EP. 15 — Email Surveillance w/ Ken Jeong

JENNA [00:00:04] I’m Jenna Fischer. 

ANGELA [00:00:05] I’m Angela Kinsey. 

JENNA [00:00:06] We were on “The Office” together. 

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

JENNA [00:00:08] And now we’re doing the Ultimate Office re-watch podcast just for you. 

ANGELA [00:00:12] 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. 

JENNA [00:00:19] We’re the “Office Ladies”. Welcome, everybody, to the “E-mail Surveillance” episode of “Office Ladies”. 

ANGELA [00:00:29] Howdy. 

JENNA [00:00:30] It Is Season 2, Episode 9 written by Jen Celotta and directed by Paul Feig. And we have a special guest in the studio with us today. He played Bill, one of the members of Michael Scott’s improv class. 

ANGELA [00:00:41] It is our friend Ken Jeong. 

KEN [00:00:44] Hey, guys. Thank you so much for having me. 

JENNA [00:00:48] We are so excited you are here. You are our second in-studio guest. 

ANGELA [00:00:53] Yes. You and Creed Bratton, Ken. 

KEN [00:00:55] That is privilege company. So I’m very, very excited to be here. So seriously. Thank you, guys. And congrats. Congrats on the success of your podcast. I listen to it, and it’s awesome. So thank you for having me. 

ANGELA [00:01:07] Thanks, Ken. And this is Ken’s day off. And I mean, you’re a busy, busy person. I can’t even, I can’t even get into “The Masked Singer” and what it means to my children and how much we have to talk about it. That’s a whole other subject. 

KEN [00:01:19] Sure. 

ANGELA [00:01:19] But you’re a busy guy and we appreciate you coming in on your day off. 

JENNA [00:01:23] Yes. 

KEN [00:01:23] Oh no. Thank you. 

JENNA [00:01:23] Before we get into this episode, you two have known each other for a very long time. When did you guys become friends? You did a movie together. 

ANGELA [00:01:30] I think really  Ken hat crystallized our friendship was your 40th birthday. Was it your 40th birthday? 

KEN [00:01:36] It was my 40th birthday. 

ANGELA [00:01:36] Your 40th birthday. OK. So-. 

JENNA [00:01:40] He’s twisting in his chair right now. 

ANGELA [00:01:41] He’s literally is about to fall out of his chair. 

JENNA [00:01:41] I don’t know this story. 

ANGELA [00:01:43] OK. So, you know, Ken had done “The Office”, but we didn’t work together that day. 

KEN [00:01:47] No. 

ANGELA [00:01:47] Our paths never crossed. And then years later, we’re on hiatus from “The Office”. And I am gonna be playing this role on a movie called “Furry Vengeance”. Brooke Shields was in it. Brendan Fraser, I’m such a huge Brendan Fraser fan. 

KEN [00:02:01] Me too. 

ANGELA [00:02:01] Oh, my gosh. We’re filming in the middle of nowhere, Massachusetts. Day one, I think we were like two doors apart on our floor. 

KEN [00:02:09] Yeah no. We were. 

ANGELA [00:02:09] Yeah.  

KEN [00:02:10] I think we’re across from each other. 

ANGELA [00:02:11] We’re across the hall. We’re across the hall at the Radisson. 

JENNA [00:02:13] My gosh, this is so cute. 

ANGELA [00:02:13] I come out of my room. Ken comes out and I’m like, “Hey, you pick the Radisson too”. We were like, “Yeah”

KEN [00:02:17] We were the only two actors. 

ANGELA [00:02:19] Yeah. 

KEN [00:02:19] We’re only two actors in the Radisson with the crew. 

ANGELA [00:02:22] Yeah. 

KEN [00:02:22] So we, we just would hang out all the time. 

ANGELA [00:02:25] We were always in the shuttle together. We became pretty fast friends right away fast. 

KEN [00:02:29] Very fast friends. 

ANGELA [00:02:29] And that first week was Ken’s 40th birthday. And here he is away from his family. You were a little sad about it. 

KEN [00:02:35] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:02:35] And we didn’t have a car because we’re, we’re on location. We had the day off. Our day off happened to be his birthday together, him and I. I said, you know what? I’m going to take you out for your birthday. And from the Radisson, there was a, we’re sort of up on a hill. And you could see down the hill, down a big steep hill in this parking lot was a P.F. Chang’s. I said, “Ken, I’m taking you P.F. Chang’s for your birthday”. 

JENNA [00:03:03] Amazing. 

ANGELA [00:03:04] Not we. I don’t know why we did want to get a cab, but, but-. 

KEN [00:03:07] I don’t know why! 

ANGELA [00:03:07] Why? Why? 

JENNA [00:03:08] You walked it. 

ANGELA [00:03:09] We walked it and it wasn’t like, it was connected in a parking lot. At one point, we had to, like, crawl a little bit through a grassy median thing. Remember, it was like the parking lot was separated by like a little bit of a grassy knoll. Anyway, we walked down this parking lot. We go into P.F. Chang’s at like 11:00 a.m. There was like no one. There were the first people there. We ate so much and drank a ton of beer. And we were both really buzzed. 

KEN [00:03:37] Yep. 

ANGELA [00:03:37] And now we have to walk up this hill and we’re like, tipsy. We’re like, oh, god, this hill sucks on the way back. And Ken was like, “What did you do to me? My 40th birthday”!

KEN [00:03:51] Ok. You just decided mid-walk like, “Hey, I should just exercise”. 

ANGELA [00:03:56] Yeah. 

KEN [00:03:56] And you like walk around the parking lot, like you, like you’re doing laps. 

ANGELA [00:03:59] I said, “Pump your arms”. 

KEN [00:04:00] And then you, we’re literally speed walking drunk at a Radisson parking lot. Just remember, you’re just, a hill. 

ANGELA [00:04:07] I was like “Ken, pump your arms. Pump your arms”. 

KEN [00:04:10] And I was just crying laughing. 

ANGELA [00:04:12] You were crying, laughing so hard. You were like, “What are we doing”? And you turn to me. 

KEN [00:04:16] And you were like, “Pump pump pump”. 

ANGELA [00:04:18] Okay, I’ve taken us off-topic. All right, focus! Jenna, how about a summary? 

JENNA [00:04:23] In this episode, Michael gains access to everyone’s emails and discovers that Jim is hosting a barbecue. Everyone except Michael has been invited. Michael fumes. But Jim holds firm. After attending his weekly improvisation class, Michael crashes the barbecue after all, and Pam suspects Dwight and Angela might be a couple. 

ANGELA [00:04:48] Dun dun dun. 

JENNA [00:04:49] Yes, this is a big episode. 

ANGELA [00:04:53] This is a big episode. 

JENNA [00:04:53] All right. Fast Fact Number One: we always start with fast facts, Ken. 

KEN [00:04:55] Copy.  

ANGELA [00:04:57] Well, that’s Jenna. Jenna loves a fast fact. 

KEN [00:04:58] OK. Alright. 

ANGELA [00:04:59] OK. So let’s, don’t mess with them. 

JENNA [00:05:01] You like my fast facts.

ANGELA [00:05:02] I like them too, but I, it’s, it’s like you coined the phrase “Fast Fact”. 

JENNA [00:05:07] Did I not? 

ANGELA [00:05:11] Oh! Joel McHale is flipping you off. 

KEN [00:05:12] Bad Joel. 

JENNA [00:05:13] Do our listeners need some context? 

KEN [00:05:15] Bad Joel. This is Joel McHale. My nemesis on “Community”. 

ANGELA [00:05:18] Alright so, we are in one recording booth and the glass window is facing his. 

KEN [00:05:24] You know what? 

JENNA [00:05:24] We can see him through the glass and he can see us. And he is being offensive. 

ANGELA [00:05:29] Yes. 

JENNA [00:05:29] And aggressive. 

ANGELA [00:05:31] He gave us the bird. And then he mooned us. Now he’s coming in. 

KEN [00:05:35] No. Lock it. Lock it. I am here with friends. All right. 

JENNA [00:05:40] You can have my microphone. 

KEN [00:05:40] I’m here with people who I love and adore. This is just-

JOEL [00:05:42] Guys, my favorite “Parks and Rec” episode. 

KEN [00:05:45] This is, this is “The Office”, Joel. 

JOEL [00:05:48] Is when Chris Pratt. 

KEN [00:05:48] All right. No. This is “The Office”. 

ANGELA [00:05:50] How dare you. 

KEN [00:05:51] This is a show that started at all. And as much as Angela and Jenna are best friends, you and I, if we had a show, we would come up, call ourselves “Community Enemies” because I didn’t like you. I never liked you for six seasons. That was over 100 episodes. We barely tolerated each other. And the antipathy is only grown in the last four years. 

JOEL [00:06:12] That is true. And here’s the thing. When we saved Ken’s career after. 

KEN [00:06:18] Stop talking about saving my career. Stop it. 

JOEL [00:06:20] Have you ever listen? Has he talked about how many? 

KEN [00:06:23] Knock it off. 

JOEL [00:06:24] When he is, when you look at his-. 

KEN [00:06:25] Knock it off. 

JOEL [00:06:26] And when you look at his filmography. 

KEN [00:06:27] This. Stop it! 

JOEL [00:06:29] Hangover. 

KEN [00:06:29] Stop it! 

JOEL [00:06:29] Hangover 2. 

KEN [00:06:30] How dare you. 

JOEL [00:06:31] Hangover 3. 

KEN [00:06:32] How dare you? 

ANGELA [00:06:33] How about, how about. I’m sorry, but you’re leaving “Furry Vengeance”. 

KEN [00:06:36] That’s a movie Angela and I did together right before “Community”. 

ANGELA [00:06:39] We sat on-. 

JOEL [00:06:40] Can’t believe you are saying this on mic? 

KEN [00:06:41] Look, I’m here as a humble day player. 

JOEL [00:06:44] Uh huh. 

KEN [00:06:45] Talking about how I was Bill on “E-mail Surveillance”.

JENNA [00:06:48] I want to just go on record and say I really think Community Enemies is a great podcast idea. 

ANGELA [00:06:56] Yeah, I think that-

KEN [00:06:56] It would be a good companion. 

ANGELA [00:06:57] That just happened. 

KEN [00:06:57] That just happened. 

JENNA [00:06:58] Can you please do a rewatch of “Community” with Joel and call it “Community Enemies”. 

ANGELA [00:07:03] And just give each other **** for like an hour. 

KEN [00:07:07] Yeah. That is. 

JENNA [00:07:08] Speaking of, I’m a really big fan of “Community” and I remember that we would meet up at all the NBC events. 

KEN [00:07:16] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:07:16] Because we were on air at the same time and you had such a funny group of people and I loved the show and I would be interested in hearing some behind the scenes banter about that. 

KEN [00:07:26] Yeah. No, it was it was huge because I think the premiere. I think the first two episodes, I think we we followed “The Office” just to survive on the air on NBC because I mean, “The Office”, Thursday nights, NBC was the flagship show. And so when we found out that we would it would air after the office, we were always you know, that was that was like the anchor for us. And that it’s funny how you think certain shows like “The Office” has helped other shows in, and then you get on the air, stay on the air and then give actors like myself. And unfortunately, Joel, you know, a career and that’s been you know, I’m grateful for mine, you know. But the fans should be regretting Joel. I’m looking at Joel. And you can quote me on that. 

JENNA [00:08:15] We will. 

KEN [00:08:17] We will. 

JENNA [00:08:17] We’re going to, we’re going to use that as our promo clip. 

KEN [00:08:21] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:08:21] For this episode. 

KEN [00:08:22] Yes. 

JENNA [00:08:22] All right. So before we were so rudely interrupted. 

ANGELA [00:08:25] I don’t know. I know before Joel McHale came in and he trashed our desk. 

KEN [00:08:29] He literally trashed. 

ANGELA [00:08:30] He jumped over a cup of pens. He moved our-. 

JENNA [00:08:33] He moved our beverages. 

ANGELA [00:08:34] Our coffee, and our tea. 

KEN [00:08:35] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:08:35] I know. I was gonna discuss my fast facts. 

KEN [00:08:38] Yes. 

JENNA [00:08:39] Fast Fact Number One: This is the first episode from writer Jen Celotta. 

ANGELA [00:08:45] I love Jen Celotta. 

JENNA [00:08:46] Now she will go on to write fan favorites such as “Beach Games” and “Benihana Christmas” and many more. She also directed several episodes, but this was her first episode as a writer. And we love Jen. One of my favorite memories of Jen, I think more than any other writer, is she would giggle. 

ANGELA [00:09:05] She would get so tickled. 

JENNA [00:09:06] Behind the monitor and she, her shoulders would shake. It’s not that it was easy to make her laugh. It was that she was ready to laugh. She was ready to love what you were doing. Mindy was like that, too, I have to say. I just loved her energy on set. 

KEN [00:09:18] I think that helps with the actors. Right. Like just give the performers the talent or confidence, you know? 

JENNA [00:09:24] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:09:24] And Jen is the type of person because she’s so earnest and sincere that when she does laugh, it’s like her whole body gives into it. It’s just, it’s just a sweet, wonderful thing to witness. 

JENNA [00:09:34] It really is. It really is. All right. Fast Fact Number Two. 

ANGELA [00:09:39] Do it. 

JENNA [00:09:40] See? They’re fast and they’re facts. 

KEN [00:09:41] Oh my God, unlike slow like Joe McHale. 

JENNA [00:09:43] That’s right. All right. We have two big guest stars for this episode. The first is Omi Vaidya, who plays the I.T. Specialist Sadiq. Now, he is also the star of this Bollywood movie called “2 Idiots”. It was a huge smash hit, like he’s, it, just gigantic star from this movie. And then he was also in our episode and, our other guest star, Ken Jeong, who is in the room with us now. 

ANGELA [00:10:13] Well, well, Ken, I did not know you when you got the part on “The Office”. We met years later. 

KEN [00:10:18] Right. Right. 

ANGELA [00:10:18] Can you tell us a little bit about how you got the part?

KEN [00:10:20] I used to be a doctor. I used to be a physician. But I really I was auditioning just like during like after work or during lunch. And then Allison Jones just took a liking to me and she got me an audition for “The Office”. And it was, keep in mind, I really had no screen credits. And she brought me straight into producers. I still remember it vividly. It was in ’05. And I had read in front of Jenna Celotta and Paul Feig, the director of the episode. And, and I was a huge fan of Paul’s from “Freaks and Geeks”. So I was already just geeking out in “The Office”. And I’m not saying it because you’re my friends and because this is the “Office Ladies”. It was my favorite show on TV. So and I just a huge BBC “Office” fan. So I, I just knew the show inside out. And so is really one of the first times, maybe the first time ever I was brought in for a producer’s read, you know, with the director in the room. And, and it’s funny now because a lot, a lot of people and rightly so attribute my acting is very over-the-top and very like on “Community”, you know, very, very just pushing it out. And it’s very sup-, you know, very ironic. Like, really, I think my breakthrough role was playing something very understated and with just maybe two lines. And I would basically whisper every line and I improvised a look to camera even if it wasn’t scripted. 

ANGELA [00:11:46] Nice!

KEN [00:11:46] And I remember, I still remember where I go, like, “He told me you couldn’t say, but he has a gun”. And I just looked straight down the barrel. And Paul Feig and Jen laughed so hard at this just tiny movement. 

JENNA [00:12:01] That little choice. 

KEN [00:12:02] That little choice. And I still remember, like, Paul could not stop laughing. And whenever I see Paul, when we, we still talk about it. And it still it, it, it’s one of those things in an actor’s life where sometimes like I’ve I’ve forgotten years of working on “Community”, probably because of Joel. And, but I remember every single minute of my maybe three hours on “The Office”. You know, it’s just really it’s one of those things. And I’m sure you have that, too, in your careers of, you just remember your first time and you just know if it’s not a watershed event, it’s maybe your favorite event. And that’s kind of what, what “The Office” means to me. 

JENNA [00:12:43] I love it. 

ANGELA [00:12:44] Wow. That’s such a thing to share. I love that, Ken. Thank you. 

KEN [00:12:48] Very grateful. 

JENNA [00:12:48] Well, I have some fan questions, if you don’t mind answering about your time in the scene. Jason P asked, “Once you started shooting the scenes. How much of the improv was actually improv”,? 

KEN [00:12:59] That, that’s a great question to my memory. I remember we shot it a few times as scripted just so we have it. And then to see Steve Carell and Ashley, I believe D Ryan, who is also in that episode, was a Second City, you know, colleague. 

ANGELA [00:13:18] I knew D Ryan from Improv Olympic and had performed with her in the Armando Diaz show. 

KEN [00:13:23] Wow. 

ANGELA [00:13:23] I knew D. And Wyatt Cenac was in that scene. 

KEN [00:13:26] Wyatt Cenac. Biggest stars Joe Nunez, who I’ve known. 

ANGELA [00:13:29] And then also Michael Naughton, who led the improv scene. 

KEN [00:13:32] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:13:32] Who was played Chris. 

KEN [00:13:33] He was great. 

ANGELA [00:13:33] I had done a sketch comedy show with him like years ago. 

KEN [00:13:39] Get out. 

ANGELA [00:13:39] Yes. Okay, wait. So what, did they, was there improv? 

KEN [00:13:41] After couple of, I do remember after a couple of things where it was in the script, he was FBI agent Michael Scarn like, as soon as the end, when we sit down for the postmortem of the scene, Steve goes, “I’m sorry, but she was denying me in this whole scene. She was negating me this entire scene”. And that was not in the script. And they kept arguing back. And she goes, “You know what? At least I’m not Jim Carrey-ing all this”. And he. And he goes, “Thank you”. And they just had this whole back and forth exchange for literally two minutes. 

JENNA [00:14:15] I love that. 

KEN [00:14:15] And then she storms out of the room, out of the class, and as if it was scripted. As soon as she had her back turned. Michael Scarn had the gun to the back of her head, “Boom”. And I was like, this is like my first big guest star moment or costar moment. I’m like, I’ve just never seen this level of genius in my life on the set. It was this improv on top of an improv and that that right there, I’ll just never forget it. 

JENNA [00:14:43] I have another fan question. This a weird one. But I have to say, I noticed as well, Hannah Benson said. 

ANGELA [00:14:49] I did notice. 

JENNA [00:14:50] “Literally everyone in the improv scene has pit stains. Were they not allowed to have air conditioning? Was it real hot in there”? 

ANGELA [00:14:58] Was it really hot? I mean-. 

JENNA [00:14:58] When you guys raise your hands, everyone has a pit stain. 

ANGELA [00:15:02] Steve has a huge one when he raises his hand. 

JENNA [00:15:04] The women. 

ANGELA [00:15:05] I know. 

JENNA [00:15:05] Even the women who usually sweat less. 

ANGELA [00:15:08] Ken is like laughing so hard. 

KEN [00:15:09] I don’t remember. I don’t remember any of that. 

JENNA [00:15:09]  Well guys, you can go back and look at the episode when everyone in the improv class raises their hand, it is Sweat City. 

ANGELA [00:15:18] It is a sweaty day. 

JENNA [00:15:19] Hannah Benson and Angela and I all notice but you don’t have a memory of it being terribly warm in the room. 

KEN [00:15:24] No. We shot that in. We shot that in the fall. And I just remember it was cold. It was just, I had to wear, actually, that the wardrobe that I had on the show was those my own clothes. 

ANGELA [00:15:35] I believe that. 

KEN [00:15:36] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:15:37] I wore my own clothes in the pilot. 

KEN [00:15:39] Really? Wow. 

ANGELA [00:15:40] We were shoestring budget at this time. 

KEN [00:15:42] Yeah. I had my own, I had a, I had a ski jacket on. That was my own jacket that I wore to set. I mean, everyone I was such a greenhorn. Just not knowing anything. I had even gelled my own hair. Like, I just. 

ANGELA [00:15:54] You did your own hair. 

JENNA [00:15:56] You came ready. 

KEN [00:15:56] I came ready. 

JENNA [00:15:57] You showed up dressed and ready to shoot. 

KEN [00:15:57] I cam ready like Tootsie. You know? It was like I had everything ready. Like it. It was I was so green. I was so green. I had no idea. 

ANGELA [00:16:08] What was it like doing that scene with Steve? 

KEN [00:16:11] It is to this day is, is something I’ll never forget because he was coming off “40 Year Old Virgin”, and I’d let me just watch him in a movie theater. You know, the previous month and it, you know, some I’m sharing a scene with the biggest star in comedy. You know, he really is a role model to me because he, he, he is, he really is just a professional, elegant, classy actor who has, he has no weakness in his game. And, you know, either on or off-screen. So he’s just someone that I just really look up to. 

ANGELA [00:16:44] That was so beautifully said. 

KEN [00:16:45] Yeah. No. He really was, I mean-

ANGELA [00:16:48] My gosh. 

JENNA [00:16:49] Yeah. He’s a role model to me, too, because it kind of what you’re talking about, like, you now in life, you are Steve Carell to other young actors who get paired with you. And I always remember I look back on how Steve treated people. And I think that’s how I want to be. If I’m ever in a position where I’m the Steve Carell of a moment like not Steve Carell. But within a moment, I want to behave like he did. I want to be generous and thoughtful and giving and warm and inviting of this actor who’s brand new to the system. 

KEN [00:17:22] I remember, I remember talking to him. I had a short-lived sitcom on ABC for a couple of years that I created and wrote and I asked I had run into Steve somewhere and I’d asked him for advice. And he actually he had said, you know, you can’t go wrong with just leading by example, just, “Hey, if you’re not going to act difficult, nobody’s going to act difficult”. Yes, I remember he told me that. And it was. Yeah. And I remember thinking about that when like he said, I had my, I had a moment and, and I remember thinking to myself, if I work hard, everyone else will work hard. 

JENNA [00:17:58] Ken, thank you so much. 

KEN [00:17:59] Are you kidding? Thank you for having me. 

JENNA [00:18:00] For coming in. Truly. 

KEN [00:18:01] I, really thank you. Cheers to you guys, congrats on this and I-. 

JENNA [00:18:05] So generous of you to give us your time. 

KEN [00:18:08] No. It, it- “The Office” was my favorite guest star appearance ever and just, just it really just helped jumpstart my career. So. So thank you. 

ANGELA [00:18:17] Well, listen, we were not on “Community”. Neither of us. But when you and Joel do “Community Enemies”, we will come on. 

KEN [00:18:25] Yes, you guys will be Eps. 

ANGELA [00:18:27] Jenna and I will-. 

JENNA [00:18:27] We’ll just come in and. 

KEN [00:18:28] You’ll be, you’ll be giving us notes. 

JENNA [00:18:30] We’ll storm your room. 

KEN [00:18:30] Hey. Yeah. You’ll storm the room, give us notes. “Hey, maybe, maybe a little bit of friendship could show up in this episode”. 

ANGELA [00:18:37] I’m just going to come in and flip off Joel and dump his pens on his lap. 

JENNA [00:18:41] Done. 

KEN [00:18:42] We’re, we’re the “Anti-Office”. Me and Joel. This is all class, fun, dignity. And then me and Joel. We’re just like-

JENNA [00:18:53] Your intro can be, you know, we’re going to give, each week we’re going to watch an episode of “Community” and we’re going to give you all the behind the scenes info and trivia that only two people who hate one another can tell you. 

KEN [00:19:06] Yes, and really-. 

JENNA [00:19:06] We’re going to tell you all the fights. 

KEN [00:19:08] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:19:08] All of the-. 

KEN [00:19:09] And do a deep dive. 

JENNA [00:19:10] All of the tension. 

KEN [00:19:11] Do a deep dive critiquing each other’s performance. 

ANGELA [00:19:15] Performance and lot in life apparently. 

KEN [00:19:17] And like personal. 

ANGELA [00:19:18] Personal. 

KEN [00:19:19] Personal choices. Not just professional. 

ANGELA [00:19:21] Physical attacks. 

KEN [00:19:21] Yeah. Physical attack. 

ANGELA [00:19:22] I know. All right. Ken, thank you so much. 

KEN [00:19:25] Thank you. 

JENNA [00:19:25] Thank you, guys. We’re going to take a break and then we’ll be back to break down the rest of this episode. 

ANGELA [00:19:32] OK. We’re back. 

JENNA [00:19:33] We are back. Thank you, Ken Jeong. 

ANGELA [00:19:36] And not thank you, Joel McHale. 

JENNA [00:19:38] Not thank you, Joel McHale. If you’re tracking and maybe you are, I hope you are that we did not do our third fast fact. 

ANGELA [00:19:45] We did not. 

JENNA [00:19:46] And it’s a special fast fact. It’s special because Angela and I both found our journals. 

ANGELA [00:19:52] We found our journals that we wrote in after each episode. Sometimes during an episode. 

JENNA [00:19:57] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:19:57] You guys, I have journaled for so long. I have. I found like in setting up my she shed 12 journals. 

JENNA [00:20:04] Oh, my God, Angela. 

ANGELA [00:20:05] I had so much to say. 

JENNA [00:20:06] I’ve been journaling since I could write. 

ANGELA [00:20:10] This is why we are BFFS. 

JENNA [00:20:10] I mean I have journals about my crushes in second grade. 

ANGELA [00:20:13] I found a journal from college that is like I’m like, who is this person? I’ll tell you what. She was real hung up on a certain fella for awhile. Wuff. 

JENNA [00:20:23] In this journal entry, I wrote about this exact episode of “The Office”. Here’s what I wrote. Here’s a gem. It rained for three days while we were shooting this episode. It takes five days to shoot an episode. And for three of the five days it rained like downpour, heavy rains, apparently. 

ANGELA [00:20:42] Torrential rain. 

JENNA [00:20:43] I noted that our A.D. Richard had to wear a parka. He’s the person who would knock on our trailer doors and get us to come from our trailers across the parking lot onto the stages. 

ANGELA [00:20:54] It was a little bit of a walk. You guys and this parking lot would flood. There’d be huge puddles of water. 

JENNA [00:20:59] Yes. And I guess it really caused a problem for hair, makeup and wardrobe because we would get ready outside in our trailers. And then by the time we got to set, we were drenched. And I wrote all about it in my journal. I said that we had umbrellas. We each got an umbrella with our name on it. Remember that? 

ANGELA [00:21:15] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:21:16] They would give yellow stickers so that we could keep track. 

ANGELA [00:21:19] I have to share with you that I often would misplace my umbrella and I would just take someone else’s. 

JENNA [00:21:26] Angela! 

ANGELA [00:21:26] And then I would hear Richard on the radio being like, “Has anyone seen John’s umbrella? Anyone”? I’d be like, “It might be in my trailer”. 

JENNA [00:21:37] I also noted, speaking of John, that John’s birthday was the week that we shot this episode. He turned 26. 

ANGELA [00:21:45] 26. 

JENNA [00:21:45] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:21:46] Oh my lord. That’s so young. 

JENNA [00:21:48] I know, he and B.J. and Mindy were all those youngsters. 

ANGELA [00:21:52] I know, they were youngens. 

JENNA [00:21:53] The rest of us were all in our thirties and beyond. But they were still in their 20s. 

ANGELA [00:21:56] Wowsers. OK. So I also wrote my journal now I wrote about some things that happened at Jim’s party and a few other places in the episode. I’m gonna save those, Jenna. 

JENNA [00:22:04] OK. 

ANGELA [00:22:05] But I will tell you one thing I wrote about. Jenna. We carpooled to work this week. 

JENNA [00:22:11] When we were shooting this episode? 

ANGELA [00:22:13] Yes, I wrote that we had to go on location. We were very excited because Jim’s party, his barbecue happened at his apartment and we got to drive to location. And I wrote that you and I carpooled and we had the best time. I wrote. I was like we chatted. We sang songs. And, you know, we solved the world’s problems. That’s what I wrote. 

JENNA [00:22:34] I do not remember that. 

ANGELA [00:22:36] I don’t remember it either. But we clearly had a great time. 

JENNA [00:22:39] I love that you wrote that down because I’m sure we did do that because we lived really close. 

ANGELA [00:22:44] We lived really close. And we were probably so excited that we had a commute. 

JENNA [00:22:47]  Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:22:48] Like we had to drive far. And I said it was a little bit of a drive. But the thing that really cracked me up is I said we sang our hearts out and we solve the world’s problem. 

JENNA [00:22:57] We probably did. 

ANGELA [00:22:58] What did we sing, Jenna? What did we sing? I’d love to know. 

JENNA [00:23:01] I wish I knew. “Sounds of Scrantom”. 

ANGELA [00:23:04] Oh, I hope we sang “Sounds of Scranton”. 

JENNA [00:23:05] All right. So let’s get into this episode now. We’re gonna start breaking it down. It starts with the cold open. 

ANGELA [00:23:12] Yes. So Sadiq is coming to fix an I.T. problem, right? And Michael looks out his window. He sees him coming. He panics because probably Michael has some growing in maturity to do about how he perceives others. That’s how I’m going to say it. 

JENNA [00:23:26] That’s a good way to put it. 

ANGELA [00:23:28] He has some maturing to do. So anyway, he freaks out. He wants to turn off the lights and have everyone hide. But do you remember how we couldn’t get it coordinated, Jenna? Like we, we couldn’t turn off the lights and like at the right time. 

JENNA [00:23:39] Yes, people should know that in the scene when Michael runs over to shut off the light switches, those light switches do not actually operate the lights. The lights are controlled by a grid and a guy. Who’s in charge of them. And so what they would do is they would have someone on a radio who would see when Steve hit the light switch. And then they would radio “Go”. 

ANGELA [00:24:03] “Lights, hit the lights”. 

JENNA [00:24:03] And then the lightswitch guy. 

ANGELA [00:24:04] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:24:06] Would actually turn off the lights. But it didn’t always work. So sometimes Steve would hit the switch and the lights would just stay on or sometimes they would anticipate too quickly and the lights would go off before he hit the switch. 

ANGELA [00:24:19] Again, this is one of those moments like thank god we didn’t have to do any car chases or explosions because-. 

JENNA [00:24:25] It’s so true. 

ANGELA [00:24:25] It seemed like the light switch was like really tricky for us. I have to ask you one thing. OK, so Sadiq from I.T. Is coming to help Michael, right? 

JENNA [00:24:34] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:24:34] I just have to say this. Jenna at one minute, 26 seconds. This actually like m-, I thought about this for days after watching this episode. Michael says he tried to install the software himself, but it was password protected. Sadiq says that just means you have to enter your password. Does this mean that Sadiq didn’t even help to come there. If Michael had just entered 1, 2, 3, 4, that was on the Post-it note. Had he just entered that the software would have installed? 

JENNA [00:25:09] I think that’s what that means. 

ANGELA [00:25:10] So that is so like if you put that in perspective, Sadiq is probably like, “This idiot. All he had to do was enter the password I put on a post-it note and taped to his desktop”. 

JENNA [00:25:23] It also feels like something that could have been solved with a phone call. 

ANGELA [00:25:26] Yes. Yes. 

JENNA [00:25:28] He definitely did not need to come into the office and be subjected to Michael’s cold open. 

ANGELA [00:25:33] No. Oh, my gosh. 

JENNA [00:25:35] So at one minute, forty-six seconds. Dwight surprises Michael outside of his office. Right. 

ANGELA [00:25:43] Yes. 

JENNA [00:25:44] He’s demanding to know why the I.T. guy is there. And, of course, Michael doesn’t want to tell him now because it’s going to be revealed that he’s there to install software so that Michael can spy on everybody’s emails. Well, I want you to look in the background of the scene as Steve’s coming out the door. He quickly shuts the door behind him. That’s because Omi was not there on that day of filming. 

ANGELA [00:26:04] So he had to quickly shut the door. 

JENNA [00:26:06] Yeah. Steve has to shimmy out and then shut the door behind him so that you won’t see that the office is actually empty. 

ANGELA [00:26:14] Oh, look at you with your little behind the scenes nugget. 

JENNA [00:26:16] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:26:17] All right. At two minutes, 14 seconds. Dwight lists off what could possibly happen to Michael so that he might take over the office. Right? 

JENNA [00:26:25] Yeah. Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:26:25] Here are the things that could happen. 

JENNA [00:26:27] Okay. 

ANGELA [00:26:27] Number one, brain aneurysm. Number two, getting hit by a car, a bus or train. Number three, poisoned, fall down a well. Step on a mine. These are like Dwight has thought this out, you guys. This is why it could happen. And he’d have to do an immediate takeover. 

JENNA [00:26:43] Immediate takeover. And Michael has that great line where he says, you know what, Dwight? If I step on a mine in Scranton, Pennsylvania, you can have my job. 

ANGELA [00:26:53] He’s so annoyed. 

JENNA [00:26:54] Yeah. So the next big scene is kind of in the bullpen. When Oscar confronts Michael about spying on everyone’s e-mails. He does it in front of everyone. 

ANGELA [00:27:04] I loved it whenever Oscar confronted Michael in front of everyone. And he does this throughout the series. And it’s just some of my favorite moments of the show. 

JENNA [00:27:11] He is able to take Michael to task like no one else. I think Stanley also does this from time to time, but Stanley is usually more under his breath. Right? Like he’s a little more to the side about it. 

ANGELA [00:27:22] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:27:22] In this scene, Steve, does this neverending robot bit. Oscar is trying to get a word out. And Steve just keeps doing the robot thing. I remember shooting that. So in the script that was not supposed to go on for that long. That was supposed to just be like a quick little thing. But Steve really dragged it out. And that was an example, I think, of some of his just brilliant comedic timing. 

ANGELA [00:27:48] I honestly think that Steve would drag things out like that to see when he could get all of us to break. 

JENNA [00:27:53] And we would break. We did break in that. 

ANGELA [00:27:55] He’s a little sadistic that way. He would be like, “Oh, you haven’t broken yet? How about this”? 

JENNA [00:28:00] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:28:00] “How about this? Kinsey. I see you going”. He’d just keep going until we fell apart. 

JENNA [00:28:05] Well, right after this then, we have the little aside. 

ANGELA [00:28:10] While the erasing begins. Right? 

JENNA [00:28:12] The erasing begins. 

ANGELA [00:28:13] Yes. 

JENNA [00:28:13] And Dwight says to Angela, “If you have any sensitive emails, they need to be deleted immediately”. Pam overhears, she calls Jim over. She suspects that they might be a couple. This is the first moment where we call out that Dwight and Angela might be together. 

ANGELA [00:28:32] Well, the first moment that anyone in the office has any idea. Right? 

JENNA [00:28:36] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:28:37] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:28:38] Fan question from Kelsey McGrath. “Angela, when did Angela and Rainn find out that they were love interests”? 

ANGELA [00:28:46] I mean, I’m not sure if Rainn had any heads up before I did, but I found out at the table read. 

JENNA [00:28:51] Really? 

ANGELA [00:28:52] Yeah. When we sat down to read the script and Oscar-. 

JENNA [00:28:55] So no one warned you beforehand? 

ANGELA [00:28:57] No one warned me beforehand. I had no idea. And when we sat down at the table read and we read that their Birkenstocks were bumpin’. 

JENNA [00:29:05] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:29:05] Right? I was like, “Huh? What”?

JENNA [00:29:09] Well, I admit there was an audible gasp in the room when we read that there were times when we would do these table reads where people would be legitimately surprised by plot twists. And this was definitely one of them. 

ANGELA [00:29:20] This one and when we found out Oscar was gay. 

JENNA [00:29:22] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:29:23] Right? 

JENNA [00:29:23] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:29:24] I mean, when we found out Jim and Pam were gonna have a baby. 

JENNA [00:29:26] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:29:27] I mean, there were these big moments, but I did not know. And I remember being like, oh, my God. And I definitely don’t think a lot of the cast members knew because there were, there were real reactions there. 

JENNA [00:29:39] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:29:40] I also, I know we’re going back a little bit, but I love that Kevin says he has to delete a lot. 

JENNA [00:29:46] A lot. 

ANGELA [00:29:46] Gross, Kevin. What’s going on over there? 

JENNA [00:29:49] Pam has a talking head next. 

ANGELA [00:29:52] Oh, wait. Can I say one thing? 

JENNA [00:29:53] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:29:54] Jenna, just to go back to Jim and Pam’s conversation about Dwight and Angela. 

JENNA [00:29:58] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:29:59] This happens at four minutes, forty-five seconds. I want you guys to rewatch the scene. Pam is so grossed out and so is Jim, at the idea of Dwight. Angela, they’re like, “Oh”! I was just like- Come on! What’s wrong with that? Two people falling in love. Pam was like, I can’t. 

JENNA [00:30:19] We are a little over the top. 

ANGELA [00:30:22] You’re so grossed out by it. I was like, geez. 

JENNA [00:30:26] Well, Pam then goes and has a talking head where she says directly to the documentary film crew, If you see anything, let me know. 

ANGELA [00:30:35] Oh, yeah. She’s like all chummy with the documentary crew. 

JENNA [00:30:38] She full-on invites them to help. I think this is the first time we see this moment where someone in the show speaks directly to the character of the documentarian. 

ANGELA [00:30:48] Right. 

JENNA [00:30:49] Who we never see. 

ANGELA [00:30:50] Right. 

JENNA [00:30:50] But yeah. 

ANGELA [00:30:52] Yeah, I think that Pam and Jim probably are the two people that engaged with them the most. I mean, Michael, because he’s a showboat, you know. 

JENNA [00:30:59] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:30:59] But it’s like Pam knows them. That’s what it felt like in that moment. 

JENNA [00:31:02] Yeah. Like they’re kind of friends or something. 

ANGELA [00:31:03] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:31:04] All right. So something else in Pam’s talking head at four minutes, fifty-seven seconds. I’m tracking the mail cart now that-. 

ANGELA [00:31:11] She, she is you guys, she’s become obsessed with the mail cart. 

JENNA [00:31:14] I’m tracking casual Fridays and the mail cart. And I want you all to know that Meredith comes over to the mail cart behind me during my talking head. Thank you. 

ANGELA [00:31:22] I’m applauding. I’m applauding Jenna’s mail cart tracking. 

JENNA [00:31:24] The mail cart got used. 

ANGELA [00:31:27] And then at five minutes, twelve seconds, there’s just this interaction between Pam and Dwight that I love. I actually love Pam and Dwight scenes. They’re some of my favorite. 

JENNA [00:31:35] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:31:36] You are often so like just exasperated by him. And it’s, it’s one of my favorite things to do as Pam. She comes up to him. Pam’s on the case. She’s very excited. Detective Pam, she’s like, “Dwight. So my friend is kind of, you know, into these two girls”. And Dwight’s like, “Nice”. And your face is like “Oh God”. At five minutes, 41 seconds. We find out that Dwight as a volunteer sheriff goes through everyone’s medical records. So that’s great. 

JENNA [00:32:03] Gross. 

ANGELA [00:32:04] Gross, Dwight. 

JENNA [00:32:05] My gosh. 

ANGELA [00:32:06] All right. Jenna, I have a thing that I track, you know, it’s called “old tech”. 

JENNA [00:32:10] Oh, yeah. What’s your old tech track? Guys, I think we should just call this the “We Tracked It” episode. 

ANGELA [00:32:15] We tracked it. 

JENNA [00:32:16] We’re on the case. 

ANGELA [00:32:16] We’re on the case. Much like Pam, we’re on the case. I love me some old tech. And at five minutes, 57 seconds, you see the Evite and you see, it’s like so outdated looking. 

JENNA [00:32:27] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:32:27] If you go to Evite now, it’s like it looks like the old Evites of that day and age. If you will. 

JENNA [00:32:33] Yes, this is the scene where Michael is discovering the Evite and he learns that Jim is having a barbecue at his house and he is not invited. 

ANGELA [00:32:41] He’s not invited. He sees the list of people who are invited. And he is sort of looking around. He’s using his mouse, right? 

JENNA [00:32:47] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:32:48] And it all is so old looking. 

JENNA [00:32:50] Super old graphic. 

ANGELA [00:32:51] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:32:52] So next, Detective Pam walks up to Angela at the vending machine. 

ANGELA [00:32:56] Oh, you guys, this is like some of my favorite stuff. I also wrote about this in my journal. I wrote, “You guys, Jenna and I have a scene together. We’re so excited”. 

JENNA [00:33:05] We did get so excited when we had scenes together. We were horrible because then we would just laugh and be idiots once we were in the scene and they would take forever and people would get like really tired of us. It’s true. 

ANGELA [00:33:17] But we were really excited about this scene. 

JENNA [00:33:19] We were. I ask Angela if she’s bringing anyone to the party and Angela says no. But then Angela buys an extra candy bar. 

ANGELA [00:33:30] Yeah. Two Baby Ruth bars. 

JENNA [00:33:31] Evidence. 

ANGELA [00:33:31] Dun dun dun. 

JENNA [00:33:33] Fan question, Michael and Kristen Mulligan want to know why did you choose Baby Ruth for you and Dwight? Did you, Angela, the person get to choose what the candy would be or was it scripted? 

ANGELA [00:33:44] Usually, Phil Shea, our props guy, would give us a few options. And there were options that had been cleared because for legal reasons, you have to make sure you can use logos and things like that. So they probably gave us a few options. I actually love Baby Ruth bars. So I guess, I want I’m sure I was like, oh, baby Ruth bar and thank goodness, I guess Rainn agreed because he had to eat one, too. 

JENNA [00:34:05] No kidding. 

ANGELA [00:34:06] Yeah. So I think that’s probably how it went down. I want to point out, though, you guys, one of the things I love in this scene is that as Pam goes to pick something from the vending machine, I swat her hand away. 

JENNA [00:34:19] Amazing. 

ANGELA [00:34:19] And I’m like, “Excuse me”. I love it whenever my character would just swat someone away. It’s so dismissive. It does make me laugh. 

JENNA [00:34:27] Pam was probably going to buy some of her chips. 

ANGELA [00:34:29] Her gross, smelly chips. 

JENNA [00:34:31] OK. Also, Angela, in this scene at six minutes, 47 seconds, there is a really great shot as you’re bending down to get the snacks of your ponytail. I know it sounded like I was gonna say something else. It’s your ponytail. There’s a great shot of your ponytail. 

ANGELA [00:34:46] It’s a family show, lady. 

JENNA [00:34:47] I know. 

ANGELA [00:34:47] Yes. 

JENNA [00:34:48] You’ve got like hair-. 

ANGELA [00:34:50] Wrapped around my own hair. 

JENNA [00:34:52] Yeah. Describe it. 

ANGELA [00:34:53] Okay. This is a classic Kim Ferry thing where even the ponytails were amazing. She would pull my hair back in a sort of severe ponytail, but then she would leave a big chunk of it out and she would wrap it around the ponytail holder. So it looks like my own hair is holding up the ponytail. 

JENNA [00:35:08] It’s very polished looking. 

ANGELA [00:35:09] I know. 

JENNA [00:35:10] And it’s very Angela Martin to do this detail. 

ANGELA [00:35:13] It’s very, very Angela Martin to do it. But I used to joke with Kim. I would be like, how early does Angela get up to do these elaborate braids? And also, is she an octopus, like how does she get back there? How many? Does she have like a mirror behind her head? Like, what does her bathroom look like? How does she do this? 

JENNA [00:35:31] I have done that ponytail to myself. 

ANGELA [00:35:34] You have? 

JENNA [00:35:35] Because I thought it was so genius. It is not that difficult to pull off. 

ANGELA [00:35:38] Really? 

JENNA [00:35:40] And it looks really good. 

ANGELA [00:35:40] Well, I am crap with my own hair, so you might have to give me a tutorial. 

JENNA [00:35:45] Well, guys, you should check it out if you’re looking to spruce up your ponytail. Six minutes, 47 seconds. 

ANGELA [00:35:51] Fancy pony, fancy pony. 

JENNA [00:35:52] Great ponytail. Well, you know the scene in the kitchen where Steve as Michael is eating a cup of noodles and he’s, he’s confronting the group. He’s trying to get us to feel guilty and or invite him to this party that he’s not been invited to. John and I had a massive, massive laughing fit during this lunch scene. So much so you can see I’m eating some yogurt. So much so that I snorted the yogurt up into my nose, which-. 

ANGELA [00:36:26] Is probably painful. 

JENNA [00:36:28] It was a little burney, which then caused John to laugh so hard that he was crying. And it was it was just the two of us. The two of us were having a moment where we could not get it together. 

ANGELA [00:36:42] You couldn’t get it back. You couldn’t get it. 

JENNA [00:36:44] We couldn’t. 

ANGELA [00:36:45] I want you to-. 

JENNA [00:36:45] I don’t know how they had any usable takes. 

ANGELA [00:36:47] I want you to know I went and watched the season two bloopers. 

JENNA [00:36:51] Okay. 

ANGELA [00:36:52] You guys, they’re on YouTube and it’s really worth it. 

JENNA [00:36:56] Can you see us losing it? 

ANGELA [00:36:57] Yes! There’s bloopers of this scene and it is hilarious. I was cracking up watching you guys. And also, Brian does break in one of them, too. But as mostly you and John breaking. But the bloopers, the outtakes from this are fantastic. 

JENNA [00:37:12] Oh, my gosh. I have to watch those because I, that was just my memory. I just remembered when I saw the scene how much John and I couldn’t stop laughing. 

ANGELA [00:37:20] Okay. Well look up Season 2, “The Office” bloopers on YouTube, because it’s really funny. 

JENNA [00:37:25] Also, did you notice that there is a community plate of Doritos? 

ANGELA [00:37:28] Yes. 

JENNA [00:37:29] On the table? 

ANGELA [00:37:29] On a paper plate. 

JENNA [00:37:31] What’s the story there? 

ANGELA [00:37:32] I don’t know. 

JENNA [00:37:33] Someone bought Doritos, put a paper plate in the middle of the table and then put the Doritos on the plate for us all to eat. I, I eat some. John eats some. What is that? 

ANGELA [00:37:45] I think you guys just shared some Doritos. 

JENNA [00:37:47] Yes we did. 

ANGELA [00:37:47] I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s that complicated. 

JENNA [00:37:49] Have you ever done that in an office? Like when you’re eating lunch with people, you’re like, “Hey, guys, who wants to split some Doritos”? 

ANGELA [00:37:55] Oh my gosh. Oscar and I shared snacks all the time, Jenna. We would get a bag of chips and we’d share and we would get little paper cups and like split snacks into a paper cup. We also, like at least once a week, would share a coke. I can’t tell you how many times I would walk over to my desk and Oscar would be like there’s half a coke for you. I’d be like “Thanks”. And some chips. 

JENNA [00:38:14] I think that I’m a person who always wants a full coke and a full bag of chips. So I have not experienced this thing you’re talking about. This sharing of snacks

ANGELA [00:38:23] Well, Oscar Nunez and I shared snacks and sodas every single week. 

JENNA [00:38:29] That is adorable. That is adorable. 

ANGELA [00:38:32] In fact, sometimes I know I’m like going on and on about this. Sometimes one of us would get the coke and start it, but the other wouldn’t be ready. So we’d be like, I put the half coke in the fridge for you. We’d be like, “OK”. So we would know we’d sort of hide it in the back. 

JENNA [00:38:46] This is absolutely adorable. Meanwhile, I’m just over at my desk chugging my full coke. 

ANGELA [00:38:50] Your full soda. I have a question for you about this scene. 

JENNA [00:38:53] OK. 

ANGELA [00:38:54] At seven minutes, 48 seconds, Pam says, “The professors would go to the parties”? And Michael goes, “Yeah, they were the most fun”. Jenna, how did you get through that line? I know you said you were laughing a lot. 

JENNA [00:39:05] I didn’t! 

ANGELA [00:39:06] But like-. 

JENNA [00:39:07] I didn’t get through any line in that scene. 

ANGELA [00:39:09] That line would be so hard for me to say because it’s coming off of him being so ridiculous. 

JENNA [00:39:15] Also the whole time he’s eating those dang noodles. So I just it, it was. I have to go back. I want to watch the deleted and I. Well, what is it? The bloopers. 

ANGELA [00:39:25] The bloopers. You got to watch the bloopers. At eight minutes, two seconds, you guys. We find out what Jim thinks are the three ingredients for a great party. Number one, three cases of imported beer. Number two, karaoke machine. Number three, do not invite Michael. 

JENNA [00:39:38] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:39:38] I mean, he’s probably not wrong. 

JENNA [00:39:44] All right, at eight minutes, twenty-five seconds. The camera crew helps Pam. 

ANGELA [00:39:49] I know! 

JENNA [00:39:50] The camera rushes over to her desk and indicates that she should look over to Dwight, who she discovers is eating a Baby Ruth bar. The one that Angela bought. 

ANGELA [00:40:00] That’s right. I have that you are in cahoots. 

JENNA [00:40:03] In cahoots. 

ANGELA [00:40:04] Pam and the camera man are in cahoots. 

JENNA [00:40:06] So first, Pam takes the step of talking directly to the camera crew. And now the camera crew has gotten involved. It’s a big deal. I’m surprised that we did this so early in the series when I was watching this. We’re not that far in for us to be involving the crew like this. People should know that our camera operator was Randall Einhorn. He’s also our DP. He went on to direct a bunch of episodes. And I had a really special relationship with Randall. And I remember filming the scene with him. He was really performing for me. He would come over and he’d have a big smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. And he would motion over. He would give me a little thumbs up. So all this interaction was happening. I felt like we were really performing together and he was playing the character of the camera person. So I just have really fond memories of working with Randall in general. When Pam would have really emotional scenes, sometimes I would look at him and he would be teared up. 

ANGELA [00:41:04] No, he’s, he’s got a big heart. And he wears it on his sleeve. And we all got really attached to Randall. And I just think of him as sort of this very charming, blue-eyed terminator. 

JENNA [00:41:14] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:41:15] That’s right. Because you guys you only ever see one of his eyeballs because the other eyeball is looking through the lens. 

JENNA [00:41:21] The little eyepiece. Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:41:23] Yeah. So you see this one blue eye emoting emotion and you’re like, “Aw. You’re you’re like the friendly terminator”. 

JENNA [00:41:30] The Friendly Terminator. 

ANGELA [00:41:32] At nine minutes, twenty-nine seconds. You guys, aw Jim. You just break my heart all the time. But he’s trying to be sly. He’s trying to do that thing where he figures out- is Roy’s gonna come? But he’s trying to play it cool. So he’s like, “Yeah, just you know, I just need a headcount”. 

JENNA [00:41:47] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:41:48] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:41:48] Is Roy going to be there tonight? Or just? 

ANGELA [00:41:49] You know why? It’s just cause I need to know how many burgers to make. 

JENNA [00:41:52] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:41:52] I mean, this is the subtext, right? 

JENNA [00:41:54] It’s nothing else. 

ANGELA [00:41:54] It’s not because I love you and I want you to be in my apartment without your fiance. 

JENNA [00:41:58] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:41:59] Wait. Is he? Yeah. He’s still your fiance. 

JENNA [00:42:00] He is. I know. It’s hard to remember, right? Fan question from Juan Martinez. “Was Roy really unable to attend the party or did Pam ditch him so she could hang out with Jim”? I don’t think she ditched him and I don’t think she lied to him. 

ANGELA [00:42:14] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:42:15] I think Pam was just as excited that Roy couldn’t attend as Jim is. 

ANGELA [00:42:20] Yeah, I think Roy probably has some dude hang out. He’s very kind of a dude-dude, right? 

JENNA [00:42:25] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:42:26] He probably has his thing. And also-. 

JENNA [00:42:28] Roy wouldn’t want to go. 

ANGELA [00:42:29] I was going to say the last thing Roy wants to do is hang out with any of the Dunder Mifflin employees. 

JENNA [00:42:34] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:42:34] He’s sort of over it. They have to do enough of that probably for him. So he was, I think happy to sit this one out. And Pam was like, “Oh my God, oh my god, oh my god”. And so was Jim. 

JENNA [00:42:44] I’m like totally making this up. But maybe Pam waited kind of till the last minute to tell Roy about the party so that it would be less likely that he could attend. Like I could see her maybe doing that. 

ANGELA [00:42:57] And I could see her downplaying it like, you know, and I don’t know. It’s the thing. I have to go to everyone’s going. 

JENNA [00:43:01] Yes. A hundred percent. 

ANGELA [00:43:03] It’s gonna be lame. You know what, if you do want to go, you don’t have to. 

JENNA [00:43:06] It’s fine. I’ll go because I feel like I have to. But I don’t want you to have to change your plan. 

ANGELA [00:43:12] I totally get it. I totally get it. If you don’t want to go, it’s OK. 

JENNA [00:43:13] This is a hundred percent how that went down. I believe. Yes. All right. So now everyone’s trying to get out of the office and they’re trying to avoid Michael because they all know he’s not invited. So people are making up excuses to not hang out with him that night. And Angela, you have a great one. You say “Charity Bake Drive”. 

ANGELA [00:43:35] Oh, yeah. I’m sure my character’s like, horrible at lying. Horrible. 

JENNA [00:43:38] Well, a lot of people wrote in to ask if our excuses were scripted or improvised. Angela, was yours scripted or improvised? 

ANGELA [00:43:44] Mine is a combo. So my scripted line was “Charity bake drive” and then Michael scripted line was “Liar”. And then Steve improvised. “You are a liar”. And then I improvised. No I’m not”! As I left. And I didn’t even look back. And it stayed in. And I think it’s great because that’s exactly how my character, I think would have responded. 

JENNA [00:44:06] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:44:07] I just love that. Dwight says he has soccer and clarinet practice. 

JENNA [00:44:11] Yes. 

ANGELA [00:44:12] And you know what I feel like? I feel like sometimes I mean, you know, we have young children and sometimes when they’re bad at lying, they just sort of list what their activities are. So I sort of feel like, like Dwight probably growing up had clarinet and soccer practice and he just went to default. 

JENNA [00:44:28] Also, as Dwight leaves, he says. See you Monday, Michael. Casual Friday tracker coming at you. 

ANGELA [00:44:36] No one’s dress casual. 

JENNA [00:44:38] No. It’s clearly a Friday because he says, see you Monday. 

ANGELA [00:44:41] Mm hmm. 

JENNA [00:44:42] None of us are dressed casually, even though we’re going to a barbecue after work. 

ANGELA [00:44:46] Well, people are going to change clothes. Don’t you think they’re gonna go home and freshen up? I don’t want to. Listen. It’s still not casual Friday. I get it. I get it. 

JENNA [00:44:55] We still set up in a previous episode that we have casual Fridays. And yet here it is a Friday. And none of us are dress casually. 

ANGELA [00:45:01] No, you’re right. You’re right. 

JENNA [00:45:02] I’m going to stay on this. OK. 

ANGELA [00:45:04] I think you stay on it. 

JENNA [00:45:04] Don’t worry, everybody. I’m on it. 

ANGELA [00:45:07] That-. 

JENNA [00:45:07] I’m on the mail cart. I’m on casual Friday and we will continue to track Mindy’s hair. Don’t anyone lose sleep over it? We’re on it. 

ANGELA [00:45:16] Oh, I am, as you know, obsessed with Mindy’s hair. I’m obsessed. I have one thing to say before we go to the party. 

JENNA [00:45:22] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:45:24] And again, this was like the Sadiq moment in the cold open for me. Something I thought probably way too much about. Wouldn’t Jim have known that Michael saw that Evite? This is the day he gets access to everyone’s emails. Jim clearly sent it to everyone’s work email. 

JENNA [00:45:42] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:45:42] Wouldn’t he have known? He knows Michael knows, right? 

JENNA [00:45:46] Well, he knows Michael knows by the way Michael is behaving. But you’re saying as soon as-. 

ANGELA [00:45:52] As soon-. 

JENNA [00:45:52] He got access to the e-mails, the first thought Jim would have would be, “Oh no”. 

ANGELA [00:45:57] The Evites there, the Evites sitting in everyone’s email. He’s going to know. 

JENNA [00:46:01] Well, similarly, how did we get all the way to the day of the party before Dwight thinks to mention the party to Michael? There’s that scene where. Dwight starts bring up the party and Jim shushes them. He’s like. No, no, no, don’t say anything. You’re telling me I mean, when did he send out the Evite? At least a week ago. And that whole week, he didn’t have to, like keep the shush on Dwight. 

ANGELA [00:46:27] No. That didn’t bump me as much because I feel like. I don’t know. I know. I feel like. Listen, guys, this isn’t all dudes. But I know from my experience with fellas, they probably aren’t going to think about the party till the day of, you know, they’re not like it’s not like Dwight is like thinking about this party every day. He’s got you know, he’s busy. 

JENNA [00:46:46] He’s busy. He’s managing a secret relationship with Angela. 

ANGELA [00:46:49] Yeah. He’s tracking yeast infections in Scranton. 

JENNA [00:46:52] Yeah. He’s got a lot going on. 

ANGELA [00:46:54] He’s got a lot on. 

JENNA [00:46:54] All right. Fair enough. All right, guys, we’re gonna take a break. And when we come back, we’re going to a party, a barbecue at Jim’s house. We’re going to tell you all about it. Are you ready or do you want to lay those out? Do you want to lay them out? I don’t wanna rush you. 

ANGELA [00:47:11] She’s back. She got some food and the sass is back. You guys, before we went to break. Jenna was getting a little lightheaded because she’s really hungry. 

JENNA [00:47:21] Yeah. So if you notice a tonal shift in this last part of the podcast, it’s because we took an actual break during our break and we ate a full lunch. 

ANGELA [00:47:29] We ate. Jenna and I eat lunch together. And it kind of reminds me of how we had lunch every day on the set of “The Office”. 

JENNA [00:47:35] I know. 

ANGELA [00:47:36] I love it so much. 

JENNA [00:47:37] I was just talking to Lee last night where I said, well, he asked me a question. He was watching the episode with me. And he said, what’s it like for you to watch these episodes again? Does it bring you back? And I said it really, the flood of memories that come back to me. And the most prevalent is how much we laughed together as a cast. And I said, and now I do this podcast with Angela. And we laugh the same way when we do the podcast. And when we edit the podcast and we eat lunch the same way. And now I’m tearing up because we just had one of our lunches. 

ANGELA [00:48:11] Yeah. That lunch in particular, Jenna. 

JENNA [00:48:13] Was a good one. 

ANGELA [00:48:13] Was a good one. And it really reminded me, we navigated nine years of our lives. A lot happened to both of us and we shared a lot at lunch. And some days it was just little tiny things. And then some days we had huge heart-to-hearts and Jenna and I just now had a really pretty big heart-to-heart. 

JENNA [00:48:31] Those lunches were like sometimes they’re like a therapy session. They’re better than a therapy session because it’s your BFF. 

ANGELA [00:48:38] It’s your BFF. 

JENNA [00:48:39] That’s right. All right. Well we’re back, guys. We’re full of food. 

ANGELA [00:48:43] OK. 

JENNA [00:48:44] And I’m going to start with the fan question. 

ANGELA [00:48:46] Do it. 

JENNA [00:48:46] How about that? From Rob Fish. 

ANGELA [00:48:49] OK. 

JENNA [00:48:49] He says, whose house was used for Jim’s barbecue? Cause that’s right. We’re, go to this barbecue at Jim’s house. So for the house, we shot in a real neighborhood in northern California. It wasn’t a set. And we had to have really unusual shooting hours because it was a night shoot and there was really nighttime outside of the windows. So we usually would shoot from like 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. when we were shooting at Dunder-Mifflin. But here we were really shooting more in the evening. And now they, if they were shooting into the house, it didn’t matter what was outside. They could black out the windows. But for all those shots outside, it was really night. And some nights we stayed past 10:00 p.m. and you remember we’d get a little bit tired. 

ANGELA [00:49:29] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:49:29] I get a little loopy as of 9:00 p.m. and this was the first time where we shot offset. Like really offset since “The Dundees”. And we always had a lot fun when we would do that. 

ANGELA [00:49:40] Yeah. And also, I remember there wasn’t really like a place between scenes for you to go. And-

JENNA [00:49:46] No. I don’t remember our trailers being there. 

ANGELA [00:49:48] No, I think they couldn’t park them in the neighborhood. They were far away so they would shuttle us in. And so in between scenes, we just really all hung out  in that little living room. Kind of.

JENNA [00:49:59] Totally. This leads me to a fan question by Rufio. He said, “When you had to go to the bathroom, did you use the actual bathroom in the house or did you go offset”? I don’t remember, but I, cause a lot of times you shoot in houses and they’ll, they’ll tape the toilet closed and put a little sign on it and it says “Do not use”. And you have to go outside. They have like those porta potty things outside. 

ANGELA [00:50:22] Or they’ll rent the house next door. And that becomes a holding area for everyone. 

JENNA [00:50:27] Yeah. And maybe you can pee in the holding house. 

ANGELA [00:50:29] I peed in John, in Jim’s house. 

JENNA [00:50:33] Oh no, I don’t remember the toilet being taped shut. 

ANGELA [00:50:36] I remember them saying that I could go and I like, you know, quickly. There was like a hall bathroom or something. 

JENNA [00:50:43] Well, sometimes they would let cast members use the bathrooms in the house, but then they would have porta potties for the crew, which I always thought was kind of lousy. 

ANGELA [00:50:50] Well, I know one time it was explained to me by an A.D. Because I was like, well, wait, where’s the bathroom everyone’s using? And she said to me that they could not afford for us to go too far away. 

JENNA [00:51:02] Oh, that makes sense. 

ANGELA [00:51:03] And so they often would have a bathroom for the actors a little bit closer. 

JENNA [00:51:06] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:51:06] Just purely because of timing. 

JENNA [00:51:09] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:51:09] So. So just know that. So if you don’t feel as bad. 

JENNA [00:51:13] So you don’t feel guilty. 

ANGELA [00:51:13] Yeah. 

JENNA [00:51:13] But it’s true. Like you said, our actual trailers were probably a 15-minute van right away. So they had to create a way for us to go to the bathroom. That was a little closer to the set. All right. So when we all get to the party, Jim takes everyone on a tour of his house. 

ANGELA [00:51:28] Before we go on the tour. 

JENNA [00:51:30] Tell me. 

ANGELA [00:51:31] There is something that I just love little things like this. Did you notice everyone’s party attire? 

JENNA [00:51:36] Wait, I. Yes, I have it here, too. Can we talk about everyone’s casual clothes? 

ANGELA [00:51:42] Yes. 

JENNA [00:51:42] Meredith is dressed like a, a biker gal with like a smoky eye. 

ANGELA [00:51:47] I have a whole card just for Meredith. 

JENNA [00:51:49] Okay. 

ANGELA [00:51:49] Okay. She has a denim vest. She has a black V-neck. Shows a little bit of midriff. 

JENNA [00:51:55] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:51:55] Her hair is half up, half down. 

JENNA [00:51:57] Oh, boy. 

ANGELA [00:51:57] She has some very dark, smoky eyeliner and jeans. She, she looks a little bit like she’s ready to go party. 

JENNA [00:52:05] It is such a striking difference I thought of everybody’s, the difference between everybody’s casual outfit and their work outfit. The most striking is Meredith. For sure. Like, cause she wears like corduroy jumpers. 

ANGELA [00:52:19] Oh, yeah. She-. 

JENNA [00:52:20] To the office. She dresses kind of like a Raggedy Ann doll. 

ANGELA [00:52:23] She looks like she’s in a potato sack and her hair down. But clearly party Meredith. 

JENNA [00:52:27] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:52:28] Comes to play. 

JENNA [00:52:29] She does. What about Kevin’s hat? 

ANGELA [00:52:32] Oh, his black. Is it like a fedora? 

JENNA [00:52:35] Is it? What is that called? It’s not a fedora. But it’s like a, right? 

ANGELA [00:52:39] He looks like an old-timey like gangster, like a 1920s movie. Right? 

JENNA [00:52:44] And he wears it all the time when he’s in his band. 

ANGELA [00:52:47] Yeah, he does. “Scrantonicity”. 

JENNA [00:52:47]  Yeah. This is clearly, you know, casually. Kevin has his hat. 

ANGELA [00:52:53] His go-to look. And Kevin’s fiance’s there too. Stacy

JENNA [00:52:56] Ah yes. A lot of people asked who’s the blonde woman at the party. Who’s the blonde woman at the party? It’s Stacy. 

ANGELA [00:53:03] Stacy. 

JENNA [00:53:04] It’s Kevin’s fiance. And also you noticed Stanley’s wife is there as well. She’s the brunette woman sitting on the couch next to Stanley. 

ANGELA [00:53:11] Yes. 

JENNA [00:53:12] All right. What about the fact that Phyllis is still dressed in purple? 

ANGELA [00:53:16] Yes. 

JENNA [00:53:16] She, this, she only wears plum purple. 

ANGELA [00:53:19] She’s very committed to lavender. 

JENNA [00:53:20] Lavender. 

ANGELA [00:53:21] What about the fact that Dwight has on Birkenstocks and says that he keeps an extra pair in his car? 

JENNA [00:53:26] You know, it’s interesting. They look very new. When we, I notice it’s, it’s an important thing that we establish the shoes that both you and Dwight are wearing in this episode. Later on, you’re gonna be at the barbecue with Jim and you’re going to complain about getting sap on your shoe. 

ANGELA [00:53:43] I just have so much to complain about. I stepped in sap. I’m a vegetarian. 

JENNA [00:53:47] But the whole reason they had to write the line that you stepped in sap is so that we can pan down to your shoes because making sure we know what shoes you guys are each wearing is gonna become very important later. 

ANGELA [00:53:58] It is. It is. Paul Feig said, are you ready to bump some Birkenstocks. 

JENNA [00:54:02] Aye! 

ANGELA [00:54:02] Bumpin’ Birkenstocks!  

JENNA [00:54:03] That’s right. All right. So I want to talk about Jim taking everyone on the tour of his house. 

ANGELA [00:54:08] Okay. 

JENNA [00:54:08] He’s so excited Pam has arrived. She doesn’t even have her coat off and he’s ready to take her on this tour. And as they’re walking down the hallway. First of all, just a side note, as they’re walking down the hallway, Jim has a painted circular saw hanging on his wall. 

ANGELA [00:54:30] Mm hmm. That’s popular. I mean, I have, my mom has a painted circular saw. My grandfather was really into that. And we have a few saws that are painted. 

JENNA [00:54:40] Well, I. OK. I have seen the long saw’s painted, sort of like a long landscape. But I have so many questions about that. 

ANGELA [00:54:48] I have that-. 

JENNA [00:54:50] Is that popular on the East Coast? Because, you know, being from Missouri and spending a lot of time in Lake Ozark, I’ve seen plenty of painted saws. But I just wasn’t sure where Jim in Scranton, Pennsylvania got that item? 

ANGELA [00:55:05] Maybe it was a hand me down from a family member because I was given a painted circular saw. 

JENNA [00:55:10] OK. 

ANGELA [00:55:11] And I had it in my hallway. 

JENNA [00:55:13] OK. 

ANGELA [00:55:13] And I hung it myself. I sort of like, I sort of bounced it on two nails. 

JENNA [00:55:18] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:55:18] And I had a friend who was kind of clumping through my hallway, and it fell off. 

JENNA [00:55:24] Oh dear. 

ANGELA [00:55:24] And they were like, are you trying to kill me? Because I got to. I didn’t do a great job hanging it, but there you go. So, yeah. 

JENNA [00:55:33] I thought it was very interesting. So you can check that out. People who like things in the background. So anyway, as they’re walking up this steps after they’ve passed by the saw, Ryan asked if Katie is coming and this is when we learn that Jim and Katie aren’t dating anymore. 

ANGELA [00:55:50] He said, I haven’t talked to her in a while. 

JENNA [00:55:52] I know, but fan question from Kristina Veladata. Ryan asked about Katie. Jim says he hasn’t talked her in a while, so it sounds like they’ve broken up. But then she’s on “Booze Cruise”. 

ANGELA [00:56:03] Well, I think they’re on again, off again, because then Ryan in the same conversation says, do you mind if I ask her out? And Jim goes, and maybe we won’t talk about that right here. Right. He says something like that. 

JENNA [00:56:14] Right. 

ANGELA [00:56:14] So he kind of skirts around the issue. 

JENNA [00:56:17] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:56:17] It to me, that answer is no, Ryan. Like, don’t call her. Like he didn’t say. Sure, man. Go ahead. 

JENNA [00:56:23] Well, when I heard him say that, I interpreted that as being him trying to just protect Katie from Ryan. 

ANGELA [00:56:30] He might have. 

JENNA [00:56:31] Not like I have such strong feelings for her that I don’t want you to her, but more like no no no. 

ANGELA [00:56:38] I read it as like, yeah, I don’t really know what’s going on there and I don’t really want to talk about it in front of Pam, but I certainly don’t want you asking her out. 

JENNA [00:56:47] OK. I buy that. 

ANGELA [00:56:49] OK. 

JENNA [00:56:49] All right. So also, here’s another fan question, this time from Ladamania, who we have heard from before. And by the way, I did look at Ladamania’s Insta-page and she does amazing fan art of “The Office”. 

ANGELA [00:57:02] Oh, I’ll check it out. 

JENNA [00:57:03] I’m just going to give a shout out, guys. Go check out Ladamania for some amazing office fan art. 

ANGELA [00:57:07] How do you spell that? Ladamania? 

JENNA [00:57:09] It’s L-a-d-a-m-a-n-i-a. 

ANGELA [00:57:11]  OK. We’ll check it out. 

JENNA [00:57:13] OK. She asks, why does Jim have two of the same poster in his place? This was such a good find. OK, so around 13 minutes, 14 seconds after the circular saw. 

ANGELA [00:57:30] Uh-Huh. 

JENNA [00:57:31] They passed by just a pretty generic looking kind of framed poster picture on the wall. When they get up to Jim’s bedroom, the same picture is hanging above one of his bookshelves. Clearly, as we’ve mentioned, we were on a budget and we ran out of decor. 

ANGELA [00:57:48] I think they just moved it when they shot it. 

JENNA [00:57:50]  They moved it! I think they moved it, which I think is very, very funny. 

ANGELA [00:57:52] There might have been something on the wall they need to cover. 

JENNA [00:57:55] OK. So at this point in the show, we cut from the party back to-. 

ANGELA [00:57:59] The improv class. 

JENNA [00:58:00] Yes. And we’re going to see Michael in the improv class for the first time. It’s real. He wasn’t lying. He really has to go to his improv class. And this is when you find out that Michael just gets out a gun and shoots everybody in every scene he does. 

[00:58:17] Yeah. 

[00:58:17] It’s brilliant. 

[00:58:18] He’s the worst, he’s the worst person to improvise with. And he thinks he’s hilarious. 

[00:58:24] And the scene, when the teacher says, Michael, “I want you to give me all the guns you have” is so great. 

[00:58:30] I tried to reach out to Michael Naughton cause I did, I did a sketch show with him years ago called “Balls Out”. 

[00:58:35] Amazing. 

[00:58:36] And he is such a funny guy. And I. 

[00:58:38] And he played the teacher, right? 

[00:58:40] He played the teacher, Chris. 

[00:58:41] Yeah. 

ANGELA [00:58:41] He performs at the Groundlings. You can see him there if you’re in Los Angeles. 

JENNA [00:58:44] He’s also done tons of episodes of “Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. 

ANGELA [00:58:47] Oh, yeah. 

JENNA [00:58:47] So you might recognize him. 

ANGELA [00:58:48] He’s a hilarious actor, but he’s currently mainstage company at the Groundlings as well. 

JENNA [00:58:52] I wonder if people at home understand the genius satire of this improv class, like as an improviser, were you just dying when you were watching this? 

ANGELA [00:59:00] I wanted to be in the improv class. I know it wouldn’t track for my character, but I was like, oh, and I knew a bunch of those people. They’re such funny, funny people. 

JENNA [00:59:09] So now we go back to the party for the scene. The scene. Pam is alone. In Jim’s bedroom. I have so much to say about this, because the preparation that went in to any scene with Jim and Pam, it would bring production to a halt. It really would. They were so. Concerned about getting these scenes right when Jim and I would have to get in a fight, or if we had to have these moments up on the roof, in this bedroom and we would spend so much time on these. So-. 

ANGELA [00:59:46] It’s true. As a cast member. 

JENNA [00:59:47] I’m so sorry. 

ANGELA [00:59:48] When we would see that there was a big pivotal Jim and Pam scene, we’d be like, oh, God. Are you before it or after it? 

JENNA [00:59:54] Oh, no. I feel like Phyllis would bring in all of her bills to pay. She’d be like, I’m bringing, I need stuff to do. 

ANGELA [01:00:01] Buckle in. We’re going to be here for a while. 

JENNA [01:00:03] Because they’re really going to indulge. 

ANGELA [01:00:05] Once I became a mom, I didn’t mind it. When I saw you guys had a big scene, I’d be like, “Oh! That means I’m going to go visit my daughter at preschool”. 

JENNA [01:00:11] Yeah. You’d be like can I, can I come back in three hours? 

ANGELA [01:00:15] I have a three-hour break.

JENNA [01:00:15] Well, just know that it was always so important to us to get it right. And I remember having long conversations about this scene. So the words that are written in the scene are of no importance. We discussed that what was important was that everything we’re not saying the subtext of the scene, this is all about Pam being in Jim’s bedroom and sitting on his bed. We had to make sure that we very naturally found a way for Pam to sit on his bed and she couldn’t just walk in the room and sit on the bed. So she had to start by sitting on his night table and then we had to put the yearbook in exactly the right place so that when she went to grab it, she would most naturally then sit on his bed. And. As I was watching this. It brought me back to all of those moments early on in dating and in college or whatever. When you walk into that person’s bedroom for the first time. 

ANGELA [01:01:20] And you’ve thought about it for a long time, you’ve thought about it like where do they sleep? What does that look like? 

JENNA [01:01:26] This is their most intimate room in their house. And. And John is so perfect. If you notice, as soon as Pam sits down on the bed, John starts shifting in his desk chair and he looks at her and he immediately looks away like the fact that she’s just sat on his bed. It’s almost too much for him. 

ANGELA [01:01:50] Not only is this woman he’s in love with in his room. But now she is in this intimate place where she’s sitting across from him on his bed, as he has probably hoped and thought about for a long, long time. 

JENNA [01:02:05] And here’s what I love about our show. And I think that this is why people are in love with Jim and Pam and why they respond to them so well is because a lot of times in movies and television shows when people, quote-unquote, fall in love or you have a couple that is going to fall in love. It seems to kind of be like a lot about sex. Right? Like they meet at a bar and then they burst through the door, ripping each other’s clothes off. That never happens really, right? Like that’s not really real. Jim and Pam, this moment of them just being in this bedroom, not kissing, not touching, not talking about this stolen moment is more romantic and sexy than that burst through the door, ripping each other’s clothes off, in my opinion. 

ANGELA [01:02:55] Well, the stakes are so high and that’s, that’s real life. When you really like someone, it’s like you can feel your heart beating out of your chest the first time you see a part of them that you’ve wondered about. 

JENNA [01:03:07] Mm hmm. 

ANGELA [01:03:08] Their space and where they live. Well, I wrote to break up this beautiful moment. 

JENNA [01:03:13] Please. 

ANGELA [01:03:15] When Pam is looking at Jim’s yearbook while sitting on his bed. Jim gazes lovingly at her. In this moment, you can see my character’s purse on the bed. 

JENNA [01:03:26] What? 

ANGELA [01:03:27] My character always carried this little black clutch. 

JENNA [01:03:31] Uh huh. 

ANGELA [01:03:31] You know, and it’s there on the bed with like a coat. That’s what I love, too. 

JENNA [01:03:35] Yeah. 

ANGELA [01:03:35] It’s like that thing, you go into someone’s house when you’re in college or even in your 20s starting out, you’re like, oh, you know, you go to a party. There’s that one guest room or-. 

JENNA [01:03:43] Where you throw your coat on the bed. 

ANGELA [01:03:45] Where you throw your coat. Yes, some coats in my purse. I thought it was such a nice touch. 

JENNA [01:03:50] I, oh, I love that. 

ANGELA [01:03:51] Look for the little black clutch. That’s my purse. Angela Martin’s purse. 

JENNA [01:03:55] That’s a great detail. Well, I remember in addition to the scene, they spent a lot of time planning Jim’s bedroom because it was gonna be very revealing. And so our set decorator, Michael Gallenberg, he’s our set designer. He was in charge of decorating this room under the direction of Paul Feig and Greg Daniels and Jen Celotta, who wrote the episode. Fan Question. Ricky Cayden or Cadden and Zach McCutchen both wrote in separately, how much of the stuff in Jim’s room was actually John Krasinski’s? None. None except. Fan question from Lou-Lou. Katrina, Michael Kemper and many others. Was that really John Krasinski’s yearbook photo? Yes. 

ANGELA [01:04:38] Yes. 

JENNA [01:04:38] Not his yearbook. They made a fake yearbook page where they superimposed his actual yearbook photo. But there’s a lot of interesting stuff in that room. 

ANGELA [01:04:48] All right, background, folks. There’s a lot of wonderful little nuggets in Jim’s room. And I’m sure you noticed. I know I’m probably gonna have missed some, but here are some. He has a guitar. Of course he does. 

JENNA [01:04:58] OK. Of course he does. But why? Of course. 

ANGELA [01:05:01] I don’t know. 

JENNA [01:05:02] Have we ever seen him play a guitar? 

ANGELA [01:05:06] I don’t know. But I feel like all the guys that I thought were cool in my 20s had a guitar. 

JENNA [01:05:11] Well, I get that. 

ANGELA [01:05:12] But they hardly even played. 

JENNA [01:05:13] Well, a fan. Kelsey Veazey 7, pointed out that in a later episode you know, when Jim is playing “Second Life”, his avatar has a guitar slung over his shoulder. So there’s something in Jim that either wishes he played guitar or. 

ANGELA [01:05:33] Thought it was cool to play or. 

JENNA [01:05:35] But he isn’t, we never see him play it, right? 

ANGELA [01:05:37] No, no. 

JENNA [01:05:38] Correct us guys if we’re wrong. I don’t think we ever see Jim bust out a guitar. 

ANGELA [01:05:41] And he never takes the stage with “Scrantonicity”. 

JENNA [01:05:43] No, no. 

ANGELA [01:05:45] There’s a lava lamp. There’s the Favre poster on his bulletin board. 

JENNA [01:05:51] Oh boy. 

ANGELA [01:05:51] OK. I want you to know we hadn’t even released an episode yet. A fan wrote into me and said, look at Jim’s bulletin board. Is that a voodoo doll of Roy? 

JENNA [01:06:01] Yes. He has a doll hanging by a noose in what looks like a warehouse shirt. 

ANGELA [01:06:10] This is crazy. 

JENNA [01:06:11] Yeah. 

ANGELA [01:06:11] Yeah. 

JENNA [01:06:12] It’s it. Yeah. And we had another fan write-in, Allston Brown who said was Jim the Scranton Strangler. This was perhaps evidence. Yes. What is that? Now, listen, I reached out to Michael Gallenberg to ask him about that and. 

ANGELA [01:06:28] He’s on vacation. 

JENNA [01:06:29] He’s on vacation. 

ANGELA [01:06:31] Well, we’ll have to get it as a follow up question. 

JENNA [01:06:33] We will, because I would love to find out who put that on the corkboard. 

ANGELA [01:06:37] Yeah, well, we’ll have to put that in our “Candy Bag”. 

JENNA [01:06:39] Yeah. 

ANGELA [01:06:40] Also there’s like some kind of sketch of a motorcycle. It looks like a printout. Like what does, does Jim. Jim is starting to a little bit like a cliche. He has a guitar. He has maybe a motorcycle. Who wants, who knows. There’s also it looks like a card. It says “Son”, like maybe his parents. 

JENNA [01:06:57] Aw. 

ANGELA [01:06:57] I know. Did you see? That is so sweet. There’s some photos. There is a little like plaque that says “Making sense”. 

JENNA [01:07:04] OK. 

ANGELA [01:07:05] There’s a penguin on his desk. I do love when you pan across over to Pam, you see his CD player. These are the tech moments that kind of date us. And then he does take work home a little bit because there’s a Dunder-Mifflin catalog on his desk. 

JENNA [01:07:20] Wow. That’s good stuff. 

ANGELA [01:07:23] And I’m sure there’s more I missed, so you guys write in. 

JENNA [01:07:26] So now we go back downstairs, the party’s going. Everyone’s having beer. Now Omi, who played the I.T. guy, who’s also at the party. He gave an interview where he said that we were drinking real beer. 

ANGELA [01:07:40] I don’t remember that. And I’ve wrote it on a card, Jenna. I did not drink real beer. 

JENNA [01:07:44] I. I didn’t either. Well, I hate beer. So I had a beer bottle filled with water. So I don’t remember that either. 

ANGELA [01:07:51] Yeah, I don’t remember any real beer. 

JENNA [01:07:54] No. 

ANGELA [01:07:55] Yeah. 

JENNA [01:07:55] That feels like it would be unusual for our group. 

ANGELA [01:07:57] Yeah. 

JENNA [01:07:58] We weren’t that kind of group. 

ANGELA [01:07:59] I had water. I know that. 

JENNA [01:08:01] OK. 

ANGELA [01:08:02] In my beer. 

JENNA [01:08:02] All right. 

ANGELA [01:08:03] And that’s why I said, well, “Jesus drank wine”. You know, I’m sort of trying to justify it, I guess. But mine was water. 

JENNA [01:08:08] Yeah. 

ANGELA [01:08:09] He did also say in the same interview that they were playing the X-Box 360. And it had games that hadn’t been released yet. 

JENNA [01:08:15] I remember that. The guys were so excited. 

ANGELA [01:08:17] They were so excited. That I do remember. But the beer, I don’t remember. 

JENNA [01:08:21] OK. Did you notice in the kitchen scene with Kelly, Oscar and Stanley where they’re talking about paper? I can see it. 

ANGELA [01:08:28] Kelly’s hair is half up, half down. 

JENNA [01:08:30] But she’s still in a paisley top. 

ANGELA [01:08:33] But she’s more Mindy. She’s like-. 

JENNA [01:08:34] Oh, she’s 100 percent Mindy. 

ANGELA [01:08:36] She’s now fully Mindy. But-. 

JENNA [01:08:37] She is. 

ANGELA [01:08:38] Her wardrobe hasn’t caught up. 

JENNA [01:08:39] OK. I feel like at this point her hair has become unfussed. It’s you know, we’re not doing that anymore. But now I kind of want to start tracking her wardrobe. 

ANGELA [01:08:50] OK, Jenna. 

JENNA [01:08:51] OK. Because I feel like the hair has come down now enough times. I want to see when the wardrobe changes. 

ANGELA [01:08:58] There is also a scene during the party that I love because it’s just one of these things I love about our show. 

JENNA [01:09:04] What? 

ANGELA [01:09:05] Is a runner. I love a runner that carries over multiple episodes for many years. And Kevin calls Ryan “Fire Guy”. 

JENNA [01:09:13] Yes. 

ANGELA [01:09:14] You know? And I just love that it’s stuck. 

JENNA [01:09:16] I like that, too. So when the karaoke machine gets going, Phyllis is singing karaoke. It was so sweet. Phyllis was so charming. Do you remember filming that? 

ANGELA [01:09:27] I do. And I wrote about it in my journal. 

JENNA [01:09:30] You really journaled hard on this episode. 

ANGELA [01:09:32] This is a big journal episode for me. 

JENNA [01:09:34] I guess so. 

ANGELA [01:09:35] Ok. I wrote this. Oh my gosh. When Phyllis had to do the karaoke scene, we were all losing it. We started laughing so hard. First of all, she had to sing White Snake’s “Here I Go Again”. And she had never even heard of White Snake. 

JENNA [01:09:49] Oh, my gosh. 

ANGELA [01:09:50] The production staff got her a copy of the song and she walked around for days listening to it and practicing. She was so cute and she was really nervous, but I thought she was brilliant. 

JENNA [01:10:01] That is amazing. I love this image of Phyllis walking around listening to White Snake. Incidentally, that album was the first record album I ever bought. Like actual record album, as a teenager was White Snake. 

ANGELA [01:10:15] Oh my gosh. 

JENNA [01:10:15] And I would listen to it all the time. 

ANGELA [01:10:16] My first tape cassette I ever bought was REO Speedwagon. “Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from another You’ve been messing around”. 

JENNA [01:10:31] Okay. We can’t sing anymore. 

ANGELA [01:10:32] We can’t sing. We can’t pay for that. 

JENNA [01:10:33] Also, no one wants to hear that. 

ANGELA [01:10:35] Also, no one wants to hear that. But imagine sweet, adorable Phyllis walking around. “Here I go again on my own”.

JENNA [01:10:40] “Here I go again on my own”. 

ANGELA [01:10:43] With like a headset on. 

JENNA [01:10:44] Do you remember that music video? Toni was her name.

ANGELA [01:10:49] All over the hood of the car. 

JENNA [01:10:51] The red-headed lady just crazy. 

ANGELA [01:10:53] She did the splits. 

JENNA [01:10:54] On a car. On a-. 

ANGELA [01:10:56] In a dress. 

JENNA [01:10:56] Yeah. 

ANGELA [01:10:57] Okay. You know what? No judgment. Feel yourself. Do it. 

JENNA [01:11:02] Now tell me, when do you go outside with Dwight? 

ANGELA [01:11:08] There’s a moment where I slip outside. No one notices. And then, if you’re watching the scene inside, I’m in it on the couch. 

JENNA [01:11:17] Yeah. 

ANGELA [01:11:17] Right. 

JENNA [01:11:18] Well, when Michael crashes the party, you’re inside. 

ANGELA [01:11:20] I’m inside. 

JENNA [01:11:21] Yeah. 

ANGELA [01:11:21] That’s right. And then all of a sudden, as the party gets going, you don’t see me or Dwight. 

JENNA [01:11:27] Well, this is what’s a little curious for me, because Michael crashes the party and you’re inside. 

ANGELA [01:11:33] Mm hmm. 

JENNA [01:11:34] And then he starts singing-. 

ANGELA [01:11:36] “Islands in the Stream”. 

JENNA [01:11:37] A duet. Jim saves him, which is very charming. And then I just need to point out, by the way, Steve starts to harmonize like real well. 

ANGELA [01:11:47] I know. 

JENNA [01:11:48] In that song. 

ANGELA [01:11:49] I know. 

JENNA [01:11:49] It’s really pretty great. But I also want to point out that when he crashes the party, Jim and Pam are always sitting next to each other at the party. 

ANGELA [01:11:56] They are. 

JENNA [01:11:56] If you track us. We’re on some chairs, then we’re on the couch together. We are making sure to maximize this party for like maximum next to each other time. 

ANGELA [01:12:04] You’re sitting next to each other. The other thing I noticed throughout the party is that Jim’s roommate and his girlfriend are all over each other. 

JENNA [01:12:10] They’re constantly making out. 

ANGELA [01:12:11] They’re making out or she’s sitting on his lap or she has a leg like over his leg. 

JENNA [01:12:16] And to say those two people did not know each other before they started filming. And I, I mean, what is that job? How do you get, I mean, I would feel so shy if I was. That was my job. I was like, hi, nice to meet you. I guess we’re just gonna-. 

ANGELA [01:12:33] Hang on to each other all day. 

JENNA [01:12:35] Just for tonight while we shoot this thing. Back to the scene. Steve and John, as Jim and Michael, are harmonizing “Islands in the Stream” and then in the background we go over their shoulder and we slowly push in on Angela’s feet and Dwight’s feet bumpin the Birkenstocks. 

ANGELA [01:12:55] All right. Let’s break down this scene for a second. I have to tell you some behind the scenes. 

JENNA [01:12:59] OK. I have some fan questions as well. 

ANGELA [01:13:01] Well, ask and-. 

JENNA [01:13:01] Perhaps they’ll lead you in. 

ANGELA [01:13:03] Maybe they’re part of my notecards. 

JENNA [01:13:04] Well, this is not a fan question. This is a me question. What are you in? Is it a shed? Is it a dog house? It seems too small to be a shed and too large to be a doghouse. What is it? 

ANGELA [01:13:15] It looks like a giant dollhouse that people would buy for their little girl. There was like a, a, a ramp of steps that went up to it. 

JENNA [01:13:23] OK. 

ANGELA [01:13:23] It looks like someone had bought this for their little girl to play in. Like a fancy doll house. 

JENNA [01:13:29] Yeah. Well, Angela, I have a fan question now. A-Town and Gnat Attack and Brooklyn Jade all want to know. Was that really Rainn and Angela making out or were they just random stunt people wearing the same shoes? And if it was them, did they talk? How did they make it not weird? I mean, yeah, I think we all just want to know, how did that go down? 

ANGELA [01:13:51] All right. OK. So, of course, it’s weird. It’s totally weird. It was Rainn and I. We did not kiss guys. We did not make out. In fact, it was really cold out in the dollhouse. So I had on a big, thick coat, I had hand warmers. But they did want to see our Birkenstocks, a bumpin. It was a little tricky because we had to time it out perfectly. And we tried different positions of our feet. Here’s the thing. Rainn Wilson is 6’3. I am 5’1. So my feet did not hang out of the dollhouse. Oh, my god. 

JENNA [01:14:23] Yeah. If your bodies were positioned so that you could actually be kissing one another, we would never see your feet. 

ANGELA [01:14:30] No, no. So we tried our feet in a few different positions so the camera could see them both. We are laying side by side, kind of flipping our feet back and forth. Paul Feig was like, you guys kind of look like you’re doing a sad breaststroke swim. 

JENNA [01:14:44] Ok. 

ANGELA [01:14:44] It was like, I don’t know what you’re doing. It looks like you’re swimming. So he was like, all right, how do I say this? This is somewhat awkward, Angela, but I think you need to lay on your back and straddle Rainn. I was like, what? And he said, Yeah. He said, I’d love to see your little feet wrap around his calves and rub back and forth. So in order for me to do this, you guys, my face was in his chest for you to see my feet. 

JENNA [01:15:14] Were you like suffocating? 

ANGELA [01:15:16] Kind of. 

JENNA [01:15:16] I’m imaging like-. How are you breathing? 

ANGELA [01:15:18] Rainn was also doing sort of like this painful kind of plank move-. 

JENNA [01:15:23] So that he didn’t crush you. 

ANGELA [01:15:24] So he didn’t crush me so I could breathe. And then I was like, how do I wrap my feet around his calf? That’s kind of Awkward. You know why-. 

JENNA [01:15:33] Your ankles don’t bend? 

ANGELA [01:15:35] Your shins don’t bend that way. So I was doing this weird on action. Rainn would roll over on top of me, do his weird plank move like, in one take. It kind of took a long time. He started to shake a little. Oh dear. Oh, I will say is Rainn. You’re a very strong guy, but planking for him it does take a toll on people. Take after take. We did a bunch of takes. Also my feet were like in this weird position. So we did this every take. And in between takes we would roll on our back side by side. We would have these really deep conversations. It was just one of those surreal moments where we were doing the most ridiculously silly thing. And then in between, we talked about like our lives. I feel like this is the moment where I really became friends with Rainn because we talked about where we grew up and our childhoods and like what we believed in and just really had this really huge heart-to-heart in between this plank straddle foot rubbing of the calf. I did write about this in my journal as well. 

JENNA [01:16:33] OK. 

ANGELA [01:16:34] And I just said that I was really glad they weren’t rolling sound out there. We weren’t mic-ed because I was giggling so much whenever we had to rub B. 

JENNA [01:16:44] Aw. So that kind of is the end of the episode. That ends the episode. There’s a little tag where we go back to the improv class. It’s a little bit of a flashback. I think that they just loved this monologue, this talking head that Steve gives so much that they had to include it at the end of the episode. But I don’t know if you remember this, Angela, that last night when we shot, we stayed till after midnight. It was a really late night. And I also wrote this in my journal. I said Steve ordered pizzas for the cast and crew. And we all had like a little. A little bitty like kind of, I guess, mini party after the party. 

ANGELA [01:17:23] He ordered Baroni’s Pizza. 

JENNA [01:17:25] Yeah. His favorite. 

ANGELA [01:17:26] His favorite. It was so good. And that was, that was really cool. I. 

JENNA [01:17:30] Love that we kept journals about where, women in our 30s journalling. 

ANGELA [01:17:35] We were 80 when we were 30. We’re almost to our appropriate age. 

JENNA [01:17:39] I think so. All right, guys, thank you so much. We cannot wait. Next week is the “Christmas” episode, the first Christmas episode. And we have a lot to say. 

ANGELA [01:17:51] Yankee Swap. Thank you so much. Ken Jeong. Joel McHale. Not so much. And we’ll see you next week. 

JENNA [01:17:59] Thank you for listening to “Office Ladies”. “Office Ladies” is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. Our producer is Codi Fischer, our sound engineer is Sam Kieffer. 

ANGELA [01:18:09] And our theme song is “Rubber Tree” by Creed Bratton. 

JENNA [01:18:12] For ad-free versions of the show and our bonus episodes “Candy Bag,” go to StitcherPremium.com. 

ANGELA [01:18:18] For free one month trial of Stitcher Premium use code “Office”.