EP. 103.9 — Happy New Year & A Look Back on Traveling Salesman

OFFICE 103.9 – Happy New Year & A Look Back on Traveling Salesman

Jenna [00:00:00] Hello, everyone.

Angela [00:00:01] Hi, you guys. We are still on vacation. It’s just a wonderful time to be home and with our families. But, you know, we always like to pop in and say, hi.

Jenna [00:00:10] It is almost a new year. 2022.

Angela [00:00:14] O-M-G.

Jenna [00:00:16] I know.

Angela [00:00:17] Where does the time go?

Jenna [00:00:18] I don’t know.

Angela [00:00:18] I don’t know.

Jenna [00:00:19] Well, listen. And I thought it would be fun since we’re approaching a new year.

Angela [00:00:24] Mmhmm.

Jenna [00:00:25] To do a little deep dive on the history of New Year’s.

Angela [00:00:30] Oh no way.

Jenna [00:00:31] Yes.

Angela [00:00:32] I can’t wait. I’m getting a cup of tea. I’m settling in.

Jenna [00:00:35] OK, so here’s what I found out from my three to four articles that I Googled in America. We celebrate the New Year with a celebration that sort of encompasses December 31st into January 1st.

Angela [00:00:49] Yes.

Jenna [00:00:49] That’s our big New Year’s celebration.

Angela [00:00:51] And you can take down your tree after that.

Jenna [00:00:53] Oh, we can?

Angela [00:00:54] That’s what I’m telling you. I leave mine up till after New Year’s.

Jenna [00:00:58] Well, we usually do too, but-.

Angela [00:01:00] I’m just telling you out there, it’s OK if it’s up after New Year’s.

Jenna [00:01:03] Have you ever had your tree up until, like, February?

Angela [00:01:06] No.

Jenna [00:01:07] How late? Like, what’s the latest?

Angela [00:01:08] Have you met my husband?

Jenna [00:01:10] He’s coming down on January 2nd.

Angela [00:01:11] He would pack it up on the 26th if I didn’t stop him.

Jenna [00:01:14] That is true.

Angela [00:01:15] Mmhmm.

Jenna [00:01:16] All right. Well, listen. The earliest recorded New Year’s festivities date back 4000 years to ancient Babylon. However, they did not celebrate on December 31st, January 1st because the calendar wasn’t sort of the same calendar. They celebrated on the vernal equinox, and that is the day in late March when there is an equal amount of sunlight and darkness.

Angela [00:01:41] That was their new year.

Jenna [00:01:42] That was their new year. On that day.

Angela [00:01:45] Babylon crazy.

Jenna [00:01:47] So in general, civilizations around the world developed calendars that would pin the New Year, either on like an agricultural event or on an astronomical event.

Angela [00:01:58] OK.

Jenna [00:01:59] So in Egypt, for example, the year began with the annual flooding of the Nile and the rising star Sirius.

Angela [00:02:07] OK.

Jenna [00:02:08] The first day of the Chinese New Year occurred with the second moon after the winter solstice.

Angela [00:02:15] OK.

Jenna [00:02:15] The early Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and three hundred and four days, and the new year also began at the vernal equinox. But guess what happened.

Angela [00:02:25] What?

Jenna [00:02:26] Their calendar got out of sync with the Sun?

Angela [00:02:29] Huh?

Jenna [00:02:30] Yeah. So in order to realign the Roman calendar with the Sun, Julius Caesar consulted with all these astronomers and mathematicians. And in the year forty six B.C., he added 90 days to the year. Can you imagine? Can you imagine it’s like it’s 46 B.C. you feel like what if you’ve had a tough year and you’re like, it’s almost over? I mean, it’s almost a new year. And then Julius Caesar is like, Guys, we’re going to add 90 days to the calendar.

Angela [00:03:02] You know what, I can’t stop thinking about is how did they get the word out? Because like, let’s just talk about, you know, for example, our kids school when there something, like a soccer game changes and the emails you get and the texts you get. But what if you’re not on the text thread and then you show up at soccer practice and it’s not that day? How did they get the word out?

Jenna [00:03:22] I don’t know.

Angela [00:03:23] I feel like people were showing up for work now, like, no, no, no, do do. Dude, we got like 90 more days of vacation like or something like, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, that was last year. That was last year. This is the new year. What are you talking about?

Jenna [00:03:38] Yeah, I mean, the Roman Empire was vast. How did they? It was a lot of scrolls.

Angela [00:03:44] A lot of scrolls and different languages.

Jenna [00:03:47] Did they do like hear ye hear ye news on the street?

Angela [00:03:50] Yeah. 90 more days of the year.

Jenna [00:03:53] Yeah. I don’t know.

Angela [00:03:54] I just feel like there’s someone that showed up to work. And, you know, they were like thinking it was one year, but it was the other year.

Jenna [00:04:00] I mean, can you imagine the paperwork problems? I don’t know. Well, listen, he called this new calendar the Julian calendar.

Angela [00:04:08] Of course he would.

Jenna [00:04:09] Of course. And he also declared that January 1st would be the first day of the year. He named January in honor of the God Janus, and he wanted to give Janice the honor of starting the whole calendar.

Angela [00:04:24] So Julius Caesar is the reason why our New Year’s in January.

Jenna [00:04:27] Yeah.

Angela [00:04:28] Oh my gosh.

Jenna [00:04:29] However, we don’t use the Julian calendar anymore. We actually use the Gregorian calendar, but it’s very similar. And they also consider January 1st the first day of the year. So that’s kind of how we got to January 1st. In the United States, we have the Times Square ball drop. That’s our big tradition.

Angela [00:04:48] Yes, I worked it with Carson Daly one year.

Jenna [00:04:51] I can’t believe you did that.

Angela [00:04:53] I froze my-.

Jenna [00:04:54] Was it so cold?

Angela [00:04:54] Heinie off.

Jenna [00:04:55] Yes.

Angela [00:04:55] I was so cold. It was really fun. I can’t believe I did it because I hate being cold, but I did it.

Jenna [00:05:02] That is epic, that is an epic like thing, as a performer, as a comedian, actor to be part of that celebration.

Angela [00:05:10] Live TV is terrifying.

Jenna [00:05:13] Well, this tradition has been going on since 1907. The ball started as a 700 pound orb made out of iron, wood and 100 light bulbs.

Angela [00:05:24] Only 100. Now it’s like the Griswold’s, like house in that “Christmas Vacation” movie.

Jenna [00:05:30] It is now 12 feet in diameter. It is 12,000 pounds. It is covered in LED lights and Waterford Crystal.

Angela [00:05:39] Fancy.

Jenna [00:05:40] Very fancy. So that’s it. Those are your like little New Year’s tidbits. You can bring those out at your party this year and sound very knowledgeable about the new year.

Angela [00:05:50] Well, I loved that Jenna. I loved every single second. We will be back next week with an all new episode. It’s extra long.

Jenna [00:05:57] Yes, we will be breaking down the one 100th episode of “The Office” “Company Picnic”. Am I good or bad at volleyball? We’ll tell you.

Angela [00:06:06] Before we go, one final reminder to please vote for us for the iHeart Podcast of the Year award. We’d really love to win.

Jenna [00:06:14] Yes, you vote on Twitter by tweeting three hashtags. Hashtag Office Ladies, hashtag Podcast of the Year, Hashtag iHeart Podcast Awards. The voting closes on January 2nd.

Angela [00:06:28] Yes, tell your friends. Have a little tweetin’ party and vote for us. All right, let’s listen to a “Traveling Salesman”, also known as the Larry and Marjorie episode.

Jenna [00:06:38] Yes, “Laundry and Betrayal”.

Angela [00:06:40] Come on.

Jenna [00:06:42] Happy New Year!

Angela [00:06:43] Happy New Year!

JENNA FISCHER [00:06:48] I’m Jenna Fischer.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:06:49] I’m Angela Kinsey.

JENNA FISCHER [00:06:50] We were on “The Office” together.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:06:51] And we’re best friends.

JENNA FISCHER [00:06:52] And now we’re doing the ultimate “Office” rewatch podcast just for you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:06:56] 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 FISCHER [00:07:03] Were the “Office Ladies”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:07] Hi, everybody. So if you see a photo of us podcasting, I am now in my husband’s closet. Those are not my baseball hats. That is his baseball hat collection.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:18] I like to wear baseball hats.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:20] You do. You, you’re sort of like a baseball hat family. I feel like all of your, all of your family loves baseball hats.

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:26] Oh lady, one Christmas, we were trying to find a family photo that we could put on our Christmas card. And I couldn’t find one where one of us wasn’t wearing a hat. And so we decided to make it a bit and we did a collage of just a baseball hat Christmas card. My mother-in-law was mortified. Mortified.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:07:48] She’s like, Why are you all in hats?

JENNA FISCHER [00:07:50] Yes. Baseball hats for your formal Christmas card. But yeah, it was like an inside joke. We’re a hat family. We would fit in very well in Josh’s closet. I guess is what I’m saying.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:01] I think you would. By the way, side note, your Christmas cards are always awesome. My favorite, and I have it hanging up in the kitchen, still, is the one where you guys are all holding Sunny, your cat.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:13] Oh, yes. That was another fun collage. We had a good time with that. Lee has Sunny on his head. I’m holding Sunny upside down. It was a good one. Thanks, lady.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:24] You guys have a floppy cat and floppy cats are so great in photos. My cats would have, like, shredded our heads, like if we tried that. OK. OK. So here we go. What are we doing today, Jenna?

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:36] Today we are talking about Season 3, Episode 12 “Traveling Salesmen”. Oh it’s so good.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:08:43] It’s so good. I rewatched this one and “The Return” with my kids. We all snuggled up in bed and watched them. They were laughing hysterically.

JENNA FISCHER [00:08:53] Well, Angela, it’s a good thing you watch those together. I did too, because they were actually created to be kind of one big episode to be watched together. And that is why they were written by three writers, Mike Schur, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. And both of those episodes were directed by Greg Daniels.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:14] All right, Jenna, why don’t you hit us with a summary?

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:16] All right. So in “Traveling Salesmen”, because that’s the episode we’re covering today. Dwight covers for Angela after she misses an important deadline. The sales team all pair up for sales calls, but at the same time, Angela uncharacteristically invites Pam to coffee and then discusses her love life, in code, but she discusses her love life. And then upon the return of the sales team, Michael learns that Dwight went to corporate behind his back. He doesn’t know why Dwight quits Dunder Mifflin.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:09:54] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:09:55] And then Karen finds out that Jim once had a thing for Pam.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:00] Oh yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:00] That’s a lot of stuff.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:02] That’s a lot of stuff. Phyllis man, she spilled the beans.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:05] I know. Phyllis.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:08] Phyllis. OK, we’ll get to that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:09] We’ll get to that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:11] I bet you have some really good Fast Facts.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:13] Well, you know, I do, because you know that we got something.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:18] We did.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:18] All right. So here’s what we got. All right. Fast Fact Number One. Like I said, both this and the next episode, “The Return”, were written and treated like one big episode. They were both directed by Greg Daniels. What do we do, Ang? Tell everybody what we did.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:10:36] We all reached out to Greg and he sent in audio clips and they are fantastic. And now Jenna and I want him to send in audio clips every single week.

JENNA FISCHER [00:10:45] Yes, his audio clips are so good, you guys, were giddy about them. So the first thing we asked him was what was the inspiration for this episode? And here is what he had to say.

GREG DANIELS [00:10:56] “Traveling Salesmen” and “The Return” is a little two episode arc that we did as part of the working out of the merger of the two branches stories. Andy was always conceived in “Gay Witch Hunt” to be the Stamford version of Dwight. So it was natural that they butt heads when the branches merged. And we liked the idea that Dwight, as the hometown favorite, gets to have a really strong and romantic arc here. You see a very noble side of him protecting the woman that he loves. And I think one of the reasons we made it two episodes was it didn’t, didn’t feel real to me or earned to have him leave and come back in only one episode. So it just felt a lot better to spread it out over two. And another part about that storyline was that it was parings. And, you know, a writing exercise that I often did with the writers was I’d have them try and come up with pairings of characters that we hadn’t had scenes together before. And so this entire episode was fun pairings like Ryan and Stanley or Phyllis and Karen. And, and, of course, Angela and Pam, who have a great emotional storyline where they really are kind of growing as friends. And it was really cool to see Jim and Dwight too, and see their backstory. And then the other thing about “Traveling Salesmen” was we used, in “The Client” we used being good at sales to make Michael more likable and, right? You know, in “Traveling Salesmen”, you see a whole bunch of different characters and how they are as salespeople and you see how, how great Jim and Dwight worked together. And Michael being like a straight man for Andy, who’s just terrible. And so it kind of helps distinguish the more likable original Dwight vs. the more sinister schemy, you know, new Dwight.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:07] Keep talking. Talk forever, Greg.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:09] Greg talk forever. It’s so fascinating. I loved that not only were there these new pairings of characters, but also of writers. It’s just so interesting.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:20] Yes. Yes, Ang. And so much comes out in this episode when you put these different people together for the first time really.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:32] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:32] So you guys, I don’t know if we need to start some sort of a petition, but we really want to create a new feature of the show called “Inspiration with Greg”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:43] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:43] And he will just send us an audio clip of the inspiration behind every episode.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:48] And there’s like piano music.

JENNA FISCHER [00:13:49] Greg will tell us the inspiration. And then Kent tells us the nuts and bolts of how he made that inspiration happen.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:13:57] Greg is listening right now and is like, ladies, what are you signing me up for?

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:00] Exactly.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:02] What is Fast Fact Number Two?

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:04] Well, Angela, speaking of Kent-opedia, Fast Fact Number Two is called “Locations, Locations, Locations”. So for this episode, because we actually shot it in conjunction with “The Return”, we did something called cross-boarding. It’s a little lingo that they used in the biz.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:26] Lingo alert. Showbiz lingo alert.

JENNA FISCHER [00:14:30] So cross-boarding is when you shoot two episodes at once. We normally shot one episode each week, but we shot these episodes over a 10 day period from October 16th, 2006 to October 27th, 2006. And the main reason for this was because of locations. We just had a lot of places to go in these two episodes, and having the flexibility to shoot it over a two week period was really helpful.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:14:59] Yes. And they would also do a thing, you guys, they call it “shooting out a location”. So, for example, every scene that happened in that coffee shop, they would film in one day and then they could close out that location. They don’t have to pay for that location for multiple days. So sometimes when you cross-board, it’s a great way to save money because you can shoot out a location.

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:21] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:22] Have we bored you to tears with a little behind-the-scenes lingo?

JENNA FISCHER [00:15:26] Lingo alert: shoot out a location. So since you brought up the coffee shop. Angela, we had a fan question from Breonna Kernin, Harshida Verma, and Molly Ottawa. “Did Pam and Angela go to the same coffee shop that Jim and Karen end up going to later? And is the coffee shop location the same one used in later episodes”? Yes, yes and yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:15:52] Yes and yes. And here’s a little tidbit, Jenna. I don’t know if you remember. That coffee shop was next door to the place we filmed the tattoo parlor scene.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:04] What?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:05] Yes. An upcoming episode with Andy, that tattoo parlor was next to the coffee shop.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:12] Oh yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:12] It must be some little strip mall that Kent just have good favor with. So he was like, OK, we’ll take that. We’ll take that.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:19] Well, here’s what Kent told me. He said the coffee shop was a real location. We filmed at a place called Java Groove Coffee. It was on Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:30] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:30] However, it has been closed and replaced by a printing company. So I’m sorry, if you come to L.A., you cannot get a cup of coffee anymore at Java Groove Coffee.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:41] Well, we’ll have to find out if they can get a tattoo next door still.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:45] Yes, perhaps. What a fun “Office” set tour that would be. You could go see the outside of Dunder Mifflin, grab a cup of coffee and get a tattoo. I mean, if you’re a diehard fan, right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:16:57] Yep.

JENNA FISCHER [00:16:58] But now you can just get something printed and then get a tattoo. All right. Well, I am not done talking about Fast Fact Number Two, Angela.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:05] Oh! I’m sorry.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:06] There’s more locations. We have so many more locations. This is a question from Kyle and Hadley, and Jordan Simpson. “Were all the sets that the salesmen traveled to local office buildings or were they built in the warehouse set like the fancy Stamford branch was”? All right. Are you ready?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:25] Mmhmm.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:25] They were not a set, they were a location, but they were all the same location. Here’s what they did. The building where Jim and Dwight are in the parking lot and Dwight’s like pumping himself up. That was in Van Nuys. It was at the Panorama Medical Plaza.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:45] “Plaza”, St. Louis. Was it at the Plaza?

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:48] It was at the Plaza. Oh, my gosh. That’s so St. Louis.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:17:52] Saints-. Oh, my gosh. I have a St. Louis catch later in the episode, but that’s, that’s the first one. “Plaza”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:17:58] Plaza. So at the Panorama Medical Plaza, they found a completely vacant floor. And they dressed five different spaces to be the various offices that everyone visits. Isn’t that amazing? They took one location and made it five different places. But there’s more.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:19] Oh. More?

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:21] So you know how we said we shot these two episodes together?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:25] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:25] In the next episode, “The Return”, at the beginning, you see Dwight going around with his resumé. Two of those offices were also part of the Panorama Medical building.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:18:37] That plaza covered a lot of ground, lady.

JENNA FISCHER [00:18:40] So much plaza. So one thing, the church scenes with Stanley and Ryan, those were filmed at the Panorama Presbyterian Church on Roscoe. So that was another separate location. And then there’s even Staples. But we’ll talk about that next week. So many locations.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:01] So many.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:02] All right. I think we’ve covered all the locations. Let’s move on to Fast Fact Number Three. Another fan question.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:09] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:09] Guys, we love your questions. They are so helpful in structuring the podcast. Thank you. All right. Fan question, Rachel Lavish and Rebecca Kelly said, “I noticed a weird discrepancy between the Netflix episodes and the DVD episodes. In the DVD episodes, there is a whole subplot about Pam winning an art contest. In the Netflix version of the episode, the whole thing is cut out. I haven’t been able to find anything online about it. Do you know why this is”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:19:42] Ladies, that is a fantastic question, because this whole podcast almost went haywire because Jenna was watching the Netflix episode and I was watching the DVD episode and they’re totally different.

JENNA FISCHER [00:19:57] Angela and I were so confused because we were trying to outline this episode and there were all these scenes that Angela was talking about that I remembered shooting, Angela, but that weren’t in the version I was watching.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:10] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:11] So I started digging around and here is what I found out. On March 15th, 2007, NBC aired a repeat of this episode, but they didn’t want to air an exact repeat. They wanted to get more viewers. So they called it a “New-peat”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:30] A new-peat?

JENNA FISCHER [00:20:31] You know, when they would run repeats, they wouldn’t get as many viewers, which meant fewer ad dollars for commercials. Right? Because that’s how networks make money. So they thought if we add a new-peat where it’s mostly the old episode, but then some stuff you’ve never seen before, maybe it would up the viewership. And that’s why there are now like these two different versions of this episode living out in the world because of some, somebody in marketing at NBC came up with this new-peat idea.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:20:59] I don’t think we ever did that again. I think this is our one and only new-peat. Am I right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:03] Well, I guess it happens again in Season 4.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:07] Oh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:07] When Phyllis tells Jim about her house that Bob bought her. It’s on the DVD, but it’s cut out of the Netflix version.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:15] So here’s what’s on the DVD. First of all, “Traveling Salesmen” and “The Return” are one episode on the DVD. They’re not two episodes. They’re one like supersized, huge episode. Crazy, right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:32] Crazy.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:33] But in the “Traveling Salesmen”, these are the scenes you missed if you watched it on Netflix. Pam gets a phone call that a watercolor she made won a sixth grade elementary school art contest.

JENNA FISCHER [00:21:46] I remember shooting it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:21:47] These sixth graders picked your art. You were really excited. You won a hundred dollars. You were really excited to tell Kevin about it. Kevin’s like, yeah, well, I won 400 dollars betting on a Celtics game. And you were like, OK, thanks for that, Kevin. And then she tells Angela. Pam is just desperate to tell someone that her art won and no one’s in the office, they’re all out on a sales call. So she pops up over the partition. Jenna, we have one of those classic over the partition Angela and Pam scenes, and she tells Angela and Angela has all this good favor in her heart towards Pam right now. You know? They’ve gone and got coffee. They’ve bonded. And so Angela goes, congratulations. And then she says, I really like having these little moments with you. And then she offers Pam, one of her kittens, Sprinkles has had kittens, and she offers Pam the dominant male name Ashe. And Pam clearly does not want this cat. She makes up excuses, she’s like, oh, you know, my landlord. It’s just, I, it’s a thing. And, you know, it would be-, I don’t know. And Angela is like “F U”. She instantly goes back to being just this cold, snarky person to Pam. That’s it. Their friendship’s over. It was so fleeting. And then lastly, when Jim finally comes back from his sales call, Pam is so excited to tell him and he is on his way out to have coffee with Karen. And Pam’s like, Jim. And he starts talking to her about it and Karen’s like, Um, we’re going to get coffee. So it was this awkward moment.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:22] I remember shooting all of that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:24] Here’s the other thing I found really interesting. So in the opening scene of the Netflix version, it’s Harvey, the computer, right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:33] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:33] Talking to Jim. That’s in the deleted scenes on the DVD. That’s not even in the episode.

JENNA FISCHER [00:23:40] Oh, so I, because I was wondering, well, what did they cut out of the episode in order to make room for Pam’s art contest? So there must be things when they aired this on NBC, there must be things missing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:23:55] In the deleted scenes on the DVD, there’s a lot of extra scenes in the cars driving.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:00] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:00] Lots of extra driving scenes. And then there’s this Harvey, the talking computer. That’s a deleted scene.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:07] Wow.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:09] So there you go. We are going to be following along the Netflix airing because that way our time codes will match up, but that’s what you will get if you go to the DVDs.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:20] I love it. I love it. I feel like I’m really happy with all of that. I think we should take a break and then come back and break down the episode.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:30] Sounds great. All right, we’re back. Let’s dive right in this episode. Michael is really excited to show Jim and Pam his new computer. It’s his buddy, his talking friend, Harvey.

JENNA FISCHER [00:24:51] Oh, my gosh. And basically, he types into the keyboard and then Harvey says stuff.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:24:58] Yes. And he’s made the back of the computer like a face. Like he used some Post-it notes like he’s-. Anyway, Harvey is this talking computer.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:06] Well, we got a fan question from Bailey Aspenson, Becky Gimmel, Meghan Khiel, Chelsea Lane and Alissa Sorensen. Everyone wants to know, “Who is the voice of Harvey”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:20] Oh, that’s a great question. Who is it?

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:23] I recognized it immediately and, did you recognize it, Angela?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:28] Oh, no, I didn’t.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:29] Oh, no! I, as soon as I heard the voice, I was like, Oh, it’s Mike Shur.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:35] Oh, my gosh. That’s such a great catch.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:38] So I emailed him and he was like, “Yes, it’s me. I was Harvey”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:25:42] So he, he’s the one that said, “Me so horny. Me love you long, Tim”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:25:46] Yes, exactly. And Pam’s like, “Oh, I’d love to meet Long Tim”. The way you and John played off Steve in that scene made me laugh so hard because Michael just get so frustrated that you guys aren’t thinking his talking computer is amazing.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:01] Well, some people notice that when we cut away to Michael’s screen, what he’s been typing doesn’t quite match with what you’ve been hearing. That’s just because the scene was longer. And we actually did have Harvey say all those lines and we had lines, but then in the editing room, they cut some of them out. So the screen was indicative of the scene as written. And it got a little trim down in the editing room. So that’s why his screen doesn’t quite match.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:29] Some really good fan catches right away.

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:33] I know. All right. So now, Angela, we move over to accounting and Kevin tells Angela that corporate did not receive their tax forms. But Angela says, no, no. They arrived this morning and he wants you to know how very important this is. Angela, here’s what I wrote down when I watched the scene.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:26:55] What?

JENNA FISCHER [00:26:58] “WTF is up with your hair”? Why do you have a flower of hair on the back of your head? Guys, I’m going to, I took a picture and I’m going to post it because it’s insanity. What is happening?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:14] When we got the script, Kim Ferry and I started talking, Kim is who did our hair, and we were like, you know Angela is happy in this episode. Now she starts out in the morning a little worried. Right? Did Dwight make it? Is everything gonna be OK? But she’s a lady in love and her man has done this amazingly gallant thing for her. And I feel like she’s sort of dressing the part of, like, this lady in love. She’s wearing her Janet Jackson “Rhythm Nation” mini short sleeved jacket that’s made a callback. And she did a little something extra fancy with her hair. Kim and I just thought maybe she’s just, she’s taking it up a notch.

JENNA FISCHER [00:27:55] Yeah. She turned her hair into a pinwheel flower.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:27:59] And clearly, she has eight arms and multiple mirrors, because how do you do that to the back of your head?

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:05] Well, when I saw that hair, all I could think about was, oh, my gosh. She couldn’t lay down during her breaks because sometimes at lunch I would want to, you know, lay back after I eat, maybe snooze it out because we would get up real early. Sometimes I need a little snooze at lunch, but you, you couldn’t do that that week, I guess.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:27] No.

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:27] Couldn’t lay all that. That would be so uncomfortable.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:29] I couldn’t even lean back on a chair, lady. I couldn’t even recline in any way.

JENNA FISCHER [00:28:35] Guys, check it out. You don’t have to look hard. It’s insane. It’s also amazing. We had a lot of people write in Julia Lee, Bethany Devish, Kaley Waiting, Anita Persaud. They all said Angeles hair looks incredible in this episode.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:28:52] Thank you. Thank you very much. And now we’re going to come up onto this talking head that Rashida actually mentioned when she was a guest on “Benihana”, where Andy talks about him and Karen being the last two left standing, right? And, and Andy says he’s not going to be one of the kids touring Willy Wonka’s factory. He will not fall into the Chocolate River.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:15] I love that reference.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:16] I loved it too, but all I could think about Jenna is that he does fall into the lake.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:23] When?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:23] At “Beach Games”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:25] Totally forgot that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:29:27] He falls into the lake, he’s in a giant sumo suit and he floats on by. And I couldn’t help but think what an amazing like callback to the Willy Wonka river thing. I don’t know. I thought that was kind of fun.

JENNA FISCHER [00:29:41] Oh, my God. Yeah. I totally-. Yes. I’m so sorry. It’s all coming back to me. We’ll get to it when we talk about “Beach Games”. But yes, Ed slowly floating away. I remember it now so clearly. So, Angela, now you’re standing at reception. You’re getting yourself some jelly beans and Dwight comes in. It’s so sweet. He lets you know the tax forms have been delivered.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:07] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:07] You guys are kind of talking in code. But of course, Pam is clocking at all. And then as you walk away, you say, “I don’t want these”, and you leave the jelly beans. We had a fan question.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:21] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [00:30:21] Ali Joe Higginbotham says, “Did Angela improve that line, ‘I don’t want these’ to Pam after she took the jelly beans”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:30:31] Yes. Yes, I did. The note that Greg had given me in that scene is that, you know, I’m so anxious to talk to Dwight to find out that everything went OK, but I had to make some business for myself, like, why would I be at reception? So I decided to kind of dig in the jelly beans. I just sort of was like, oh, this is what I’ll do. So I was digging in the jelly beans and I put a few on my hand throughout the scene. And then as Dwight walked away, I just had them in my hands so I just placed them on the countertop, like your kid would. I don’t want this.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:02] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:02] And just walked away. And it just tickled us so much. And they left it in. But the part I love even more Jenna is your look, your look of like, it said so much to me in the moment. It said people leave their water bottles and their trash on my desk.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:22] Constantly. All the time. After you would leave the jelly beans. I added a little bit that got cut out and probably it should have been cut out because it just would have gone on forever. But I would find all these various ways to get rid of the jelly beans. So I remember one time I picked up the trash can and I scooched them into the trash can using a piece of paper. And another time I, like, took a tissue and I picked them up with a tissue. And another time I think I picked them up and put them back in the jelly bean container.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:31:52] Ew.

JENNA FISCHER [00:31:52] But I had, I know, I had all these ways, but I got rid of these jelly beans and I had a good time with that. None of them made it in, of course, but it was just kind of like a fun little bit we were doing. So should we move into the conference room now, Angela?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:07] Oh, yeah. Because somebody needs to pass the tardy sauce.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:12] Yes. The entire sales team is assembled in the conference room and Dwight comes in late.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:17] So Andy is such a tool. Oh, my gosh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:21] So at the beginning of this scene, Michael explains that this is his dream team. This is my dream sales team. And we’re gonna pair up and go on some sales calls. And we had a fan question from Holly Enerson. Holly Enerson says, “Phyllis blows her nose right after Michael says, ‘This is my dream team’, was that scripted”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:45] I wondered the same thing because it’s brilliant. The timing is so perfect.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:51] It’s so perfect. Yes, it was scripted.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:32:54] Amazing.

JENNA FISCHER [00:32:56] Here is the script direction. Quote, “The camera pans to bored faces of the sales team. Phyllis blows her nose”. And, you know, I got, guys, this is a little moment because I watched it several times. It’s so great. Phyllis gets out her little tissue. She sniffles a little bit and then she blows her nose like she times it perfectly, but she starts the bit a little early. And I think that’s what sells, making it look so organic. It’s, it’s really wonderful work. Little details.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:32] Phyllis, man, with the tissue work.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:34] So everyone gets paired up.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:33:37] Yes. We get Karen and Phyllis, and Ryan and Stanley, Dwight and Jim, and Michael and Andy. Now they’re gonna go out and be in cars together all day. I couldn’t wait. I remember when we got the script, Jenna, at the table read when I saw like the groupings, I was like, oh, this is gonna be so fun.

JENNA FISCHER [00:33:56] Well, there’s a Ryan talking head in here that makes me laugh so hard.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:01] Because you are now Ryan in real life.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:03] I am now Ryan. I love it that he said he’s flattered to be Stanley’s second choice after pass. After pass. Stanley got to pick his partner and his first response was “pass”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:16] “Pass”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:34:16] Of the second response was, “I guess I’ll take the kid”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:34:21] Well, I wanted to talk really quickly about Jim’s talking head. He holds up that photo of Dwight and Jim like the old photo, because they clearly, they clearly have been on a ton of sales calls together. Right? And it shows their history a little bit, which I love. But in the DVD commentary, Rainn said that his hair in that photo was from 1991. He was on tour with an acting company doing “Romeo and Juliet”, and they all had long Elizabethan hair. And they sort of, they sort of like photoshopped it onto current Dwight, but they left that big hair. I just thought it was hilarious.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:01] I love that detail.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:02] I know. So now they’re all in the parking lot. They’re paired up into their teams. They’re about to get in their cars and go. Michael tosses Dwight his dirty laundry, which is a callback to “The Coup”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:16] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:16] I love it when our show does this and we have a few in this episode. But this is a callback to “The Coup”. And now he tells them all to circle up and he’s gonna give them their marching orders.

JENNA FISCHER [00:35:26] Yes. So then Michael says, guys, let’s, let’s go out at our sales calls. This is, it’s like the, we’re “The Amazing Race”. And everyone’s like, how are we “The Amazing Race”? Is there a prize? He’s like, no, there’s no prize. But were “The Amazing Race”. And he keeps, gives everybody these team names and everyone’s very confused. And then Michael just gets frustrated. He’s like, just go on your sales call. But I love that he brought up “The Amazing Race”. This was a really, really popular reality show at the time. And I was a huge fan.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:35:58] Jenna, we were so into it. I remember you and I watching “The Amazing Race”. And then Jenna, do you remember how you and I were like, we should go on. We should be a team on “Amazing Race” together.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:09] I stand by that. I think we should. I think we, we would have been amazing.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:13] I think we would have been a total mess.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:16] Why? Why?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:19] Because I think you would be like, “Let’s go. Let’s go”! And I’d be like, “Can we just take a break? Maybe we’ll have a glass of wine”. And you’d be like, “Angela”! Also, I can’t eat any of that gross stuff, lady. I can’t eat the gross stuff.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:31] Well, this is the problem. I think we would both have some of the same weaknesses. I think we couldn’t eat the gross stuff and maybe neither one of us would have great upper body strength for some of the like, things where you have to like, like toss bales of hay down a maze or something, like, you know?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:48] How about zero upper body strength?

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:51] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:51] Like zero.

JENNA FISCHER [00:36:53] So maybe it wouldn’t have been such a great team, but we would have had fun.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:36:57] I think we would have had fun. I think we would have had one colossal meltdown and then a fight, and then we would have cried and then we’d laugh hysterically. We’d look like crazy people, but we would have had fun.

JENNA FISCHER [00:37:09] I tell you what, we would have been good TV.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:37:11] Oh my God. We would have been great TV. OK. OK, well, we actually asked Greg about this “Amazing Race” moment and here’s what he had to say.

GREG DANIELS [00:37:22] The comparison to “Amazing Race” was fun because it’s a reality, we were a reality based comedy show. It was a lot easier for the visual look of the show to be able to try and do references to other reality shows rather than movies, for instance. So the, there’s like a “Titanic” ref, reference in “Booze Cruise”, but I don’t think it, it works as visually well as “Amazing Race” reference for, for here.

JENNA FISCHER [00:37:52] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:37:52] It totally makes sense to me, though. I think Michael is such a fan of pop culture and television and film, like he wants any opportunity for his documentary of this paper company, whatever this is, this camera crew that follows him around. He thinks he’s on par with the entertainment of the day.

JENNA FISCHER [00:38:11] Yes. Yes. Well, so now everyone gets in their cars and we kind of start driving around, and Angela, speaking of driving. We had a lot of questions about how we pulled off these driving shots. Amy Jackson, Diondre Tessone, Holly E., T.J. McMillan, William Burke, and many more people all asked, “How did filming work for the driving scenes? Are you guys actually driving or is there a green screen? What cameras were used in the car scenes? And are the actors really driving around”? Well, first of all, the actors really are driving around. That is not a green screen. And then we went to Greg and we asked him to talk a little bit about what it was like to shoot people in the cars. And here’s what he had to say.

GREG DANIELS [00:38:59] One of the things I had noticed in production was how easy it was to shoot in a car for, for our show. You just basically put the two characters in the car and set up lipstick cameras and drove around and improvised a lot. And so the idea for “Traveling Salesmen” was we could get a lot of production value out of getting out of the office and it wouldn’t be too hard for us to do. We just tricked out these cars and they would go off.

JENNA FISCHER [00:39:28] So we had a little lingo alert there. When Greg talks about lipstick cameras, those are itty bitty tiny cameras that they would put up in our visors in the car at an angle and one would shoot one passenger and one would shoot the other passenger. And we would just literally do what Greg said. We would just drive around and we would have a little walkie talkie in the car and there would be a car either in front of us or behind us that had the crew, the director, a sound person. They could hear us. They could see us on a little like mobile video screen. And they would talk to us over the walkie talkie and they would say, oh, that was great, we’re gonna do that again. And then we would just drive around. They would have police cars. Remember the police cars, Ang?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:16] Yeah, we had like the motor, motorcycle police guys too, who would sort of be in the front and we’d have this path that was cleared for us so that we wouldn’t have to drive around people who didn’t know we were filming. Right? So it was safe and we would just basically make a loop, usually, in one neighborhood we’d just make the same loop over and over.

JENNA FISCHER [00:40:37] Yeah. That was the whole thing that Kent Zbornak a.k.a. Kent-apedia. He would have to clear that. He would have to call the highway patrol or the police and they would give us a zone that we were allowed to use for a certain period of time on that day. And we would just loop around.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:40:55] And it was always difficult in Los Angeles to find a loop that didn’t have any palm trees.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:01] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:01] So we, we tend to film in the same neighborhoods over and over because clearly they found trees that looked possibly East Coast-ish, you know?

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:11] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:11] So we got to know these loops very well. One of the things Dave Rogers said in the DVD commentary is that this was the first time that we used the lipstick cameras in the cars. Previously, when we had done driving scenes, one of our camera operators, Randall or Matt, would be scrunched in the backseat with a camera.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:29] And, you know, I noticed the video quality was a little different on the lipstick cameras when I was watching it. It’s not quite as crisp as a Matt camera or a Randall camera.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:40] Look at you, Miss Techie. You’ve got a tech alert there? Look at you.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:44] I noticed it.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:44] Oh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:41:45] I did. So let’s talk about all of these cars and all they’re driving around.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:41:51] Well, the first scene we really see is Andy and Michael. And Andy is determined to use this one-on-one time with Michael to chip away at Dwight. Right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:00] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:01] He’s going to undermine him. He asks about the laundry. Michael tells him that Dwight went to corporate to try to get his job. And oh, my gosh. Andy is, like, so happy to get this information.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:12] Yes. He’s going to spend this whole episode slowly chipping away at Dwight’s reputation.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:18] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:18] Well, then we see Phyllis. She pulls into a beauty salon. Her and Karen are going to get some super glam makeovers. We don’t know why.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:28] It looks like when you used to go to the mall to glamor shots, did you ever do that?

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:32] I never did glamor shots, but my sister Emily did.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:36] Yes, I never did it either, but my sister Tina did. And they, they gave her this enormous hairdo, like this bouffant hairdo and all this makeup. And I think like a feather boa.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:49] That was common, that was common. And they would shoot you on a green screen and then sort of insert different backgrounds, if I remember correctly.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:56] Yeah. Like the Eiffel Tower.

JENNA FISCHER [00:42:58] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:42:58] Like they would. OK. So that is what this makeover looks like.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:01] That might be like an old tech alert. Does glamor shots still exist?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:06] I don’t think so, lady. I don’t think so. I think the era of the selfie and the iPhone. There aren’t glamor-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:12] And the filters.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:12] And the filters, glamor shots are no more.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:17] Well, then we also have Ryan and Stanley. And Ryan asked Stanley if he could take the lead on this sales call and Stanley is like, nothing would delight me more.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:28] Oh, Stanley knows something. And he’s tickled. He can’t wait.

JENNA FISCHER [00:43:32] Oh, can’t wait. We, we’ll find out why in a little bit. So now back at the office, while all this driving around is happening, Angela invites Pam to coffee.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:43:44] Yes. And Pam was like, what? But OK. Now, on a personal note, I was thrilled to do this scene. You and I never got to do scenes together, let alone go on a location together. We were giddy, Jenna. We couldn’t wait. So some of that smiling and happiness, you see in Angela Martin is just me being happy that I get to do a scene with my BFF. And I get to be normal. I get to smile and not be snarky.

JENNA FISCHER [00:44:13] It was so, we were so excited, Angela, when we got this script.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:18] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:44:18] All of my scenes are basically with you.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:20] Yeah, we have the same work day. And then we had a few days off. It was like, we were like, woo hoo!

JENNA FISCHER [00:44:25] It was kind of like BFF Week.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:27] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:44:28] For us. Well, some people pointed out that at the end of this scene, Pam grabs a notebook and people were wondering, why is Pam bringing a notebook to coffee? Is she going to take notes on Angela? No, no. You guys, there was a line that got cut out. Pam says to Angela, “You know what? I’ll go around and take some coffee orders. I’ll see, I’ll see if anybody wants anything”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:44:54] Yes. This is in the deleted scenes. She goes around, Meredith gets really angry at you. She’s like, why would I pay four dollars for milk in a cup? And she’s like gets all angry.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:03] Yeah. Her and Creed get real cranky, right?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:06] Yeah. They get real cranky about the fancy coffee orders. And there is a scene, Jenna, that just will break your heart, because when we come back with the coffee, it’s clear that Toby only ordered coffee so he could have some interaction with Pam. But when she comes back with all the coffees and she’s passing them around, she just hands it to Kelly, who then takes it to Toby. And Toby just looks at Pam through the glass partition from the annex. And he just, he just puts the coffee in the trash. He didn’t even get to talk to her. Aw Toby.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:37] Poor Toby.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:38] Toby.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:39] So sad. Well, Ang, in the script, there is a scene where Pam is taking Toby’s coffee order.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:45:47] Oh, yeah? That’s not in the deleted scenes.

JENNA FISCHER [00:45:50] Yeah. And he orders a chai latte and Pam says, “Oh, my gosh, that’s my coffee order”. And he’s like, “Oh, really? It is-, oh, we have the same coffee order”. Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:05] Aw.

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:05] So not only does he not get his coffee delivered by Pam, he ordered a coffee he didn’t even really drink just to have something in common with her.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:15] Toby. Waa waa. He’s stalking Pam and in love with her. So now you guys, we’re in the parking lot and Dwight wants to amp himself up. He’s got to get pumped for this sales call. Jim knows, they have been on countless sales calls. He’s like, “You still do the thing”? And he’s like, “Just give me the keys”. And then he plays like, I don’t know, is it like Motley Crue or something?

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:36] Yeah, heavy metal.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:36] And then once again, we see we see Dwight like rocking out, doing air guitar and heavy metal, like punching the seat to get ready.

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:45] Yes. Yeah. This is their, this is his routine, I guess.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:46:49] Yeah. And Jim knows it. They’re like old roommates. He’s like, here we go. I stand out here. He does air guitar.

JENNA FISCHER [00:46:56] So he is amped up because then when they’re walking into the building, Dwight has to be Dwight, and he’s like, “You go in first”, because he doesn’t wanna get attacked from behind.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:08] “7 out of 10 attacks are from the rear”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:11] Right. And Jim is like, “Well, what about the other 30 percent”? And Dwight’s like, “I’d block it, I’d block it. You can’t get me”. And then in, like, midsentence, Jim just hauls off and smacks Dwight and he is shocked. He can’t believe he’s been attacked from the front.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:47:31] He can’t believe it. Also, he’s about to break. Rainn is about to laugh. You can totally see it. At 8 minutes, 50 seconds, Rainn is about to laugh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:47:40] Oh, one hundred percent. One hundred percent. Well, we had a fan question from Rachel Fortune, “Was Jim supposed to slap Dwight as they walk in the building because Rainn looked truly shocked”? Well, guys, this was a scripted moment. But there’s a reason why Rainn was surprised, even though it was scripted. And we asked Gragg about it. Here’s what he had to say.

GREG DANIELS [00:48:06] So some people asked about the Jim slapping Dwight moment. So, you know, it’s fun to think of the two of them as being teamed up earlier in their career. And we, we gave it kind of an Abbott and Costello comedy team feel, you know, where Jim is like stopping short so Dwight hits his head and usually at these little moments involve some comeuppance for Dwight. And I remember John came up to me right before we were going to shoot the part where he, he hits Dwight in the face and he said that he wanted to hit Rainn for real, a little bit harder than they had worked out just to get a good startle out of him. And I can’t recall whether Rainn was in on this, but just didn’t want to know which take. But we kind of worked out which take he was going to do. And. And I’m pretty sure we use the one where Rainn was really startled that John had hit him.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:04] So here’s the deal on the DVD commentary, Rainn and John talk in depth about this moment and Rainn asked John to hit him harder. He was like, “I want you to hit me hard”. And here’s the thing about Rainn. He’s very method, you guys. When I slapped him, remember, in “Casino Night”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:22] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:22] He said to me, “Ang, you gotta slap me harder, really slap me”. So in the DVD commentary, John was like, “Remember Rainn? You were like, ‘slapped me harder’. And I was like, ‘OK’”. And of course, that’s the take they use because Rainn was legitimately like, whoa. And then he almost started laughing.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:40] Well, you can totally tell that he was taken aback.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:45] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:45] You can. And it ends up making a scripted moment look unscripted.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:49:49] But it was definitely scripted. I remember it’s something like Dwight get smacked in the head by Jim.

JENNA FISCHER [00:49:55] And, you know, we would always have stunt coordinators come in any time we had to put our hands on another actor, even if it was something that might be considered small, like a slap. And they actually teach you how to hit someone with your palm in this certain sort of cupped way. So it makes a louder noise or it looks more violent than it really is. And so, you know, we always had that training in us as well. So I guess I should say Rainn was not hurt in the execution of this, but he was certainly shocked.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:27] Well, it worked and it cracked Rainn up and everyone else. And that’s the take they picked. So, lady, where are we? Are we going into some sales calls?

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:37] We are. We’re about to go into all these sales meetings. But why don’t we take a break and then we’ll pick up right there in just a moment?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:43] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:50:54] All right, we are back. Let’s talk about all of these sales meetings.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:50:59] Yes, I think the first one is Michael and Andy, and Jenna, once again, we see that Michael is a good Salesmen. He knows how to connect with people.

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:08] He really does. He really does. He doesn’t know how to be someone’s boss. That is his failing. He thinks that he’s supposed to entertain you as a boss.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:20] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:20] But he does know how to connect with people one on one. And he really connects with this guy over fishing. He complements the fish that he caught.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:29] And it’s a callback to Lake Wallenpaupack.

JENNA FISCHER [00:51:32] Love a callback.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:51:33] Love a callback. And then Andy’s like, “Yeah. My dad has Bayliner”, whatever he says. “I shot a shark”. I mean, if you were a true fisherman. The idea of shooting a fish in any way is so off putting. There is sort of an art to fishing and a lot of people even do like the throwback. You know, if they’re fishing on a lake. So you can just tell this really was off putting to this man.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:00] Angela, do you know all of that because of your ex-boyfriend that made you watch “Bass Masters”?

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:06] Oh, God, you had to bring up-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:10] I want to tell you, Angela and we talked about “Bass Masters” on the podcast.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:15] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:15] They sent us each a little goody bag of stuff. And one of the things that they sent us, it was so sweet, they just said, “Hey, thanks for talking about us”. It was totally organic and random. But they sent me this journal.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:28] A leather bound journal. It’s so nice.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:32] A leather bound journal that says “Bass Masters” on it. And I love it. It is my new favorite journal. So now, because of your ex-boyfriend making you watch “Bass Masters” and you bringing it up on this podcast, I now journal in a “Bass Masters” Journal. That is what has happened.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:52:51] Well, you’re welcome. And Kyle says you’re welcome. That was his name.

JENNA FISCHER [00:52:58] Well, thank you, Kyle.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:00] Oh no, it’s out there.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:03] Oh boy.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:03] Yeah, well, “Bass Masters” sent me a hoodie that I love. I walk around with my “Bass Masters’” hoodie. Yes. So here’s the thing. There is a great little moment in the DVD commentary about this scene, where Ed says that he and Steve did go off script in this scene. And the actor that plays the man they’re, you know, the business owner they’re talking to was not really ready for them to go off script. He wasn’t-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:30] Oh, dear.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:53:31] And he just gave them this sort of odd, quizzical look like, what are you talking about? And Dave Rogers is in this commentary and he goes, “But it was perfect”. So that look, you see this man giving Michael and Andy, like, “what?” is really earnest.

JENNA FISCHER [00:53:49] Oh, my gosh. I love that. I love that tidbit. Well, guys, the actor who plays the client that Michael and Andy are talking to is named Warren Sweeney. So, Warren, while you were surprised your look worked.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:04] It totally worked.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:06] Well, then we cut to the car and you can tell Michael is not pleased with Andy, but Andy turns it around and he’s like, “I’m so sorry for screwing up our sales call. I really Schrute-d it”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:21] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:21] “That’s what we say around the office when someone really screws up, we say they Schrute-d it”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:25] And he’s like, “I wonder, wonder how that name came up. I wonder if it’s because of Dwight”. And Michael gives him nothing. Michael’s like, well who knows how words are formed. Like he’s not getting it. And Andy is getting so frustrated. Andy has planted all these seeds that Dwight is an idiot. And Michael is not getting it. It’s awesome.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:45] So let’s now talk about Phyllis and Karen’s meeting. They get a very large order from this gentleman.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:53] Oh, this is my St. Louis catch. All right? This is around-.

JENNA FISCHER [00:54:57] OK.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:54:58] This is around 11 minutes, 33 seconds. And Phyllis goes, “Well, thanks. That’s a big order”. She doesn’t say order. That’s a big order. It says like “arter”.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:09] Yeah. That’s right. In line with “fark”. Oh, St. Louis catch.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:14] And then. And then she asked how his wife is doing and he shows a photo of himself and his wife on vacation and they look just like her. The same hair, the same makeup. And Karen’s like ah, I see what you’re doing, Phyllis. Very smart. OK, we’ve got to talk about Dwight and Jim in their sales call because Jenna, they clearly have a whole shtick.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:38] Yes, I loved it. It’s so seamless.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:55:44] Yes. I want you to know my kids laughed so hard when Dwight when he’s making the call and he’s going “7… 3.” They were cracking up.

JENNA FISCHER [00:55:55] Well, I don’t know about you, Angela, but I hate those like robo call customer service lines so much that I, I just like immediately when they come up I’m like, “Agent. Speak to, speak to pharmacist. Agent”. I won’t even say any numbers. I’m like I can’t, I can’t.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:56:17] Jenna, I have such a fond memory of my dad. It’s weird, you know, when you, when someone you love so much passes away. And I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer here in this moment because this is a happy memory for me. But it’s interesting the things your brain latches on to and holds dear. Things you would never, ever expect. But I have such a vivid memory of my dad on the phone with clearly like some kind of, like, robot. And he is, he is this, you know, he was just this sweet cowboy, you know, Southern guy. And he was going. “5.. No. Yes. Talk to person. Person”. And then like whatever the password was, “Tractor. Tractor”. Oh.

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:13] Aw, I love that, Ang, I loved that you shared that.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:19] It made me think of him. It’s weird. It’s weird the way your brain works like that. Your brain and your heart.

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:25] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:25] OK. So, yes. So Dwight is doing this call. We don’t know who he’s calling. And Jim presses on with his sales pitch, right?

JENNA FISCHER [00:57:34] Yes. Through all of this. And the guy is like, “Listen, I, I don’t know what to tell you. I mean, I just maybe feel more comfortable with the, with a bigger company, with one of the big guys”. And they’re like, “Well, is customer service important to you”? And he’s like, “It’s very important”. And he’s like, “Well, we’ve been on hold with the customer service department of a big company”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:57:56] Ooh. And there’s the switch. Aha. There was a whole purpose. And then he calls Dunder Mifflin customer service. And Kelly answers and was like, “Hey, oh my God. What are you guys doing”?

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:07] Yes. Yes. So amazing. And then the guy is like, “Sold. I’ll give you my business”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:14] Sold. And Dwight hands him his business card and Jenna, I love what’s on Dwight’s business card, his cell number, his pager number, his home number and his other pager number.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:24] Yeah. And then he says, I take no days off. I’ve never been sick and I don’t celebrate any major holidays.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:30] And he’s like, “OK, OK. I got it”. Interesting tech alert. His email was not on his business card, Jenna.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:38] Huh.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:39] Nowadays, I think your email would be on their.

JENNA FISCHER [00:58:42] For sure.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:58:43] For sure. But we shot this in the Stone Age. So now Ryan and Stanley go into the church for their sales call and these four older, very sort of like dignified black men in their suits walk out to him. They’re clearly an older generation. They’re Stanleys generation. And there’s this young white kid who, Jenna, I don’t think I’ll think Ryan’s been in the church in a while.

JENNA FISCHER [00:59:09] No. And we’ve established that the way all these sales calls are successful is by people connecting with their client in some personal way. And we quickly see that Ryan is going to have a hard time connecting with these gentlemen. And he just sort of starts stammering and he just keeps introducing himself over and over again. “Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi”.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:59:28] “Hi”. I love that Stanley is like, I’m not helping you. In fact, I’m just gonna ignore you. I’m a turn away and do my crossword and let you just fl-, what’s the expression Jenna? Where you’re flapping the wind?

JENNA FISCHER [00:59:40] Blowin’ the wind? Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:59:41] Something like that. He’s just going to hang him out to dry there. It’s so good.

JENNA FISCHER [00:59:46] I was able to find out the names of two of the clients, but I couldn’t find names for the other guys. But Landon H. Lewis Jr. and Leon Simmons J. are two of the clients in that scene.

ANGELA KINSEY [00:59:56] I also loved how all of the men in the scene were so much taller than B.J. because it really also made him just look so young, you know?

JENNA FISCHER [01:00:08] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:08] Next to them. Just the size difference.

JENNA FISCHER [01:00:11] Yes. And then later, when they’re in the car, Angela, Stanley cannot stop laughing. There are all these shots that go back to them, driving back to Dunder Mifflin. And Stanley is just like can’t believe, he’s so delighted by how that went and-.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:28] He’s so tickled. It clearly made his day. I don’t know that Stanley gets much joy out of working at Dunder Mifflin, but this was a real highlight for him. And there’s this moment that Leslie talks about in the DVD. He said in the script it was just that Stanley is driving and laughing and they just kind of let him go. And he improvised the whole thing about, “Ha ha, you sounded like my six month old niece”. And like all of that, Leslie was just riffing.

JENNA FISCHER [01:00:55] Oh, that was so good.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:00:57] I know. And he said, in fact, when ever Stanley would go off on Ryan, as he has throughout the show, they would just let Leslie just go. And I think there’s some amazing moments.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:10] Oh, yes. Yes. Well, you know, and this is Ryan’s second sales call now, that has not gone well. Remember, he went on the initiation sales call with Dwight? They did not make the sale. And now he’s gone out on this call with Stanley. Now, I believe Stanley is going to save this sale.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:26] Oh, Stanley for sure saved it.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:28] OK. So while all of these sales meetings are happening, Pam and Angela are at the coffee shop.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:34] Angela is in such a great mood and she’s telling Pam a story about how she had this friend who was in need and this gallant man came to her rescue.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:45] Yeah. She’s like he must really care for her a lot because he did this wonderful thing for my friend.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:01:54] Yeah, she’s talking in code.

JENNA FISCHER [01:01:56] She’s speaking in code. She’s like, “My friend. Let’s, let’s call her Noelle. And this gallant gentleman. We’ll call him Kurt”. Well, we all know that Kurt is Dwight’s middle name, right?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:02:10] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [01:02:11] And we got a lot of fan questions about this, Angela. Kinsey B., Elizabeth R., Julia Lee, Nicole Fink and Katie Krul all want to know, “When Angela refers to her friend Noelle, is that because Noelle is Angela’s middle name”? It definitely sounds like a very Angela Martin middle name.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:02:35] Well, yes, it is Angela’s middle name. Angela thinks she’s being really savvy. But Pam totally knows who she’s talking about. But, yes, that is her middle name. But Jenna, I have a question for you.

JENNA FISCHER [01:02:48] OK.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:02:49] Is Noelle in the script? Because I have a little story about that middle name, and I’m curious. I think what was in the script was Collette.

JENNA FISCHER [01:02:58] OK. I looked this up and in the script, Angela actually says this. She says, “Well, a friend of mine, let’s just call her, oh, let’s just call her me”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:12] What?

JENNA FISCHER [01:03:13] And then you giggle.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:03:15] OK, so my memory of this is when we were shooting it that day, that the writers were pitching me different middle names like different things to say. I know in one of them, it was Collette. I have such a memory of saying that. And, and then we said Noelle. And I like Noelle the best because it sounds very sort of Angela Martin. Doesn’t it? Her love of Christmas, her love of the story of Christmas. That Noelle would be her middle name. And that’s the one we went with. And Dave Rodgers talks about it in the DVD commentary. He goes, “I remember it being Collette”. And he thought maybe I improvised Noelle. But I didn’t. That was a writer’s pitch. I mean, I think I was part of the dialog. I think we were pitching names. But that all sort of happened in the moment.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:06] I love it. It’s perfect.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:04:09] It is perfect.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:09] It is such a, Angela Noelle Martin. And I believe that will appear on your wedding invitation.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:04:16] Oh, yeah. It’s now, it’s now part of my character show Bible.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:21] We had another fan catch in this scene, Angela. Sarah Rousse wrote in to say, “Pam is holding a piece of paper at the coffee shop. What is that supposed to be? And what does it say”? Well, Sarah, that was the list of coffee orders from those deleted scenes.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:04:39] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [01:04:40] I had all the coffee orders written down on that piece of paper and I was going to use it to make my order. Well, Angela, also in this scene, just because we were talking about it earlier, your flower hairdo is on full display. Just if you really want some great shots of it, guys. Here it is, her WTF hairdo right here.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:05:01] WTF. Well, wait, wait. I have something to share. So while we are on a break, I had been texting Kim Ferry about this hair and she texted back. And so this is what she had to say about it. I said-.

JENNA FISCHER [01:05:12] Oh, my gosh, it’s a real time tidbit.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:05:14] It’s a real time tidbit. It just came in a few minutes ago. I said, “Kim, what was the inspiration for this bun? I mean, I know that we thought my character was going to, like, be in a great mood. And so we wanted to try something new”. She said, “Yes, here is the inspiration”. She said, “My first job in the business was working on a sci-fi show called ‘Babylon 5’. I worked on this show for five years and I couldn’t use any contemporary hairstyles because they wanted the hairstyles to look futuristic. So I started coming up with all these different kind of braids and, and buns with wires and fancy up dos and Zulu knots. Basically, anything different that I could think of. And your bun with those fun swirls was a good one for me because I had done it on ‘Babylon 5’. It’s fast and easy, but technically this is a sci-fi hairstyle”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:15] Oh, my gosh.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:06:18] Isn’t that great? Don’t you feel like Dwight would have loved it because he was Mr. Sci-Fi?

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:24] Yes. Yes. No wonder she did her hair in this “Babylon 5” hairstyle to thank Dwight for his like favor.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:06:36] Yeah. So, yes, his hairstyle inspired by “Babylon 5”. It’s the sci-fi bun.

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:42] I don’t think I could love that more. Kim Ferry, thank you for the real time tidbit.

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:47] Thank you, Kim Ferry. Sam just wrote, “Beats Bears ‘Babylon 5′”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:06:53] Beats-, oh wait, here we go. Bears Beats “Babylon 5” Buns.

JENNA FISCHER [01:06:57] Oh. OK, so now everybody is coming back from their sales calls. Everyone’s done. And we have this amazing scene in the car with Karen and Phyllis.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:07:10] Phyllis is so good in the scene because you guys, she is going to reveal such a big plot point and she just throws it away. Right?

JENNA FISCHER [01:07:20] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:07:21] It’s not like belabored in any way. It’s so perfect.

JENNA FISCHER [01:07:26] Yeah. She’s like, “Karen, I. I had a lot of fun with you today. I really enjoy spending time with you”. They’re bonding. They feel good. And then she just very offhandedly says, “And I’m really glad you’re with Jim. That makes me really happy because, you know, he was really hung up on Pam for such a long time”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:07:46] And she’s, she’s not even looking at Karen. She’s looking in a rearview mirror. She’s turning, she’s just driving, just sort of saying something off the cuff and it’s that much more powerful. And then Rashida. Oh, my gosh. Her reaction is so perfect. It’s a fantastic scene. Fantastic scene.

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:06] I feel like her pulse stops for a second. Like, I feel like I can see the wind go out of her. Right?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:08:13] Yeah, yeah, I did too.

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:14] She’s just like, ah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:08:17] You just, you see it hit her like a freight train. But she can’t react.

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:22] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:08:22] The way it’s really hitting her, it’s so well done. These ladies did such a great job.

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:29] I agree.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:08:30] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:31] Well, Andy is the first person to actually get back to the office. And he starts, he starts sneaking around Dwight’s desk. He goes through his car.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:08:42] Yeah, Andy’s a total snake.

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:44] I mean, what the heck?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:08:46] I know.

JENNA FISCHER [01:08:46] And he finds this tollbooth receipt that proves that Dwight was in New York this morning. He didn’t oversleep like he claimed. And he marches into Michael’s office and he’s like, “I found this tollbooth receipt. I wonder what he was doing. Was he, maybe he was talking to Jan”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:09:04] And then he says, like, “I seem to kind of remember-, I don’t know who told me this”. Even though Jenna, this was like, like an hour ago. He’s like, “I don’t know who told me this, it was something-“. And then he has, maybe one of my favorite quotes of this episode. He was like, “There was a story, I don’t know, was about laundry and betrayl”. In my mind, this is now a Lifetime movie called “Laundry and Betrayal”. I want to see it.

JENNA FISCHER [01:09:33] Yes. Yes. “Laundry and Betrayal”. I want to see this film.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:09:37] I do too.

JENNA FISCHER [01:09:38] Well, so Michael alls Jan and Jan is like, “Well, I didn’t speak to Dwight, but he did not give a reason for why he was here”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:09:48] Yes, this is my kid’s favorite part. My kid’s favorite part is Jan goes, “He did sign into the security sign-in sheet, but under state your business, he wrote ‘Beeswax Not Yours Incorporated’”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:10:02] I loved that too.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:10:03] My kids loved that.

JENNA FISCHER [01:10:05] Well, when Dwight gets back to the office, Michael confronts him. He’s like, “Where were you? Tell me where you were”, and Dwight will not say. He won’t say where he was.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:10:16] He overslept. The damn rooster didn’t crow.

JENNA FISCHER [01:10:19] Yeah. But he will not, he will not fess up. And this becomes a problem.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:10:26] And Pam knows why. Pam and Angela are exchanging looks. Angela is sweating it. She’s horrified that Dwight’s going through this. But she doesn’t want people to know about them. It’s very layered emotionally for Angela.

JENNA FISCHER [01:10:40] Well, it leads to a break room scene with Dwight and Angela, where you are again, not facing one another, one of your famous, famous break room scenes.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:10:50] There’s a little bit of heartbreak in the break room in this scene.

JENNA FISCHER [01:10:54] Oh, lady, I noticed it too. Here’s what we had.

MICHELLE FERGUSON [01:11:00] [“Heartbreak in the Break Room” song plays]

ANGELA KINSEY [01:11:14] That was by Michelle Ferguson. Michelle, you know how much we love that song. We love it. Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:11:21] Michelle, I literally listen to it all the time. It’s super catchy.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:11:24] It’s very catchy.

JENNA FISCHER [01:11:25] I really love it. Someone give this woman a music contract. We’ll buy it. OK?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:11:31] We love it. Yeah, so Dwight is like, “Listen, why don’t we just come clean and, you know, let people know our love for one another”? So this scene actually went on, it’s not in the deleted scenes, but we did shoot a little bit longer version where as I cry behind me, Dwight’s like, “Don’t cry, monkey. Monkeys don’t cry”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:11:53] Aw, I kind of wish that was still in there.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:11:55] I know. I know.

JENNA FISCHER [01:11:57] Well, Angela, a few people wrote in about this scene because they noted that when you start dating Andy, you have no problem with everyone in the office knowing it.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:12:07] Oh, well, Angela, revenge dates Andy, you guys. Andy is not her true love that she wants to protect and keep all to herself because it’s so special. She’s starting to date Andy because she’s mad as hell at Dwight.

JENNA FISCHER [01:12:22] Right.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:12:22] Very different motivation.

JENNA FISCHER [01:12:24] Right.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:12:25] In the meantime, Karen and Jim have gone to coffee and Karen is going to ask Jim if he had feelings for Pam and lady, I have a clip. Sam, play the clip, because everything you need to know is right here, Karen. Why couldn’t you hear it?

RASHIDA JONES [01:12:45] Let me ask you question?

JOHN KRASINSKI [01:12:48] Ok.

RASHIDA JONES [01:12:49] Did you ever have a thing for Pam?

JOHN KRASINSKI [01:12:51] Pam? Did I ever have a thing for her? No. Why? Did she say something?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:12:58] It’s so clear. That’s all you need to know, Karen. He clearly has a thing for her. But poor Karen, she, you know, he convinces her that he doesn’t. Maybe he’s not ready to admit it. Right? And she is not ready to really see truth. But, you know, down deep, she knows.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:19] Well, lady, she says, I moved here.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:22] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:23] I moved here, and I think that’s the part of Karen that doesn’t want to see the truth because it’s a little humiliating to deal with the fact that you moved somewhere for the wrong person.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:36] Exactly. We all have a friend who has moved somewhere for someone and then it didn’t work out. It’s devastating.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:42] But then they hang on to it because they moved.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:13:46] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:13:46] And it’s like you want, you’re willing it to be right, even though you know it’s wrong. So this is the moment where I know we’ve been coming down kind of hard on Wishy Washy Jim, but this is the moment where Karen is now not reading the signals.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:14:03] No. No.

JENNA FISCHER [01:14:05] So Ang, should we go back to Dunder Mifflin to this grand announcement from Dwight?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:14:12] Yes. I mean, he makes this huge, like speech and basically he’s like, I’m quitting. So I quit.

JENNA FISCHER [01:14:18] Yeah. He quits. Rather than reveal his secret about his relationship with Angela and where he was this morning, he quits.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:14:30] Dwight leaves. He gives Michael his box of things. He does keep his Dwight bobblehead. I’ll let you know.

JENNA FISCHER [01:14:35] Of course.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:14:36] There is a deleted scene where he goes around and gives us all items from the box, Jenna. It’s very funny.

JENNA FISCHER [01:14:42] I remember shooting that.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:14:43] Yeah. And then he walks out and he does his salute. It’s the same salute from “The Initiation”. Nice little callback there. And Dwight is gone.

JENNA FISCHER [01:14:53] Yeah. And Angela, he has a line that. Oh my gosh. He says in a talking head as he’s leaving, there is this line where he said, “I really believed I was going to die in that chair”. That he was so committed to Dunder Mifflin, he thought he would die in his sales chair. I mean.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:15] Oh, I have no doubt that’s ultimately how it ends for Dwight someday. If this series would have gone-.

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:23] Yes, if we-.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:23] Yeah. In fan fiction. If you write the end.

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:27] Yes.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:27] I see Dwight’s funeral like, you know, have you ever heard of these these funeral homes that would stage family members doing their favorite activity?

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:39] No, I have never, I have never heard of a funeral where a person is staged doing their favorite activity. So, like, for example, if you love fishing, since we’ve been talking about fishing.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:52] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [01:15:53] The person would be staged like in a boat with a fishing rod?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:15:57] Yes. I saw a show, I saw a show all about it. Don’t ask me. I think I was like just channel surfing looking for something, but like, it’s, it’s like a thing. You can get-. And they have devices that prop people up and things. But like, let’s say you love surfing. You’d be posed on your surfboard. It’s a real thing. And then instead of like a wake where they come and view the body and you’re in the casket like, and you say your goodbye, you’re on your surfboard.

JENNA FISCHER [01:16:25] Well, if, if it were me, I guess I would be propped up, maybe watching TV, eating a bowl of frozen yogurt. Or making bread. And you can come say goodbye to me.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:16:39] I’d be, you know, hanging my hummingbird feeder and holding a glass of wine. I guess.

JENNA FISCHER [01:16:46] Oh, Angela. Now, I want this for your funeral.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:16:51] No.

JENNA FISCHER [01:16:51] If I outlive you, if I outlive you, I am going to pose you with a hummingbird feeder in one hand and a glass of rosé in the other, and I’m going to come say goodbye to you. I will talk to you for hours.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:17:03] Please, please have it be a real having bird feeder with real hummingbird food and maybe they’ll come take a drink while I’m standing there.

JENNA FISCHER [01:17:09] Oh.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:17:11] OK. OK.

JENNA FISCHER [01:17:12] Done and done.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:17:13] So.

JENNA FISCHER [01:17:14] But yes, I guess your point was that perhaps Dwight’s funeral, he would have been-.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:17:18] Staged at his Dunder Mifflin desk.

JENNA FISCHER [01:17:21] OK. Wow.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:17:22] Taking a sales call. At the funeral home, there’s even a lookbook that you can flip through. “Oh, yeah, I’ll take Exhibit A at the desk, typing on the keyboard pose”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:17:35] Wow. I feel like you could do some real passive aggressive stuff with this.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:17:42] Oh no.

JENNA FISCHER [01:17:42] Like whoever is in charge of your funeral. You could be like, “Oh, you want to know Larry’s favorite activity? I’ll tell you what it was. It was ****ing Marjorie”. And then-.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:17:56] I was going to say, it was *******, so I posed him holding his ****.

JENNA FISCHER [01:18:04] Why is that cracking me up so much? People come to the funeral and they’re like, “What is going on”? And we’re like, “Larry’s favorite activity. Being a **** *** **** **** to Marjorie online”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:18:18] Yeah. So.

JENNA FISCHER [01:18:19] There it is.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:18:19] That’s Marjorie’s-.

JENNA FISCHER [01:18:20] Say “Goodbye”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:18:20] That’s Marjorie’s picture on the computer. That’s him holding his schmingy. I paid 5000 dollars for this. **** you, Larry.

JENNA FISCHER [01:18:36] Oh god, Oh my good ness.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:18:38] OK. Listen.

JENNA FISCHER [01:18:39] And Marjorie-. Meanwhile, Marjorie is like, “I didn’t know anyone knew. I”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:18:43] “I. Oh, my God”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:18:45] Oh my God. Marjorie’s husband, Joe, is like, super shocked. He’s like, “Marge, what’s up”?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:18:51] Hey, it’s all in “Laundry and Betrayal” on Lifetime. We just wrote our script, lady. The big reveal at the funeral.

JENNA FISCHER [01:19:05] OK.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:19:06] OK. OK. So now, now we have this amaz-, we have to get it together. OK. Oh, my God. OK, now we have this amazing Andy talking head. It’s a Willy Wonka callback. It’s awesome. It goes a little something like, “Oompa loompa, dippidy dawsome. Dwight is now gone, which is totally awesome”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:19:30] Yeah.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:19:30] I was like, who wrote this talking head? Who wrote? It’s so good. And in the DVD commentary, they said it was Mike Schur.

JENNA FISCHER [01:19:40] Oh, there you go.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:19:41] Yeah, Ed said that Mike was in the room with him when he was doing his talking head and they were riffing around and, and they found this one. And it’s so, it’s so perfect.

JENNA FISCHER [01:19:51] And then, of course, Angela, in the background of this talking head, the camera finds you hovering in the background giving a death stare.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:20:01] Oh, yeah. Death stare. I remember this so vividly. So Greg was like, “Angela, I really want you to glare, like, really be angry, just like Andy is going down. You hate him, glare at him”. So I did. And he came up to me and was like, “Can you give me more”? I was like, “What”? He was like, “Even harder. I want you to-, I just need the death stare of all death stares”. I did it. Again, he’s like, “Angela, even more”. I wrote about it in my journal. I said, “Greg kept saying ‘one more time, Angela, more mad. More!’ By the end. My eyeballs were shaking in my head”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:20:40] I wrote down, “Angela, did you get a headache”?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:20:44] Yes. I had the sci-fi bun. I was giving the super death stare. And truly, by the end, I think you can ever so slightly see me shaking. That’s how like angry my stare is that I’m like.

JENNA FISCHER [01:20:58] I was curious if you, like, popped a blood vessel in your eyeball or something. It is so intense.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:21:04] I was about to. I’m not kidding.

JENNA FISCHER [01:21:07] It is a great way to end the episode. I do have a fan question, Angela.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:21:13] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [01:21:13] And I don’t mean to unravel the entire plot of this show.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:21:19] What?

JENNA FISCHER [01:21:19] But it’s a good question.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:21:20] OK.

JENNA FISCHER [01:21:21] It comes from Grace D. And she says, “Why couldn’t Angela just bring her own tax forms to corporate”?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:21:30] She has too many cats, Grace.

JENNA FISCHER [01:21:33] Well, and also we know from the deleted scenes, some, one of her cats just had a litter of kittens that she’s dealing with. That was my first thought too, Angela. I was kind of stumped by that at first. And I was like, yeah, why didn’t Angela just go to New York herself? But then I was like, no, she probably has-. She probably gets up very early and has like a 90 minute cat routine she has to do every morning.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:21:58] Yes.

JENNA FISCHER [01:21:58] Putting ointment on eyes and medicines and grooming, right?

ANGELA KINSEY [01:22:04] Yes. And getting the litter boxes ready for the day and setting out food for all of them. I think she has a full morning before she gets to work, and especially if she had a litter of kittens. And I think she was probably stressing out and going through this whole list with Dwight. And he just said, “I’ll take ’em. Don’t worry, I’ll do it. I’ll do it”.

JENNA FISCHER [01:22:23] Yes, that’s right. The choices for Dwight were take the forms to New York or do the cat care lists. And he was like, I choose forms to New York.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:22:32] Yeah.

JENNA FISCHER [01:22:33] But good question, Grace, I thought-, valid question.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:22:35] Valid question.

JENNA FISCHER [01:22:36] Valid question. Well lady, that is “Traveling Salesmen”. Next week we head into “The Return”.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:22:43] Yes. And “The Return” is the return for several people. And it’s such a fun episode. So we will see you next week.

JENNA FISCHER [01:22:52] All right. Bye, guys.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:22:53] Bye.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:22:57] Thank you for listening to “Office Ladies”. “Office Ladies” is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.

JENNA FISCHER [01:23:04] Our producer is Codi Fischer. Our sound engineer is Sam Kieffer. And our associate producer is Ainsley Bubako.

ANGELA KINSEY [01:23:10] Our theme song is “Rubber Tree” by Creed Bratton.

JENNA FISCHER [01:23:13] For Ad free versions of “Office Ladies”, go to StitcherPremium.com. For a free one month trial of Stitcher Premium, use code “Office”.