Second Drink: Niagara, Pt 1

This week we’re breaking down “Niagara”. To kick off this two-part episode, the ladies are joined again by showrunner Greg Daniels! (“The Office”, “The Simpsons”, “King of the Hill”, “Upload”, “Space Force”) Together they talk about everything that went behind creating the much anticipated Jim and Pam wedding, which includes finding that special balance between funny and heartwarming. Anna Camp (“Pitch Perfect”, “True Blood”) also sends in clips to share what it was like to play Pam’s sister. Angela breaks down Dwight’s iconic “Howling at the Moon” t-shirt, Jenna shares a story about one of her first movie jobs with Christopher Walken and the ladies point out a purposeful mistake made by the hotel. This episode will make you want to get up and dance! Just make sure you take your keys out of your pocket first. Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestion https://officeladies.com/submitaquestion Follow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPod https://www.instagram.com/officeladiespod/ Follow Us on YouTube https://youtube.com/@officeladiespod?si=D0oKJwFJuK9txzFM Follow Us on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@officeladiespod?_t=ZT-8y1gqTrJyOs&_r=1

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome back to our second drink of Niagara Part One. This episode is jam-packed. Get it?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  I like it. Jam?

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Jam.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Jam. Good one. Good one.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Well, for those of you who have never listened to us break down Niagara Part One, you are in for a treat. Here's a teaser. We were joined by our showrunner Greg Daniels, and we talk with him about everything that went behind creating the much anticipated Jim and Pam Wedding. Plus, actress Anna Camp sent in audio clips to share with us about what it was like to play Pam's sister.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, we had so many great guest stars in this episode. I loved all of those family scenes. And oh, my God, as I rewatched this, there are so many classic Office moments.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Well, Angela, people agree with you. We got this letter from Elizabeth in Fort Lauderdale who said, "Hi, Jenna and Angela. I wanted to write in because this is one of my favorite episodes. There are so many details I look at now because of your podcast. I thought I would share one of my favorite background catches from Niagara. It's such a small thing, but it makes me laugh every time. When everyone is leaving for the wedding, Dwight and Michael leave in Michael's car. Michael has tied tin cans to his bumper like it's his wedding, but did you see what he wrote on his back windshield? It says, quote, 'going to a wedding.' It gets me every time."

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Simple. It's to the point.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  We also had a fan mail flurry for this episode. Brayden, Crystal, Lynn, Teresa, Ryan, Chloe, Betsy, and many others wrote in to say that they believe the character of Isabel Pariba is Pam's cousin, not her friend.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  So I did some Mom Detective work.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  To make sure that you and I had it correctly. First, I went to the shooting draft of Niagara. Pam's relationship to Isabel is not initially described in the scene directions. It simply says this. Jim and Pam's table includes their parents. Pam's dad's girlfriend, Pam's little sister Penny, and Jim's two brothers and his sister Larissa. Pam's dad is a divorced computer engineer. Pam's mom, Helene, is a recently divorced homemaker. At the next table, the brothers' wives and kids, aunts, and meemaw.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Wow. First of all, it's very interesting to me that they scripted out the table assignments.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  And did you know that your dad was a computer engineer?

• 2:28Speaker 01

  I actually did not.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  I never knew that detail about Pam's dad. And then later in the script, it says, "Michael gazes at the head table where Isabel is giving a toast." So maybe the scene that follows that description confused people watching because of what Dwight and Michael say. Let's hear the clip.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Jim and Pam, I can't tell you how happy I am to be here.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Head table, where I belong. It's just for family. Now, who's that one?

• 3:05Speaker 03

  Isabel Pariba. Oh, I got stuff on her.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  In 1996, her 10th grade volleyball team went 10 and 2.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  What am I supposed to do with that, Dwight?

• 3:17Speaker 03

  That's a very good record.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  I mean, I see why some people might think that Isabel is family since she's at the, quote, "family table."

• 3:27Speaker 00

  Exactly. But later in the shooting draft of Niagara, her relationship is defined. But lady, folks never heard it. It was an extra couplet of dialogue that was scripted, but it didn't make it into the original broadcast.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  Okay, so you know that scene where Dwight and Michael are having breakfast, and Dwight is eating like an animal because he's ravenous from a night of lovemaking?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Yes, it's more crazy Rainn Wilson eating.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  That's right. Well, after Dwight says, quote, "Isabel is a nice girl, but I hope she doesn't think it's going anywhere," Michael would have said, "You mean, you're not interested in her? She's Pam's best friend. You guys could double date all the time. Maybe swap."

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  And then it picks up where it aired, right? Where he's like, "Look, she's a dental hygienist from Carbondale, blah, blah, blah." Then it's, we're back onto the script. So yeah, the cast knew she was always intended to be Pam's friend.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like, you know, the character of Isabel is also in Happy Hour. She's in The Delivery Part Two. I think it's very clear that she's Pam's friend and not like a cousin. Like, as we go later.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Well, I went to the shooting draft of Happy Hour, and she isn't described in any specific way, but in The Delivery Part Two, she is mentioned in the stage direction, and it said, "Interior postpartum room. Jim sleeps. Pam sleepily nurses. There's a light knock on the door. Pam's friend Isabel pokes her head in."

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Well, there you have it.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Lady, that was very good Mom Detective work.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Thank you. So for folks who were getting frustrated with us calling her a friend instead of cousin, she was always intended to be Pam's friend.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Case closed.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  Case closed. Oh, my God, is that our first full case? No, it's not.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  It's not. We've solved some.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  We have. We have. I got very excited.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Well, it's because it's so rare.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  I know. It's true. It's true.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  All right, everyone. Enjoy your second drink of Niagara Part One.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  I'm Jenna Fisher.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  And I'm Angela Kinsey.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  We were on The Office together.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  And we're best friends.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  And now we're doing the ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  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.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  We're The Office, ladies.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. It's a big one today.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  That's what she said.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I didn't even say hello. Hello.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Say hello first.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm just thinking about everything we have to share about Niagara, the wedding episode.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  The enormous two-parter. We're doing it in two parts. This is so big.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Today is Niagara Part One. It was season six, episode four. It was written by Greg Daniels and Mindy Kaling and directed by Paul Feig.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  I mean, we brought out the heavy hitters for this one.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  We sure did. And we have a heavy hitter today on Office, ladies. We sure do, guys. Co-writer of this episode and showrunner of The Office, Greg Daniels, has come on Office, ladies, to discuss this epic milestone episode. We could not be more excited.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  We are thrilled. Let's talk to Greg.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Greg Daniels.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 7:00Speaker 04

  Hey.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Welcome.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  This is a huge treat.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  We are so excited to have you on Office, ladies.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, for me, too. It's so nice to see you guys.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  And this is a milestone episode.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  Big one. Very big one.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Jenna and I were saying, just prepping our document for this week's record, we felt like we were building like a small airplane because there was like so many different stories and articles and DVD commentaries, and we're just so glad you're here and we get to break it down with you.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  I went back into the archives, you know, and looked at some of our notes from the writer's room. And, you know, I realized that we had gamed this one so thoroughly from the beginning. This was like my, my special point of the season, obviously. This was like the biggest moment that we had. So we had really put a lot of effort and thought into it.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Randy Cordray told us that before season six even started, you told him Pam and Jim are going to get married on the Maid of the Mist. Figure that out.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So this was a crazy year for me personally, because this was the first year that I had an official co-showrunner in Paul Lieberstein, you know, and I was also running season two of Parks and Rec at the same time as season six of The Office with Mike Schur. And there was, we had like the biggest, juiciest writing staff possible. Like, this was one of our classic years, writing staff. Everybody was, was great. So there was a lot of help. But, but I think I did 50 episodes this year.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Between the two shows, which is like 50 table readings, 50 script locks, 50 production meetings, 50 cuts having to be locked. So I was like super crazed for this year. And the things that I really wanted to concentrate on for The Office was Jim and Pam's wedding because I felt like this was the culmination of a six-year story that was so important to the show. And so we put a lot of, a lot of brain work into it. And with the Niagara part, that was like what I had sort of figured out for the wedding because the wedding had to be filled with comedy for all of the side characters, but it also had to be very romantic

• 9:15Speaker 04

  for Jim and Pam. And the show always had this slight anomaly that was Jim and Pam because it was so fairy tale inside their relationship, but then everything else in the show was up for grabs for, for jokes and, you know, was very realistic. And Niagara Falls is within a drive, like a conceivable four and a half hour drive of Scranton. So it made sense that you could invite people from work and they would drive up, you know, and it was a doable thing. And so I did a lot of research on Niagara Falls way early.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  And what's amazing about Niagara Falls, it's like the most classic wedding location for people, you know, in the Northeast. And it's been that way since the 1800s or whenever it was discovered. And it's, it's incredibly naturally beautiful and, and like take your breath away, majestic. But because everybody used it as their wedding thing, there was this really kind of commercialized, like kitschy industry that had developed around it. So it was like a great location because you could have, you know, for the, the one sort of thing we had going into it was this idea that...

• 10:38Speaker 04

  I don't know if you were ever told this on your guys' weddings, but you know, they always say like, the wedding is for your family and the marriage is what you get. And so there's this sense of like, the wedding's this public event and you have to invite your family and all these different people. And it's not always exactly what you wanted, but at least you get the marriage, right? So I think there was this going into the episode, there was going to be this sort of two things happening where Pam and Jim wanted to have something that was beautiful and romantic for the two of them. But they also had to, you know, they had all these obligations with their family and their people from work and that was going to have all

• 11:18Speaker 04

  these people there. So there was this contrast between like the comedy of having all their relatives and you know, Pam's mother was upset, you know, and her, their parents had gotten divorced and you know, and the fact that Pam was pregnant and kind of hiding it. Like there are all these different storylines happening for comedy.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  And Greg, I love that it was the destination wedding because on the commentary, you were saying a lot of different elements of this episode were based on real life things in the writer's room, like the destination wedding that you think no one will come to, but then a lot of people show up.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then there was like, there was a moment that I pulled from a friend of mine's wedding story where I guess his sister by mistake broke one of the wedding gifts, which was like a set of plates or something like that, that they had registered for. And she was super upset about it. And my friend couldn't really calm her down until he took one of the other plates and smashed it in front of her and said, look, this is not about the plates. This is, I want you to, you know, enjoy my wedding. And so that, that kind of translated into Jim cutting his tie to make Pam feel better.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  That is such a cool moment.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I love that moment. Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  I teared up. I, you know, there were so many wonderful moments that I had just forgotten about, about this episode. I think when I think of this episode too, I always think about the big wedding moment. I completely forgot about the cold open.

• 12:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. The cold open. I was like, what is happening?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  It's a dozen people puking to open up the romantic wedding episode.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I mean, that was the thing, right? Is like, we had so many cards on the board for ideas, you know, for the season and for this important, you know, episode. And this was also a two-part episode, which meant that there had to be like six acts of, of story, right? So, and a lot of different people, they didn't have their own subplot, you know, it wasn't like, oh, well, don't worry, Andy and Michael are having a subplot where they're selling to some, you know, they're there at the wedding. So they all have to have their own comedy stories. So we generated in the writer's room, you know,

• 13:44Speaker 04

  just hundreds of cards of funny things that could happen. And then we had to kind of jam them all, you know, into the, the overall feeling of a destination wedding in Niagara. That was the whole thing about the episode was balancing how much comedy to put in and how much romance and good feeling to put in.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Well, one of my favorite things is this agreement that everyone's going to keep Pam's pregnancy a secret from Memaw. We're not going to tell Memaw.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Like what a disaster already that, right? That Michael's not going to be able to keep the secret. We all think Michael's going to spill the beans.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, I have a question about the name Memaw. Is that, was that based on someone's real life? I had never heard that. I've heard like Grammy, Gigi as names for grandmas, but Memaw was new to me. Is that an East Coast thing?

• 14:38Speaker 04

  I don't think so. I think that's like a pioneer thing personally. I kind of feel like that's a.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  I've heard of Memaw. Is it southern? I think it might be southern or I think like what Greg's saying, kind of like ye olde pioneer days, but my dad was called Papa.

• 14:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, we might've gotten it from you. I, did you?

• 14:58Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't think I, I didn't have a Memaw, but it's certainly like when I read it, I was like, sure, you're Memaw. Like it's in my brain somewhere.

• 15:06Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, the idea was that she was a pretty old fashioned person who was going to be, you know, pretty judgmental. And the actress was kind of amazing. Like she started in westerns in the 1930s, that actress Peggy Stewart. And, uh, so she, she I think was a, was a Memaw.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Well, it ends up being Jim in just a brilliant piece of writing and performance then by John Krasinski, who ends up spilling the beans. I loved it. Just brilliant.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was great. I don't think we started with that. I feel like we got to that eventually that it was going to be Jim that, that blew it. I can't remember exactly how that started, but yeah, no, it was great because you were expecting Michael to do it the whole time.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  And I just rewatched it this morning and God, John was so funny blowing it in the, in his toast.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  So good.

• 16:09Speaker 04

  Cause he was doing so well up to there too. He was really killing it.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Well, and then they have that great exchange where, where Michael says, this really takes the pressure off of me. Like this is great.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  Jim's like, I can't believe it was me. And Michael's like, I can't believe it either.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, that was great. I mean, there was some, there was some great act breaks, right? So we needed to have like six, six act breaks or something. And another huge, huge thing was the act break of Jim and Pam running away. Cause that was, that was pretty big too.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  That felt like a romantic comedy to me, that moment, you know, it really did. It, it was so, it just everything, the lighting and they ran away. And then I love that you then see Meredith smoking the cigar. It's just this, this like beautiful moment. And then there's Meredith, you know?

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Well, speaking of romantic comedy, you wrote this episode with Mindy Kaling.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  You guys were nominated for an Emmy for this episode. How did it come about that you guys wrote this together?

• 17:16Speaker 04

  Well, you know, it's interesting. Mindy is such a lover of romantic comedy and I'm not a hundred percent sure. I kind of feel like I had identified that she ought to write it. And then I was giving so many specific suggestions that there was this feeling of, well, you got a really strong feeling of how you want it to go. Maybe you should co-write it. So I feel like I came into it that way. And of course, you know, so many of the beats were coming from these cards that we had generated as a team. I mean, in re-reading the table draft, I was loving the first half so much. I feel like

• 17:53Speaker 04

  that must've probably been her, her stuff. Cause I have to take responsibility for Roy and the horse.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Please. Okay. How do we even set it up? Roy and the horse and the falls? Greg, you have to tell the whole story.

• 18:10Speaker 04

  Right. Well, like I said, you know, so much of it was balancing how much comedy to put in and how much joy to put in. And definitely I wanted to have that theme of there's all these things going wrong in the wedding, but Pam and Jim managed to carve out this beautiful, private moment anyway. Right?

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:33Speaker 04

  So the table draft had an act break where to top off all of these things that had been going wrong, like finding out about the pregnancy and.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Andy's scrotum. Michael and Pam's mom.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was positive though. But to top it all off, like Roy shows up on a horse to try and make a grand gesture of take me back. And it just goes terribly. And you know, this was a card that we had on the board, you know, early on about, you know, like those things, when those things happen in romantic comedy movies, they usually work. And how awkward is it when it doesn't work and nobody wanted it and nobody was rooting for it? And you know, you have to just ride your horse away.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  And in the table draft, Greg, Roy rides in the church. Jim is saying to have and to hold in sickness and in health. And there's like an audible like, and there's Roy on a horse.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  And Pam really is like, I don't, I don't want this.

• 19:34Speaker 04

  No, she had no interest.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  I'm picking the man I love and I guess, thank you, but can you turn your horse around?

• 19:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, but I think what, what it was in that script was it was ordered differently. It was like, everything goes wrong at the wedding and then, and, and Michael's having the worst day. And then Jim gets the idea, I'm going to take Pam away and do it right. And he leaves Michael in charge. And then, and then there was, in the script, there were like, sort of two montages. There was the montage of Jim and Pam getting married on the Maid of the Mist. And then there was the montage of Michael kind of killing it as being put in charge of the party. And

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Because they got married in the church first in the table draft. And then they have a second wedding while everybody else is at the reception.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. I have to mention the other part about the horse, which was, there was a runner in that version where Dwight was fascinated being at Niagara Falls about the, the 1800s and the, and the history of people going over the falls in a barrel and animals surviving going over the falls.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  In a way that, that people couldn't. And so after, after Roy does this whole thing, Dwight sees a free horse and decides he's going to test this out. And he takes the horse into the river. And then he, he starts to getting swept towards the falls and he panics and he has to be rescued. But the horse goes over the falls, you know? And then at the end, the horse is okay, swimming away from the falls because he survived, like some animals do.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  But you would have seen him as Jim and Pam are doing their second romantic wedding on Maid of the Mist.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  In the background.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  See it like a tiny horse.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  A horse going over.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Over the falls behind them.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was the concept. So anyway, so we read it at the table. There was an awful lot of comedy in the script. And I think we had just sort of over stacked the comedy and under stacked the joy and the, you know, because there was just too much bad things happening to poor Pam and Jim. And they had their great moment on the Maid of the Mist still, but everything that was public was kind of a disaster. And I think there was this very smart feeling from, you know, everybody, especially cast, that that was not cool. Like you gotta give them more joy. The, the, the amount of the emotional balance in the episode was off. And also, I, I think the cast was all, you know, they

• 22:13Speaker 04

  were all friends. And there, we had done so many episodes of them sort of turning into a family that it was, you just didn't want to be that negative and play them all as problems for Pam and Jim, right? So that was sort of the, the message after the table read. But I, I was still producing and I remember going to scout the tank at Universal where the horse was going to be filmed in the water. Cause that was like a big, big deal. And like, I knew that we had to fix this, but I was still having to produce, you know, the version until, until it got changed. And, um, and I came back from that and Paul

• 22:57Speaker 04

  luckily had, had pulled this other card that we had had about, um, you know, the, the YouTube sensation forever song and figured out a way to put that in at the end. And the key of it was sort of, um, intercutting, uh, so that they could have, they went to the, they, they went and got married before the church scene, right? So I, I have, I found like our, our beat sheet, our new beat sheet after the table for how to reorder the end. And it, it had that intercutting thing. And that was the key to getting rid of the horse. So I could finally release the horse because we had an ending.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Well, I just wept when I watched that dance scene down the aisle.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was so good.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  In my rewatch, it was emotional. And I think Greg, it's because of what you said, which is that we were friends in real life. And we had all grown to love this fictional romance. And we wanted to celebrate this milestone together as a group. And so I saw like this mixture of, I mean, I, it's like I saw Dwight dancing down the aisle, but I also saw Rain dancing down the aisle. So for me, it was like even more impactful and emotional. It was so joyous. I mean, it really was. Shooting it was joyous, watching it.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. But I mean, that's kind of how the show was made, right? I mean, it wasn't like, we went into it with one version of what it was supposed to be. Like the show really changed so much from everybody's creative input from whatever happened on set and then in the editing room. And like, it wasn't un, completely unusual for the table draft to not resemble the final cut very much. I mean, that was part of the process.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  It is, you know, something we, we say a lot here is that it, it all started with you, Greg, truly. Like you just opened up this creative community on our show and you always cared about what people thought and, and listened to us and, but, but everybody, it didn't matter who it was. You, you were there in the moment with them, hearing them. And, um, I just feel like our show always, always was better for it because you made us feel welcome to be part of the process.

• 25:31Speaker 04

  But I think feel like by that time, by season six, we all knew what the show was. Do you know what I mean? So everybody was participating and hitting great things. And when I look at that episode, I just think about like so many different contributions. Do you know what I mean? Like from the performances and various ad libs and the, the dancing was awesome. And, you know, that was, um, that one was edited by Claire Scanlon, you know, who went on to be a great romantic comedy director now at, at Netflix. And, you know, the, the choice of that ending image of like, that was her. She figured out where

• 26:11Speaker 04

  to put that in. And the intercutting was so valuable. And even that talking head from Jim about, he was going to ask her like the plan B thing. Like I remember, oh, that was Danny Chun. He wrote that. And you know, there's like different pieces came in from so many different people. It's, it's fun to see everybody's contributions.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  It was. I, I laughed and then also cried and I watched it with Isabel. She loved it so much. And

• 26:41Speaker 04

  Speaking of that, I don't know if you remember this, but I had, my daughter was the, was the, the, the flower girl.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:49Speaker 04

  So that was super fun. And I have the whole movie somewhere. Cause I, I brought my, you know, my camcorder to, to tape stuff. And I, I don't know if you remember this moment, but I have it on a home movie somewhere where Ed took out his banjo and Creed was playing the guitar and everybody was sitting around waiting for it to be relit. And everybody was just sort of, it, it just was the best vibe during the shooting.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Great. We were all on this, the church had this sort of side outdoor patio, if you will. And we had chairs out there and there was a little field, like a courtyard. And, and your daughter was running around Charlotte and Isabel had come and she was on my shoulders and we were playing and Ed was singing and Creed. And it was just so great. I took a beautiful picture of Jenna that day too. She looked over her shoulder at me and her pregnant wedding dress. And I was like, I have to capture this.

• 27:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  All right. So Greg, at the end of this very romantic episode, it becomes very clear that Michael is going to hook up with Pam's mom. And we know where that's going to go. Uh, it's going to go toward the slap herd around the world. But I mean, what, tell us about how you guys conceived of this story.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  The way things worked, right, is every season would begin with a vague idea of big milestones. Like we would know Pam and Jim ought to get married this season because they're at that stage. And, you know, you know, all these different things where, you know, you have a vague idea of where you're going. And then there is this, this enormous amount of generating. And then you'd have all these funny things on the cards. And, you know, you could see them and you'd be like, yeah, well, Michael dating Pam's mom has potential for like a lot of weird conflict and, you know, funny awkwardness and everything. And so that was a card, you know, it just felt like a good throw forward at the end

• 28:51Speaker 04

  of this big episode that we knew a lot of people would be watching. And, uh, and it gave Michael a little bit of Success at the end of the episode in a funny way because he had struck out so much during the episode.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  I thought it was so perfect because you know, at every wedding you've ever been to, there's that rando hookup that you hear about after the fact.

• 29:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Some hookups make sense, but then there's that random one. And I was like, oh my God, Michael and Pam's mom.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  But also Pam's friend and Dwight. What has happened to Pam on her wedding day? Why are all of her friends and family hooking up with her coworkers?

• 29:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, that was the whole like Dwight Michael story. That became the whole Dwight Michael story was the idea that they, you know, Michael especially is somebody who really thinks Pam is a special person. So for him to get to go to her wedding, like there must be all these special people there. Like I had a Seinfeld episode once that never got produced, but I was hired to write it. The episode was George startles a very beautiful woman who's making a phone call at a public payphone and she runs off. He's, he's wearing a ski mask because it's freezing and he

• 30:10Speaker 04

  freaks her out and she runs off and she leaves behind her, um, her Philo facts. And he has this idea that he's going to call everybody in the Philo facts and try and find out who this woman is so he can get her, her Philo facts back. But, uh, all of her friends are very beautiful too. And he, he starts to say, this is, this is like the Holy Grail. I have the Philo facts, you know, the black book of a, of a beautiful woman. They're all beautiful in here. I, you know, I gotta use it to try and set up dates with everybody. But so I think that was Michael's idea was like, oh, at Pam's wedding, they're all going to be great. They're all going to be Pam's, the very greatest versions of Pam. So this is where we're going to really score for the whole year.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, jackpot.

• 30:55Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so then he ends up with Pam's mom. So.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  And I know it's like, I mean, when you say Michael's going to date Pam's mom and you're like, oh my God, but then there's scenes together, the two of them and the writing and the performance. Like, I was like, oh, that they're kind of sweet. Like I had the moment where I was rooting for them.

• 31:13Speaker 04

  I couldn't believe the thing with the apricot fruit leather. That was hilarious. I had forgotten that.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Oh, Greg, this has been so fun. Is there anything we missed? Anything else you want to tell us about this episode?

• 31:25Speaker 04

  Gosh, I don't know. I was just enjoying some of the moments, the comedy moments, like Kevin's hair. And just when he comes in with his toupee on, I was just like, oh God, it's like Oliver Hardy. And he just comes, comes in and sits down and that, that whole subplot with, with, um, Oscar. I don't know. There were so many fun things in that episode.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Yes. With Oscar so horrified that Pam's sister thinks that they're a couple.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. He wants an apology. He's like, are you kidding me?

• 31:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, that, that was great. I love the guy. I, I forgot about the guy. Do you remember the, the guy who plays the hotel manager who's sort of like a, a human version of Droopy Dog?

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:13Speaker 04

  I forgot about him. He's terrific. But there are so many good memories of, of that shoot. I don't know. That was like, I feel like we were really in our prime as a show and it was just so fun. And, and it was so romantic. And I didn't get to go to Niagara. That, that sounded like a great shoot. You know, I loved seeing all the footage from that, but that must've been fun. Jenna, would you?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  That was the first time I, and only time that I left Los Angeles to shoot The Office. And it was really fun. It was just like, it was such a small group of us, you know, and, um, and it was really cool to be out in the world because we always filmed in such a bubble and the town was so excited we were there. And people would just follow us. They would wait outside the hotel and they would like in a group, follow us to all the different places we were shooting, completely respectful, but it was, it was a spectacle that we were there. And it

• 33:18Speaker 01

  was just such a trip to feel that, you know, because you really, especially our show, but any show, you really make it in a bubble. You don't get that kind of immediate audience response. And people were just so excited. John and I, I remember we like waved at people on our way getting into a car to go to a location. And then that picture ended up on like the front page of their local newspaper the next day. It was so crazy. I got it delivered to my hotel room and I was like, oh my gosh, that happened yesterday. I remember that.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  What's wild to me is that Jenna said when they were on the boat, she was telling me that they had to make an announcement, Jenna and John. They were like, hey, you guys, please don't share any of this because she's in a wedding dress, you know? And can you, can we just all collectively? Because you were on the boat with other people.

• 34:09Speaker 04

  Right. There wasn't all extras, right? There was, or were they?

• 34:12Speaker 01

  No, uh, we were only allowed to rent out the front of the boat and the rest of the boat was filled with paying customers. And so every trip that we took, we would make an announcement and pose for a photo, but ask people to please keep it private until the episode aired and keep our collective secret. And they did. It did not get out. Even the newspaper printed that we were there, but didn't say why. They didn't say we were shooting a wedding episode. They just said The Office is in town to shoot something for an upcoming episode.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  We could not have done this in the world of Instagram. Like this, I mean.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  No, we would have been Tik Tok'd like crazy. It was really cool. I mean, it felt special. It was really cool.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  I was so jealous when you guys came back and heard all the stories, but with the 50 episodes, I was like, there's no way I can go to do that.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  We were only there for like 36 hours. I mean, it was like, we landed, we fell asleep, we shot for a day, we fell asleep, we got up and got on a plane.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. I liked the footage of, of the duriest kitschy things in Niagara Falls. That was, that was also there. That was cool.

• 35:27Speaker 00

  Oh yeah. I really liked that because I've never been and I, I, you know, Jim has that talking head about Niagara Falls. And I was so glad that was in there because I didn't have a point of reference, you know?

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, that was the root of all the, the research that I had been doing about Niagara Falls. And after, you know, I finally got to see it like a couple of years later, but it was after the episode. I'd never been before.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  You know, for me, it was like, it was breathtakingly beautiful to see the falls. And I was like, oh, wait, I have to say lines. Wait, what are my lines?

• 36:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. I don't, we're, we're, I think we, that's funny that you're mentioning lines because I don't feel like we ended up using any lines. It was all sort of B-roll in the, the way it got cut together, right? Or?

• 36:13Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. But we did have vows that we were saying, but we, you don't end up hearing them.

• 36:20Speaker 04

  It was all under the song. Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  It may, it was probably a good choice because the falls are very, very loud.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  So I imagined that my microphone was like.

• 36:31Speaker 04

  Well, also like you got wet each, each time, right? Each take you had to, you had to redo your hair and stuff. Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  I so want to go. Like, I really want to go.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  I'll go with you.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  Will you really?

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Of course. It was so cool. I'll go.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Greg, do you want to go to the falls, Greg?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  I can concentrate. Greg, come with us.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  Let's go to the falls.

• 36:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. I, I, I went actually, I was shooting something in Toronto and I took a trip. Like if you're ever in Toronto, it's super easy to get there.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  Oh, from the Canadian side?

• 37:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you guys should, the special office lady.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Offlane's road trip. We have so many places we want to go. All right, Greg. Greg's in, writing them down. Greg, this was so wonderful. Thank you so much.

• 37:18Speaker 04

  Thanks for inviting me. It was so fun to, to have, get a chance to watch it all again and, and remember it again with you guys.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  Well, please come on anytime. We would love to have you.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  Oh, it's my pleasure.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Do you have anything that is coming out or anything you want to give a plug to?

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Well, actually this is a big couple of months for me. I have a reality show that I did with my daughter Haley, uh, that's coming out on HBO Max called My Mom or Your Dad. You guys should check that out. It's a reality show.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  I saw a clip of it and it, tell us a little bit about it because it's, looks really, really cool.

• 37:53Speaker 04

  Okay. Yeah. So the idea is that, um, people in their 50s who are single parents are nominated by their kids who are in their twenties to go, all go and live in a house together, like eight or 10 of them, so that they can have a second chance at finding love. And then the kids, what they don't know is that the kids are living in a house down the street and watching everything, all the feed on like a bunch of TVs. And the kids are competing for the ability to influence what's happening in the parents' house. So they can like put, match people up and make the dates go better if they sacrifice things or they can screw up dates if they don't like who the parent is dating.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh.

• 38:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  How many episodes are there?

• 38:38Speaker 04

  Um, eight.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh. So you can binge that so fast.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. And then Space Force, season two is going to come out in, in like a week or so. So that's something that's pretty cool. So that's, uh, Steve and, and, uh, a bunch of fun, you know, we'll see who else was on The Office. Tim Meadows is guest starring this year.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh, I love Tim Meadows.

• 39:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then in March, uh, the, the second season of Upload comes out, which is that show that I do for, for Amazon.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, Greg, once again, you were like double show running.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Triple show running.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Again, this is your specialty.

• 39:16Speaker 04

  This was the, I mean, the last time was season six in The Office and Parks. And then I, it broke me for several years.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  Oh no.

• 39:24Speaker 04

  And then this time was, uh, was during the pandemic. Yeah. I had another double up.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  Triple up.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Triple up. Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  So like when, when you go to pitch a show and then they're like, we want to buy it, you're like, great, but hold on, I have to sell a second show first because I, I only like to do two to three at a time in a bundle.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  You know what happens? It's like, you never know what's going to get picked up, right? When you're, I'm like an independent producer. So I'm out there flogging my wares and everything and trying to make things happen. And then, you know, you'll go for a period of time with nothing happening. And then suddenly everything will hit at the same time and you can't really control it. But that's what happened.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Well, it's all good stuff, Greg. We're so excited. So you guys be sure to check out My Mom, Your Dad on HBO Max, Space Force on Netflix, and Upload on Amazon. You guys, Greg Daniels, amazing. We love you so much, Greg.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Well, thanks so much. This is so fun. And all the other Office Ladies episodes, they're all so great. Thank you.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  And we'll go into Niagara.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll see you in Niagara, Greg.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  I'm there.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  Oh, I love you.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Okay, love you too. See you later.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  Love you. Bye.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  Bye.

• 40:39Speaker 05

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• 41:24Speaker 05

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• 41:42Speaker 00

  Love him.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Love Greg. We could not be more grateful that he came on our podcast to talk to us about this episode.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  I know. What a great way to kick it off. Well, we have tons to cover, Jenna. I think you need to hit us with a summary.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  I will give you a summary of what we're breaking down today, which is Niagara Part One. The staff of Dunder Mifflin head to Niagara Falls for Jim and Pam's wedding with strict instructions not to mention Pam's pregnancy to her conservative meemaw. Dwight and Michael endeavor to pick up women, and Andy injures his scrotum. That's what we'll be discussing today.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Not a sentence I thought you'd say this morning.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  I know.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  Injured scrotum.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Injured scrotum. Features heavily in this episode.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  Well, a lot has been said about this episode, Jenna. We're going to share as much of it as we can. There's also two DVD commentaries for this. One is with Paul Feig and Greg Daniels. The other features our producer, Randy Cordray, our first assistant director, Kelly Cantley, Mary Wall from our production staff, Claire Scanlon, our editor, Michael Gallenberg, our production designer, and Veda Samarnay, our script supervisor. These are fantastic commentaries. If you're a fan of the commentary, this DVD's for you.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:01Speaker 00

  I know we've said this was a big episode. We're going to keep saying it, you guys, but it really was. Claire Scanlon, our editor, said her original cut came in at 64 minutes, and she had to cut it down to 42 minutes and 30 seconds. She said it was actually painful to cut that much. And there are so many awesome deleted storylines. I'm going to share some of those with you.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Well, I can't wait. You know, this episode opens with a lot of puking.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  So much.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  So much puking. We talked a little bit about it with Greg. We have more to say. Basically, we see Pam. She's standing next to Jim, and she is asking her fellow office mates if they could just help her out. Her stomach is really sensitive because she's pregnant, and like, maybe Phyllis could use like a less perfumey soap. Maybe they could eat less stinky lunches. This does not go over well.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  Oh, no. People are not happy about it. They want to live their life at their office and not worry about Pam's pregnancy.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Exactly. They actually revolt, and Dwight purposely starts eating a boiled egg at his desk pod with Pam.

• 44:15Speaker 00

  Stinky, stinky.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. She looks him right in the eye and pukes in her trash can.

• 44:20Speaker 00

  That was disgusting. Andy then has a talking head, and he says, watching people get sick always makes him sick. And frankly, so does talking about it. And then he starts to gag. This sets off the whole bullpen.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Well, I have some fun behind-the-scenes info about this cold open. First off, Greg and Mindy supposedly wrote this cold open together on a Sunday morning in a diner. I just find it interesting that they were having a delicious Sunday brunch while they wrote about vomiting. I guess Greg is the one who came up with Dwight's three-ounce fetus line. And then Mindy said in an interview with office telly.com that we spent a very long time shooting this cold open because they kept stopping to have discussions about, like, how much vomit should each person vomit? Should Ellie vomit on the floor? Should she

• 45:14Speaker 01

  vomit in a cup? How can we best show Angela's vomit coming through her fingers? There was so much vomit detail work.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  I want you to know, Paul Feig was delighted that I was going to puke through my hand. He, that was like, we, we had to make sure we got it through my fingers.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Well, it was in the script that way.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  I know.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  It says that you try to cover your mouth, and the vomit spews through your fingers.

• 45:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Craziness. Well, I also got a fan question from Faith B. in Berryville, Virginia, who said, I was wondering what was used for the vomit in the cold open of Niagara Part One. Well, Randy Cordray, our line producer, shared that our prop department actually had to create several different types of vomit, custom-made for each character. You know, you need a different thing to spew through the fingers than you do to go in the trash can.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  Also, in theory, all of these different people had had different meals that day. So no one's puke would look the same.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Yes. So I guess it was mostly soup, different kinds of soup. But sometimes, they put soggy bits of bread in it if they needed it to be a little chunkier.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  I can tell you, it was disgusting.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:34Speaker 00

  And pretending to puke wasn't that hard.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  [laughing]

• 46:38Speaker 00

  Veda shared that there was extra vomit footage that didn't make it in. It's not in the deleted scenes on the DVD, but apparently Jim vomited too.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  But one thing they all could agree on in the editing room was that they wanted to end on Creed eating noodles.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  [laughing]

• 46:58Speaker 00

  In the midst of everyone being sick around him.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Well, if you can believe it, the creation of this cold open didn't end there. They then had to send it to post-production, where they added and enhanced our puking sounds.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  Bleh.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  To capture all of that, plus everything they were going to need for Niagara Part One, Greg shared that they used the shorter opening title sequence because it saved us nine seconds, and we needed every single one of those.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Well, I think we should get into this episode.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  Let's do it. Well, let's start off right away with a deleted scene, Jenna.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  This episode would have started with Pam doing a wedding vlog at home as her and Jim got ready. It's so adorable. We have to hear it.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Hello, world. This is Pam Beasley, and this is the latest installment of my wedding video diary. This afternoon, my fiance, Jim, and I are going to Niagara Falls to get married after a half-day of work. Woohoo! I'm getting my marriage on. Sorry, I'm just really excited. Okay, so let's see. Last time, I talked about the difficulties of throwing a wedding on a budget, specifically flower arrangements. My solution? Paper flowers. I made these using a regular cardstock that I found in the warehouse. Can you believe they were going to just throw that away? [snoring] Hey, babe.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  You gotta let me know when you're doing that. Okay, so I totally remember shooting these. What is happening in the background there is that at the end of her vlog, Jim walks out of the bathroom in his underwear brushing his teeth. And then he has to turn around and go back to the bathroom.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, he didn't know she was vlogging.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  They built a little like bedroom for Jim and Pam back behind where we would usually have lunch, a little bit off of our set. And we filmed these little vlogs in that little room.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  Well, they're super cute. I loved them.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Aw. Well, this episode actually gets started with Pam and Jim arriving to work in their cute little casual clothes. And Michael is showing them how he has decorated his car for their wedding. His car.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  His car.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  His car is decorated and has cans behind it.

• 49:31Speaker 00

  Yes. Instead of saying just married on the back windshield, he wrote going to a wedding.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Well, Jim and Pam are gonna ask everyone to come in the conference room because they want to give them a list of do's and don'ts for the wedding.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Already on the dry erase board, under the don'ts is make a big scene, cry, talk to our family, dash, very busy. Under the do's, it's have a good time, dance when it is appropriate.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  I liked that one.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  And eat dinner. Right away, there's a heated debate because Kevin, I guess, really wanted to bring firecrackers.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  So Jim has to put that under the don't column. And now here comes the big secret. They really need everyone to not say it with them.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Do not say Pam is pregnant. Don't do it. Don't say it. Pam's Mema doesn't know. Don't say it.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  Angela tells Pam she's lucky to have a grandmother. Jenna, this is one of my lines from the whole run of the show that gets quoted to me. I'll be at Target and someone will say it to me. Well, you're lucky you have a grandmother. Some of us have to be our own grandmothers.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  I think Angela Martin and Mema would have hit it off.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I so wish we could have had a Angela Mema scene.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  I know. Why weren't they seated side by side at the rehearsal dinner?

• 50:56Speaker 01

  No kidding. Oh, my gosh.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  Well, Pam sort of retorts to Angela, you know, you don't have to come to the wedding. And Michael's like, yes, she does. And he leans forward and he pinches Angela.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Jenna, Steve really pinched me.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  And that reaction is real. I really went, ow.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Was that in the script? Or was that just like a little thing he did?

• 51:18Speaker 00

  No, it was scripted that Michael pinches Angela under her arm. But you guys, when was the last time someone pinched you like under your arm? You have an honest reaction when it happens.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, Michael and Dwight are hoping a lot happens at this wedding.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, they are. You know, in traditional Dwight and Michael style, there was a deleted scene, Jenna, where Dwight helps Michael pack. He goes over the list. You know how he does. Jenna, Michael shares that he's gonna bring 78 items. You need to hear what these 78 items are.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Deodorant, toothpaste, check. Did you bring condoms? Yes, extra large. I brought 78 condoms. Oh, man.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  78, Jenna.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Dwight has made a list of every one of Jim and Pam's female family members and is gonna break down their eligibility, sort of.

• 52:18Speaker 00

  Well, if you count whether or not they've sold their bicycle online as a dating status.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. You know, we got a fan question from Lauren Kay in Canada that I really appreciated. She said, I've never understood why everyone is always at the office before they go to leave somewhere, similar to like when Holly moved.

• 52:40Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Or before Pam went off to New York City. Why are Jim and Pam at the office the day before their wedding? Why is anyone there if they're just gonna all leave in their casual clothes anyway? You know, Lauren, I don't know. I don't know what work they got done today. Perhaps Jim and Pam needed to come in to give everyone this speech. They saw the value in that one last speech to the group about Mema. But I agree. I think it's very funny.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  I'm just glad that Pam isn't driving to her wedding in a pencil skirt with pantyhose.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Finally. Well, now everybody's gonna kind of get in their little car pools. Michael and Dwight drive off in his decorated car. The cans are exploding. We got a fan question about that as well. John D. From Lakewood, Colorado said, how did they do that? Was it real? Was it special effects?

• 53:36Speaker 00

  I mean, the cans were real. I guess this gag drove the crew crazy. Randy Kelly and Veda shared that it was just a very difficult thing to get. It seems like a small little moment, right? In the script, but it was very hard to capture.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, Randy told me that the writers were so tickled by this idea that these cans would explode.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  That Michael would put full cans. You guys, you're supposed to put empty cans.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  But Michael wouldn't think that through.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  They started by just dragging some full cans behind the car, hoping they would explode. They didn't. So they actually had to rig each can with a teeny tiny timed explosive charge to make them burst open. That happened. They burst open, but it wasn't all that exciting. So then they also had to add like a sound effect to make it sort of louder. It was a very difficult little bit to pull off. But listen, this is a tradition, the thing of putting cans on the back of your car. Of course, I looked it up. I guess that this goes all the way back to a French tradition, Angela.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  It's called, I'm gonna pronounce this wrong, chivory. And you're supposed to like create a bunch of noise after a couple is newly married. It was originally done where as the couple drove away, people would clang pots and pans and other noise makers. But then it eventually evolved into the can thing.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  But I thought you'd like this one, Angela.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  I guess in the Tudor period in England.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, how far back does this go?

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. There was this crazy tradition where as the couple would ride away in their carriage, guests would take off their shoes and throw them at the carriage. And if you hit the carriage, it meant good luck. So there have always been these little traditions of things to do as a couple is driving away.

• 55:39Speaker 00

  Throwing things at them.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Clanking things. Yeah. But that stunt was a nightmare.

• 55:48Speaker 00

  I have a driving stunt coming up.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Yes, you do. You're gonna run into Kevin.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  I fully nudge Brian Baumgartner with that car, you guys. And it was a lot of fun. Listen, I was going 0.000 miles an hour. It's just a little tap, just a little tap. And we actually had a lot of fun doing that. I got really tickled. Everyone's on their way to Niagara now. You have all these different pairings and cars. It's really fun to see. You have Andy, Aaron and Kelly, and you have Jim and Pam, and Michael and Dwight.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Yes. There's that super sweet scene with Pam and Jim. And this is where we get, oh, my gosh, I just loved it. Pam tells Jim that her aunt told her to take mental pictures of the high points of their wedding day because everything's gonna go by so fast and they should try to remember it. And that's when Jim uses his fingers and pretends like he's taking a picture of Pam. This idea that Jim and Pam should take mental pictures was a pitch from Steve Carell. He had told Greg the story that he had a friend who would do this. And so Greg put it into the script for Jim and Pam. But when we read it, John and I, we didn't get it, like when we read the script. So Greg did that thing where he

• 57:02Speaker 01

  was like, Steve, come here, come here. Show these guys what you meant, the thing with the taking the mental pictures. So Steve kind of showed us. And then we were like, oh, we get it.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  I just love that so much. And it goes to what Greg mentioned in the commentary, you guys, and also in our interview about how a lot of this episode was based off real life moments in people's lives. And this is one of them.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  You know, I also improvised a line in the scene, Angela.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  Which line?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  When Jim says, oh, you blinked. That was supposed to be the end. And I improvised the line, ah, we should have hired a professional to take our mental pictures.

• 57:40Speaker 00

  Aw.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  I'm very proud of it.

• 57:42Speaker 00

  That's very good.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  So Angela, you mentioned that Dwight and Michael are in the car together. And I laughed out loud so hard at the beginning of the scene when you find out that Michael is asleep and driving. It was so funny. I also laughed out loud when Dwight says he made Michael a mixed CD, something he can play if he brings a woman back to his room.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  I mean, Dwight is a wingman, guys.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  I loved it so much. I felt like we needed to hear it.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  Hello, my name is Dwight Schrute. If you are listening to this, you're a lucky woman Michael has seduced. Ah, to be in your shoes. What's next, you're probably wondering? Don't be scared of your night in heaven.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  I mean, it's so creepy.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Maximum creep factor.

• 58:40Speaker 00

  This scene made me laugh for something I was not expecting, Jenna.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  What?

• 58:45Speaker 00

  I couldn't stop cracking up. I don't know why. Maybe I was just in a loopy mood. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but did you notice that Michael is dressed just like his car seat?

• 58:57Speaker 01

  What?

• 58:58Speaker 00

  He's dressed exactly like the upholstery in his car. So he's in all beige and the seat is all beige and he's just like a beige blob going down the road. And it just cracked me up.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  I did not, but I want to go back and look at it.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  Well, you guys, the gang finally makes it to Niagara. They're pulling into the city. For that driving sequence, as everyone arrives to Niagara, Kelly Cantley shared, "That was filmed, Jenna, while you guys were drying off from Maid of the Mist."

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Yeah. For the most part, we shot this episode in Los Angeles. And all of the scenes at the hotel were shot at Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City. For the lobby area, we used an area that was under renovation, that was kind of in the back of the hotel. Our production designer, Michael Gallenberg, and our set decorator, Steve Rothstein, they basically turned this unused lobby into this fictitious Statler Falls Hotel.

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  What an amazing job. I mean, everything from like the fireplace, all of it that you see, they put in there.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Everything. All the hotel rooms, they were upstairs on the second floor. It was an unused wing of the hotel that was undergoing a renovation at the time. They were empty. So literally everything you see was added by our design crews, which I just think is amazing. And lady, do you remember when we talked to Ed Helms about when he started on The Office? He stayed at Sportsman's Lodge.

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's where they put him up.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Yes. Incidentally, when Lee and I got married, Sportsman's Lodge was down the street from our house. And we found out that you could buy a day pass for their swimming pool. They have a huge swimming pool, like an Olympic sized swimming pool. And so whenever my family would come to town, we would get day passes for the Sportsman's Lodge swimming pool.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  Jenna, my dad loved the Sportsman's Lodge. We would go there and swim and hang out. And you and I often met there for breakfast because they had a fantastic breakfast.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  They had an amazing little breakfast diner restaurant thing. Well, Randy also shared with me that we had to do a table read for one of our upcoming episodes while we were shooting at Sportsman's Lodge. And they put us in this conference room. But it had a huge window right onto the swimming pool. He said, "We got a lot of looky-loos." A lot of people like in their bathing suits and towels, just like walking by, watching us read an episode of The Office.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  Also try concentrating on reading and delivering a line as like some guy is chasing after a beach ball.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Speaker 00

  In his swim trunks. Well, now Jim and Pam are going to check into their hotel room. And I want you guys to look at 8 minutes, 41 seconds. There is a beautiful photo, a huge picture in the lobby of Niagara Falls, of the actual falls. Well, that was taken by our very own Michael Gallenberg. Randy and Michael had gone there to scout and on their scouting trip, Michael took that picture and blew it up really big and made it part of the lobby decoration.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that detail. During this scene, Jim and Pam make it clear that they're going to get individual rooms tonight. And then the next night, they're going to check into the honeymoon suite. But they're wondering, like, could we just take a peek at it? We just want to look at it. And the hotel desk clerk is like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Someone has that room tonight." And that someone is Andy. Andy is staying in the honeymoon suite.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  The night before. And he's like, "I'll break it in for you guys."

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  John delivers this line. It was in the script. I had to look it up because the way he did it was so funny. I thought maybe he made it up on the fly. He just says, "I do not like that."

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  "I do not like that." It's so great. Well, listen, I have a guest star alert that is near and dear to my heart. The woman who plays the front desk clerk throughout this episode is my friend, Michelle Gunn. Now, I have known Michelle for so long and she auditioned for The Office six times for six different roles before landing this one.

• 1:03:15Speaker 00

  I didn't know that.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Yes. And she would get to the final callbacks and then they'd give the role to someone else. But Alison Jones kept bringing her back. We would always be so bummed when she didn't get a role. But then she got this huge role where she got to interact with almost every cast member. She got to be directed by Paul Feig and she got paid for two different episodes. So we were so excited. We were like, "Oh, my gosh." This is that story where like every job you didn't get leads to the job you absolutely were meant to have.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  How fun.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  And she's so good in it. She's so good.

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  Oh, she crushed it.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  I want you to know, I noticed a background catch in this scene, Angela. It's really quick.

• 1:04:01Speaker 00

  What you got?

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Okay, there is like a little announcement board that sort of says all the other things that are happening at the hotel on this night.

• 1:04:12Speaker 00

  Oh, what's it say?

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:04:14Speaker 00

  I live for this, by the way, and I'm sad I missed it. So I cannot wait to hear.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Well, in addition to Jim and Pam's rehearsal dinner, you could also attend the Moose Lodge meeting at 7:00 PM in the Elk Room.

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Or Senior Poker Friday at 5:00 PM in the River Room. Or perhaps you'd like to go to the O'Brien Retirement Party at 8:00 PM in the Reception Hall. I also noticed this tidbit. I know exactly when Jim and Pam's wedding reception is because it's on the board. It's 2:00 PM the next day in the Falls Room. So they had like, I guess, like a noonish wedding. Well, someone's going to get some bad news when they try to check into the hotel and that person is Michael because I guess he thought you could just show up and say you want a room with the Beasley-Halbert block.

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  And you would have a room.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  That's not how it works.

• 1:05:11Speaker 00

  Oh, Michael.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  So Michael's going to try to weasel himself into other people's rooms.

• 1:05:17Speaker 00

  Of course, no one wants Michael in their room. The only person who's nice enough to say, "Michael, you could have the other bed," is Toby. And Michael's like, "Um, hell no, Toby."

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  I know. You know, Stanley's going to arrive to check in with not his wife.

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  Cynthia.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Cynthia, played by Aljorita Win Lewis. This is a bit scandalous. I'm surprised Angela didn't have something to say about this.

• 1:05:45Speaker 00

  Angela was consumed with the fact that Pam was getting married while pregnant. She could barely focus on anything else.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  That's right. She was focusing all her shame in that one direction.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  I love that Michael goes up to Jim and Pam and asks, "When is he making his speech?" And says, "'Cause he'd like to go third to bat cleanup."

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is where we are going to meet Jim's parents for the first time. We have Betsy Halpert, played by Perry Smith, and Gerald Halpert, played by Robert Pine, who is the father of actor Chris Pine.

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  People were so excited.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  We were a little bit excited.

• 1:06:23Speaker 00

  First of all, he's a lovely, lovely person and was so nice to everyone. But there were a few folks excited that Chris Pine's dad was there.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  It's true. Even though Robert Pine is like an incredibly successful actor in his own record.

• 1:06:35Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Well, listen, Pam and Jim are pointing out Mema to Jim's parents. And she says, "Mema is the woman in teal talking to my mom." Now, that was confusing to some viewers because, you know, we met Pam's mom in the sexual harassment episode in season two. And the woman that we met as Pam's mom was not standing over by the woman in teal. Because in this episode, Pam has a new mom. We had to cast a new actress as Pam's mom.

• 1:07:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  The original actress who played Pam's mom was Shannon Cochran. She was on tour doing a play. She was doing Augusto Sage County and we could not get her for this episode. Randy actually talked about this. He said, "This was a really difficult episode to schedule because we had so many different guest stars, many of whom we had established in previous episodes. We had to get the same people. We even had to shoot on two Saturdays." I don't know if you remember that, Angela, but in order to get everybody in the same room together for the wedding part, we actually shot on Saturdays. The one person we couldn't get was Shannon. The writers talked about this. They felt that we had to have Pam's mom at the wedding. They did not-

• 1:07:57Speaker 00

  Of course. Like Pam couldn't get married without her mom?

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  No. They did not want to manufacture some kind of drama like that Pam's mom didn't come.

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Plus, they really wanted to introduce that storyline between Michael and Pam's mom. And that was an important storyline for this season and it looked like Shannon's tour schedule was going to bump into that as well. So they made the decision to recast the role. Pam's new mom was played by Linda Pearl. When I met her, I was really struck with how alike we look. It's funny because the original actress Shannon kind of looks like my real mom, but I thought Linda looked kind of like me. I actually thought she looked like she could be my big sister. And we were doing the math and we were like, "Wait, actually, like, we're not that far apart in age. Like, she would have been 19 when she had me."

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  Little bit of Hollywood magic there. A little fudging.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  They tried to play it up with like her hair, makeup wardrobe. But here's something crazy. She's been acting for forever. She had been on Happy Days.

• 1:09:04Speaker 00

  How cool is that?

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Isn't that crazy? Well, Linda was delightful. I loved getting to work with her.

• 1:09:12Speaker 00

  At 11 minutes, 3 seconds, people are making their way into where the rehearsal dinner is. There is a sign that says Beasley-Helpert. Now, "Helpert" is spelled wrong and some people on the internet at the time were like, "Oh, my gosh, they spelled Jim's last name wrong." Veda shared on the commentary, "That was intentional. That was like a little joke, a little hidden gem, a little nugget, you know, that the hotel staff had spelled his name wrong." So that was meant to be, you guys.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  Yes, Angela, on that little sign that I mentioned earlier, every time it's supposed to say "Helpert," it says "Helpret." It's like a running joke. You can find many "Helpret's."

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  The other information on the sign reads like this, "Wedding rehearsal dinner, 7:00 to 8:40 PM."

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, guys, you gotta get out.

• 1:10:02Speaker 00

  Gotta get out. 8:40, you're out. You have an hour and 40 minutes. Eat up, make your toast, get out the door. And it is taking place in the Passion Package Room.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  Wow. I can tell you that we filmed all of these rehearsal dinner scenes at the famous Smokehouse Restaurant in Burbank. I don't know if you remember, Angela, but at the time, I lived in walking distance from the Smokehouse.

• 1:10:28Speaker 00

  Oh, you were so excited when we were filming there.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  I would walk home for lunch and I'd have lunch with Lee. It was so great. And guys, listen, the Smokehouse is a very famous restaurant. It is right across the street from Warner Brothers Studios. So a lot of like movie executives and actors eat there. I guess George Clooney even named his production company after the Smokehouse Restaurant.

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, because he filmed on the Warner Brothers lot and he would walk over there. That's the Hollywood lore, anyway.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Well, the original Smokehouse only seated 46 people. I found a whole little video documentary about it and I thought we should listen to a little audio clip about its history. Great.

• 1:11:12Speaker 06

  The original Smokehouse was started here at Riverside and Pass in Burbank in 1946 by two Lockheed engineers, Jim Stockton and Jack Monroe. Jim was the promoter and frontman and Jack was the cook. Opening night was attended by such neighborhood luminaries as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Soon after, all 46 seats were regularly filled to capacity and it was time to look for larger quarters. As fate would have it, the Red Coat Inn, built by Danny Kaye but never opened, was available and in 1948, became the permanent home of the Smokehouse. By 1952, Jim's younger brother Stan was running the restaurant. And Chef John L. Sullivan's unique recipe for garlic bread made the Smokehouse the largest purveyor of French bread west of the Mississippi.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, like their garlic bread was like the thing. It's still the thing. It brought in all the celebs. I guess the new location could seat like 500 people. Here's a list of the people that would go to the Smokehouse for this bread. Errol Flynn, Judy Garland, Robert Redford. But the Smokehouse was known for respecting the privacy of celebrities. They would never sell a story to the tabloids. And when I first moved to Los Angeles, Angela, I had a friend who told me that once a week, they would go eat lunch at the Smokehouse to try to get discovered by executives who were coming there for lunch. It never happened.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  They never, they never got discovered.

• 1:12:45Speaker 00

  I just want that guy in the ad to do something for office ladies. Two gals, Angela Finsey, Jenna Fisher, Sam Kiefer, Cassie Durkens, sitting around, talking about TV.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  You get a sense of like the mood of the Smokehouse when you listen to that.

• 1:13:05Speaker 00

  For sure. Well, I think we should take a break and when we come back, Dwight is going to hold court at the kids' table and we're going to meet Pam's sister?

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:16Speaker 00

  What? Pam has had a sister this whole time?

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And she's like a famous actress.

• 1:13:22Speaker 00

  We'll be back.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

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• 1:13:42Speaker 00

  So chic.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  It was less than $50 and I needed something that was nicer for summery outfits.

• 1:13:52Speaker 00

  Well, guess what? I have decided this is my season of the cardigan.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:13:57Speaker 00

  So I got the 100% organic cotton cropped cardigan. I got it in the camel color. It is so stinking cute and it was $49.90. Look at that.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so cute.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  I like the buttons.

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• 1:14:23Speaker 01

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• 1:15:08Speaker 00

  We are back and I can't wait because we're about to talk to Mema.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Aw, yes. Mema, played by the amazing Peggy Stewart. First of all, I just want to say that I loved the detail that Mema had her napkin tucked into her blouse like a bib. Did you notice this?

• 1:15:30Speaker 00

  I did. She wasn't going to mess up her outfit.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  No, she was not.

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  I bet she also has a little rain bonnet for her hair.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  My grandma had one of those because, you know, she would go get her hair done once a week at the salon and they tease it all up.

• 1:15:46Speaker 00

  Angela Martin had one.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Mema says that Pam marrying Jim might just be restoring her faith in that side of the family. And Pam's kind of like, "Oh, thanks, Mema. I mean, nobody's perfect, but, you know." And then Mema says she wouldn't care to live if she thought that was true. Pam's Mema is Angela.

• 1:16:10Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  You know, when we were talking to Greg, Greg mentioned that Peggy Stewart, who played Mema, was in a whole bunch of westerns. But I mean, like, I can't even tell you how many she was in. Just from 1944 to 1951, just for that seven years, she was in 35 westerns.

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  In seven years, yeah. She also has a ton of television credits. Like, she was on Gunsmoke for five years. She's been on the A-Team, Days of Our Lives, Seinfeld, Frasier. She died recently in 2019. She was 95 years old. She was a delight.

• 1:16:56Speaker 00

  She was amazing. Everyone loved her on set. She completely held her own with her scenes with Steve.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  Oh, don't even get me started. I can't wait to get to those.

• 1:17:05Speaker 00

  I know, I know. How lucky were we?

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Next, Pam's gonna run into her dad and his much younger new girlfriend, Kristy Kelly. Pam's dad was played by Rick Overton. Remember the last time we saw him? He was just down in the parking lot with just some off-camera dialogue. Here he is. He's back. He was so fun.

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  He's back?

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  And then Dwight is at the kids' table.

• 1:17:31Speaker 00

  He is, and Dwight is just crushing it with the kids.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Well, he's doing that fun thing where he's not talking down to them, which makes an adult fascinating to children.

• 1:17:42Speaker 00

  Right. And we see at 11 minutes, 52 seconds, Charlotte Daniels, Greg's daughter, who I thought did fantastic.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. Yes, and later, she's gonna dance down the aisle.

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  She's got a whole other big moment.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  And then, Jenna, up next, we're gonna meet Pam's sister.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:01Speaker 00

  I know we have a lot to share about this. I could not believe, in sort of the canon of the show up to this point, that Pam would have such a cute, fun sister. And it's never come up, none of the guys. Michael would be constantly like, Pam, is your sister gonna stop by? When's your sister stopping by? Like, I feel like Pam, has Pam hidden the fact that she has such a cute sister? Because she knows all the fellas will be like, just bugging her?

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  Angela, 100%. I am convinced that everyone at this wedding from Dunder Mifflin is shocked that Pam has a sister. Shocked. I love it that she mistakes Kevin for Oscar's boyfriend, Gil. And Oscar is like, what?

• 1:18:49Speaker 00

  What? He is so offended.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  He is so angry.

• 1:18:53Speaker 00

  During the scene, I have two background catches. One is behind Kevin and Oscar, did you see the enormous picture of Jim and Pam in a golded frame on an easel?

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Yes, I remember taking that.

• 1:19:06Speaker 00

  I just remember that from going to weddings. Everyone has that one picture, like their engagement picture in a big frame. I love that little detail. That's hanging somewhere, Jenna. Someone has that.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, someone has that giant, it's probably in a warehouse.

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  Also, in the background, Kelly pointed out that the fire that's in the fireplace, making everyone feel so cozy? Fakey fire.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  What do you mean fakey fire?

• 1:19:31Speaker 00

  It's special effects, because there was no fire in the fireplace at the smokehouse when we filmed.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  What? That is blowing my mind.

• 1:19:38Speaker 00

  I know, it looks really good.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  I should probably give you a little guest star breakdown on Pam's sister, who was played by the lovely Anna Camp. You guys know Anna. She's been on Mad Men, she's been on The Mindy Project, she was the star of the Pitch Perfect movies.

• 1:19:56Speaker 00

  I was so excited when she came to set, because I had been watching True Blood, and she had a great story arc on True Blood.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I reached out to her, and she sent in some audio clips about her time on the show. Of course, we started by asking her how she got the role of Penny.

• 1:20:14Speaker 07

  Hi there, this is Anna Camp, and I'm super excited to be on the Office Ladies podcast. I had the pleasure of playing Pam's sister Penny in the wedding episodes in Niagara, and I had the best time. It was truly an honor to get to be a part of those episodes. So, yeah, how I got the job. I had audition for Alison Jones, who's incredible casting director, multiple times for lots of different things. And she was always very supportive of me and always remained a fan. And I could tell that she was trying to find me something.

• 1:20:58Speaker 07

  I was actually doing a play in New York at the time. So, I got an audition for Penny, and I had to go all the way up to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and it's a super iconic feeling when you go up to audition at NBC in New York City. And I remember there were like two, two scenes that I did for the casting director up there on top of 30 Rock. And at the time, the character Penny was also the character who hooks up with Dwight at the wedding. So, at the time, it was in two characters, because my friend Kellin Coleman, who I actually met on that Office episode, she played the character,

• 1:21:43Speaker 07

  the other bridesmaid who hooks up with Dwight. So, they come to split my role in two. I'm not really sure why they did that, because I was like, oh, man, that would have been super fun. I love Rainn Wilson, he's so funny. But anyway, I made a really great friend out of Kellin, and we're still friends today.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  That was a newsflash to me.

• 1:22:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I didn't know that.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  So, originally, they were gonna have Pam's mom hook up with Michael, and Pam's sister hook up with Dwight? What?

• 1:22:15Speaker 00

  That was too much of a one-two punch.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  You cannot do that to Pam. I'm so glad that instead had Pam's friend hook up with Dwight, I guess. But wow, crazy, crazy that her audition sides were different. You know, we also asked her how she felt about getting the job, what it was like to be part of this episode, and here's what she had to say.

• 1:22:42Speaker 07

  I just remember being so excited to be on the episode and wearing bridesmaids' dresses and all of that, and being directed by Paul Feig was just super exciting. And I was originally a fan of the show, so of course, I was like, already up to date with everything that had been going on. And I was a huge fan of the cast and just thought the writing was so superb. And I just remember seeing like, these characters, you know, that I had been watching. They're like, I mean, obviously, I'm an actor, but there's something like a little, I was very starstruck seeing everybody hanging out and doing their thing, and just like, these iconic characters, just people, you know,

• 1:23:24Speaker 07

  being people and being funny and improv-ing and, you know, hanging out on their phones, talking. And it was just such a fun thing for me to be a part of, you know, pretty early on in my career. And I still, you know, see those wedding photos, and I'm like, in them. Like, how did I get to be in the wedding episode of The Office? I'm like, I'm bridesmaid. Pretty, pretty surreal.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Okay, I have to say that when she was talking about, like, seeing all these people that she had seen on TV, just kind of like, walking around, being on the phone, just being themselves, like, how surreal that could be? That totally took me back to the fact that Angela, one of my very first acting jobs was in the movie, Gilei. Do you remember this movie?

• 1:24:11Speaker 00

  Was that Ben Affleck?

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  And Jennifer Lopez. And I had a scene with Christopher Walken.

• 1:24:19Speaker 00

  Get out.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Yes, where he's in an elevator, and then I enter the elevator, and it has a funny smell, and I have to comment to my friend about the smell. And like, was just like, a little like, three-line scene.

• 1:24:33Speaker 00

  Are you in that movie? If I go watch that movie, I've never seen it.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  I think I made the cut. I think I'm in the movie. It was just crazy, because I was like, it was Christopher Walken. I'm doing a scene with Christopher Walken.

• 1:24:46Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, Christopher Walken.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  How is this happening? And then, like, I didn't have any scenes with Ben Affleck or Jennifer Lopez, but like, you know, you just see them like, walk by in the far distance from their trailer. And, you know, it was one of my very first jobs in Hollywood, and I just was like, I was in a dream state. It was so weird. I do want to say, shout out to Christopher Walken. They shot his coverage first, which is pretty standard. You shoot the stars. And then they said to him, Mr. Walken, you can go ahead and go to lunch while we get these ladies. We can have someone else read your line off-camera. And he said, no, no, I stay for all my work.

• 1:25:29Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, I love that.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he stayed, and he did the lines for us, even though he wasn't on camera. And I was like, okay, that was classy. I'm gonna remember that. That was super cool.

• 1:25:43Speaker 00

  I have a Christopher Walken impression.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:25:46Speaker 00

  From the movie True Romance. I love that movie.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  What? You have a Christopher Walken impression?

• 1:25:52Speaker 00

  From True Romance.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  Okay. I did not know this about you. You're my best friend, and you can do a Christopher Walken impression.

• 1:25:59Speaker 00

  I really can't. I just love this movie.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:26:02Speaker 00

  Here's Christopher Walken in True Romance.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:26:05Speaker 00

  Your son, the [bleep] head that he is.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:26:10Speaker 00

  That's it. That's it.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  That's as far as it go. I mean, it's good. It's respectable.

• 1:26:15Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:26:17Speaker 00

  Your son. Come on, that movie is so good.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  We have gotten on a tangent here.

• 1:26:23Speaker 00

  How did that happen?

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:26:25Speaker 00

  On a tangent?

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  What? So, listen, Anna Camp also mentioned how doing this role was one of her earliest jobs because after this, she would get her role on Glee and then she was going to have a regular role on The Mindy Project. She said that when she was auditioning for The Mindy Project, Mindy remembered her from meeting her doing Niagara and that Mindy like really fought for her to get the role in a really meaningful way. So she felt like, you know, she was able to plant a lot of seeds by doing this small role on our show. And guys, she's just the loveliest. She also has the cutest dogs on the planet. You can check them out and her on her Instagram, @therealannacamp.

• 1:27:10Speaker 00

  Anna, thank you so much for sharing your memories and you were just wonderful and that was so great just to hear your voice.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Well, now Ryan is hitting on a lady and Meredith is actively sabotaging him in just the best way. I loved it.

• 1:27:27Speaker 00

  I know. She's like, you want to tell them when you worked at the bowling alley? Kelly Cantley shared that for our props department, the continuity of this rehearsal dinner scene was such a challenge because we shot out of order. So in one scene, Memaw might have her salad and the next scene, entrees, and we were bouncing all around and our props department had to keep track of all of it.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  You know what? I remember that. And they also have to keep track of which plate goes to which person. It is like a massive, massive undertaking to fake feed all of those people with a passage of time.

• 1:28:08Speaker 00

  With a three course meal.

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Ah, Angela, I have a fan question. It's from Rachel B. in Austin, Texas. She says, around 12 minutes, 30 seconds, why is Creed lurking over Andy's shoulder for his whole conversation?

• 1:28:27Speaker 00

  This is great. Rachel, I can tell you why. So this is really funny to me for many reasons. One is in the DVD commentary, Greg said in editing that he saw Creed creeping into this shot and he was like, why is Creed here? He has no lines in the script. What is he doing? Why has Paul placed him here? Because Greg wasn't there the day that we shot that. Paul Feig said, the only thing he can think of is that they kept trying to place Creed in all these random places in the background because there was a deleted runner that didn't make it in that Creed, I guess, remembered being at this one restaurant because he used

• 1:29:12Speaker 00

  to smuggle back in the day. And this was one of his meetup places. And there's a really funny clip. Sam, can you play it?

• 1:29:21Speaker 03

  I know this place. It was home base when I ran cigarettes over the border. For who, mobsters? I never knew. The balloon went in, the balloon came out. Didn't think to ask.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  He smuggled cigarettes in a balloon in his body? Full cigarettes in a balloon?

• 1:29:39Speaker 00

  What? I don't know, apparently. And then there were more scenes, Jenna, where Creed was in the background looking for his stash. And in one, he finds it. There's a spy shot that got deleted where Creed is taking off the cushion in one of like the little banquet seating booths.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:56Speaker 00

  And digs his hand way back in the booth and pulls out a bunch of cash and cigarettes. And he looks around and he puts some in his pocket and he sneaks off.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  I had no idea.

• 1:30:07Speaker 00

  And so if you see Creed lurking about in these rehearsal dinner scenes, that was this deleted runner of him looking for his stash.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Lady, are you ready for some speeches?

• 1:30:21Speaker 00

  Oh, there's going to be so many.

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  They're kicked off by Pam's friend Isabel. And I got this fan question, by the way. Sophia B. from Massachusetts says, Angela, you mentioned your daughter Isabel on the podcast before. And Sophia is wondering if they named Pam's friend Isabel after your daughter Isabel. Do you know?

• 1:30:43Speaker 00

  They sure did. We filmed this episode in 2009. My daughter was around a year old. And the character Isabel Pariba, who was Pam's friend, her name was a combination of my daughter's first name and Paul Lieberstein's wife's maiden name, Isabel Pariba.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  Hey. Well, the real Isabel was played by Kellin Coleman. She has been on The Newsroom, Big Little Lies, The Mindy Project. We love her and she's going to come back. She did four episodes of The Office.

• 1:31:15Speaker 00

  She was fantastic.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Well, now Jim's brothers are going to give a speech. You might remember, we've met them before. They're played by Tug Coker and Blake Robbins. Tug told me that he improvised the line, "A little mo cardio." And he said that they were a little more confident improvising this time around since they'd been on the show before. And he said that that little line is the thing that people text and DM him more than anything else in reference to him being on the show.

• 1:31:48Speaker 00

  It's like the thing that stood out in their toast to me.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:31:52Speaker 00

  Well, Michael thinks their speech is inappropriate and he's going to save the day.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:57Speaker 00

  He's going to jump in. And you guys, at 14 minutes, 28 seconds, did you notice that Michael delivers his joke about the smart car with his eyes closed?

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  Yes. I loved that choice so much.

• 1:32:11Speaker 00

  His eyes are closed for about 20 seconds. Paul Feig shared in the commentary that this was a choice that Steve made and Paul was like, okay. And Steve just committed to it and did it.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  Did you notice that Memaw puts her hand up to her ear to try to hear better?

• 1:32:27Speaker 00

  I did.

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  And also, I would like to point out that Memaw is not at the head table.

• 1:32:33Speaker 00

  Oh, oh.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  She is not sitting next to Pam, Pam's mother and Pam's sister. They have not allowed her at the head table for some odd reason.

• 1:32:43Speaker 00

  Odd reason? I think we all know what reason.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Listen, there are so many fun background catches in this rehearsal dinner. I mean, little things like I notice when Jim starts giving his speech, Pam's mom hugs Pam's sister and they share a little loving look. Like, everybody is in their character and they are contributing these real amazing reactions to this scene. It is so rich. I love it.

• 1:33:14Speaker 00

  So layered. Michael's whole smart car thing, it's going to bomb. Pam looks over at Jim, like step in, and Jim does. And he does such a great job up until the end.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  He doesn't. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's really sweet. He's saying really sweet things and Pam's going to take a little mental picture.

• 1:33:39Speaker 00

  Jenna Vada shared that that whole bit about teaching you how to drive a stick was improvised.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Way to go, John Krasinski.

• 1:33:48Speaker 00

  I know, but then you you responded right in the moment too. So you're right there with them. And Andy crying, talk about just one of the things in the background, Andy crying in Jim's speech, I absolutely love.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  I know. That was just, that's Ed making the choice for his character and our cameras picking these up. Well, listen, Jim is gonna like end his toast by asking everyone to raise their glasses, except Pam, of course. And Memaw's like, why of course?

• 1:34:20Speaker 00

  By the way, Memaw's hearing at that point was spot on.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. She's hearing all of this. And, you know, Jim is like, oh, you know, for she can do whatever she wants, you know, but she shouldn't drink because she's an alcoholic. Wait, what? No, she's not. She's just, I don't know. Pam's dying. And Jim is like, she's pregnant. So then Michael's going to try to help.

• 1:34:49Speaker 00

  Of course he is.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  And lady, I watched this three times because it was so funny to me and I think we have to hear it. This is Michael trying to help Jim and Pam.

• 1:35:02Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, okay. Hey, what I think Jim is trying to say is that they had an accident. And you know what? These two people, they're living together. They are having lots of consensual sex. They were living together? Yes, yes, they were living together. Yes. And you know what? You can't expect them to be careful.

• 1:35:27Speaker 05

  Every time because frankly, it's just a different sensation.

• 1:35:31Speaker 02

  Michael.

• 1:35:31Speaker 05

  When you come, well, am I wrong? They say it's not different, but it's a different sensation.

• 1:35:36Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:35:36Speaker 05

  When you use something to block. Yeah, I think everybody knows what I am talking about. It's not necessarily different for the woman. But it is different. Okay, okay, okay.

• 1:35:48Speaker 04

  Michael, stop.

• 1:35:49Speaker 05

  All right. My point is, I said what I wanted to say and Mema, I hope you heard every word.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  Okay, so I just want to say that Steve definitely embellished some of that. Like in the script, they had that whole thing about, you know, they're living together and having regular sex and Mema's like, they're living together. And then Michael was just supposed to say, yes, and they can't be expected to be careful every single time. You know, it's a different sensation. But then it was going to kind of end there. So all that stuff about like, I mean, maybe not for the woman, but I think you know what I'm talking about. Like all of that, just like awkward innuendo and extra was us playing in the moment.

• 1:36:41Speaker 00

  Well, I remember how hard it was not to laugh during this moment. And Kelly Cantley talked about it on the commentary. She was like, we had to make announcements to the room, not just our regular cast, but all of our background performers. You guys, you can't laugh. You guys can't laugh because we all kept cracking up and we were all supposed to be horrified. Right? Like, oh, my gosh, Michael.

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  Michael's speech here did not help, but he is going to save the day. Pam tells them, guys, Mema is leaving. She's not coming to the wedding.

• 1:37:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  But Michael is going to go to Mema's hotel room. And what I love about this scene so much is that you are, you're predisposed to be like, oh, my God, Michael, stop making it worse. But then he's like the Mema whisperer.

• 1:37:38Speaker 00

  When he starts off, I was a little worried because he was like, look, Mema, women have sex all the time now. You gotta just, you know what? You gotta let that go. And you're like, where's, where's this going? But then they end up finding some common ground. Annie helps her turn off her television, which was making her crazy.

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  So my grandma in real life was a little persnickety and opinionated. And she ran a little negative. And the family, we would just be like, oh, my gosh, you know, here she goes. I had this one boyfriend and I don't know what it was, but he would do what Michael did. He would be like, Grandma, you gotta let that go. Now that's just nonsense. And she would giggle. She'd be like, oh, okay. Okay. And we were like, what? This is the what? How are you unlocking Grandma right now? This is incredible. We were in awe and that when I watched the scene, it reminded me of that.

• 1:38:39Speaker 00

  Well, my grandmother, who I love so much, but you know, she did not watch The Office.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  She didn't care for it.

• 1:38:46Speaker 00

  Didn't care for it. Thought Michael Scott was vulgar. So proud for you, will not watch it.

• 1:38:54Speaker 00

  At 19 minutes, 16 seconds, there is a Michael talking head out in the hallway after he's left Mema's room. Paul Feig shared that they shot that at the end of the day. And then the next morning, when they got to set, Steve was like, guys, we need to reshoot it.

• 1:39:11Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:39:13Speaker 00

  Well, I guess there was a line that just kept bumping Steve and he was like, guys, I just think it's a little too much. When they first filmed it, Michael refers to Grandma's friend as Myrtle. The scripted line was this. I'm actually great with old women. In fact, for the longest time, my best friend was my grandma. And then she met Myrtle and now she thinks she's better than everybody. And for whatever reason, the name Myrtle, Steve was like, it's just too much. And they changed it to Harriet. And that's the line that made it in.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. I love that Steve was so committed to just getting the nuance of that joke right. Now we're going to head on down to the bar where everyone is kind of looking to have a good time the night before the wedding. We shot all these bar scenes in the bar of the Sportsman's Lodge. Incidentally, we did a table read in the bar as well. One day we were just table reading all over this place.

• 1:40:15Speaker 00

  This was two weeks of wonky, crazy table reads.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  It really was.

• 1:40:18Speaker 00

  But they were really fun.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  And Pam wants to get in on this. She wants to go down to the bar, maybe she's going to leave her room, wearing her very giant necklace and big hoop earrings and her bangle bracelets. But she's going to run into Angela.

• 1:40:34Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Mema is not the only fun stopper in town. Angela is here, too. At 21 minutes, 12 seconds, the hallway where this scene takes place was not a real hallway.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  I remember shooting this, Angela.

• 1:40:50Speaker 00

  Yes, it was a fakey hallway. It was a tiny nook and we had to cheat it to look like a hallway. And they told you and I to hug the wall. So like, if you watch the scene, we're standing super close to the wall the whole time.

• 1:41:03Speaker 01

  And there wasn't a lot of wiggle room. Like we couldn't walk far in either direction because we ran out of wall.

• 1:41:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, Angela is going to talk Pam out of going to the bar.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  By offering to go with her to the bar.

• 1:41:18Speaker 00

  And basically just chaperone her for the night with like a judgy sneer the whole time. So Pam's like, I'm out.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:24Speaker 00

  At 21 minutes, 34 seconds, we see the famous howling at the moon t-shirt that Dwight is going to wear to pick up the ladies.

• 1:41:35Speaker 01

  Ahoo.

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Speaker 00

  Paul and Greg talked about Dwight's t-shirt in the commentary. I guess our wardrobe department just bought it online and you can still buy this exact t-shirt. It's on Amazon.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:41:53Speaker 00

  Yes. But guess what else? In May of 2009, someone wrote a customer review that went viral. Brian Govern gave the t-shirt five out of five stars. His pros were fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women. Cons, only three wolves, could probably use a few more on the guns. Cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed. Wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark. And 41,274 people found this review helpful.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  Um, that is fascinating, Angela. I am particularly fascinated by the fact that this review came out before this t-shirt ever appeared on our episode.

• 1:42:35Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:42:37Speaker 00

  Pretty amazing.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  Guys, you can have the wolf shirt. I kind of want one.

• 1:42:43Speaker 00

  I know. I was thinking that, too. I was like, do I need the wolf shirt, but on a mug?

• 1:42:48Speaker 01

  Maybe I do.

• 1:42:50Speaker 00

  Well, you know, who doesn't seem to mind Dwight's howling at the moon shirt?

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  Who?

• 1:42:56Speaker 00

  Pam's friend Isabel. And she finds all of Dwight's chatter about his horses and farm so interesting.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. The fact that he has nine and three quarter horses. How is that possible? He explains.

• 1:43:13Speaker 03

  I invented a device called Burger on the Go. It allows you to obtain six regular sized hamburgers or 12 sliders from a horse without killing the animal. George Foreman is still considering it. Sherpa Image is still considering it. Scamal is still considering it. Hamakushlema is still considering it. Sears said no.

• 1:43:33Speaker 00

  Well, when Greg saw this scene in editing, he was like, wait, that was a list of alternates. Greg meant for only one of these to be used. Instead, because he wasn't there, they thought it was a list. So Dwight ends up saying all of them, but then they actually ended up liking it. So they left them all in.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  We're going to go to Andy's room next because the party is in full swing. I want to remind you, this is the honeymoon suite that Andy has for one night. And Randy Cordray shared with us that our set designers had originally designed this huge heart shaped, kind of like hot tub bathtub that was going to be in the room as kind of like an homage to the honeymoon suite. Well, they had design meetings. They made it. They even had pitched the idea that that's where Michael sleeps because he doesn't have a room. He sleeps in the heart tub. It was in the room. You never see it. It never made it on camera.

• 1:44:37Speaker 00

  It was huge and they built it in the corner and you never see it.

• 1:44:41Speaker 01

  No. So there's this huge dance off happening in this room. Andy and Meredith are kind of doing like a robot challenge.

• 1:44:49Speaker 00

  Kelly's like, what else you got? Cause you know, Kelly and Andy have a history of a dance off.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  Well, guess what? Andy's going to do the splits and he's going to hurt himself.

• 1:45:00Speaker 00

  He can't get back up, y'all.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Because.

• 1:45:04Speaker 00

  He hurt his TT.

• 1:45:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, his scrote got hurt.

• 1:45:08Speaker 00

  He did. You know, Paul shared that Ed pitched that he thought just the splits wouldn't do that much damage, that Andy should have something in his pocket that he lands on.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  Oh, that was a good idea.

• 1:45:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Erin and Kevin are going to carry Andy to Pam's door. Pam, the bride.

• 1:45:29Speaker 00

  She's the sober one. Everyone else has been partying. I get that. I mean, it's, listen, it's horrible timing for Pam, no doubt about it.

• 1:45:38Speaker 01

  Well, she's got to drive Andy to the hospital. And that's how this episode ends with that news on Pam's doorstep. Listen, we had one fan question that I wanted to address. Amy C. from Charlotte, North Carolina said, my kids who are nine and 11 noticed that Daryl wasn't at the wedding in Niagara. Where was he?

• 1:46:03Speaker 00

  Great catch.

• 1:46:05Speaker 01

  Amy, tell your kids we're very proud of them over here on Office Ladies.

• 1:46:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  So here's what it was. It was decided that since Daryl was a close friend of Pam's ex fiance, Roy, Pam and Jim would not have invited anyone from the warehouse, including Daryl to the wedding. But I'm pretty sure the reason they had to come up with that idea is because Craig was in New Orleans filming a movie at this time.

• 1:46:35Speaker 00

  Well, that's a hundred percent why he's not there.

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, Jim and Daryl are going to become good friends and they're going to be part of a upstart business together, you know, in later seasons. But right now that hasn't happened yet. You know, right now that's sort of like Pam's ex world.

• 1:46:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, that is Niagara, part one, you guys. We're ending with an injured scrotum. We'll be back next week.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  We have so much to talk about next week. I mean, we haven't gotten to the ceremony. We haven't gotten to the actual falls. There's more to say.

• 1:47:13Speaker 00

  We hope you guys have a great week. Thanks for listening and sending in your questions and your comments. Huge thank you to Greg Daniels for being our guest today.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  And another big thank you to Randy Cordray, who really helped us dissect the ins and outs and backgrounds of this episode. Randy, we thank you so much.

• 1:47:31Speaker 00

  Thank you, Randy. He's also going to be helping us next week. He is the best. And thank you to Anna Camp for sending in audio clips. We love you guys. Bye, love you.

• 1:47:47Speaker 01

  Thank you for listening to Office Ladies Second Drink.

• 1:47:50Speaker 00

  This episode was initially created in collaboration with Earwolf.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. Our senior producer is Matt Beagle.

• 1:48:01Speaker 00

  Our Second Drinks episodes are produced by Molly Nugent.

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  Our audio engineer is Sam Pfeifer.

• 1:48:06Speaker 00

  Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.

• 1:48:12Speaker 00

  Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.