbit. One of the things Aaron said, which we have talked about before, is how long these scripts came in. You know, they were pretty big episodes and then we would have to just chisel away. And there was so much that didn’t make it to the screen. For example, this episode came in at forty nine pages. Right.

[00:10:29] Jenna Wait, what? The script for this was forty nine pages?

[00:10:33] Angela Yeah. Forty nine pages.

[00:10:36] Jenna That’s craziness.

[00:10:38] Angela And you know how we’ve talked about how they would sort of rebuild the episodes in editing? Well Aaron had this quote that I absolutely loved. He said that Greg liked to rebuild the ship at sea.

[00:10:50] Jenna Oh yeah.

[00:10:51] Angela Isn’t that such a great phrase.

[00:10:52] Jenna I love that.

[00:10:52] Angela I just love that. They would get in the editor’s room, man, and they would just carve it up. And I told him, I said, it’s always interesting for me now that we have all these scripts- thank you, James- to see what makes it on the screen and what doesn’t and how they move everything around. And I’m always so happy with the final product, you know, but it’s a cool thing to see. But I thought that Greg likes to rebuild the ship at sea was like a great phrase. Well, I think those were really good fast facts and we’ve got some more Aaron tidbits. We should take a break and get into this episode.

[00:11:23] Jenna I like it.

[00:11:27] Angela All right, we are back and you guys at 12 seconds, everything you need to know about this episode is laid out by Jim. Jim has a dry erase board and he’s going to tell you everything you need to know about this episode. Sam, can you play that clip?

[00:11:43] Jim Jan is about to have a baby with a sperm donor and Michael is preparing for the birth of a watermelon with Dwight, now this baby will be related to Michael through… delusion.

[00:11:56] Angela There you go.

[00:12:01] Jenna That pretty much sums it up, that could have been the summary.

[00:12:03] Angela I know, right? When I saw that, I was like, well, that’s everything you need to know.

[00:12:07] Jenna Did you catch the Duwight?

[00:12:08] Angela I know, I was about to say, and you got a real good Duwight in there.

[00:12:13] Jenna Well, it’s true. Dwight is walking around. He’s got a watermelon in his smock that he’s wearing. An apron?

[00:12:20] Angela Yeah, they’ve fastened like a smock to hold the baby.

[00:12:23] Jenna Yeah, the watermelon baby.

[00:12:25] Angela Do you have some Phil Shea trivia about this?

[00:12:28] Jenna I do. I talked to Phil Schea for about an hour yesterday.

[00:12:32] Angela Prop master extraordinaire.

[00:12:34] Jenna I know. And we are going to have him on for an extended interview because he has got just some great info and stories.

[00:12:41] Angela I can’t wait. We need to have Aaron Shure on, too.

[00:12:43] Jenna We really do.

[00:12:44] Angela Let’s load it up.

[00:12:45] Jenna All right. We had a fan question from Lisa W.. How many watermelons were needed to do the practice birth scene with Michael and Dwight? Phil said, in total, we used about 30 watermelons for this whole episode.

[00:13:00] Angela What?! Oh, because he straps it into the stroller later.

[00:13:02] Jenna Yes, so for these scenes and for later. And Phil said, you know, it’s great living in Southern California because you can get watermelons all year. So it wasn’t a problem. Yeah. Fan catch from Evelyn V said at one minute forty one seconds, I think I can see other stains from when the watermelon crashed into the ground on previous takes. I looked at it. Evelyn, I think that’s a stain from something else. I don’t think it’s a watermelon. I feel like as Pam I have walked up to the front of Michael’s desk and I’ve looked down at my feet enough in scenes. I recognize that stain. I don’t know what that’s from. I don’t think it was watermelons.

[00:13:44] Angela I don’t know what to make of that other than maybe we should have splurged for new carpet.

[00:13:49] Jenna I think Michael needs new carpet.

[00:13:51] Angela Yeah.

[00:13:52] Jenna We had this letter from Ben M. in Chicago. I am an E.R. doctor, and whenever I’m teaching medical students how to deliver a baby, I like to show them the cold open from this episode.

[00:14:03] Angela Get out.

[00:14:04] Jenna Yes, this reinforces to them that newborns are very slippery.

[00:14:10] Angela Oh, come on.

[00:14:11] Jenna It helps teach them that you must always support the baby’s head and neck and also hold an arm or a leg immediately after delivery. It is a very funny, cold, open, but also extremely accurate.

[00:14:23] Angela Wow.

[00:14:24] Jenna Yeah.

[00:14:24] Angela Well, Aaron told me that this whole cold open was Greg’s idea, a watermelon, the whole thing. He had this whole idea and Aaron just ran with it.

[00:14:33] Jenna It’s funny you say that because when I spoke with Phil, he said, I think Greg had an affinity for Gallagher. And that’s why you see so many watermelon gags on our show.

[00:14:44] Angela That is very funny.

[00:14:45] Jenna Yeah.

[00:14:46] Angela The comedian Gallagher, he used to smash watermelons. And if you’re on the front row, you just get splattered.

[00:14:51] Jenna Yeah, I think that was it. Aaron told me, because after he spoke with you, he came to the D.M..

[00:14:58] Angela Oh, he found you.

[00:15:00] Jenna We DM’d.

[00:15:00] Angela Oh, good.

[00:15:00] Jenna He said this cold open was the first thing they shot and it was his first time on set for The Office. And he kept laughing out loud. And Greg had to say to him, Aaron, this is not Everybody Loves Raymond. It’s not a live show. You can’t laugh out loud. And he was like, oh, no.

[00:15:16] Angela Yes. He told me that it became a thing he became very self-conscious about because he’d only ever worked in four camera where they encourage you to laugh and laugh and laugh. And then he had to start suppressing the laugh and suppressing the laugh. And he said, after a long day of work and suppressing the laugh, he would go home and just burp constantly.

[00:15:34] Jenna Yeah, he told me that, too.

[00:15:34] Angela He had given himself like some type of indigestion from holding in laughter all day. Well, you guys, this was very hard to watch without laughing for all of us. And if you go to one minute, 11 seconds, Phyllis had to put her head down because she was laughing so hard.

[00:15:52] Jenna The shot of the bullpen

[00:15:55] Angela reacting.

[00:15:56] Jenna Yeah. Was so funny to me.

[00:15:59] Angela Well, there is a lot in this episode that we could not get through. Oh, man. The conference room. We’ll get there.

[00:16:06] Jenna I think we should get to the party planning committee now because they have been very busy decorating the conference room for the shower.

[00:16:13] Angela Yeah.

[00:16:13] Jenna They have two bowls of M&M’s.

[00:16:15] Angela So I talked to Aaron about this and I said, who came up with Astrid and Chevy? And he said Astrid was definitely Greg. He thought it’d be funny to see that name on an M&M. And then Chevy he couldn’t remember who came up with that. He said he thinks the room kind of pitched names.

[00:16:33] Jenna It’s funny, when I saw the bowls of M&M’s with the names, that was like a really popular thing. It might still be popular where you can get these personalized M&Ms.

[00:16:41] Angela Oh, I went to the website. It’s still a whole thing, high school graduation, anniversaries. And I did this for my parents, my parents anniversary. I got M&M’s with their names on it.

[00:16:51] Jenna Well, when we did the Jim and Pam wedding episode, Greg threw the cast a viewing party that was kind of like a little mini reception and he had bowls of M&M’s that said Jim and Pam.

[00:17:05] Angela He clearly was a big fan.

[00:17:07] Jenna He loved that you could personalize an M&M.

[00:17:09] Angela I know. Well, they’ve gotten the name wrong, though. The party planning committee has “ass turd”. Phyllis is like that can’t be right. Angela’s, like Michael wrote down ass turd. And Michael said, yeah, it’s like the name of a Viking princess. So of course I had to research Astrid. I didn’t research ass turd. And he is right. Michael is right. According to the Internet, Astrid has Norse, Danish and Swedish roots. It can mean godly strength or divine beauty. And the name Astrid has been used by Norway’s royal family for hundreds of years.

[00:17:51] Jenna You know, Michael is annoyed by their effort. He says, Phyllis, we gave you a whole golden shower. I want my golden shower.

[00:18:00] Angela He does. And then he has this talking head where he says he’s going to love this baby even if it isn’t his. Like that dog that nurses the tiger cub. Right? Bizarre, but also beautiful. It happens. Jenna, I looked it up and there are so many stories of dogs, nursing tigers. But the one that caught my eye was on the Today show in August of 2008.

[00:18:24] Jenna That’s when we shot this episode.

[00:18:26] Angela I know. And there was a safari park in Kansas with a white tiger named Sassy.

[00:18:32] Jenna Oh.

[00:18:32] Angela Who had cubs, but she was too sassy to nurse them.

[00:18:36] Jenna OK.

[00:18:37] Angela So a golden retriever stepped in. Isabella.

[00:18:40] Jenna Well, I would expect that from a golden retriever. I really would. What a good dog.

[00:18:44] Angela Anyway, it just cracked me up that on the Today show there was a whole thing about Sassy and Isabella and I think it ended up in our episode.

[00:18:52] Jenna Clearly it did.

[00:18:53] Angela Michael is going to bark orders at Phyllis. She’s doing a talking head. I was supposed to be glaring at her in the background. And if you go to four minutes, 11 seconds, you can see me talking to Andy. And I’m so delighted that Phyllis is messing up. And then Michael walks in and kind of yells at her and says, make the party, make the party. And then he leaves and Phyllis starts pumping the balloon. Well Steve improvised walking back in and saying, pump it! pump it!

[00:19:17] Jenna He did?

[00:19:19] Angela He did. That was all improv. We just started cracking up.

[00:19:22] Jenna I thought I could see you starting to break in the background of that.

[00:19:25] Angela Yeah, and Phyllis is starting to break, too.

[00:19:27] Jenna So now Jim is at his desk and Pam is trying to tell him this story.

[00:19:34] Angela I loved this.

[00:19:35] Jenna It was so funny.

[00:19:37] Angela When she’s like Sarah Kaiya comes in and he goes, oh, wait, sarakayacomesin? And she’s like, no, Sarah Kaiya comes in. And then at the very end of the scene, when Dwight’s like, Who’s sarakayacomesin? That was improvised. Rainn improvised that that’s not in the script.

[00:19:55] Jenna It was? Oh, my gosh, I watched this. And I feel like I have had these conversations. A hundred percent. And I love the line when she’s like, why can’t you just be in art school with me? Because she’s trying so hard to tell him the story. And, you know, this is the beginning of this storyline with Jim and Pam, where we’re going to show that this distance has gone on for a while and maybe they’re not connecting as easily as they used to.

[00:20:21] Angela You know, long distance relationships are hard, and particularly when the people involved in your new life, the other person doesn’t know. And it’s kind of hard to keep track.

[00:20:30] Jenna Oh, yes. I mean, we experience this all the time when we go on locations or I remember Lee went on location to shoot a movie and he was directing a film. And he’s trying to tell me this hilarious story about some prop mishap that happened and everyone was laughing about these prop glasses. And I’m just like, I don’t know who any of these people are. And what’s really hard about it is that I like to be able to imagine the people or where they are. And we’ve talked about this. When we get to a new place, we’re like, send me a video of where you are so that when I’m talking to you, I know what your little apartment looks like. I know what your room looks like.

[00:21:06] Angela Yeah, I have to have that. Otherwise, I’m a little unsettled because I can’t picture where you are.

[00:21:10] Jenna Yes. So I feel like that’s what Pam and Jim are up against right now.

[00:21:15] Angela Yeah. He doesn’t know her world and it’s some of that location situation kind of stuff.

[00:21:21] Jenna I love the next scene. I love it so much. Angela is preparing this poster board full of baby photos because they’re going to play a game where you have to guess which baby photo belongs to which employee. And Andy comes in and he mistake’s Phyllis’ baby photo for Angela. Will you please tell me about shooting the scene, Angela?

[00:21:45] Angela Well, one of the reasons I storm off is because I started to laugh.

[00:21:48] Jenna I could tell

[00:21:49] Angela that was me trying to get out of there before he saw me laughing on camera. So here’s the thing. Greg directed this episode. Right, and he said, you guys, can you bring in your actual baby photos? And he said, if you don’t have a baby photo, it could be like when you’re a toddler, just can I get photos of you guys when you were little? And we did, right?

[00:22:06] Jenna Yes. We got a lot of fan mail about that. Were these actual photos of the cast? They were.

[00:22:13] Angela Yeah.

[00:22:13] Jenna There’s three people who aren’t on the poster. Me.

[00:22:17] Angela Yep.

[00:22:17] Jenna John and Steve.

[00:22:19] Angela Everyone else is an actual baby photo from their childhood.

[00:22:23] Jenna Including Amy Ryan. She’s up there.

[00:22:25] Angela Yes. And so was Mindy. I mean, we’re all on the board. We’re all on the board. Jenna, what did I bring in today? Do you want to share with them?

[00:22:32] Jenna You brought in your baby photo, the one that was on the board with your little hand up on your little chubby cheek.

[00:22:40] Angela I know you guys. It’s really me. I get asked this all the time. And my mom, I called my mom and I said, Mom, we’re doing the baby shower episode and it’s my baby photo and I want to know everything about it. She said, Oh, I have several more of that same day where we put you in different poses. So there’s more. But here’s what my mom said. She took me to J.C. Penney’s at the Acadiana shopping mall in Lafayette, Louisiana. I was around six months old and apparently I was born with just a ton of hair and it was sort of an auburn brown. She said I had so much hair just right out of the gate. I had tons of hair. And so she tried to style it for the photo. I was like, Mom, you gave me like a mohawk with bangs. So, yeah, she said she had tried to put a little ribbon at the top.

[00:23:28] Jenna That would have made more sense.

[00:23:30] Angela Right. But it I don’t know what fell out or something. And then they propped me up my hand like that.

[00:23:37] Jenna It’s so funny because I remember those photo studio photo shoots. That was a thing of my childhood as well. And they would have these carpeted blocks.

[00:23:46] Angela Yes.

[00:23:47] Jenna And you would like be propped up on a little carpeted block.

[00:23:50] Angela I’m propped up because I can’t sit yet really.

[00:23:52] Jenna Yes, yes.

[00:23:54] Angela Anyway, there you go. That’s my actual baby photo, you guys.

[00:23:57] Jenna Well, since mine wasn’t on the board, I tell you what, I’ll post mine on the Office Ladies pod so you can see me as a baby, too.

[00:24:04] Angela Yes. And I’ll ask my mom if she can find any other photos from that particular photo shoot.

[00:24:08] Jenna Please. As Michael is preparing for Jan’s arrival, he needs to tell Holly that he’s going to be kind of cold to her today because he needs to protect Jan’s feelings.

[00:24:23] Angela Jan’s bloated feelings.

[00:24:25] Jenna Yeah, because Jan is going to come and she’s going to be so unattractive.

[00:24:29] Angela And Holly is very attractive.

[00:24:31] Jenna And, yeah, he just wants to be sensitive. So he warns her. But then Jan arrives.

[00:24:39] Angela She’s not pregnant.

[00:24:40] Jenna She has a baby

[00:24:42] Angela and she looks amazing.

[00:24:44] Jenna Yeah.

[00:24:44] Angela But she’s had the baby.

[00:24:46] Jenna We had a fan question from Britney Y, Sarah M, and many more. Who is the baby that played Astrid? I will tell you, thanks to James a Pedia. First of all, you know, babies are played by many babies. Sometimes they’re a set of twins, like in the case of C.C., C.C. was this set of twins and it was the same twin girls all through the show. They were absolute sweethearts and I loved them. But sometimes, especially with a baby this little, it’s like three babies, five babies, lots of babies.

[00:25:20] Angela Oh, Philip was several different babies and then a different toddler.

[00:25:24] Jenna Yes. So this is because there are rules about babies working on a set. They can only work for like twenty minutes.

[00:25:32] Angela And I think that’s a good thing.

[00:25:33] Jenna Yes. Also, if you have a baby and one of them’s fussy, you can swap them out for a different baby. They’re all dressed the same. You go backstage and there’s like six babies in the same outfit. So Astrid was played first by a set of twins and another baby. Here’s the crazy thing. The twins names were Mathew and Joey Levinson.

[00:25:55] Angela Crazy.

[00:25:56] Jenna Right?

[00:25:56] Angela And they were playing Jan Levinson’s baby.

[00:25:59] Jenna Yes. The other baby was Harvey Green. So her babies were the Levinsohn Green babies.

[00:26:05] Angela OK.

[00:26:07] Jenna All right. And then that was on one day. The other day, we had a set of triplets playing Astrid. They were Chase, Chloe, and Juliet Purcell. So those are all the babies. We also had a fake baby.

[00:26:20] Angela We did have a fake baby. Yeah.

[00:26:22] Jenna And it’s really funny because if you look at the call sheet scene by scene, it’ll say real baby or fake baby, like what we’re using in the scene. And they would stagger them, right, because the babies could only work for twenty minutes. So you’d have a scene with a real baby and then a scene with fake baby.

[00:26:39] Angela Well, Michael walks out of the kitchen and he sees Jan with the baby. I can’t imagine how he felt. He’d been to all of his birthing classes with her and then he was sort of left out of this big moment and he confronts Jan about it. This is one of my favorite couplets of dialogue from the whole episode.

[00:26:57] Jenna OK.

[00:26:58] Angela It’s so rich. Michael says, why didn’t you call me? I could have helped. Jan said, Well, the birth instructor thought it wasn’t a good idea for you to be there, so… Michael says, oh, man, him? That guy? He had no sense of humor. And I proved them wrong in so many ways. And it just made me think about these classes. I wish we could have seen Michael trying to do comedy bits with, like a birthing instructor. I would have loved to see in that scene.

[00:27:26] Jenna I think what Jan has done to Michael is so cruel.

[00:27:30] Angela I know.

[00:27:31] Jenna That she didn’t call him. And also in that scene, Jan is like, Michael, you don’t know what I have been through. And he said, no, no, I don’t. And I love Steve’s delivery on that.

[00:27:42] Angela I know. I guess she feels bad and she lets him hold the baby, but says the baby has to stay in the car seat. And then Michael has this very sweet talking head where he says he loves babies and he tries to pick them up and hold one every day. It just nourishes him. And then we see this really sweet montage of Michael and babies. And the babies love him.

[00:28:02] Jenna They really do. Well, that’s because it’s Steve Carell is holding the babis. I mean, not to say that they wouldn’t have loved Michael, but Steve is a natural with kids.

[00:28:11] Angela I know.

[00:28:12] Jenna We had a fan question from Evan L and Stacey M, in the scenes where Michael is holding all the babies. Were those hired actors or did the crew just go out and let people line up to have their baby held by Steve Carell? All of those babies were the children of our writers and our crew. So here is a list of the babies. At nine minutes, you have baby on the street. This is Emma Holland, daughter of our editor, Dean Holland, and that is also Dean’s wife, Tasha. At nine minutes, nine seconds, I’m calling this one baby at the bathroom. That baby is Theodore Grandy. The woman is Sage Grandy. And this is the son of our writer, Charlie Grandy. At nine minutes, 15 seconds, we have double baby, and that is our writer Mike Schur’s wife, J.J. Philbin, and their baby William, along with our camera operator, Matt Sohn’s, wife Melissa and their baby, Devon. And the final baby at nine minutes, 17 seconds. That is Avery Ferrell, the daughter of our writer, Anthony Ferrell. The woman was a background performer, but that’s Anthony loading the stroller into the car. So we had had kind of like a little mini baby boom on our set. All of these kids were around the same age. I texted with Dean. He said his daughter Emma is now 13 years old and she tells everybody that she’s one of the babies on The Office. And Angela, I know you get asked a lot about Isabel because she was right around the same age, too.

[00:29:49] Angela Yes. Isabel just had her 13th birthday. There was this baby boom. And it was really fun for us to have our babies on set. And I get asked if she was in this episode and she wasn’t. And you know why? The day they filmed the scene with all the babies was my day off.

[00:30:03] Jenna Oh.

[00:30:04] Angela And I wanted to be home with my baby, not bringing my baby to work. So I wasn’t in it. And they said, don’t worry, Angela, we’re going to get Isabel in there. And they did. She ended up having a very fun day on set years later at Cece’s Dance recital.

[00:30:18] Jenna I can’t wait.

[00:30:19] Angela I know.

[00:30:20] Jenna Well, Michael’s going to try to make the best of it, OK? He is going to present Astrid to the office and they’re going to go into the conference room.

[00:30:28] Angela Jenna. He does The Lion King and holds the car seat over his head.

[00:30:33] Jenna I know. I hope that was fake baby day.

[00:30:35] Angela That was fake, baby, and that was all scripted.

[00:30:38] Jenna Oh, boy. Well, when we move into the conference room, Kevin is like, you know, the fact that the baby’s here kind of ruins the games. And Michael is like, no, it doesn’t. No, it doesn’t. It kind of did.

[00:30:53] Angela It did. Well, you know, the theme is a baby shower and all the games are for an expecting mother. So it was really awkward. But there are a lot of scenes in this conference room baby shower that didn’t make it. I’m going to share a few. The first one is Jenna, one of the funniest things I have had to witness and we could not get through it. Kevin thinks he might be the sperm donor and the look on Jan’s face is amazing. Sam, can you play that from the deleted scenes?

[00:31:21] Kevin Hey, Jan, you went to a sperm bank?

[00:31:24] Jan Yes, I did.

[00:31:25] Kevin I donated sperm.

[00:31:27] Jan Oh.

[00:31:28] Kevin Ooh, maybe I’m the father.

[00:31:32] Jan Well, this is a highly exclusive establishment.

[00:31:35] Kevin Next to the IHOP?

[00:31:36] Jan Well, I paid for an ideal specimen.

[00:31:41] Oscar Are you saying Kevin is not an ideal specimen?

[00:31:45] Jan This is a wonderful shower, everyone. Thank you.

[00:31:49] Kevin I might have done it with Jan.

[00:31:50] Jan It’s not Kevin.

[00:31:56] Angela We could not get through it. Whenever Brian said, you mean the one by IHOP? Just every single time, because Melora’s reaction as Jan was so good. And then, you know, she says she paid for premium sperm, which we learned might have been Andy Roddick’s.

[00:32:15] Jenna I love there are so many deleted scenes about who the father of Jan’s baby is. We’ve got Andy Roddick, maybe Kevin. There’s a lot of speculation that it’s Hunter.

[00:32:28] Angela Yes.

[00:32:29] Jenna And none of these scenes actually made it into the episodes. So what do you think about that? Do you think, like if something didn’t make it in, it counts or does it not count if it doesn’t make it in the episode?

[00:32:44] Angela So, yeah. What is the canon, right.

[00:32:47] Jenna Yes, exactly.

[00:32:48] Angela What is the canon of the show. Well, I guess it would have to be what aired.

[00:32:51] Jenna Right. So then that would mean it’s just a mystery.

[00:32:54] Angela It’s a mystery. She paid top dollar for it though.

[00:32:57] Jenna That’s what we know.

[00:32:58] Angela Yeah. That’s all we know and all we’ll ever truly know. And I think the one thing we also know is that it’s not Michael’s because he had to wear two condoms.

[00:33:07] Jenna We know that.

[00:33:08] Angela Yeah.

[00:33:09] Jenna We know whose baby it’s not.

[00:33:10] Angela That’s right.

[00:33:11] Jenna I got this cool letter from Kristen B, she has a background catch. And she said, The first time I watched this episode after having my son, I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw the pink donut pillow on Jan’s chair at the baby shower. I had never noticed it prior to giving birth. But after I got one at the hospital myself, I just have to say this is amazing. And 10/10 for attention to detail.

[00:33:37] Angela That is a great background catch. I noticed it as well.

[00:33:40] Jenna I loved that detail.

[00:33:41] Angela I did too. I don’t know if you guys also noticed behind Jan’s chair there’s a little table and on the table is a Big Bird stuffed animal. There is a deleted scene where Michael tells Phyllis he wants storks. She said she couldn’t get storks. And he’s like, look, I barely got Jan to even come today. This needs to be a big party. If you can’t get a stork, I at least want Big Bird. And the best Phyllis could do is she got a Big Bird stuffed animal.

[00:34:06] Jenna Wow.

[00:34:07] Angela Yeah.

[00:34:08] Jenna Oh, that is so great. Well, the group gives Jan her gift. It’s a stroller.

[00:34:14] Angela I think this is a very nice gift.

[00:34:16] Jenna It’s a very nice gift because it’s a big ticket item. But she’s already got a stroller.

[00:34:21] Angela She has an orbit

[00:34:23] Jenna that Oscar tells us costs twelve hundred dollars.

[00:34:27] Angela Yeah.

[00:34:28] Jenna Dwight is curious. He’s like, I need to see how good the stroller really is.

[00:34:33] Angela Yeah. He said his whole bomb shelter bunker thing that he built didn’t even cost that much. And he needs to see what the stroller is made of if it’s going to cost that much.

[00:34:43] Jenna So yeah, he wheels the stroller out and then Jan is going to sing to the baby.

[00:34:50] Angela Oh Jenna.

[00:34:51] Jenna How did you get through this. How did you get through it?

[00:34:54] Angela It was like bite the inside of your cheek, don’t make eye contact with anyone. And also at the same time, in total awe of Melora.

[00:35:05] Jenna Yes. Who has an amazing singing voice and performs as a singer guys.

[00:35:09] Angela Yes, she has albums.

[00:35:11] Jenna Yes.

[00:35:11] Angela She’s an amazing singer. She just owned this moment so wholeheartedly. There is a scene Jenna that was in the script that we shot. I remember shooting it because the timing and everything and it was amazing. So Jan is singing Son of a Preacher Man. She’s belting it out and Ryan comes in urgently to tell her something. She won’t stop singing. And I printed out the script here. Jenna just read right here.

[00:35:37] Jenna OK, so I’m going to be Ryan.

[00:35:38] Angela Yeah.

[00:35:38] Jenna OK.

[00:35:40] Angela And you guys forgive my singing. I’m not a singer. OK, OK. Was the son of a preacher man. Yes, he was.

[00:35:46] Jenna Hey Jan.

[00:35:47] Angela He was.

[00:35:47] Jenna Jan.

[00:35:48] Angela Yes he was.

[00:35:49] Jenna You parked in the handicapped spot.

[00:35:51] Angela Keys are in my purse.

[00:35:53] Jenna I’ll just. I’ll take them. Did I do good?

[00:35:56] Angela You did great. Sorry to make you guys suffer through my singing. Melora was amazing. She never missed a beat. She sang where her keys were. It was amazing.

[00:36:06] Jenna I did a mini deep dive on Son of a Preacher man.

[00:36:10] Angela Did you really?

[00:36:11] Jenna Yes. I think we should take a break. And when we come back, I’ll tell you what I found.

[00:36:15] Angela OK?

[00:36:20] Jenna All right, we are back and I’m going to start us off with a fan question from Yvette M. and Alexandra S, Why was the song Son of a Preacher Man chosen for Jan to sing to her baby?

[00:36:32] Angela I asked Aaron who picked the song, and Aaron said he isn’t sure if Mindy picked it per se, but she was pushing it. He said, I don’t remember how exactly it came up in the writers room, but the minute it was out there, Mindy was like, that’s got to be it. That has got to be it. So I think we have Mindy to thank for that.

[00:36:51] Jenna I got curious about the song, so I did a little deep dive on it. Son of a Preacher Man was written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins. It was recorded by Dusty Springfield in nineteen sixty eight and her version is most popular. It’s been covered many times by many artists. Here’s what I found interesting. Apparently the rights to record the song were originally offered to Aretha Franklin. She was the daughter of a preacher and the rumor is that she turned it down because she worried that maybe it might be a little disrespectful. But she changed her mind, and she recorded a cover version of the song just one year later in 1969 for her album, Soul Sister. I had to hear it. Sam, will you play it?

[00:37:39] Aretha Franklin (Aretha Franklin singing Son of a Preacher Man)

[00:38:09] Jenna It’s so good, isn’t it?

[00:38:11] Angela She always gives me chills.

[00:38:13] Jenna Dolly Parton also did a cover in 1996 for her album Treasures, and it is also a gem. Do you want to hear that one?

[00:38:19] Angela Yes.

[00:38:22] Dolly Parton (Dolly Parton singing Son of a Preacher Man)

[00:38:43] Angela I mean-.

[00:38:47] Jenna I can listen to these women sing anything, frankly.

[00:38:49] Angela They’re legends, legends in our podcast today. Do we need to hear Dusty’s?

[00:38:55] Jenna I think we need to hear Dusty’s.

[00:38:56] Angela I think we I mean, we have to hear Dusty’s

[00:38:59] Jenna It’s son of a preacher man day today.

[00:39:01] Angela I mean, I just want to hear all of them. I feel so embarrassed that I even attempted to sing it at all to recreate the scene with Ryan. I am so sorry.

[00:39:14] Dusty Springfield (Dusty Springfield singing Son of a Preacher Man)

[00:39:38] Angela Ah, so good. All right,

[00:39:40] Jenna All right, here’s what I have to say. Kudos to John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins, because when you write a song that can be sung by all of these different people with their different spins on it and their different arrangements,

[00:39:52] Angela and it still knocks your socks off every time.

[00:39:55] Jenna You have written a good song.

[00:39:57] Angela Yup. One last thing I want to say about son of a Preacher Man is that when Melora sang it, she improvised the snapping. And you know what? It about got me on the floor. We were so trying to suppress laughter that one more thing was like the tipping point, you know?

[00:40:16] Jenna Yes.

[00:40:17] Angela And so as she’s swaying and singing, when she just starts doing that snap, I was like, oh, Lord, I’m not going to make it. I am not going to make it. There are really great scripted talking heads of people reacting to it. And Stanley had a great one where he was like, I used to like that song.

[00:40:36] Jenna Oh, well, Jim is going to try to describe it to Pam. She’s at the laundromat and she can’t hear anything he’s saying.

[00:40:43] Angela Why couldn’t she just walk away from the machines?

[00:40:46] Jenna Jenna, you know what? Megan P. would like to know the answer to that question as well.

[00:40:49] Angela It’s the first thing I thought, she hasn’t talked to him all day. She finally has free time. Walk away from the machine.

[00:40:55] Jenna I’ll tell you two things. Number one, right before this phone call, there was a bit of the scene that got clipped. Pam is with her friend at the laundromat and they are together and they’re talking about a class assignment. And she says, oh, just one second, I’m going to take this call. So maybe she felt like she couldn’t walk away. But also in the script, there is a version where she does walk away from the machines. And the problem is not that the machines are loud. The problem is simply that Pam is not understanding what’s so bad about Jan singing to her baby. So it’s another kind of like

[00:41:33] Angela miscommunication,

[00:41:35] Jenna like you had to be there kind of things. But they kept the loud laundry machine version in. I’ll have, you know, location alert. The laundromat was Launderland on Sherman Way in North Hollywood, California. I like to throw these out there because there are these Office tours where people go around and look at our locations. And so I thought, I don’t know if you want to see where Pam did her laundry, that’s where.

[00:41:59] Angela OK.

[00:42:00] Jenna So Pam has this talking head at the laundromat where she says that she’s not frustrated. You know, they have these kind of days where they don’t connect even when they’re together in Scranton. And then she discovers that she washed her lipstick and it got all over her green towel. You know, I recently washed Lee’s wallet and car key.

[00:42:18] Angela I remember this. You called me and you’re like I washed the keys to the car, his whole entire wallet.

[00:42:26] Jenna Whole wallet.

[00:42:27] Angela Whole wallet.

[00:42:28] Jenna And now he couldn’t find his wallet for days. He was like, where’s my wallet? I can’t find my wallet.

[00:42:33] Angela It was in the laundry basket?

[00:42:34] Jenna It was in his pocket in the laundry basket. And I didn’t check the pockets. I threw in the laundry. I found it in the dryer. It went through a full wash cycle, a full dryer cycle. I said, Babe, I found your wallet.

[00:42:52] Angela Did the credit cards, does it all get melted? Did he have to get everything new?

[00:42:56] Jenna Lady, his vaccination card was in his wallet.

[00:42:59] Angela Oh, no.

[00:42:59] Jenna All of his credit cards. He was like, Oh my God. The vaccination card made it. It was a little frayed at the top. He went out, he bought some gas and the credit cards worked!

[00:43:10] Angela Well about that. I guess you didn’t have it- you didn’t have it on high heat?

[00:43:16] Jenna So- No, I did dry on low. And the car keys still works because it’s one of those little like, yeah, it still works.

[00:43:24] Angela While all of the singing is going on, Dwight decides he’s going to put the stroller to the ultimate test.

[00:43:30] Jenna Yes, we had a fan question from Beth E, Rachel R, Amy F, and Julie G. How many of those strollers did you use for the scenes where Dwight tests its durability? This is why I was on the phone with Phil Shea for an hour yesterday.

[00:43:47] Angela Well how many did they use?

[00:43:49] Jenna I’ll tell you, it started with Phil Shea doing a ton of research to find the perfect stroller for this episode. He said he and Greg had a long talk about how Jan was the kind of person who would have to have the fanciest stroller. In the script it’s written that the stroller is indestructible and he wanted to find something that would even look out of place in Scranton. So he went on a search for an indestructible luxury stroller and he found out about the Orbit baby stroller, which was kind of a startup stroller at the time. It launched in September of 2006. So just two years before this episode, it was invented by two dads, Brian White and Joseph Hei. I think it’s Hei, Joseph, I’m sorry if I got that wrong. And they made it because Brian had just become a dad and he said that his back really hurt whenever he was trying to get the baby in and out of the car seat in the car. So in his garage, they made a wooden prototype. They studied all kinds of things, but they also sought to use green materials.

[00:45:03] Angela Like these fellas.

[00:45:04] Jenna Yeah, and this car seat was cool because Phil said it looked kind of weird, but it also rotates 360 degrees. So Phil was like, it was so cool. Like, if you want to get your baby out of the car and not remove the car seat, you can swivel it and then you can get your baby out of the car really easy.

[00:45:22] Angela Well, Jenna, you know, Phil Shea had a few extra Orbit’s left over and I was a new mom on set and he always was looking out for us and he said, Ange, do you want one of these Orbit strollers? They’re pretty amazing. And I said, Yeah. And that was my favorite thing about it too. What you just said. You could pivot and it would lock into place. So if you swiveled it, it could face left, right, front, back, and it would lock into place. Not only was it great when you got your baby out of the carseat, what I loved is you could attach it to the stroller and let’s say you’re on a walk and the sun is kind of beating down and you don’t want to put the little flap over your baby because your baby wants to be able to see where you’re going. You could just pivot. So then the baby could look at everything on the right side of the street or everything on the left side or look at you. It was so great.

[00:46:09] Jenna I love that Phil gave you a stroller and that he gave you a chair from work bus.

[00:46:14] Angela I know.

[00:46:15] Jenna Do you have any more things?

[00:46:17] Angela I’m sure I do.

[00:46:20] Jenna Maybe your memory will be jogged as we go along.

[00:46:21] Angela As we go through the episodes.

[00:46:24] Jenna Well, Phil said that he called Brian on the phone and he was like, listen, I’ve researched your stroller and I want to put it on the television show The Office. And he told him the storyline and Brian agreed to send us ten strollers. And then Brian flew out and watched the taping. Phil also said the stroller really was indestructible.

[00:46:48] Angela He’s not kidding. There are so many deleted scenes of Rainn as Dwight doing things to that stroller. And the stroller just keeps on trekking.

[00:46:55] Jenna Oh, yeah. And there’s way more. Phil told me that one of his favorite things to do was to reach out to these smaller companies that didn’t normally do national advertising and feature their products on the show or collaborate with them. And he said another one of the reasons that you saw all of the local foods or the local sodas on The Office was because if one of our characters is eating like Lay’s potato chips, that could be a conflict with maybe another big national potato chip brand that would have a national commercial running during our show, so we weren’t allowed. So his choice was he could tape over Lays or create a fakie bag.

[00:47:38] Angela Fakie chip bag.

[00:47:38] Jenna Right. He said, but what he liked to do was feature products, local products like a Hearst chip-.

[00:47:45] Angela A smaller company-.

[00:47:47] Jenna That is not going to be in competition for these national spots. And that’s another way that he focused in on the Orbit. He would try to find these companies that could be approved.

[00:47:57] Angela Well, I love that because, you know, we love supporting small business.

[00:48:00] Jenna Yeah, well, the Orbit stroller is still available and it is now a big business. I saw online you can get one at Nordstrom.

[00:48:08] Angela Well, Jan is done singing. She’s pooped out.

[00:48:11] Jenna I mean, all that singing is going to tire you out.

[00:48:13] Angela Yeah, she wants to take a nap. She gives the baby to Michael and she says, When I wake up, I want to talk to you about Astrid’s 5-2-9, which I looked up. It’s like a savings plan for college.

[00:48:25] Jenna Yeah.

[00:48:26] Angela So what, Michael has to go to all the birthing classes, but he doesn’t get to be there for the birth of the baby and now he’s going to contribute to the college fund?

[00:48:32] Jenna That’s what it sounds like.

[00:48:34] Angela Jan needs to go bye bye.

[00:48:36] Jenna I agree. Well, Michael only holds the baby for a short time. He’s not feeling that connection. And he gives the baby to Phyllis. First, Michael has to go to the warehouse. He needs some advice from Darryl.  We had a fan question from Ethan B.. Did Steve improvise the moment when he asks if he can hold Darryl? They get on this runner where Darryl is like, do you want to hold this? Do you want to hold that and see if you have a connection? Do you want to hold me? No. You guys, that was in the script. That whole scene was scripted just like that.

[00:49:12] Angela Well, Jan is still sleeping in the deleted scenes. She’s like snoring and everyone’s looking at her. She’s covered herself with the plastic tablecloth from the shower. And she wakes up and has a pretty amazing exchange with Holly.

[00:49:26] Jenna Where she realizes what we have realized, which is that Holly has a little bit of Michael Scott in her.

[00:49:33] Angela Yeah.

[00:49:33] Jenna She’s making some real Michael Scott jokes here.

[00:49:35] Angela Yeah. And Jan is like, oh. I get it. Funny. But Astrid is now with Angela and Andy,

[00:49:44] Jenna I love this scene so much. Angela, please tell me everything about putting all these vegetables on this baby.

[00:49:50] Angela All right. They have the table completely laid out. They had it all staged. They had the mom with the baby in the wings standing right there and literally right before action, the mom put the baby down and then I just put that big giant fake piece of lettuce. On the baby. It was really hard for me because I was a new mom and I just was like, OK, I just want to do this so fast. I want to do the scene so quickly. And then it was so hard for me as a mom to not really connect with the baby at all and just say, like, I need it to look up here, make it look up here.

[00:50:22] Jenna Yes.

[00:50:22] Angela But it’s such a window into Angela. You know, she was a pageant baby. She dresses up her cats.

[00:50:27] Jenna Yes.

[00:50:28] Angela I feel like her kids are going to be dressed up a lot for all kinds of photos. And Andy is on board.

[00:50:34] Jenna I always imagined that Angela dressed Philip in like the little knee socks and shorts and suspenders with the little Peter Pan collar that you always see little Prince George wearing. That’s how I imagine Phillip dresses.

[00:50:50] Angela Oh, yeah. And I also imagine that Angela had like a little sailor suit for him with a sailor hat.

[00:50:54] Jenna For sure. One hundred percent.

[00:50:56] Angela All of that.

[00:50:57] Jenna Yes.

[00:50:58] Angela Jan comes in as Andy and Angela are having their Ann Geddes moment creating this baby salad photo. And she is not happy.

[00:51:08] Jenna No, she’s irritated and she wants to go.

[00:51:11] Angela She’s done.

[00:51:12] Jenna She’s done. She finds Michael in the kitchen and she’s ready to go. And Michael insults Holly again. I guess we failed to mention that throughout this whole episode every time Michael, Holly and Jan are together, Michael just keeps, you know, insulting her. When Holly was going to go into the conference room, he’s like ugh, HR. Now he says she smells like rotten tomatoes.

[00:51:34] Angela And dirt.

[00:51:36] Jenna And dirt.

[00:51:37] Angela She smells like tomatoes and dirt.

[00:51:39] Jenna Yeah.

[00:51:40] Angela And you know what, Jan sees all of it. Jan knows what Michael’s doing. And he walks her out to the car. And as she’s putting the baby in the car seat, she turns around. She’s like, there is one more thing you could do for me. And he’s like, what? And she says, Don’t date Holly.

[00:51:56] Jenna Yeah.

[00:51:56] Angela And he’s like, why would I hate her? Why would I? You know, and yeah, he clearly likes her.

[00:52:02] Jenna Yeah. Jan leaves. She leaves the stroller that was gifted to her.

[00:52:07] Angela I know. So tacky.

[00:52:09] Jenna So tacky.

[00:52:11] Angela Tacky Jan.

[00:52:12] Jenna What was the point of the baby shower?

[00:52:14] Angela that she could get a nap and maybe get some money out of Michael for a college fund.

[00:52:18] Jenna That’s what it was.

[00:52:20] Angela Yeah.

[00:52:20] Jenna Well, Michael is going to go upstairs.

[00:52:23] Angela And he finds Holly and she says, are you going to still be mean to me?

[00:52:29] Jenna And he just gives her a hug.

[00:52:30] Angela It’s the warmest, most intimate hug. It’s so intimate.

[00:52:36] Jenna Amy Ryan is so great. Her eyes just fill with tears. And then Michael has this talking head where he says he didn’t feel much when he held Astrid, but he he got a good feeling when he held Holly.

[00:52:51] Angela He asked her out on a date, a real official date,

[00:52:56] Jenna and she says, yes,

[00:52:57] Angela she sure does. So we’re ending with a little love connection there. But now Jim and Pam are both trying to call each other at the same time and they miss each other.

[00:53:07] Jenna They both go to voicemail at the same time. And I remember Greg talking to me about the scene. I just loved this idea that we’re going to hear each side of their voicemail message and you’re going to see they really are connected. They both recall the same story about the time that, you know, some man came into the laundromat and Jim had to save Pam and then they bought a washer dryer. They’re recalling the same event. And at the end, they both say, I guess this was just one of those days. I miss you. I wish you were home.

[00:53:41] Angela Yeah, Aaron shared with me that he was just so curious how the scene would turn out, because you guys filmed it in two different locations. You didn’t have the other person there.

[00:53:52] Jenna No, I couldn’t hear John. It was like I was really leaving a message.

[00:53:55] Angela Yeah. And so you guys were just in this vacuum separate and then in editing, they were going to find the moment and create it. And he just sort of marveled at how the whole thing came together and just so perfectly.

[00:54:07] Jenna Yes. Well, I had to really imagine in my head as an actor that I was just leaving a message. So in the script I could see how our dialog was going to alternate and sync up. But I put that out of my mind and I just did my half without thinking of John’s lines in my head at all when we filmed it like a monologue.

[00:54:28] Angela Yeah, well, I loved it. I thought it was really sweet. And it also made me a little sad because you can tell the distance is starting to take a toll.

[00:54:36] Jenna Yeah. Well, that ends the episode, but Angela, I just realized I skipped a fan question.

[00:54:42] Angela OK.

[00:54:43] Jenna And I don’t want to leave Evan L. hanging.

[00:54:46] Angela OK, Evan,

[00:54:47] Jenna Evan wrote in to say at 17 minutes, 30 seconds, was that really Rainn driving around with the stroller tied to the back of the car or was that a stunt driver? Well, we had a stunt driver. His name was Shawn Crowder. We also had a stunt coordinator named Wally Crowder. And so Shawn did the driving parts. Now, you know, there were some shots of Rainn inside the car. But the other stuff that was a stunt driver.

[00:55:14] Angela Yes, we would often do the driving that was just sort of like where you pull up and stop. But then if there was, like, aggressive driving, that’s when the stunt driver would take over.

[00:55:23] Jenna Yes.

[00:55:24] Angela Well, I loved this episode. I thought it was so good and layered with so much heartfelt stuff. And before we say goodbye, I have a little bit of trivia for you.

[00:55:33] Jenna OK.

[00:55:33] Angela According to baby center dotcom, here are the top girl and boy names in two thousand and eight.

[00:55:41] Jenna Oh from when we did this episode.

[00:55:43] Angela That’s right. Any guesses for the girl?

[00:55:47] Jenna Emma.

[00:55:48] Angela Yes, you got it.

[00:55:50] Jenna I was thinking maybe because of the Friend’s baby.

[00:55:52] Angela Yes, Rachel had Emma. Really put that name on the map. Guess what the boy’s name was? I guessed Emma for the girl, like you, but I did not guess right for the boy name.

[00:56:04] Jenna Liam.

[00:56:05] Angela Aiden.

[00:56:06] Jenna Aiden.

[00:56:07] Angela Aiden was the top boy name.

[00:56:09] Jenna Was that from Sex in the City?

[00:56:11] Angela I don’t know. I guess, Jack, he was in the top five, but Aiden and Emma. Well, there it is. You’ve learned some new baby showers, the sip and see, M&M’s are still printing names.

[00:56:26] Jenna Yeah. And the Orbit strollers actually really good.

[00:56:29] Angela And Emma and Aiden. 2008 babies, where are you now?

[00:56:32] Jenna I would love it if an Emma and Aiden got married.

[00:56:35] Angela Oh, well, that was baby shower.

[00:56:38] Jenna We’ll see you next week.

[00:56:39] Angela Bye, you guys.

[00:56:43] 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.

[00:56:58] Angela Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

[00:57:01] 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.