Second Drink: Company Picnic

This week we’re breaking down “Company Picnic” and it’s the 100th episode of “The Office”! All the branches of Dunder Mifflin gather for a company-wide picnic. Michael reconnects with Holly and the Scranton branch comes together to slay at some volleyball until Pam and Jim discover some very surprising news. The ladies break down why this episode needed “special business performers”, Angela reveals some epic volleyball moves and Jenna shares how the big season finale news was kept under wraps. So grab your soup snake and enjoy this very special episode! Link to Jennie Tan’s “Company Picnic” write-up on “Office Tally”: https://www.officetally.com/the-office-company-picnic 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 Company Picnic. I really had a good time going through the mail for this one because we got a lot of great stuff.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Yes, we really did.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  So I'm going to kick us off with this background catch by Sarah L. in Dallas, Texas. Sarah says, "I may be thinking too deep into this, and I don't know if the question or observation has already been asked, but I noticed that Michael and Holly are both wearing navy jackets. And I don't know if that was intentional or not, or if there's any symbolism in that decision. Like even though they are not together right now and living separately, they are still thinking the same. Love you ladies and your podcast."

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Oh, Sarah, completely intentional. I know it. We would do stuff like that all the time, and I love when people notice.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  This was the care that our crew, through props, or wardrobe, or hair, or makeup, or set dressing, would take with our show. And I love when people notice and connect the dots.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  Sarah, such a great observation. And I love the idea that, yeah, they're apart, but still so connected.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Well, I love this observation by Katie W. in Albany, New York, who said, "My favorite scene is actually just a couple of moments. It's when Michael is with Holly before and after their skit, and he just pauses and looks at her. Those silent moments are so moving. You can see Michael yearning to tell Holly he loves her, and also his fear and trepidation to do so. It makes his statement at the end of the episode perfect. Exquisite acting by Steve, and as always, amazing writing and direction. P.S. Love the podcast so much."

• 1:43Speaker 00

  I went back and rewatched that moment that Katie's talking about, and that look that he gives her, it's so loaded.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  I mean, again, I want to say, one of the things I love about our show are the quiet moments where we say so much without saying any words at all.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Which is true life.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Yes. All right. Well, this favorite moment is also one of mine. It is from Freya J. in Hibbing, Minnesota. Freya wrote in and said, "My favorite episodes are The Injury, Safety Training, and Stress Relief, Part 1. But my all-time top number one absolute favorite scene is from the Company Picnic episode. It's when Dwight is attempting to delay the volleyball game as Pam goes to the hospital by kicking the ball into the woods, and then nonchalantly goes, 'I'll get it,' and he turns and casually walks towards the woods. Every single time, I am crying laughing, and it'll take about five minutes for me to recover. Even thinking about the scene makes me, as Angela says,

• 2:48Speaker 00

  so tickled. And I've been giggling as I type this. Love both you ladies so much, and the whole crew of Office ladies. Your show feels like such a warm hug that I never want to end." And then Freya put little heart emojis. Freya, every time Dwight kicks that ball, there's just part of it that is rain. It is when I watch it, and it cracks me up.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Because he can be bratty like that. You know what I mean?

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Totally. Well, we also got a letter from Jennifer C. in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and several other folks who wrote in to say that this episode of Company Picnic is the last episode that features Stanley's wife, Terry, and they would like to know more about the actress who played her. Well, everyone, Terry was played by Joanne Carlson, and she was in five episodes of The Office. Her character's full name is Terry Hudson, and she is Stanley's second wife. The first time we meet her is in The Dundies in Season 2. We see her again in Booze Cruise, and Phyllis' Wedding, and Company Picnic, and then she is referenced in a few episodes as well. And you know, Joanne, if you hear this, we would love to chat

• 3:57Speaker 01

  with you about your time on The Office, so feel free to slide into the Office Ladies' Instagram DMs.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Yes. That would be really fun. All right. So lastly, Cassidy C. in Santa Clarita, California, and Patrick N. from Melbourne, Florida, wanted us to know a fun crossover. Cassidy and Patrick pointed out that in Company Picnic, Michael mentions to A.J. and Holly that he is designing a chair. Quote, "It's part of your pants. You sit down, you're supported." And Holly says she remembers his chair pants idea. Well, in the show Jury Duty by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupninsky, Todd wears his own version and invention of chair pants.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Yes, I remember seeing it. I remember watching Jury Duty and being like, "That's Michael's idea."

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. So people wanted to know if this was a nod to their days on The Office, and it is.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  100%.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  100%.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  All right, everyone. Now here is our second drink of Company Picnic.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  I'm Jenna Fischer.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  And I'm Angela Kinsey.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  We were on The Office together.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  And we're best friends.

• 5:05Speaker 01

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

• 5:09Speaker 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.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  We're the Office Ladies.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Angela Kinsey.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  Jenna Fischer.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  I think I have a meta moment because today

• 5:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  in the world,

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  the 100th episode of Office Ladies podcast came out.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And now here we are, recording our podcast about the 100th episode of The Office.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  That's very meta.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  And our ages almost equal 100.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  Oh, well, why'd you have to throw that in there?

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I don't know. I was looking for more hundreds.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  All right. Well, we should get into this episode. We have so much to cover.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  We do. This is going to be a long one. That's what she said. It's Company Picnic, Season 5, Episode 28, written by Jen Salata and Paul Lieberstein, directed by the dearest man on the planet, Ken Quappus. Summary, it's the Dunder Mifflin Company Picnic.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  All of them are there, all the branches.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yes, in their own special t-shirts that have their branch name on them.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  Oh, I have it, lady. We'll get to it.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Well, the Scranton branch is going to compete against the other branches in a company-wide volleyball tournament. Meanwhile, Michael and Holly reunite to perform a comedy skit where they accidentally reveal some confidential information to the crowd.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  David Wallace, why would you tell Michael Scott anything of that magnitude and expect him to keep it quiet?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  When David introduces their skit, one of my favorite lines is when he says, "I have not seen this."

• 6:54Speaker 00

  I have not seen this. Yeah.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Finally, Dwight is going to defend Angela's honor.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  Tell Rolf.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  And ultimately, an ankle injury is going to send Pam to the hospital, where she and Jim get some surprising news.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  So sweet. I love this episode.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Fast fact number one, Company Picnic was the 100th episode of The Office.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  This was a very big deal for the network because it meant our show was now eligible for syndication.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Which I didn't even know what that meant.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  I thought maybe we should explain it.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Okay, do. Because I remember when we hit 100, I was like, "What's all the hullabaloo? Yeah, sure, we hit 100. That's cool."

• 7:37Speaker 01

  I know.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Maybe, you know, we'll all go out to dinner or something.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  No.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  For the network, super big.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  They all showed up to the set.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  They did. They brought a cake.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  It was as big as like a poker table.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  It was humongous.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  It was. That's what she said.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  That's what she said. They brought champagne.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  But we couldn't drink it.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  No, because we had to go back to work.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  We actually only had 15 minutes with the cake, all said and told. It was on our lunch break. So if you wanted to eat, we had 30 minutes, photo with the cake, and then we had to like run out the door.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Well, I remember Greg gave a very nice speech

• 8:13Speaker 00

  He did.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  about what the 100 episodes had meant to him. Entertainment Tonight was there, all the press was there. I mean, this was a super big deal.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Let's tell you why. When a show hits 100 episodes and goes into syndication, it means that the network can now start selling the show in a package to different places where they can rerun it. So it doesn't just run on NBC anymore.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  It gets on all the cable networks.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Like Comedy Central, how it reruns on Comedy Central.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Right. And guys, remember, this predates all streaming.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  So this was all kind of a cable thing.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  But this meant big money for the network.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  I didn't know that, but it makes sense because these other places pay them to have it.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yes. But what I think a lot of people don't know is that the actors do not cash in on this unless they are what is called profit participants.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. And guess what? We weren't.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  We were not. Now, our union, SAG, does negotiate a small fee for syndicated reruns. So it's very fun. You get checks, and they're great.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  They're great, but they have you guys this like cascading tier. So you get a check, and you're like, "Woohoo!" Then the next one's a little lower, then it's a little lower, then it's a little lower, then it's a little lower, then it's a little lower.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  And then it's for like $2.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Well, you know that bar that they have called Residuals in Burbank?

• 9:37Speaker 00

  This is a famous bar, you guys.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's this bar called Residuals. And if you're an actor and you bring in a residual check that's under a dollar, they'll give you a free drink and then they tack your check up on the wall.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have a friend of mine who saved a residual check for, I think it was 17 cents, and like, put it on his bulletin board.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Lady, I got one for 21 cents. It costs more money to mail it to me, probably and to print it.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  So yeah, they were able to make a lot of money selling the show to cable. And then eventually, you guys, I mean, you know, they were able to sell it to all the streamers.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess we should probably say the actors don't get a big payout for that either. That money goes to the profit participants.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  See, the word profit participant is something I'd never heard of. And as it turns out, if you're one of those folks, that is la shataki.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Mm hmm, mm hmm. It sure is. Angela, you found out the inspiration for our 100th episode while listening to the DVD commentary. Will you share?

• 10:45Speaker 00

  I will. I'm officially part of Fast Fact Number One, folks.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  Here's the thing, if you love really good DVD commentaries, this is one not to miss of the Office box set, because Ken Koopas and Paul Libristina and Jen Salata share so many great details. They are the only three people on this commentary, and I really enjoyed it. Paul shared that the idea for the company picnic, they had it at the very beginning of season five. They always knew that they would be working towards this episode.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  And Jen shared that they wanted to bring all of the branches together. They researched company picnics. This delighted me, because I just imagine Jen Googling company picnics.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  She was a lady who Googled.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, like, that would have been us. We would have been like, wait, let's research what people do. And one of the things that came up was a volleyball tournament. So they thought that would be fun. And Paul said he thought it was a great way to bring everyone back together, all the different branches, all the different characters for this big 100th episode. The only characters you don't see that were in the world of the show, really, were Jan, but it doesn't make sense for Jan to come back.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  And Karen.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Yes, we got mail about that. Where was Karen? And Jen Salata did an interview where she said Rashida Jones was filming Parks and Recreation, and they couldn't get her for a whole week of work to be at this picnic. And then they realized, wait, she would be on maternity leave. So they tracked her story-wise as being on maternity leave, and that's why she wasn't there.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Well, that worked out perfect.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  While the volleyball was a great idea, Ken did share that it was a logistical nightmare, because they started filming and they were trying to keep with the rules of volleyball.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Which means the teams trade sides depending on score or whatever, but they just had to bail. They had to bail because it just got too complicated. And Jen said she had this memory of looking over at Ken, and he had a clipboard, and he had a little quarter, and he was tracing this coin, you know, with a pencil, and placing it and mapping out where everyone was gonna stand, and who was serving, and who was playing what position, because it was so complex to shoot.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  I thought it was interesting that they chose volleyball. Any company picnic I've ever been to, it's usually softball. But I do see how that, people are really spread out in softball. So I guess that makes sense to me.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  But, I mean, I can't even imagine.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Jen and Paul shared this other thing. Jen said that her and Paul, as they wrote this episode, they thought that each team had nine players. And so they wrote the whole script with each team having nine players.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  And then they got to the production meeting. And in the production meeting, someone was like, you know, on volleyball teams, you have six players on the court, not nine. And Paul and them were like, what?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  But yeah, so they had to change that, like, immediately. And I have more fun tidbits from the three of them in the commentary. I'll sprinkle through the episode.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  All right, Angela.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  What?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Great job on that fast fact.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Really enjoyed that.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  Thanks so much.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  You told me, you were like, Jenna, there's some great stuff about the inspiration behind the episode. And I said, I'm holding a spot for you up in Fast Facts, lady.

• 14:02Speaker 00

  You did.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  All right, Fast Fact Number Two is a location breakdown. Now, the signs hanging in this episode say that this picnic is being held at The Meadows in upstate New York. I could not find any information on this, or if this is a real place.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  Hmm, fakie place.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Perhaps. Does anyone know? Please comment on Office Ladies Pod if you've ever been to a park called The Meadows in upstate New York. I'd love to know. Fan question, Rayon from Pakistan would like to know, where did we actually film this episode? Well, we filmed at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu Canyon. It is a beautiful location. It's kind of nestled into the side of this canyon in the Malibu Mountains. Did you know it has its own water source from a spring on the property?

• 14:57Speaker 00

  I didn't know that, but I know a lot of people get married there. I've been to a wedding there.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  You know what? Randy Cordray knew about this location because he had been the best man at a wedding there. And when the script came up, he remembered it and suggested it to our locations manager, Kyle Alexander. And they scouted it, and they all agreed it was perfect. So now, Angela, you mentioned how Ken Koopas said, like, this was a logistically difficult shoot.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Randy said this was a very difficult episode to pull off, logistically from a production side, because we had so many people.

• 15:32Speaker 00

  So many people, and we were in the middle of a canyon.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  He said we had to hire additional crew, including multiple medics.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  And we had hydration stations and sunscreen stations. And Sergio and Alan, our caterers, they had to triple their staff. They had three lines to serve lunch, like, three buffet lines. And then Peter and Vartan at Craft Service, they also had three stations instead of one. It was a lot of concern about being able to feed everybody, because all the background food, people were told not to eat.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was fakie food.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  It was real food, but it had been at various temperatures that made it sort of unsafe to eat. So if you watch the episode, you might notice, no one eats anything off of their plates of food.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Check it out.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Ken said there was probably like 250 people there.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Guess what my Fast Fact Number Three is, lady?

• 16:29Speaker 00

  What?

• 16:30Speaker 01

  I'll tell you. We had 14 guest actors, our regular cast, and 185 background performers for this episode. Also, I thought this was interesting. Some of the background performers were called special business performers.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Special business?

• 16:49Speaker 01

  You know what their special business was?

• 16:51Speaker 00

  Volleyball?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, playing volleyball for hours on end. Lady, were you ever a background performer?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  You know it.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  That's how I earned my SAG card.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, same.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Did you have any special business listed on your background performer resume?

• 17:06Speaker 00

  Yes, I did.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  What was your special business?

• 17:09Speaker 00

  That I could speak Indonesian.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  My special business was water skiing, bowling, and animal handling.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Oh, I also put I could play tennis and roller skate. Yes.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Those are a big deal.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a big deal. I was on 90210.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Did you have to do any of your special business?

• 17:28Speaker 00

  I didn't. I was one of Tori Spelling's sorority sisters. But I did pass the ballots of a voting, a sorority voting, like, session to, I handed them to Tori.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Oh, you got to interact.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  Yes, briefly. I said nothing. I just handed some paper to her.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  I was an extra on the movie Pleasantville, starring Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Maguire. And I had to play a teenager. And that was really fun, because I got to dress up in old timey clothes the whole time. But, check this out. They came into the extras' holding area because they needed three couples to make out in the backseat of a car. They were gonna like pan across all these different couples making out until they got to the car with the lead actors.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Were you part of the make out couples?

• 18:15Speaker 01

  No, you would have become a featured extra if you did it, and you got a bump in pay, but I felt too shy. So I didn't volunteer. But lady, we had a very special background performer on this episode of The Office. And it was Jenny Tan, who runs the fan website, office telly.com.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  We had all become friends with her. And she was invited to spend the entire week with us, getting an exclusive look at the finale, and they asked her to be an extra. And lady, she documented all five days of shooting this episode on office telly.com. It is still there, and she has tons of photos.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  She also gave this amazing breakdown of what it was like to be a background performer on company picnic.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, are you gonna share?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  You guys, Jenny was sort of someone who made a community for The Office online before anyone was doing that.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Before social media.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Before social media. And she was there for the show, providing this community in our earliest days, when we didn't even know the future of the show. And it meant a lot to all of us.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  And we would reach out to her and give her, like, exclusive tips, or content, or photos that she would post on the website. And it became kind of the hub.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. And this was before networks did any kind of social media or website for any of their shows. And our show had this presence because of Jenny.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  And so her documenting of our show is very extensive, and it's all still there on office telly.com. There's all these exclusive interviews. It's amazing. She said you could really tell the people who were professional background artists because they would bring tons of gear, like rolling luggage filled with, what she said, quote, "outerwear for every possible weather condition, chairs, water, snacks, something to read." It's like, you know, when you go to the beach and you see people like come with the wagon full of stuff or at the soccer game, that's a professional background performer.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I remember doing background work and there was a guy that had a backpack that was a chair.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  And you could open the backpack and there was stuff inside, or you could unfold it and sit in it.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Because background performers do not get trailers. You mostly are going to be directed to a holding area with some folding chairs in it. But my experience was there were never enough chairs for each person.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Never enough chairs and they're usually outside.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Jenny said that when she first went to the wardrobe tent, she was given an apron to wear and she said she would be a grill cook. But then about an hour later, production pulled her aside and made her a Buffalo Branch employee. And then they winked and said, "You're going to be part of a special branch." But she didn't know what that meant yet.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  And get this, Jenny talked to a bunch of the background folks and she said that most of them were not Office fans, that they had never seen the show and that a few of them did not know who Steve Carell was. She said, "They were thrilled to be working on our show because we had a reputation for treating background performers very, very well and for providing great food." She said, "One person told her, from a work perspective, to be able to be an extra on the Office for an entire week, I feel like I won the lottery." So that made me really proud that our show did a good job because as a person who did a lot of background work.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  It meant a lot. Usually the background performers were like the last people who get to go through the lunch line and it's like what's left, almost nothing. And you were not allowed to go to craft services. But on our show, we had a whole buffet set aside just for the background performers and a whole craft services table that they kept full. And it was awesome.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  Well, you know, that's Randy Cordray.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Randy took care of everyone. However, you were a part of our show, he was going to make sure you were taken care of.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  That is absolutely true, lady. All right, lady, those are all my fast facts. I mean, it's a lot.

• 22:20Speaker 00

  Well, it's a huge episode.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  I know. All right. Should we take a break and then start breaking down this episode? Just heads up, it's going to be a long one.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  That's what she said.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  We are back and the phone is ringing at reception.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  The lights are out.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Erin takes the call and she says that Michael is not in right now, but he'll call this person back when he gets back.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  When he wakes up, I mean, gets back.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Right. Well, guess what? Michael's sleeping because he had chicken pot pie for lunch.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Not just chicken pot pie. Jenna, he had the whole entire chicken pot pie.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  A family-sized chicken pot pie.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  And he's gone to sleep, as one would do.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Well, the whole office is going to prank Michael into thinking that it is 5 o'clock when he wakes up so that they can all go home early. And Dwight does not normally condone leaving early, but he does have that appointment with his horse doctor today, so he's in.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Fan catch from Marcy G. in Connecticut. "There is a small detail that tickles me every time I see it. In the cold open, when they're tricking a sleeping Michael into thinking it's 5:00 PM, they have to change the time on his watch. Pam has her shoes off so she doesn't make noise in his office. But if you notice, Dwight also has his shoes off while he runs outside to change the time on Michael's car."

• 23:49Speaker 00

  I saw that. Jim also has his shoes off.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  I don't know, did everyone just take their shoes off?

• 23:55Speaker 01

  We had another fan catch from Lloyd C. from Australia, who said, "During Jim's Talking Head, when he goes to turn the clock forward, the time starts on 12:50. But when Dwight goes to Michael's car to change the time, it starts at 12:10." He said, "Was this a continuity gap or did Dwight's Panther speed turn time backwards outside of the office?"

• 24:23Speaker 00

  I think it was probably just a continuity catch.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  You know, maybe they had originally intended to see Dwight running outside to the car first and then have Jim explain it in his Talking Head. And then maybe they just swapped it in editing.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  I bet that's right because Veda would have been all on top of this. She had everything meticulously time-coded. Every time we had a clock, she was very like particular. So I feel like that was a change-up in editing.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Jenny Tan, who was there that day watching us film, noted that John had a really hard time winding the clock backwards and delivering his monologue and timing it out perfectly.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  I thought so, watching it. I'll tell you why. John is so effortless as Jim, but in this moment, I could see him concentrating on that clock. And just for a split second, I thought I saw John.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Well, she said that the knob on the back was really, really tiny and that John kept overshooting the time, like it kept ending on like 5:15 or 5:10 instead of right before 5:00. But she said they finally got it perfect on the last take and then they stopped. They were like, "We got it."

• 25:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, done. Well, this whole elaborate ruse ends when they all collectively, on the count of three, just erupt into laughter. And this wakes Michael up. He laughs too because he always wants to be in on the joke.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. But you had to be there.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  You had to be there. It was a geography joke. And then Michael sees the clock and does exactly what they hope for. He's like, "Well, let's all go home."

• 25:54Speaker 01

  I had a teeny tiny catch on Pam's desk at 1 minute 33 seconds when we're all laughing. I noticed, and I had forgotten this, that she has a Pratt mug on her desk that is what is holding all of her pens and pencils. And then she has her pink mug that she's drinking out of. But I spotted that Pratt mug.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  Aww.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  That's a great detail from our set decoration crew.

• 26:18Speaker 00

  Well, I love that. I was way in the corner, back by Stanley's file cabinet, and that was just trying to get me in the shot. Ken Quappus had me come out from accounting. Once again, I'm standing. And that's how we could all be there.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Well, now we have our super short opening credits. They are like 10 seconds. Jen Salata did an interview with Office Tally and she said they cut the credits down to get more time for the episode. She mentioned that they had gone back and forth about maybe making this episode an hour, but she said they didn't feel like they needed it. There were other season finales like The Job or Goodbye Toby where they had like tons of plot points to wrap up and huge moves they were going to make. But in this episode, she said they didn't have that much. They just had kind of the one big move with Jim and Pam and a little bit of a move for Michael and Holly.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  And then the rest of us just little nods to our storylines.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. But she said they did need to steal that little bit of time from the credits.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  The day has arrived. It is the Dunder Mifflin Company picnic. Here's a breakdown of all the different branches and their t-shirts.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Thank you, Dunderpedia. I started making notes and then I saw you had it. So I'm going to read what you have. Corporate, black t-shirts, Akron, yellow, Albany, light blue, Buffalo, orange, Nashua, green, Rochester, dark purple, Scranton, red, and Utica, dark blue.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Lady, I'm calling this episode "The Plain Hats Club."

• 27:50Speaker 00

  Oh, I can't wait to hear this because I have some lingo I made up for this episode as well.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Everyone in this episode is wearing a plain hat. And that is because if you wear a logo anywhere on your shirt or your hat, the production has to get it cleared with that company first. So I have a breakdown of everyone's plain hat.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Like the plain baseball hats?

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Yes. Jim is wearing a plain, black baseball hat. Pam has a white visor. Dwight has a tan fishing hat, which I Googled and I learned is called a bucket hat.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  Mm.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Kevin is also wearing a tan bucket hat. Angela has a floppy sun hat. Andy has a tan Panama hat. Erin has a sort of light purple baseball hat. Creed has a light tan baseball hat. Ryan has a white visor. Stanley has a straw sun hat. Phyllis has no hat while she's playing volleyball, but she has a straw sun hat on the sidelines. Meredith has no hat. Oscar has no hat. Charles Minor has a black Nike visor.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  How did we get away with that?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Because it's Idris. And we were just like, let Idris do what he wants to do. We're just glad to have you back.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  I don't know. Toby also has a yellow baseball hat with a logo. It has little trees, but I couldn't read what it was.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  Well, you know, part of the hat strategy was because it got so hot during the day.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  We needed it. We needed it when we were playing volleyball as well to kind of create a shade on our faces so that you could see our expressions. So we weren't completely blown out by the sun, also for sun protection. But you might notice that Michael and Holly do not wear hats. They are mostly in their cutesy little like love nest shady area.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  Shady tree area.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Well, Jenna, I also did a little bit of tracking. I want you to know that I feel like this episode really brings out some of our characters' other traits.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  I made a list. We have Sporty Pam.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. Saucy Jim.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Petty Charles. Trash-talking Andy. Snarky Michael. And my most favorite, Vacation Stanley.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  I love Vacation Stanley.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  So the picnic starts with Pam and Jim. They're walking up and they share a little bit about what last year's softball company picnic was like.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Jim had that spider in his mitt, but that's not what Pam is talking about. She's talking about the guy who grabbed her boobs to keep his balance.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Uh-huh. And then Pam points at her chest and says, "Yeah, you don't grab these for balance." And Jim goes, "Well..." And this is Saucy Jim.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Well, next up Dwight arrives with his friend Rolf.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  His best friend.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Who they met at a shoe store when Dwight overheard Rolf asking for a shoe that would increase his speed but not leave any tracks.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  These two are made for each other.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  We had a fan question from David H. in Pennsylvania. Who played Dwight's friend? Was he somehow related to the show already? Guys, Rolf was played by the amazing James Urbaniak. And get this, Ange.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  What?

• 31:11Speaker 01

  He auditioned and was called back for the role of Dwight.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  Well, that makes perfect sense to me.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Doesn't it? He and Rain knew each other from their New York theater days. And after Rain read this script, he called James and gave him a heads up. And he told Greg, you need to bring in James Urbaniak for this. Well, they knew him because they had auditioned him. So he went in to see Alison Jones, he read for the role, and he got the part.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  Ken talked a little bit in the DVD commentary about just how perfectly cast James was and that for a guest star to come in on such a big episode, James just fit in so seamlessly you would have never known he had never been on the show before. That is just how organic his performance was and that he just crushed it.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Well, he's one of those guys who's been a working actor for a very, very long time. And I feel like he's one of those people where you recognize him immediately from his body of work. He's a pro. We got this interesting letter from Jana M. in Westport County, Mayo, Ireland.

• 32:13Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. We have letters from everywhere. This is so exciting to me.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  You know, we added a feature on the website where you can say where you're writing from.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  I know, me too. Because it's really fun to see how international the show is.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  I know. Well, when we get mail here to Earwolf that I open, I can always see where people are from. But before in emails, we weren't always sure.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Here is what Jana said. Fun fact, James Urbaniak, the actor who played Dwight's best friend Rolf, whom he met in a shoe store, also played a shoe store employee with a foot fetish on Sex and the City. What is it about James Urbaniak and shoe stores?

• 32:50Speaker 00

  That's really funny.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  I think that's fun. And now Christine B. from Mississippi asked this. I've heard that Rolf was introduced because Moe's was busy on Parks and Rec. Is that true?

• 33:04Speaker 00

  Oh, savvy question.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  It is true. You guys, originally Moe's was supposed to come to the picnic with Dwight. And they called up Mike Schur, who was now running Parks and Rec. And the week we shot Company Picnic, he was directing an episode of Parks and Rec, as well as running the show. And he was like, you guys, I can't do it. And I guess they begged him, like Jen and Paul, they were like, please, you have to come be Moe's. And he's like, you guys, I can't do it.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  I am running a whole other show now.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Yes. And then, you know, we're gonna have Mike on the show.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  I can't wait.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  And he's gonna tell us a little bit about how he also truly hated playing Moe's.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  Hated it.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Hated it. So I think he was like, really happy that he had a good excuse to not be out in this field in his wool clothes for four days.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  It also made sense to me that Dwight wouldn't have brought Moe's to the company picnic.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  And I love this twist that he's got this best friend.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. You know, there's a deleted talking head that made me laugh, but also sad, where Michael says he usually brings the guy from his condo with him. But this year, he came by himself.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  The guy from his condo.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, Rolf is gonna appear in four episodes of The Office. This was his first. We loved you, James. He was really fun to work with.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  So fun. Now enters Holly. Oh, and Michael, Caesar, and Kevin's like, there's Holly. And Michael's like, oh, you know, we're just friends. There's a whole awkward greeting between Holly and her boyfriend AJ with Michael. And Jenna, this begins snarky Michael. Steve does this thing as Michael I love so much where he lets his hatred for someone just barely poke out. So he says, hey, I could get you guys some lemonade. Holly says, lemonade sounds great. Michael goes, okay. AJ says, I'd love an iced tea, actually. And Michael goes, you can go to hell.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Just kidding.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  Just kidding.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  He'll get him the best iced tea in the world.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  First of all, Rob Hubel is back as AJ.

• 35:20Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  And he's so good. He's being so nice to Michael.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  I know. And you're like, the whole episode. And you're like, oh, my gosh, this guy must really love Holly to be that patient with Michael.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  I want to point out in this scene that Kevin is having a beer.

• 35:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Holly asks for a lemonade. AJ wants an iced tea. According to a big banner in the background, you can really see it over Michael's shoulder in his upcoming talking head. There is a breakdown of everything the Dunder Mifflin Company Picnic is serving.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Food was hamburgers, turkey burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, salads. Listen to the beverage list. Pina Colada.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  Charles drinks one of those.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Mai Tai.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  Stanley drinks one of those.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Hurricane.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Tequila sunrise.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Dang.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Beer, wine, sodas, water. No iced tea. No lemonade. Lots of booze.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  Lots of booze. You know, Michael has a talking head where he says, I lied to Kevin. Holly and I could never just be friends. And he wrote a whole list of bullet points why they should be together on like a receipt, on some kind of receipt.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  He didn't use a proper piece of paper.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  No. And he's trying to read it. And he can't really make out what he wrote. He said, they're soup snakes.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  And then he tries to justify it by being like, I think, okay, yeah, I think it's because when we have soup.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. And then he's like, no, no, soulmates.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Well, we had a fan question from Tracy C. in Georgia, who said this. I have been holding on to this fast fact for so long. Please include it in this episode.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  What is it?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Mindy describes her and BJ's relationship as soup snakes, because she loves the scene where Michael misreads his own handwriting. And instead of saying that he and Holly are soulmates, he says they are soup snakes. You guys, this is true. In Mindy's book, Why Not Me, here's what it says, quote, we're soup snakes. BJ and I are soup snakes. And then she added, soulmates is what you aim for, but soup snakes is what you get sometimes.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Is that so sweet?

• 37:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  They are soup snakes.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  They are soup snakes. Pam and Jim are gonna say hi to Charles, who right out of the gates says, nice day, huh? Jim says, yeah. Charles says, must be nice to get a rest from all your rest, and walks away. I call this petty Charles. I want you to know Charles was way more snarky in this episode, but a lot of it got deleted.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Well, Jenny Tan said that when she was kind of going around talking to all the actors, she said, both Rob Hubel and Idris talked to her about what it was like to have fans hate on them.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yes, because Charles was always mean to Jim. But I have to say, lady, he is not wrong on his read of Jim. Like, Jim is very charming, but he, I mean.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  He slacks off.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  He's a slacker. He gets his work done ultimately, but he could be more ambitious with his time.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, that comes for him later in life.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  He will become more ambitious in later seasons. All right, lady, it is time to play volleyball.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Dwight is assigning positions to the Scranton team.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Andy is like, bro me go. Put Aaron next to me. All of Andy's ridiculous things, bro me go. It's pretty great.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Well, guess what? The Scranton team is not doing well. Aaron misses the ball. Andy starts screaming at her, are you blind? And then he catches himself. And he redirects the question in earnest to the man on the other side of the net wearing sunglasses. He's like, no, I'm really, are you blind? Guess what? Sunglasses Man was played by our very own editor, Dave Rogers.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  But the game continues. Kevin is not great. Phyllis sits down in the middle of the game.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  Ryan is on his cellphone.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  And now it's time for Pam to serve. And Dwight is like, condescending. He's like, are you left handed? Or are you right handed? Think about how you hold the phone. And Pam's like, you know what, Dwight? Back off.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  I got it. This is sporty Pam.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Oh, she spikes that serve.

• 39:55Speaker 00

  She does. And then she's like, maybe I played a little in junior high and in high school, maybe a little in college, and went to volleyball camp most. And you do this really cute thing, Jenna, where you go summers.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Well, this created a fan mail flurry, lady.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  It did?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. You know, Rose G. from Colorado sums up all the letters nicely by saying in season four, Pam says that she used PMS as an excuse to get out of volleyball gym class. But here, Pam is real good at volleyball. What is up with this plot inconsistency? Now, we did discuss this when we broke down Job Fair.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  You had your theory.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Yes, there was a fan theory that Pam wanted out of the non-competitive gym class volleyball.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  This is a very kind theory. This is like, I mean, this is a very kind, kind, like, let's just make any excuse.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Well, Jen Salata did an interview for Office Tally, and she admitted, they just forgot about that line when they wrote this.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Of course, they did. They didn't strategically plot out, like, you know what? Pam was so competitive, she didn't want to do PE volleyball.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Right. I still like that theory.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  I know, I know.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Pam continues to dominate. She wins the game for her team, advances them to the next round, because I am just that good.

• 41:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I have a kid catch.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  What's the kid catch?

• 41:17Speaker 00

  So, my kids rewatched this episode with me. They could not get over, at 7 minutes 43 seconds, there is a full-on face-body plant. This must have been someone with special business as volleyball. Because when Pam serves, you've got to look at the person who misses the ball. They throw themselves, they fly through the air, and they land in one clump, face down. I was like, is this a stunt person? I mean, Jenna, I have to show it to you. I'm going to put it in stories. This is how this person lands.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. That person did not even break their fall with their arms.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  I know.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  That is intense. Well, I have a tidbit to share about that.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  But first, let me do some fan questions. Peyton H. from Vermont said, Jenna, I know there was a stunt double for you in some of your volleyball scenes, but my question is, how much was you and how much was the stunt double? And Megan B. from Jerome, Idaho, said, have you played much volleyball in real life? All right, I'm going to break down all the volleyball.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  I love all these questions, you guys. I love them because you know I know the answer to some of them, and others, I'm intrigued.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  I have played a lot of volleyball.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  You don't say.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  I have.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  When?

• 42:35Speaker 01

  In, like, grade school.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Your youth?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  High school.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  My youth at the beach. I know how to play volleyball. And I have a really great underhand serve.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  So do I. Very consistent.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  Nothing fancy, but will always get in.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Same. They didn't want that for Pam. I offered to do it. They weren't interested. They wanted overhand serve.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  Because you know, in varsity high school, you have to serve overhand.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  I did not know that. I did not play varsity.

• 43:03Speaker 00

  I know this because my daughter's playing volleyball.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  She is.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  In junior high. She can still do underhand, but they're wanting them already to do overhand.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Well, here was the problem. I have a shoulder injury. I have tendonitis in my right shoulder, and it's really bad. And I have a sort of, like, lack of range of motion. And doing that overhead swoopy motion, it's even a little sore. I'm doing it now. It's even a little bit sore if I'm holding nothing in my hand, or if I'm not hitting a volleyball. What? Why are you laughing? Why is so funny?

• 43:39Speaker 00

  What? I don't know. I was just going to say, and Alias.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. You're still tracking why I can't be on Alias?

• 43:52Speaker 00

  I will for the rest of my life. How can you swing on a rope and, like, do a cartwheel and, like, throw a grenade or whatever she did?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  I mean, you're making a good point.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Okay, go on.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  I hadn't thought about that. You know, they didn't ask me in my audition how my overhand range of motion was.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  Well, that might have rolled it out.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  They shouldn't have even auditioned me for that role. There's no way I could have swung on a rope. All right, well, listen. They had to get me a stunt double. Her name was Nancy McCrum. And Randy was kind enough to send me her photo, which we'll post in the Office Lady Pod stories. And he sent me her resume. On her resume, it shows her height and her weight, which I just want to say, I can't believe I used to weigh that.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  Oh, because they matched? They matched her height and weight to you?

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Yes. When they find you a body double or a stunt double, they have to match the person's height, the weight, the general hair color, or they'll put a wig on the person or color that person's hair. But it's more than that, because I was on this one movie, and they had to get a body double for me. And the woman showed up, and she was my height and weight, but her, like, weight distribution was totally different from mine.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  So, walking and...

• 45:05Speaker 01

  She didn't look like me.

• 45:06Speaker 00

  She didn't look like you. This happened to me, Jenna. I did a movie called Struck by Lightning, and there was this long tracking dolly scene that started in a room and ended up on the sofa that I was sitting on.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  And they had a body double for me for all the lighting setup, because it was going to take a really long time to get this set up. So, after an hour of them setting this all up, using the body double, it's time for me to report on set. We do this long, intricate tracking shot. The camera's coming down, this long track lands on me on the sofa, and it cuts part of my head off. Well, what they found out was, she was my exact height. They immediately called for her, because the director of photography had set up all this time for the shot. And he said, are you 5'1"? And she said, yes. And she came and stood next to me. We were the same height. And then he said, sit side by side. We sat side by side. I had a longer torso than she did.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yes. This is what I'm saying. So, they had to, like, measure her. Like, did we have the same waist? The circumference of your thigh? Like, all of that. And Nancy McCrum was just an exact body double for me.

• 46:18Speaker 00

  Well, I could never tell that there was a body double there, so they did a great job.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Well, here's what I did. She was also very good at volleyball. And she taught me how to do the motion, how to jump up, how to serve it, and all of that. And I did a whole, whole bunch of takes, and we used a CGI ball.

• 46:38Speaker 00

  So that you didn't have to actually make the contact?

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Randy reminded me that the very first time I tried to do it by making contact with the ball, and I, like, winced in pain. And he was like, no, no, no more ball. We're never having her do that again. Because like we said, he was so good at taking care of us. He was like, we're going to do a CGI ball. But he said, while the serving and putting in a fake ball was not difficult, it was really difficult to have people dive for a fake ball.

• 47:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  So, that person that is diving in that video you just showed me is diving at nothing.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  Well, that might...

• 47:14Speaker 01

  That commitment.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  That might make sense a little bit. On the DVD commentary, Ken was very complimentary in saying that Jenna, you did a great fakie arm motion.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I have to give credit to Nancy, because she was such a good teacher. We became a little chummy on this episode. And they did shoot with her a little bit from behind with a real ball. And that was really helpful for the people on the other side, because then they were diving for a real ball, and they used some of those shots. But I'm not sure if they ever ended up using any of her serves. I think they were mostly my fakie serves that made it in. But I do want to say one more thing, which is that over on office telly.com, Jenny Tan took a bunch of amazing photos of me serving with no ball.

• 48:04Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 48:04Speaker 01

  And they're really cool. And I grabbed them, so that we can put them up on Office Ladies Pod.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Your story about Nancy, Jenna, just reminded me of an amazing run-in I just had. Four years, Steve had a body double named Eric Sulkey. And Jenna, Josh and I were in the wine country for our anniversary, and I hear Angela, and I turn around, and there is Eric and his wife.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  No way!

• 48:28Speaker 00

  He is still working with Steve. It's been, like, 16 years they've been working together. They're working together on a movie right now. Look at that.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. Yes, I remember him.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  I know. He was so lovely. And I said, Eric, it's so crazy to see you outside of a suit, because he was just in casual clothes.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  But sometimes when Steve needed out for, you know, something, they had to get him to a talk show or whatever, Eric in a suit would sit in the office there in the background, in Michael Scott's office. You could catch his shoulder or the side of him. And they are still working together now. 16 years.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  Me, too.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Well, listen, ladies, should we take a little break? And then when we come back, we will talk about Michael and Holly and what they're up to.

• 49:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think we need to come back and talk about some chair pants.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Great.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  We're back. And also, Snarky Michael is with us.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  He gets a big piece of news here.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  He really does. Bless his heart. They tell him that they're designing a house.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  And he says, for who? And AJ says, for us.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Oh, and then Michael says, well, wow, um, I'm designing a chair. It's part of your pants. You sit down, you're supported. Holly lights up. She's like, I remember your chair pants idea. And AJ's like, I like that. Put me down for a pair. I'm a size 34 waist. Here comes Snarky Michael. He can't take it anymore. He says, all right, fatty, I will do it. You know what? We should actually rehearse. He wants to get Holly away from AJ. And AJ says, you guys are really gonna do this? And Michael says, you bet your fat ass we are. Cause he can't contain, like, how much he's freaking out that this guy has just swooped in and is taking the love of his life.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  To build a house.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  To build a house, to build a home, to become a family.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Well, we have this really sweet talking head where Michael and Holly together explain that David Wallace has authorized them to perform a presentation on the history of Dunder Nifflin.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Again, David Wallace, what are you thinking?

• 50:52Speaker 01

  I don't know. Well, Holly and Michael are gonna find a nice little quiet place to rehearse. He brought her chocolate-covered strawberries.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  When I rewatched this with my kids, they were like, wow, because I think they associate those with Valentine's. When you go to the grocery store, there's always a big chocolate-covered strawberry display for Valentine's.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  It's a very romantic gift.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  It is. What snacks do you bring to a picnic? You bring like potato chips, some salsa, chocolate-covered strawberries.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  By the way, I love that your picnic items are potato chips and salsa. I have never brought potato chips and salsa.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  You don't like chips and salsa?

• 51:33Speaker 01

  But don't you, you eat corn chips or like, um, tortilla chips and salsa. But also, I've never brought salsa to like, a picnic blanket. It's so messy. Like, I, the chips, yeah, but like, I, I don't bring dips to a picnic. I don't think dip when I think picnic.

• 51:51Speaker 00

  Lady, lady, when my husband first came home with me to meet my family, my mom said to him, we're dippers and chippers.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  We always have some kind of dip and something like a chip to eat it with.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Even on your picnics.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  Most definitely on a picnic.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Okay. It just seems like a mess waiting to happen.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  Give me all the dips.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  All right.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  And, you know, bring some paper towels.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Well, I have something crazy to share about this location where they shot these Michael and Holly scenes.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  The tree, the little shady tree?

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Yes. Randy said that this shaded location was the most troublesome of the whole shoot.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  Why?

• 52:32Speaker 01

  He said, first off, they really wanted a romantic, private area where these two could sneak off to, but they still needed to feel the picnic in the background. And it was really hard to find the right spot. The one that they settled on drove Randall crazy. I guess there were these overhanging trees, and then there was like a muddy creek where his lighting equipment needed to go. And we usually shot our show with just two cameras. But for this, they had to add a third camera. And it's because they just couldn't cover it with these over the shoulders. They looked good, but they really wanted a two-shot of them from the front.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  But listen to this, and I barely understand how they did it.

• 53:18Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  It was so tight in this area that the only way that they could do it was they had to set up a mirror and they shot the camera into the mirror. And then, in order to make it match the over the shoulder shots, they reversed them in post. Because when they shot in the mirror, they were on the wrong sides. It was this, like, special mirror called like an optically correct mirror. I barely understand this, but it was a huge ordeal.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  Well, it sounds like a huge ordeal. I'm also very curious, could Steve and Amy see their reflections as they did the scene? Cause that would be weird. I wouldn't, I don't want to watch myself, because then I'd be like, what are you doing with your face, lady? What is that expression?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  I would be so distracted.

• 54:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  So, I don't know. My question was, like, did they just have this mirror on standby? Like, is that part of their kit? They have a optically correct mirror in your camera kit?

• 54:17Speaker 00

  Special order, lady.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  It sounds like a special order, but it also sounds like they kind of had to figure this out on the fly. But I don't know, maybe it was part of their planning scout. Get that mirror in case we need it and get a third camera.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  You would have never known it by watching that scene, though. It was so beautiful and effortless. I would have never known there was a mirror or a third camera. There's this great, great moment between Holly and Michael as they're brainstorming their ideas, right?

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're gonna do this skit, but this is the first time they've met to figure out the skit that's gonna be going up soon.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  And Michael has no script. He just wants to wing it. So, they start spitballing, like movie spoofs, right? To get out this information about how Robert Dunder and Robert Nifflin met. Only part of it was scripted, Jenna. Steve and Amy just improvised and Ken said they loved the improv. They just let the camera keep going and going.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Really?

• 55:13Speaker 00

  Yes. Here's how the scene started as written. Holly's like, what about Back to the Future?

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  That was scripted. The rest of this part was not. Ready?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  What?

• 55:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. How about Back to the Future? Steve improvises, could we get a DeLorean?

• 55:28Speaker 01

  So funny.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  Amy improvises, Jaws. They swim in the ocean and they terrorize the whole community. And then at the same time, like this sort of group mind, they both start going, Dunder, Dunder, Dunder, Dunder. That's all improvised. And then they both start cracking up at nine minutes 44 seconds. Go to that time code. The two of them are laughing. And I think it's because they're just cracking up. Like, they're just having a good time.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  I think they're both genuinely tickled that they came up with the Dunder Dunder in the moment.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  It's brilliant.

• 56:02Speaker 00

  It's brilliant. And then they go back on script at the very end when Holly's like, we haven't found our great idea yet. And Michael says, but we're circling it.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Wow. Wow. That was an improv in the middle of a scene.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Usually our improvs happened at the end.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. And Ken and Paul and Jen said that the two of them were just magic together. You just see it. You really do.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Lady, should we go back to the volleyball game?

• 56:31Speaker 00

  It's getting heated.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Pam scores another point.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  They're gonna move on to the finals. Phyllis is like over it.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, she twists her ankle.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  And then trots over to Bob Vance.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, she has no problem running over.

• 56:44Speaker 00

  And then there's classic Vacation Stanley, where he's like, you just had to be part of the group. And he's got his cocktail and his hat. I'm telling you, this is setting up Florida Stanley.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Oh, you're so right about that. Well, now we need a replacement for Phyllis. And Rolf is gonna call up Meredith, even though Angela volunteers.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Rolf is so intense.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, Rolf says he didn't hear Angela volunteer because he doesn't hear cheaters, tramps, or women who break my friend's heart.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  Ooh, and then there's this look between Dwight and Angela.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  I have two little tidbits to share about this scene. Number one, okay, so you know the part where I bump the ball?

• 57:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Okay, that was not a CGI ball. That was me. That was real. And then, when Phyllis is running to the sidelines, I spotted a man in a Yankees baseball hat. We took all of the trouble to put the whole cast in plain hats. And then they just let a guy sit in the front row with a Yankees hat on? What is that?

• 57:49Speaker 00

  It's just, it's a lot of people. Someone's gonna fall through the cracks.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  You know what they would usually do if someone showed up with a hat or something with a logo on it? They would have tape in different colors and they would just tape over it.

• 58:01Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Someone did not tape over Yankees guy.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  Or maybe they did and he ripped it off. Scandalous.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 58:12Speaker 00

  We just had a Dunder moment.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  We did. We had a group mind Dunder Dunder on Scandalous.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  Well, Jim is gonna score a point and some trash talking starts. David Wallace says, we're still gonna crush you, though. Charles is like, yeah, we are. Rolf comes out of nowhere.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. We could not get through this.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  Yes, we were all cracking up. He said, you suckers are going down. They're gonna wipe their asses with your serves and piss all over your faces.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Every time he said piss all over your faces, we would lose it.

• 58:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. And Raina Dwight had to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, come on, come on. But we kept laughing.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Well, now we're gonna go to this little tidbit, the HR folks. And I love it so much, lady. John Hartman is back as corporate HR Kendall. Toby is wearing his logo hat. And they are discussing the HR convention last year. I could have watched the two of them talk for 20 minutes.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Ken shared that Greg had this idea that David Wallace would hate Kendall the same way Michael hates Toby.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, it's so funny. Well, listen, one more point and Scranton is going to move on to play corporate and Jim makes it. I mean Dwight hugs Jim. They're so excited.

• 59:37Speaker 00

  I know. Oscar's like, settle down, guys. Relax, fellas. Jenna, Scranton was so good. Is that your memory that you guys were good at playing volleyball?

• 59:47Speaker 01

  I guess that's my memory.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  That Scranton, Dunder Mifflin was good.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  That we were good.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  That's your memory.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, are you saying in real life? Yeah, like, fictionally and in real life? Yeah. Why? Why are you smiling? I feel like this is a trap.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Because that is not how Ken, Jen, or Paul remembered it. And Ken talked about a lot of the ways the volleyball scenes were logistically difficult. And one of them was because you guys were all terrible. And they all three talk about it on the DVD commentary. Can we hear that?

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  Volleyball is hard to direct, especially with people who don't have a clue how to play.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, I couldn't believe it. They were terrible, I will say. Corporate, every other team that was playing against them, so much better. I don't know why our people were not good volleyball players.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  I was in editing. Paul and I were alternating days on the set and Paul's like, it's going really well, but our team is terrible. I don't know what to do. And I was like, well, maybe the other teams could be made to be worse.

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  I know. There was one point where I said, let's just, I think Scranton was playing Nashua, maybe Utica. And I just said, well, let's just play for a while. Let's just play some volleyball as we get warmed up. And Utica killed us. And I could tell, looking at our cast, they all looked so sad. This is a terrible idea. Let's just go back to the scene.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. You guys were the worst. The worst group there. Hey, to be fair, the other teams were filled with special business actors, okay?

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  So after I listened to the DVD commentary, I thought, oh, I've got to watch Scranton and Utica play. Ken said that you, Utica crushed you guys. So I went back and watched the episode and I never saw you guys play Utica. It's in the deleted scenes.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it features some major trash talking Andy.

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Send it back. Yeah. Send that ball back. Don't mess with Scranton. Uh huh. Utica, more like you sucks to cuff. Who sucks to cuff? You sucks to cuff. Who sucks to cuff? You sucks to cuff. Who sucks to cuff? You sucks to cuff. Ow. Ow. Sorry.

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  Jim comes up to Andy and Dwight and he's like pinching their arms so they stop. But yeah, Andy starts this whole chant about you sucks to cuff.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. But in reality, they were crushing us.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  Redi-d-d-don't mess with Scranton. That made me laugh so hard.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  It's time for Michael and Holly's presentation.

• 1:02:27Speaker 00

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  This is when David says, I have not seen this. He announces that they're going to sing a song. And they're like, no, no, it's a sketch. Like, David, you should already be worried.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then they say, introducing Slum Dunder Mifflin Air. So Slumdog Millionaire was a hit movie that came out in 2008. According to IMDb, and this is a very brief synopsis, this is what it says. A Mumbai teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Well, I saw this movie. It was fantastic.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so good.

• 1:03:06Speaker 00

  It's so good. Everyone was talking about it.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Yes, it was huge and just a great film.

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  It won a gazillion of awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2009. But of all the movies to parody, to tell the story of Robert Dunder and Robert Mifflin coming together, no one knows what they're doing.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Well, they're also going to get some facts wrong. Fan catch from Casey Kay in Orlando, Florida. In Michael and Holly's sketch, they say that Dunder and Mifflin met in college.

• 1:03:38Speaker 00

  At Dartmouth, which incidentally is where Mindy went.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  But in Dunder Mifflin Infinity, Robert Mifflin said he knew Dunder through the Rotary Club.

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. So.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  I caught it too.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Speaker 00

  Ken shared that they really just drove home with the crowd watching to please not react in any way. Even the children don't crack a smile, nothing. And Ken was so happy with how the scene turned out because everyone really just looks at them so deadpan. And Ken said that Steve and Amy pulled him aside after the first take and they were like, this feels really uncomfortable. This is like so awkward. Amy was like, I'm rattled by it. Because it truly felt like they were bombing on stage in front of everyone.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Well, I guess this sketch took like hours to shoot. And in addition to being told not to laugh, the extras were not allowed to move from their spots for continuity reasons. So we would bring waters around and things like that, but they had to stay right there. And Jenny Tan had this tidbit in her breakdown from her visit. Andy Buckley, who plays David Wallace, would get on the little stage during the breaks and he would entertain the crowd with stories and jokes. She said he even sang a song.

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  But he was like the entertainment. And she said it was just like the sweetest, most thoughtful thing. And you know what? That is Andy Buckley right there. I was like, of course he did that. Of course.

• 1:05:14Speaker 00

  That is so sweet.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  Well, the only person that's enjoying this is Stanley. We have some classic vacation, Stanley, when he has his cocktail and he says, I usually don't enjoy the theater, but this is delightful. I think he's had a few cocktails by this point.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  I guess he has. There's a lot of booze being offered at this event. Now, Michael and Holly are going to do something. They're going to announce that the Buffalo Branch is closing. And then they take a bow. This is news to the Buffalo Branch.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  They are ticked off.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Well, there are two especially very angry Buffalo Branch employees. They were played by Brian Stack and Marla Garland.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  Brian Stack was a writer on Conan and I've known Marla for years. She is just delightful.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Well, also seated in the front row, who's very upset about this branch closing is Jenny Tan.

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  And she revealed that she was in the front row with a real life husband and wife couple, Dan and Erin, who were booked together to play extras on this episode. They gave them two fake babies. And it's really great. You can see Dan sitting next to Jenny. And when Brian Stack, as the angry Buffalo man, is yelling, he's shushing his baby. He's like, shh, shh, shh, shh.

• 1:06:34Speaker 00

  Don't let the angry man upset you, baby.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Exactly.

• 1:06:39Speaker 00

  David Wallace is furious. This is not how he wanted the Buffalo Branch to find out.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  No, he says, one little boy just asked him if daddy will have his job at Christmas. And Michael's like, well, he's just thinking about his own gifts.

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  Not helping, Michael. The Scranton group huddles up. They're over by the picnic tables. And Meredith is like, I think we should forfeit the game out of respect. And Dwight says, people need volleyball now more than ever. Oscar agrees with Dwight. Now they have this rallying call. They want to kick corporate's ass.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they're doing great. Especially Jim, which we get a little bit of.

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  Petty Charles.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Yes, Petty Charles.

• 1:07:19Speaker 00

  Petty Charles. Petty Charles says, look who just woke up. And then scores a point and says, I've been up for a while.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Okay, so now Dwight is going to stand up to Rolf.

• 1:07:29Speaker 00

  He is. And Jenna, I had one of those moments where I think I thought I heard something that's not in the script, it's not in the subtitles, and I need you to tell me what I heard.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:07:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Kevin says, it's six to six. It's a nail biter. Angela says, Kevin, no, it's seven, six. Or is that too much accounting for you? Rolf says, here's an accounting question for you. What does one fiance plus one lover equal? Answer, one whore. Dwight says, okay, knock it off, Rolf. Rolf says, what? She is sitting here casting aspirations. And Dwight goes, Rolford, please. Jenna, I swear, I hear Dwight say, Rolford, please.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Meaning like Rolford is Rolf's full name?

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  Yes. It's not documented anywhere. I'm probably just losing it. I need you to hear it. I'm going to play it. Ready?

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:22Speaker 06

  Okay, knock it off, Rolf. She's sitting there casting. Rolford, please. I'm asking nicely.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:08:29Speaker 00

  Rolford, please. I'm telling you.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Okay, here's, the first thing I need to know is this. Is Rolf a name?

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  That I don't know.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Did we make that up? Or is it a name?

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  Is Rolf short for Rolford?

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Well, there's a restaurant in Manhattan called Rolf's. It's in Gramercy Park. Oh, here we go. Wikipedia. Rolf. It is a male given name and surname. It originates in the Germanic name Harolf. Interesting. But now Rolford. Rolford.

• 1:09:03Speaker 00

  We need background music for Ladies Who Google.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  We really do. Okay, I will tell you, there is the Rolford Leather Company in the UK. They are a supplier of fine quality leathers. Also, just from ancestry.com, Michigan had the highest population of Rolford families in 1880. So I think you might be right. Both names seem to be names.

• 1:09:29Speaker 00

  I mean, just come on.

• 1:09:30Speaker 06

  Okay, knock it off, Rolf. She's sitting there casting. Rolford, please.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  I think you're right. I think we have broken a big case here. Mom detectives, we declare Rolford.

• 1:09:41Speaker 00

  Put it on your calendar that this is the first time Rolford is being documented?

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:47Speaker 00

  In the Office canon.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Angela.

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  I'm clapping for myself.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Applause for you.

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  Good work.

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  Thank you. And now to whoever does subtitles, change it to Rolford. Thank you very much.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  I'd like to say that that was a combo, Mom Detective, Two Ladies Who Google Move. Do you see how both of those?

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  Came together?

• 1:10:06Speaker 00

  It's beautiful, really.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  In that moment.

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  I do.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  I'm proud of us.

• 1:10:10Speaker 00

  Ken shared that he really liked seeing Dwight softening to Angela. Angela's clearly moved by this. And then, right after the scene, there would have been an Angela talking head. It got deleted, but I wanted you to hear it. Today, for the first time in months, Dwight nodded at me. And I have to admit, it made my heart sit up just a little straighter in its chair. I know I seem hard and cold on the outside. But on the inside, I'm as warm as porcelain.

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  I'm sorry for gushing on like this.

• 1:10:43Speaker 00

  Just must be the apple juice talking or I don't.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  It's very sweet.

• 1:10:50Speaker 00

  She is as soft as porcelain on the inside.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Apple juice is not on the drink menu.

• 1:10:56Speaker 00

  I knew you were gonna say that. I also now like this expression of saying, it just made my heart sit up a little straighter in its chair.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  I loved that, too. I thought it was cute. The game is going and Pam is gonna fall. Lady, I did my own falling stunt. That's all me.

• 1:11:14Speaker 00

  I believed it.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  I'm very proud of it.

• 1:11:16Speaker 00

  It's not the first time you fall in this episode. You fall twice.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  I do?

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, you had a spontaneous fall while you were playing fake volleyball earlier in the episode.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  I clocked it. You went down to your knees to get a ball.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 1:11:31Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  I'm a pro.

• 1:11:33Speaker 00

  You are sporty, Pam.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Well, there had been a lot of discussion about using my double and shooting the fall from behind. But Ken said to sell it, they really needed to see my face on camera.

• 1:11:44Speaker 00

  And it wasn't the shoulder rotation.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  Yes, there was no reason why they couldn't just have me fall. It was not gonna affect my shoulder. Randy told me that sometimes in movies, they will use a stunt double from the front. And then they do CGI face replacement.

• 1:12:02Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Speaker 00

  Is this Face Off?

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Kind of like the movie Magic version of Face Off. He said, we could not afford that. So there was no putting my face on her face.

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  So you know, at the end of this, when Pam is gonna leave to get her ankle checked, Dwight has to start stalling for time. And the first thing he does is he like kicks the volleyball really far away.

• 1:12:26Speaker 00

  This reminded me of like the butthole kid growing up, like when you played kickball? Who would have a tantrum and kick the ball real far?

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:12:35Speaker 00

  And someone had to go get it.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Well, we had a fan catch from Emily H. in Ohio who said, "I have a background catch at 16 minutes 55 seconds. When Dwight kicks the volleyball away to stall the game, there are some weird face cutout board picture things in the background. And I think there is a person sticking their head through one of them."

• 1:12:56Speaker 00

  Really? I saw those things. They look like something from a carnival.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  All right. I don't know if this is related, but Jenny Tan wrote this in her diary for the day. She said, "During the first few takes of Dwight kicking the ball, there was a background performer hiding in the shack. And whenever the volleyball was kicked near it, this person would wave his arm outside the shack and ruin the take." She said, "Needless to say, this person was asked to leave the set and was told not to return for the rest of the week." I don't know.

• 1:13:30Speaker 00

  What's happening?

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  I don't know. I was like, could that be the person whose face was in the little like picture thing?

• 1:13:37Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I'm gonna go back and look.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:13:40Speaker 00

  Well, not in the shack waving their arms or Michael and Holly. How's that for a transition?

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 1:13:47Speaker 00

  Um, we should share with you guys. We often wonder how to transition.

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  We are trying so hard not to have every transition be lady.

• 1:13:55Speaker 00

  Lady are well.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, the wells.

• 1:13:58Speaker 00

  The wells. We do a lot of wells.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Dr. Peter Thibodeau, please don't count the wells.

• 1:14:02Speaker 00

  Oh, don't. Oh, I have Dr. Thibodeau a few times and it was staggering. Anyways, Michael and Holly are gonna reflect on their skit and on their mistake of mentioning the buffalo thing. And they have this very sweet couplet of dialogue. Holly says, "Well, I'm glad we did it." Michael says, "Me too." And there's a long pause and he says, "We have a lot of good material for next year's sketch." And she lights up and says, "I can't wait." Well, this was a really beautiful performance by Steve and Amy. They shared in the DVD that everyone at Video Village where they were watching the playback was crying.

• 1:14:45Speaker 00

  They said Jenny was there, Jenny Tan. She was crying. And then Ken said something I just loved about this scene between Steve and Amy. I wrote it down verbatim and I want to read it to you.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14:58Speaker 00

  Ken said, "It's the toughest kind of scene because in a way, everything is happening and nothing is happening all at once. There's a gigantic shift that takes place, but it's all under the surface. And the challenge is to find it over and over again, take after take, as if they've never been there."

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 00

  I just thought that was really well said because every time they did it, they had to have that discovery of knowing that something just changed for both of them.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  It's a beautiful scene.

• 1:15:29Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. And then they say goodbye. And then Michael has this fantastic talking head where he says, "He didn't find the perfect moment that day to share those things with her, but it's okay because they're gonna be one of those couples who have a long story and he's just gonna be patient."

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, Jen said in an interview that they loved setting up this idea that Michael was gonna find a way at this picnic to try to make his move with Holly. But then, over the course of the day, as he spent time with her, he was reminded that they have something really special. And he gains this more mature way of looking at the relationship. And it's very different than how he would behave if this were Jan or any other woman from his past. And that she said, quote, "He was calm and confident and quieted by this thought." And I loved that.

• 1:16:21Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  And this talking head right here is why you know this is his soup snake.

• 1:16:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  His soulmate.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  100%, right?

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Well, Jim is gonna take Pam to a local hospital. And for whatever reason, they have this belief that Dwight can stall this volleyball game. I mean.

• 1:16:46Speaker 00

  For how long?

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  I mean, have you ever gone to get an ankle checked or anything checked?

• 1:16:52Speaker 00

  Even just the commute and finding parking and getting inside and signing up and getting your insurance information and.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  I don't know. Jim is feverishly filling out some hospital form while a sassy nurse is wheeling Pam away. The sassy nurse was played by Allison Martin. She's done a ton of television comedy, most recently Grace and Frankie. And she did an episode of Law and Order.

• 1:17:16Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  We had a fan question from Christie H. in Maryland who said, "My 13-year-old son thinks the hospital that Jim and Pam go to is the Scrubs Hospital. Is he right? He's a huge Office fan." And Sam O. from Milwaukee, Wisconsin said, "At the end of this episode, you guys are clearly in the hospital from Scrubs. Do you remember anything about working there? Was the cast of the other show around at all?" Well, I tell you what, Christie, your son is right. Sam, you are right. This was the hospital that they used on Scrubs. It is a former hospital. It's not even around anymore. They've torn it down. But at the time, it was an abandoned hospital. It was the Riverside Community Hospital in Sherman Oaks.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  The Scrubs cast were not there that day. But Randy told us that their production graciously allowed us to use some of their pre-dressed corridors and examination rooms. And something I'll tell you is that we shot all of this hospital stuff on Monday. It was our very first day of shooting. It was before we ever went out to the company picnic.

• 1:18:21Speaker 00

  So all of that emotion was just day one?

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Day one.

• 1:18:26Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  We started with the cold open and then we relocated to the hospital. And Jenny recalled that she was not allowed to observe the hospital. She knew that we were going to a hospital, but she didn't know why. And we'll tell you more about that in just a little bit.

• 1:18:42Speaker 00

  I don't know how much longer Dwight can stall. The corporate team is insisting that Scranton put in their subs. And Dwight is doing this really long, roundabout thing of like, well, how many people must get hurt before a lesson is learned? One, two, three, four. He's doing a horrible job of stalling. But Jim is like, Dwight, keep stalling. And then he gets called into the room. Where Pam is. And they get some pretty big news.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  But we can't hear it.

• 1:19:11Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  But I think we know what it is.

• 1:19:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  We got some mail. A lot of people wanted to know, "Why was this scene silent? Obviously, they're being told that they're gonna have a baby. Why couldn't we hear it? Well, this was partially inspired by the British show. There is a scene in that series where Tim is gonna tell Don how he feels about her, but first he takes off his microphone. And Jen and Paul thought that this made that moment even more intimate. It's one of those things, kind of like the teapot note. There's nothing that you could write that could ever meet people's expectations of what it needed to be.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  So if you leave it for people to fill in themselves, it'll always be the perfect note."

• 1:20:01Speaker 00

  I agree. And I feel like Randall Einhorn shared with us that the further you were away from a moment, the more intimate it feels to watch.

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so removing the sound makes you pretty far away.

• 1:20:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Well, this idea was something we had been toying with for a long time. On Casino Night, there was a whole conversation about whether or not we should hear Jim tell Pam that he has feelings for her out in the parking lot. We ultimately decided to keep the audio for that. But you know, we're gonna do this again when Pam says goodbye to Michael. Every once in a while, it was a trick we could use because we were a documentary. We could pull the sound and make a really impactful moment. So Jim is gonna run into the hallway now. He's gonna call Dwight and he's gonna say, "Send in the subs. We got mail." Annette E. from Minnesota said, "Jim's face when he finds out he's going to be a father gives me goosebumps every time.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  He is acting goals in this scene." And Abby M. from Utah said, "What were the directions given to John for when he finds out about the baby?"

• 1:21:09Speaker 00

  So yeah, John Krasinski, man. Why he didn't win an Emmy? Why you didn't? Why the whole freaking cast didn't win more awards? Because the show is delivering right here. Ken shared on the DVD commentary a note that he gave John for this scene. And I thought it was great. And I want you guys to hear it.

• 1:21:28Speaker 02

  The one thing I told John to remember is that over the course of this series, he's developed a relationship with the documentary camera operator. And so when John emerges from the room to make the call to Dwight, something about seeing his pal, the cameraman, kind of suddenly got him very choked up.

• 1:21:49Speaker 03

  Wow, what a great note.

• 1:21:50Speaker 00

  Isn't that cool? Yeah, that, that, you had told me. This look.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  Because we debated whether or not he should be so wrapped up in the moment that he should ignore the camera, but in fact, it was the opposite.

• 1:22:01Speaker 00

  This look right there. That look is just...

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  It was, it was almost like, you know, the cameraman has been sharing so much of what's going on with Jim that, you know, that it became very important to acknowledge him here.

• 1:22:11Speaker 00

  Ah, so the look he is talking about happens at 20 minutes, 50 seconds. And you guys know these moments in your life where you're feeling all of this emotion and then you see a good friend.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:23Speaker 00

  And it just comes pouring out of you. It's that person that says, are you okay? When you're not okay.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:30Speaker 00

  And I loved that. And I'm so glad that they had John, as Jim, look to camera and look to his friend.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. It's a brilliant note. It's great directing by Ken Quappas and a great performance by John.

• 1:22:42Speaker 00

  And you too.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  Aww.

• 1:22:45Speaker 00

  I loved this moment. It made me tear up again watching it.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Well, we got a fan question from Kaylee in Auburn, New York. Jenna, did you have any idea before this episode that the writers were going to make Pam pregnant? And what were your thoughts when you found out? Well, I barely knew. They did not warn us like weeks or months ahead. I found out basically right before the table read. And I remember sitting in that table read and Ken Quappas read the stage directions and there was like an audible gasp in the room. Everyone was like, huh, huh. So here is what the script said. This is what Ken read. The doctor tells Jim something and we see Jim's face light up. Pam is also grinning. Jim and Pam hug. Jim walks out with a big smile on his face.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  So the script did not even say that Jim and Pam were going to have a baby, but everybody knew, oh my gosh, Jim and Pam are going to have a baby. But that was just for the table read. If you read the shooting draft for this episode, those scenes are omitted. It just says, scene 51, 52, 53. See production for details.

• 1:23:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, they immediately took it out of all documentation, all scripts, everything.

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  It was a huge secret.

• 1:24:02Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah. They shared on the commentary that our producers made a huge effort to keep this a secret. They didn't want it to get out to the audience. They didn't want it to be ruined. They could not let NBC know.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  So crazy.

• 1:24:15Speaker 00

  So crazy. So none of the scripts had the final scenes, just like you said, right? And then the scripts that went out, they were omitted from those. And then every day, you guys, they would send NBC the CDs of the dailies.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  Of what we had shot that day.

• 1:24:30Speaker 00

  That's right. It was deleted from that.

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:24:34Speaker 00

  And then the final master cut of the whole episode?

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 1:24:37Speaker 00

  That the network gets to review before it goes on the air?

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 1:24:41Speaker 00

  They had deleted it from those as well.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:24:43Speaker 00

  And then Jen said that all of the scripts, every single disc that was sent to NBC, they were all watermarked so that you couldn't copy them in any way. And Jen said in hindsight, if she was someone at NBC, she'd be like, they don't have a watermark or CDs or scripts. Like what's going on? Like what, what's all the hullabaloo with the watermarking?

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  That is so crazy.

• 1:25:09Speaker 00

  And she said, and thinking about it, they watermarked scripts and CDs that didn't even have a scene to copy.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  It's so true.

• 1:25:18Speaker 00

  But they were just, I guess, so paranoid.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:25:23Speaker 00

  But it didn't get out there and it was a true surprise.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  It was. I guess when they finally had to, at the last minute, send the deliverable, airable version, they finally put the scene back in.

• 1:25:35Speaker 00

  That's right, but it was too late, you know, for anyone to ruin the surprise.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  Or to even make promos. I think that was always their big fear was that in order to

• 1:25:45Speaker 00

  Sell the episode.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  Tease the audience. Yeah, that they would reveal like big plot points. And Greg was always so protective of that.

• 1:25:52Speaker 00

  All it would have taken is one like NBC teaser of you and Jim in a hospital.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:25:58Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And they'd have an announcer being like, Jim and Pam get the news of a lifetime on tonight's finale.

• 1:26:06Speaker 00

  Thursday, NBC.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  We got more mail about this scene and I'm just gonna just run through them real quick. Phoebe T. from Indiana would like to know if I was actually pregnant or if it was just for the show. Phoebe, it was just for the show. I was not even married to Lee yet, though we were dating and we were getting a little serious, but we weren't at baby yet.

• 1:26:26Speaker 00

  No, you weren't there yet.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:26:28Speaker 00

  You were still in what I call the sexy life.

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  We were in sexy life and I will be wearing a fakey belly in the upcoming season and I'll tell you all about it. And then Louise from Washington said, why did the writers decide on Pam and Jim having a baby before getting married? You guys, that's just Greg. He liked to keep people on their toes. He liked to surprise the audience. And finally, Liz B. from Columbus, Ohio said, what ended up happening with Pam's ankle? Liz, I love you. I love that in this whole episode, we have left you hanging about Pam's ankle. I feel you. This is how I feel when I watch a John Wick movie. He has lots of injuries and I need those.

• 1:27:08Speaker 00

  How does he get through the day?

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  I need them to be resolved. So Liz, it was just a slight sprain. It's just going to be a little rest, a little elevation, little ice. She's going to be fine. And that, my friends, was company picnic.

• 1:27:22Speaker 00

  I have one last thing to say. Is this goodbye to Charles Minor?

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  I believe it is.

• 1:27:27Speaker 00

  Aww. Idris, you were fantastic. We really enjoyed re-watching all of your episodes.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  It was really fun. You were fun to work with.

• 1:27:35Speaker 00

  You sure were. Happy company picnic day, everybody.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  We will be back next week and we will be starting season six. We are now officially halfway through our re-watch. I can't believe it.

• 1:27:48Speaker 00

  I can't believe it.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  It's flown by.

• 1:27:50Speaker 00

  It has flown by. We hope you have a great week. We hope you have a little bit of vacation, Stanley, in your day. And we'll be here next week.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  See you then.

• 1:27:58Speaker 00

  See you then.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Thank you for listening to Office Ladies Second Drink.

• 1:28:07Speaker 00

  This episode was initially created in collaboration with Earwolf.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

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

• 1:28:18Speaker 00

  Our Second Drinks episodes are produced by Molly Nugent.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  Our audio engineer is Sam Pfeifer.

• 1:28:23Speaker 00

  Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.

• 1:28:29Speaker 00

  Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.