Pod Insights Office Ladies Second Drink: Weight Loss, Part 2 About this episode This week we finish breaking down Weight Loss. The Office gang continues to lose weight for the Dunder Mifflin Weight Loss Challenge, and a truly unexpected proposal happens. We hear an audio clip from Paul Feig about what it was like to be the Season 5 “Tastemaker”. Jenna tells us about some very special cats at Pratt Institute, Angela breaks down what it was like to have a fruit fly wrangler on set and we learn everything we ever wanted to know (and maybe not wanted to know) about the famous Jim and Pam gas station proposal. Enjoy!
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Transcript 0:02 Speaker 00 Welcome to your second drink of weight loss, part two. Jenna, you had a soapbox in this episode.
0:09 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
0:10 Speaker 00 We got this letter from Tara M. Jenna, I just wanted you to know that I was so with you today on part two when you talked about all the hate Pam gets. It's absolutely 100% sexism. Thank you so much for saying so. I support you and love you both so much.
0:27 Speaker 01 Well, thank you, Tara. I am aware that my soapbox from this episode created a lot of debate of people arguing back and forth, but I think I helped some people see things in a new way. And now, you know, 15 years later, people are really seeing the Jim Pam situation a little differently. You know, some of the things that were seen as romantic 15 years ago, they hit a little different now. Like, maybe it's not so romantic to surprise your wife by buying a house. Maybe it's not neat to invest your savings and take a job out of town at a startup without
1:08 Speaker 01 telling her when you have two small kids whose care is all gonna fall to her.
1:13 Speaker 00 When you say that out loud, that's like, what? You took our savings? You got a job out of town? Like, we didn't talk this out-
1:20 Speaker 01 With like an insecure startup.
1:22 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:23 Speaker 01 And he doesn't tell her for weeks.
1:25 Speaker 00 I know.
1:26 Speaker 01 It's like Daryl has to convince him to be like, are you gonna tell Pam? Like, we're leaving for Philly soon. Like, when are you gonna bring her in the loop? So I think it's hitting a little differently now with this younger generation that's watching The Office. And those folks are like, um, I think maybe Pam's right to be a little grumpy.
1:45 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:46 Speaker 01 Like, it's not unsupportive-
1:47 Speaker 00 Right.
1:48 Speaker 01 -to be annoyed that your partner did something- But yeah, when the episode first aired, I got a lot of shit for it. And it reminds me too, I recently did a re-watch of Breaking Bad. Do you remember when Breaking Bad first came out? Anna Gunn, the actress who played Skylar White, you know, married to Walter White.
2:10 Speaker 00 Yeah.
2:10 Speaker 01 She got a lot of shit for like, how hurt and upset she was that her husband was becoming a methamphetamine drug kingpin.
2:22 Speaker 00 She didn't have space in her heart for that?
2:24 Speaker 01 Like, and it's interesting because when I re-watched it, I was like, oh my god. She was, I, like, I thought her just, her performance is just like spot on. Could you imagine? Could you imagine? But everybody was so dazzled by the charismatic Walter White. They were pissed that she wasn't more supportive.
2:45 Speaker 00 That's so wild. Okay, so I also talked about an amazing deleted scene with Ryan getting yelled at by David Wallace. David is so mad when he calls and Ryan answers the phone. You know, Ryan was stealing from the company. What the hell? Now he's answering the phones again? There's this great scene with Michael on the phone with David. And I brought it up in our breakdown. It's been added back to the superfan episode and I just wanted everyone to hear it.
3:10 Speaker 02 I want him out of the building now, Michael. The man stole from the company.
3:14 Speaker 03 Allegedly.
3:15 Speaker 02 No, not allegedly. As part of his plea, he admitted his guilt.
3:19 Speaker 03 Allegedly admitted his guilt.
3:21 Speaker 02 What?
3:23 Speaker 03 Listen, David, I, I know Ryan.
3:27 Speaker 02 Michael.
3:27 Speaker 03 He is good people. He made a huge, huge error. Um, I just, I think he needs direction, that's all.
3:35 Speaker 02 Okay, I'm tired, Michael.
3:36 Speaker 03 Me too.
3:37 Speaker 02 Okay. You really want to go out on a limb for this guy? You really want to vouch for this punk?
3:42 Speaker 03 With all my heart, yes.
3:44 Speaker 02 Fine. He can't talk to clients, he can't sell. If he so much as sniffs White out, it's on you.
3:51 Speaker 03 Whoa, on me? What do I have to do with it? I mean, this guy has a criminal record. I think that's a little excessive.
3:59 Speaker 01 He's like, whoa, wait, on me? Yes, Michael, you brought him back. Amazing.
4:07 Speaker 00 It's so good. And Andy Buckley's so great in that scene.
4:10 Speaker 01 Well, listen, I have one last letter to share. It's from Megan M., who says, hey, I found a little error in the last Office Ladies episode. Jenna and Angela said that Kelly had the same nameplate that she was gifted in the Office Christmas Party episode, but upon looking at it, it's a different plate. The one in the Christmas episode is purple with seven orange, blue, and pink-stemless daisy-ish flowers, but the plate on her desk in this episode is different. It's metallic, and there are only two red flowers with stems. So it's a floral plate, but not the same one that was gifted to her in Christmas Party.
4:50 Speaker 00 Huh.
4:51 Speaker 01 Well, lady, you know what I did.
4:53 Speaker 00 How sad, how sad.
4:54 Speaker 01 You know I did. Look, there it is. It's different.
4:57 Speaker 00 Oh, my goodness. Megan, you're so right.
5:00 Speaker 01 Megan is right.
5:00 Speaker 00 Clearly, there is a theme here, and that is fancy font with flowers.
5:05 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
5:05 Speaker 00 But they're totally different.
5:07 Speaker 01 Totally different. And Megan, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do a side-by-side, which you know is one of my favorite things to do.
5:14 Speaker 00 All right, you guys. Here is your second drink of Weight Loss, Part Two.
5:23 Speaker 01 I'm Jenna Fisher.
5:24 Speaker 00 And I'm Angela Kinsey.
5:25 Speaker 01 We were on The Office together.
5:27 Speaker 00 And we're best friends.
5:28 Speaker 01 And now we're doing the Ultimate Office Rewatch Podcast just for you.
5:32 Speaker 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.
5:39 Speaker 01 We're the Office Ladies.
5:44 Speaker 01 Hey, gang, how's it going?
5:45 Speaker 00 Howdy.
5:46 Speaker 01 It is Weight Loss, Part Two.
5:49 Speaker 00 Season five.
5:51 Speaker 01 Yeah. This is the second part of our season five premiere. It was written by Lee Eisenberg and Jean Stepnitzky and directed by Paul Feig.
6:00 Speaker 00 Hit us with a summary.
6:02 Speaker 01 All right. Well, you might remember last week, we set up that Dunder Mifflin is doing a company-wide weight loss contest. That contest continues. It's really causing some division among the employees.
6:14 Speaker 00 People are getting hangry.
6:15 Speaker 01 They are. Ryan returns to Scranton. He's a temp again. Michael hires him to fill in at reception for Pam, who is off at Pratt. She's, you know, doing art school.
6:27 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
6:28 Speaker 01 Now, Michael is very slowly still pursuing Holly. Dwight and Angela are continuing to hook up in the warehouse behind Andy's back. And Jim has an important question for Pam.
6:40 Speaker 00 The question.
6:42 Speaker 01 All right. Fast fact number one, Paul Feig directed this episode and he also had a much larger role overall in season five. Paul was with us for every single episode of season five.
6:57 Speaker 00 He was, and he was amazing. He was this great, constant, like, I don't know, Jimmy, it was like, he was like the man of the ship. He was like guiding us along the way. Having him on set always just made me feel better.
7:11 Speaker 01 I'm with you. I loved it. You remember last week, we talked about how Greg Daniels was now working on both The Office and he was trying to get Parks and Rec off the ground.
7:22 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
7:22 Speaker 01 He had groomed Jen Salata and Paul Lieberstein to run the show. They were overseeing the writing of the show. They were running the writers' room. Well, Paul Feig was brought on as a supervising director and co-executive producer to oversee the on-set production and to oversee all of our directors. Cause we had a lot of new directors in season five, including some cast members and crew members and even some of our writers. They all directed their first episodes. Paul was also in the writers' room a bit, but mostly he was like the tastemaker, right? He was like one of these original visionaries.
8:02 Speaker 00 What is a tastemaker?
8:04 Speaker 01 I mean, I don't know, but I think a tastemaker is like you
8:09 Speaker 01 set the tastes of.
8:12 Speaker 00 Did you make up that word?
8:13 Speaker 01 No, tastemaker is a real word.
8:15 Speaker 00 Well, maybe if you're like running a winery.
8:20 Speaker 01 But you could be like a tastemaker-like is the same as like a.
8:24 Speaker 00 I think you made it up.
8:26 Speaker 01 Well, I didn't. You can Google it. I can't believe you're getting out your phone right now to Google it. This is unbelievable. Tastemaker is a real word. Yes, thank you, Sam. It's like a trendsetter. Okay.
8:41 Speaker 00 Tastemaker.
8:42 Speaker 01 Okay.
8:43 Speaker 00 According to the English Language Learner's definition, a person whose judgment about what is good, fashionable, etc., are accepted and followed by many other people.
8:53 Speaker 01 That's right.
8:54 Speaker 00 He was a tastemaker.
8:55 Speaker 01 He was a tastemaker. He was. It was his job to control the quality of the show. You know, he said yes to jokes and no to other jokes because of his good taste.
9:06 Speaker 00 I know this is getting us off so early. I really want to know the origin of this word. Like, where did the word tastemaker come from? Was that the person that, like, tried the food for the king? And if he didn't die, okay, fine, we'll all eat what that guy had?
9:19 Speaker 01 I don't know, but I think you should deep dive it for a revisit, Angela. I do.
9:23 Speaker 00 Okay, Paul Feig was the tastemaker.
9:26 Speaker 01 Wow, you know what just happened there, Angela?
9:28 Speaker 00 What?
9:29 Speaker 01 You just got real hot and bothered with me.
9:32 Speaker 00 I did not.
9:33 Speaker 01 You did.
9:34 Speaker 00 That is not hot and bothered. That is perplexed and curious. And you were right there. You were right. You were right.
9:43 Speaker 01 You were real hot to trot.
9:45 Speaker 00 That means wanting sex. I know what that means now.
9:49 Speaker 01 All right. Well, listen, I talked to Greg Daniels about it, and he said that this was a big push that he had to make with the network, in particular Jerry DiCannio, the head of production at Universal, because our show had been functioning just fine without someone in this role before. But Greg explained he was often called down to set to discuss the shooting or the motivations with the actors and directors, and he wanted to make sure that that would still be covered while he was gone. And they eventually agreed. And I traded some messages with Paul Feig about this, too.
10:25 Speaker 00 Hmm.
10:26 Speaker 01 And he even sent in an audio clip.
10:29 Speaker 00 Oh, Paul Feig, all the way from London.
10:32 Speaker 01 Yep.
10:33 Speaker 04 It was such a fun year because, you know, to be around you guys and the cast every day and to be in that writers' room with that amazing group of writers was just such a special opportunity. Yeah, I got to direct a lot of episodes that season, but also it was just fun to kind of be with all of these other people who were starting to direct and seeing how great they were doing. It was so fun to be with Steve when he directed his first episode and Brent Forster did a great job and Dave Rogers. We had so much fun. And so that was kind of my experience of the fifth season was being around everybody so much, but also just kind of getting to see the show through a lot of fresh eyes of these new directors or people coming on and doing it for the first time.
11:16 Speaker 01 Well, I want to say that Paul also directed five episodes himself this season.
11:23 Speaker 00 Hmm.
11:24 Speaker 01 And when we were trading messages, Angela, he said he loved his time on season five so much that he wanted to send us audio clips for every single episode of season five.
11:33 Speaker 00 Get out, Polopedia!
11:36 Speaker 01 I was like, Paul, you're busy. You're directing a movie right now in London. I mean, you don't have to do that. And he said, well, I'll do as many as I can. So guys, get ready.
11:47 Speaker 00 Get ready for, should it be Figapedia or Polopedia?
11:50 Speaker 01 Paul Figapedia?
11:51 Speaker 00 Paul Figapedia!
11:56 Speaker 01 All right. Fast fact number two is an art school location breakdown. We didn't do this last week. We're going to see more of art school this week, so I thought it was appropriate.
12:06 Speaker 00 Okay.
12:07 Speaker 01 Fan question from Yvette and Rachel. Where were the New York City art school scenes shot? I will tell you.
12:14 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
12:15 Speaker 01 Everything was shot at USC, the University of Southern California. The classrooms were empty classrooms on campus that our set decorators dressed. Even the dorm room was a USC dorm room. The hallways, when Jim's watching TV in the common room, we were basically all on campus. The only thing we didn't do on campus, and we talked about this last week, was when Jim and Pam are video chatting. They recreated my dorm room on that warehouse set of Dunder Mifflin.
12:42 Speaker 00 Well, I have one other thing to share about the USC campus, but I am going to save it when it comes up in the episode.
12:48 Speaker 01 Well, all right. I have one fun thing to share about the real Pratt, which is in Brooklyn. That's where Pam's meant to be. We got a letter from Mila S., who is a student at Pratt, and she said this. "There is a communal cat population living on campus called Pratt Cats. They have their own little houses, and they wander the lecture halls and the campus freely. If you're ever in New York, I highly recommend you visit the campus, along with its sculptures and cats roaming the grounds. Angela, the cats even have their own Instagram page, and it's called Pratt Cats."
13:24 Speaker 00 Pratt Cats? That's so cute!
13:26 Speaker 01 Two Ts for Pratt and two Ts for cats.
13:30 Speaker 00 Pratt Cats.
13:30 Speaker 01 Pratt Cats. I looked at it. It's just a lot of super cute pictures of cats.
13:34 Speaker 00 I want to see it. Oh my gosh, there's so many.
13:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:40 Speaker 00 I wonder who does the Instagram. There's so many cats.
13:43 Speaker 01 I think we should put this on our list.
13:45 Speaker 00 We should.
13:47 Speaker 01 All right, fast fact number three. We've got a big guest star alert. It's Rich Summer as Pam's art school friend Alex.
13:56 Speaker 00 Yes, and we are friends with Rich.
13:59 Speaker 01 We're like really good friends with Rich.
14:00 Speaker 00 He needs to come on.
14:02 Speaker 01 Well, he's refused.
14:03 Speaker 00 No, he has not.
14:04 Speaker 01 I'm kidding. We are gonna have him on. You guys, Rich is probably most well-known for his role as Harry Crane on Mad Men, but he's also acted in such shows as Wet Hot American Summer, the TV series, as well as many movies with office connections.
14:22 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah.
14:22 Speaker 01 He was in The Devil Wears Prada starring Emily Blunt. He was in Celeste and Jesse Forever starring Rashida Jones, and he was in The Giant Mechanical Man starring me.
14:33 Speaker 00 Yay!
14:35 Speaker 01 He is also supposedly real-life friends with Nicholas DeGostio, aka Hunter. We're gonna have to ask him about that when he comes on the show.
14:45 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah. We have lots to ask him.
14:47 Speaker 01 We do.
14:48 Speaker 00 Jenna, as you remember from last week, there is a fantastic DVD commentary for Weight Loss. It's an all-crew DVD commentary. I have more to share from that in this week's Weight Loss Part Two, as well as I reached out to Joya Balfour. Do you guys remember Joya? She has contributed information on the podcast before. She worked on the digital team at NBC.com, and she has some fun Andy Angela wedding stuff that she shared with me, as well as one little surprise, but we'll get to it.
15:19 Speaker 01 I love it. Should we take a break and then we'll be back?
15:22 Speaker 00 Yeah.
15:34 Speaker 00 We are back, and a friendly Ryan has returned to Dunder Mifflin Scranton. There is a deleted scene, Jenna, that the camera catches Ryan being dropped off to work by his mother. She's driving a station wagon. She pulls up, he hops out with a little sack lunch, and he starts to go in the building, and she rolls down the window and honks her horn, and he runs back and gives her a kiss on the cheek, and then he runs in the building.
16:04 Speaker 01 Wow.
16:05 Speaker 00 If this tells you where Ryan is at in life, he's back living at home, and his mom is driving him to work.
16:12 Speaker 01 Wow. He's also grown a goatee.
16:15 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
16:16 Speaker 01 And this now explains why Michael has had a goatee, because he says, "Michael, did you grow that goatee after you saw mine when you helped me move?"
16:26 Speaker 00 Yeah. Remember, these goatees are not real. Hair and makeup put them on. I thought they did a fantastic job. And Michael has a talking head that explains that he hired Ryan off the temp agency.
16:41 Speaker 01 Yeah. He said Ronnie was very blech and he told the temp agency, "I don't care what it costs me. I have to have him. I have to have Ryan Howard."
16:49 Speaker 00 People don't know how to react to Ryan being back. Kevin is excited, runs over, gives him a noogie, which starts a great runner. And Jenna, there was more in the deleted scenes of Ryan having these talking heads where he's putting everyone who's wronged him on his list.
17:07 Speaker 01 Yeah. He explains that he's making a list of everyone who wrongs him so that when he is back up on the top, he can get his revenge.
17:17 Speaker 00 Yeah. And Kevin just made the list. Also, who makes the list is David Wallace. In a deleted scene, David Wallace calls, Ryan answers, and David flips out, starts berating Ryan. You can hear it, you know, through the phone.
17:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:32 Speaker 00 So much so that Ryan cries. And Michael vouches for Ryan, and David Wallace does not want him there, but agrees. And so now David Wallace has made the list. And Jenna, I couldn't help myself. You know what this made me think of?
17:48 Speaker 01 What?
17:49 Speaker 00 Game of Thrones.
17:50 Speaker 01 Oh, somebody has a list. I didn't get that far.
17:53 Speaker 00 Arya Stark has a kill list for everyone who's wronged her.
17:58 Speaker 01 Can we take a minute, everybody, if you haven't seen Game of Thrones and you don't want spoilers, just, I don't know, fast forward 30 seconds. Angela?
18:06 Speaker 00 What?
18:06 Speaker 01 I started Game of Thrones. I never finished it. I'm never going to finish it.
18:10 Speaker 00 Really?
18:10 Speaker 01 Will you just tell me, does Arya ever kill?
18:13 Speaker 00 She [bleep] kills everybody.
18:15 Speaker 01 She does?
18:15 Speaker 00 She kills everybody, and she kills the biggest baddie. And I don't want to ruin it in case someone didn't fast forward, but she kind of saves the whole world. I'll just say that. That is kind of a spoiler.
18:26 Speaker 01 That was the only thing that was kind of keeping me there.
18:29 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
18:30 Speaker 01 Was that I saw the potential in her character.
18:34 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm. No, she follows through.
18:36 Speaker 01 Well, that's good to know.
18:37 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm. Continuing Ryan's list, Ryan apologizes to Jim.
18:43 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
18:43 Speaker 00 Right? Jim shakes his hand. And now are you ready for some Jim sass?
18:49 Speaker 01 Oh, it's so good, though.
18:51 Speaker 00 Ready? Ryan says, Jim, I want to apologize for how I treated you last year. He goes on to explain all the things he feels sorry for. And he said, you know, he's even started volunteering. He's giving back to the community. And Jim goes, well, that's great. You're talking about your court ordered community service. And Ryan says, I don't need a judge to tell me to keep my community clean. And then Jim goes, but he did, right? And Ryan goes, all right. And Jim goes, all right. So much Jim sass.
19:23 Speaker 01 And then there's just a silent Ryan talking head where he's staring down the lens of the camera. And he's clearly writing Jim Halpert in his list.
19:33 Speaker 00 Yeah.
19:33 Speaker 01 Which I loved. It's time for another weigh in on the giant scale that was custom made for our show. We learned last week, there is a zero pound weight loss. People are really starting to melt down.
19:45 Speaker 00 Mm hmm. 22 minutes, 59 seconds. Did anyone catch that Meredith's face is back to normal?
19:51 Speaker 01 Oh, I didn't catch that.
19:53 Speaker 00 Yeah, no more sunburn on Meredith.
19:54 Speaker 01 I'll tell you, we had Erin M. write in and say, during that moment of the weigh in, Michael does this bird like flapping move.
20:02 Speaker 00 Yes, I loved it.
20:03 Speaker 01 When he's frustrated. And she says, it's literally my favorite moment in the whole show. She wants to know if Steve improvised that. Yes, that was not scripted. That was Steve's take on his character's frustration.
20:15 Speaker 00 I loved it so much. At 23 minutes, 21 seconds, Andy has a talking head. He says, this is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. And you know, he hasn't had a very hard life. Ding ding ding. This was a digitally corrected shirt and tie. Once again, we talked about this in the episode previously, weight loss one, that the writers wanted to move around some of Andy's talking heads. And to match his outfits for continuity, they had to go in and post production, change the color of his tie and his shirt.
20:45 Speaker 01 I mean, it just blows my mind still.
20:47 Speaker 00 I know.
20:48 Speaker 01 Some other things that happened in the scene are that Holly tells Oscar that her date went well with his yoga instructor and Michael overhears and then he blames Jim because he thinks Jim's bad advice has landed him in the friend zone with Holly. And then we move upstairs.
21:04 Speaker 00 Yeah, Dwight is really mad. He doesn't think everyone's taking this seriously. He randomly selects Stanley, Phyllis, and Kevin and tells them to get liposuction on their own dime.
21:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, they have to pay for it.
21:16 Speaker 00 Yeah. And meanwhile, Ryan goes to apologize to Kelly and now we have some Kelly sass.
21:23 Speaker 01 Oh, it's so satisfying.
21:25 Speaker 00 It's so good.
21:26 Speaker 01 I mean, Ryan, come on.
21:28 Speaker 00 I wish he could have stuck to it.
21:29 Speaker 01 I know.
21:30 Speaker 00 It's so good. He's like, hey, should we, you know, grab a drink later, catch up? And then he says, pick me up at eight, right? He's trying to do his old shenanigans with her. And she goes, that is so sweet, but I'm dating Daryl still and we're like crazy in love. So, and he goes, oh, cool. Well, maybe I'll see you around. And Kelly goes, it's a small office.
21:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:51 Speaker 00 Yeah.
21:52 Speaker 01 Did you notice on her desk?
21:54 Speaker 00 What?
21:54 Speaker 01 She had her little nameplate from the first Christmas party.
21:58 Speaker 00 Yes, I did see that with the flower.
22:00 Speaker 01 Mm hmm. I thought that was so cute.
22:02 Speaker 00 I did too.
22:03 Speaker 01 Dwight's going to apologize to Phyllis for telling her she should get liposuction on her own dime. He says, I'm going to make it up to you. I have a sale, but it requires two people. Will you go with me?
22:15 Speaker 00 Big sale.
22:16 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. It's a sure thing.
22:18 Speaker 00 Yeah.
22:19 Speaker 01 I'll give you 40%. I'll split it with you 60/40. He says he'll drive. She's like, all right.
22:25 Speaker 00 And then of course Kelly needs to have this really odd forced make out session with Daryl in front of Ryan on purpose. But I want you to know, Jenna, at 26 minutes, 12 seconds, you get a really good shot of Ryan's, like his phone, earpiece, headset thingy.
22:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:43 Speaker 00 Yeah. According to Randy Cordray, our line producer, there was a lengthy discussion about which ear headset Ryan should use. He said Phil Shea like brought over a tray. He said it looked like 12 to 20.
23:00 Speaker 01 That sounds right.
23:01 Speaker 00 Right? Different versions for them to pick out.
23:03 Speaker 01 That sounds about right.
23:04 Speaker 00 Yeah.
23:05 Speaker 01 They picked a real douchey one. So, good job, guys. Let's go to the break room. Jim is having lunch with Michael and Holly. Two things here.
23:15 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
23:16 Speaker 01 Continuity catch. I don't know if you noticed, but Michael suddenly does not have a goatee.
23:20 Speaker 00 Oh, yes. They were having issues keeping track.
23:23 Speaker 01 And also, there are a lot of fruit flies in the vending machine.
23:27 Speaker 00 Well, lady, I think it's time for a fruit fly breakdown.
23:31 Speaker 01 Oh, please. Angela, we got a lot of mail about the fruit flies.
23:35 Speaker 00 Hit me with your questions, because I have some answers.
23:37 Speaker 01 People wanted to know if they were real, were they CGI? I remember Jean Stupnitsky told me they were real, and they even had a fruit fly wrangler.
23:47 Speaker 00 They were real. Let me tell you everything I learned about them in the DVD commentary. First of all, this whole bit cost thousands of dollars. All right, these fruit flies were from the Florida Fruit Fly Growers, and they were bred specifically for this episode. These type of fruit flies are a sterile type of fruit fly, and they are bred for Florida citrus farms. According to Kelly Cantley, they have a very specific breeding cycle, so they had to schedule the fruit flies to be released on a specific day. And Randy, Randy said we had fruit flies for weeks.
24:28 Speaker 01 I remember them.
24:28 Speaker 00 I do, too. We'd go in the break room, and there would still be a few buzzing around.
24:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, I guess even though they couldn't mate, a lot of them, they really lived beyond their life cycle.
24:40 Speaker 00 Yeah. In addition to these fruit flies breeding schedule that we had to plan around, Jenna Vilshay had to time out rotting fruit over the course of eight weeks.
24:54 Speaker 01 Oh, my gosh.
24:55 Speaker 00 This fruit had to go through stages of rotting. He had a table set up on our soundstage full of fruit in different stages of rotting for this scene.
25:06 Speaker 01 Lady, I was just about to say that. As you said that, a memory came flooding back into my head of this giant long table where he had created little squares out of tape.
25:18 Speaker 00 Yeah.
25:18 Speaker 01 And each square had a different piece of fruit in it in different stages of rot.
25:23 Speaker 00 Yes. All for this one gag.
25:26 Speaker 01 That is like on camera for like two seconds.
25:30 Speaker 00 I know.
25:31 Speaker 01 Again, like some little throwaway line in the script created all of this production.
25:37 Speaker 00 Florida fruit fly growers, rotted fruit, fruit fly wranglers.
25:42 Speaker 01 Incredible. Shifting gears here, over at Pratt, Pam is in the hallway between classes. She's palling around with her new school friends.
25:52 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
25:53 Speaker 01 Alex, played by Rich Summer, is making some jokes.
25:56 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
25:57 Speaker 01 Jim calls. Pam says, I'm gonna call you back because I made some friends. Okay, they were trying to make everybody mad. They were trying to make people feel like this art school thing might drive a wedge between Jim and Pam.
26:11 Speaker 00 Now, see, I wasn't worried yet. As I re-watch it, I'm not worried yet. I'm happy that she's making friends.
26:17 Speaker 01 I am too. I do want to say, Pam, what the F with your earrings?
26:22 Speaker 00 This is sassy college Pam. She's got her updo ponytail.
26:26 Speaker 01 Did you look at the earrings, though? They're like these purple roses. I mean, has this woman never dressed casually?
26:34 Speaker 00 I don't know. I feel like I'm celebrating Pam in this moment. You're really judging her whole outfit.
26:41 Speaker 01 I guess, you know, you don't have to be too worried about Pam attracting other men with those earrings on.
26:47 Speaker 00 Oh, stop.
26:48 Speaker 01 I don't know.
26:49 Speaker 00 She looked cute. I have to take us back to the bullpen because at 27 minutes, 13 seconds, one of the best scenes of this episode is Phyllis storming in. She is ticked off.
27:03 Speaker 01 Gene Stepnitzky said this is his favorite scene of the episode.
27:06 Speaker 00 I loved it so much. I mean, Dwight drives Phyllis to an abandoned warehouse five miles away and kicks her out of the car.
27:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, he took her money and her phone, and so she had to walk back. And Dwight says, I bet you burned about 1,000 calories.
27:24 Speaker 00 Phyllis is not having it. I think pissed off Phyllis is my favorite Phyllis.
27:29 Speaker 01 It's such a hard call because pissed off Phyllis is so great, but I do also love like emotionally wounded Phyllis, like the whole thing that went down with Sue Grafton.
27:39 Speaker 00 Oh, gosh, yes.
27:41 Speaker 01 At the Steamtown Mall.
27:42 Speaker 00 Sue Grafton, that was so good, too. Well, she calls David Wallace.
27:46 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
27:47 Speaker 00 She is done with Dwight.
27:49 Speaker 01 Week six of the weigh-in. There is no weigh-in this week. Holly instead reads an official statement from corporate. They're just concerned. You know, this was supposed to be about health and wellness, and they need to make sure that everyone knows the point of this, like, health kick. In case the memo wasn't enough, Michael's gonna try to help explain it.
28:15 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah. Michael wants to bring it on home with one of his characters. This is how you get people's attention, remember? As a little kid, Hoot the Owl came to his elementary school. If you want to get through to someone, you dress up as a character. So, enter Michael Klump.
28:29 Speaker 01 Yep. We had a fan question, Angela, from Grayne L. When Michael says he's wearing his sumo suit from Beach Games, was Steve actually wearing his sumo suit underneath his clothes?
28:41 Speaker 00 No. So, here's the deal. Alicia, our wardrobe designer, was actually part of the DVD commentary, and she said they weren't able to use the sumo suit.
28:50 Speaker 01 Hmm.
28:51 Speaker 00 They had to buy a special type of suit that went under the sports jacket and pants. And Steve actually had to have two pretty thorough fittings for this whole thing to happen.
29:00 Speaker 01 Wow. I bet Steve got hot. I wonder if they used his air-conditioned vest that you told us about last week?
29:06 Speaker 00 His cooling vest?
29:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:08 Speaker 00 Probably.
29:09 Speaker 01 Well, Michael is leading this whole meeting where he wants to celebrate people's body image, no matter what you look like. And during this meeting, he looks over and he notices that Ryan has shaved his goatee.
29:23 Speaker 00 Yeah.
29:24 Speaker 01 And he's like, Ryan, did you shave your goatee? And Ryan's like, yeah, I did. Well, now all the goatees are gonna come off.
29:32 Speaker 00 Well, yeah. You know, Michael is trying to get everyone to celebrate how their bodies are different but beautiful. And Michael kneels down to talk to Kelly. You guys, 31 minutes, 21 seconds, Mindy is doing her classic, covering her mouth so you can't see her starting to break.
29:49 Speaker 01 I noticed it, too.
29:50 Speaker 00 I noticed it right away. Michael makes Kelly stand up. He wants everyone to look at her and tell her how great she looks. Ryan says she's perfect. Meredith likes her fingernails. Phyllis likes her dress. And Creed says she has a hell of an ass.
30:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:05 Speaker 00 And Kelly's like, what else?
30:08 Speaker 01 I wasn't there. I was at art school.
30:11 Speaker 00 Yeah.
30:12 Speaker 01 It was such a bummer. There were a lot of things that I missed.
30:15 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
30:15 Speaker 01 These were the classic conference room scenes when you guys would be stuck in there for a whole day, maybe two.
30:20 Speaker 00 Oh, yes, we got pretty punchy in there. But one of my favorite talking heads is Phyllis saying she wonders what people would like about her. Probably her jugs.
30:30 Speaker 01 Hmm, maybe so. Speaking of art school, Pam's in class and Alex is making her giggle.
30:37 Speaker 00 Flirty flirt. They even get in trouble.
30:40 Speaker 01 Well, I have a little fun fact. If you listen closely, you can hear her art school professor saying this. Some blame it on the new air conditioning system. This is what he's talking about. There are these paintings in France called the Lascaux paintings, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. They are ancient cave paintings and they have just faced incredible disturbance since their discovery. Because they have tourists come through, like upwards of like 1,200 tourists a day. They put in air conditioning in this cave. They put in lighting systems to make viewing these paintings more enjoyable. But as a result, Lichens, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but whatever Lichens are.
31:23 Speaker 00 Right.
31:24 Speaker 01 And crystals, they start to appear on the walls in the late 1950s. And they had to close down these caves to preserve what was left of the sacred paintings. So when he says some blame it on the new air conditioning system, he's talking about these cave paintings in France.
31:42 Speaker 00 Well, that was a lot of good information.
31:44 Speaker 01 I just think it's really cool that our writers, someone is very, very smart on our writing staff.
31:51 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:52 Speaker 01 Was it Jean? Was it Lee? Was it someone else? I don't know. Maybe it was Paul Lieberstein because we know he's quite the world traveler.
31:58 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
31:59 Speaker 01 And likes art.
32:00 Speaker 00 Someone did a little digging and planted a little seed there.
32:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:05 Speaker 00 Well, this scene in juxtaposition to Jim's talking head got people fired up. Because here's Pam laughing in art class with Alex. And then there's a Jim talking head. He says, summer's going great. Just listened to Michael Klump for two hours. Convinced I have an ulcer and my girlfriend lives in New York and I haven't seen her in 10 days.
32:25 Speaker 01 Hmm.
32:25 Speaker 00 So people were not happy with Pam when this episode aired, I remember.
32:30 Speaker 01 I have a lot. To say,
32:32 Speaker 00 Oh, no.
32:33 Speaker 01 Uh,
32:34 Speaker 00 Oh, no.
32:35 Speaker 01 Well, I just want to say that when Pam went to art school for only three months, when she was not yet married and didn't have children, people came down real hard on her because of Jim's feelings. Then, when Jim invested in a business without telling Pam and left his family and left Pam alone to care for their two children while he chased his dreams, people came down on Pam, again, for not being supportive enough of Jim. So in both of these instances, I just want to say I noticed a lot of hate for Pam. Do I want to call it sexist? I do. I do.
33:17 Speaker 00 Oh, my gosh.
33:18 Speaker 01 I just want to say that Pam faced a lot of scrutiny as a character, I think because she was a woman.
33:25 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
33:25 Speaker 01 Right?
33:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, that river runs deep.
33:28 Speaker 01 It runs deep and it's going to run long into some future seasons.
33:31 Speaker 00 Okay.
33:33 Speaker 01 Should we take a break?
33:34 Speaker 00 We should because when we come back, we're going to have a weather breakdown.
33:39 Speaker 01 A weather breakdown. I can't wait.
33:53 Speaker 00 Well, we are back and it is pouring rain. There is a black screen with the words Week 7, August 11, and you can just hear the rain. Now it's time for the weigh in. Everyone's in the warehouse. The huge warehouse door is open and it's just coming down.
34:10 Speaker 01 Hmm, I wonder why it needed to rain.
34:12 Speaker 00 I wonder why we needed to establish a big rainstorm, huh?
34:16 Speaker 01 I don't know. Maybe we'll find out in a little bit.
34:18 Speaker 00 Well, this was fake rain. And yes, this was thought out. They wanted to establish this big rainstorm outside of the windows of our set in the bullpen, where normally there would be the big backdrops, right, Jenna?
34:30 Speaker 01 Yep.
34:31 Speaker 00 They brought in those rain panels that you told us about.
34:34 Speaker 01 Oh, because we had an episode where Michael couldn't get the top up on his convertible.
34:40 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
34:40 Speaker 01 And then it rained inside the car.
34:42 Speaker 00 That's right. So they brought back in those big window panes that they were able to sort of recycle water through so it looked like raining. And you're going to see it in the backdrop of several scenes that just help keep reinforcing that it is a rainy day out. The one thing I will tell you is that sometimes with this rain, like outside the warehouse, they would have to adjust that for the sound department and editing. But they said it sounded real, so the sound department didn't have to edit out the fake rain.
35:12 Speaker 01 Huh. Well, there you go.
35:14 Speaker 00 Also, if you're keeping track, remember Kelly Cantley in last week's episode gave us a list of things to keep track of. We are now two guys, no goatee, one guy goatee. Michael and Ryan, no goatee, Dwight with a goatee.
35:28 Speaker 01 That's right. They're also having their week seven weigh-in. And this is when Holly says she hasn't heard from her yoga teacher date in like three days.
35:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
35:38 Speaker 01 She had even bought tickets to the Counting Crows for that night. And she doesn't know, like, is he gonna show? Is he gonna call?
35:46 Speaker 00 Yeah. And Daryl announces that they've lost four pounds.
35:51 Speaker 01 Four pounds. Meanwhile, back in the bullpen, Jim and Pam, they're chatting on IM. They're trying to figure out, when can they see each other? Jim has a conflict with his nephew's ball game. You know, they don't know. Jim says, why don't you meet me for lunch?
36:04 Speaker 00 Yeah, kind of spontaneous.
36:06 Speaker 01 We'll meet in the middle.
36:06 Speaker 00 Yeah, meet halfway.
36:08 Speaker 01 Let's meet at the rest stop. That's halfway between New York and Scranton.
36:11 Speaker 00 When this whole time Dwight thinks Jim is talking about him, right? That he's up to something. And Pam IMs Jim and says, oh, by the way, finished my summer project. And Jim clicks on it. And guess what's there?
36:25 Speaker 01 A picture of Dwight.
36:26 Speaker 00 It is an ASCII portrait.
36:30 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
36:31 Speaker 00 Which stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, which is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text and computers, telecommunication equipment, and other devices. Well, guess who has a copy of it?
36:49 Speaker 01 Who?
36:49 Speaker 00 Joya. And she sent it to me.
36:52 Speaker 01 Oh, my gosh.
36:53 Speaker 00 So I have Pam's ASCII portrait of Dwight. I'll put it in our stories.
36:59 Speaker 01 I love that. Well, I like it because it shows that Pam is learning things in school.
37:04 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
37:05 Speaker 01 She's not just flirting. No, she's not everyone. She's taking it seriously.
37:10 Speaker 00 She's putting on her purple flower earrings and marching her ponytail into class. Holly goes in to talk to Michael and she wants him to know that they have lost to Utica.
37:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:22 Speaker 00 By only eight pounds.
37:23 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
37:24 Speaker 00 And Michael's like, wait a second, we have to the end of the day. Maybe if they really go for it, they crank up the heat, they're gonna wear trash bags, maybe they can get there.
37:35 Speaker 01 Well, Andy's into it immediately. He puts on his trash bags. He says he does not lose competitions. He wins them or he quits because they're unfair.
37:43 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
37:44 Speaker 01 Kelly is not participating. She's having some pizza.
37:49 Speaker 00 The wedding planning has not stopped between Andy and Angela. Angela says, hey, she asked very nicely, by the way, if the first dance can be to Little Drummer Boy, her favorite song. Andy's like, yeah, he's already booked his a cappella group.
38:05 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. It's even better than can their last song be to Little Drummer Boy. His a cappella group is gonna sing it for you.
38:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, Here Comes Trouble, class of 96. And he's like, sweetheart, you're gonna love these guys. Carl One, Carl Two, Broccoli Rob, Spare Rib, Doobie, Lunchbox, Boner Champ, that's me. Pubie Lewis and the News, Hopscotch, Jingle Jangle, and Sandwich.
38:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:31 Speaker 00 And they're collectively gonna be his best man.
38:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:34 Speaker 00 Guess who's paging Dwight?
38:36 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. Now, if I remember correctly, Angela, NBC built a website for Andy and Angela's wedding. Do you remember that? It's not live anymore, but do you remember that?
38:48 Speaker 00 I do, and I asked Joya about it. She sent me the homepage photo of Angela and Andy's wedding website, complete with their wedding gift registry and the audition video that Andy put together of Here Comes Trouble to be their wedding band.
39:05 Speaker 01 Wow.
39:06 Speaker 00 I have all of it. I'll put it in stories. I have all of it. And I want to read to you, though, the items on the registry.
39:15 Speaker 01 Please.
39:15 Speaker 00 So Joya said the joke was that Andy would list something and then Angela would list something in stark opposition to what Andy had listed.
39:24 Speaker 01 Okay.
39:25 Speaker 00 So see if you can guess who put what on the registry. The Singing Machine, ISM 370 karaoke with iPod dock.
39:34 Speaker 00 Noise cancelling headphones.
39:38 Speaker 00 Twilight thick, non see-through shower curtain. Deadbolt bathroom door lock.
39:46 Speaker 00 Modesty changing screen. His and hers kitty cat PJs, kids small and men's size large. Kitty cat Shay's lounge. Three Cornell Big Red Ultimate Outdoor rugs. Marie Osmond Inspiration Bench. Decorative wall hat and Getty's calendar.
40:04 Speaker 01 Wow.
40:05 Speaker 00 That's what was on the registry on the NBC.com wedding site.
40:10 Speaker 01 It's time.
40:11 Speaker 00 It's time. Jim and Pam, they're gonna meet up at the rest stop in the pouring rain. We have a lot to share about it. Jenna, you were there, I was not. I have some fantastic DVD commentary stuff to share with you from our crew, but you should take it away.
40:29 Speaker 01 Well, this is the proposal scene.
40:31 Speaker 00 Yes.
40:32 Speaker 01 Jim gets down on one knee and he proposes to Pam. She's totally shocked. They're at a gas station. You know, he was supposed to wait till she got back from art school, but he says he couldn't wait.
40:43 Speaker 00 She's completely thrown.
40:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:45 Speaker 00 You can really tell she had no idea. In fact, the beginning of the scene, she's like, hey, this is not halfway. I drove further. Like she's, her head is so not in that place.
40:54 Speaker 01 Yeah. But she says yes and they kiss. So first of all, I just want you guys to know that Greg spoke with us about this. He said that he really wanted Jim's proposal to Pam to be in the season premiere. He thought, number one, that would be unexpected. You usually end seasons with proposals.
41:14 Speaker 00 Right.
41:15 Speaker 01 So he thought this would be a real shock.
41:17 Speaker 00 And it was, Jenna, I even remember at the table read, you know, we had so much going on with this weight loss story and Pam at art school. I didn't see it coming.
41:27 Speaker 01 No. And we'd been teasing it all last season. He said he also wanted to throw people off by having it in a very ordinary location. So he wanted to feel special, but he also wanted it to feel like Jim made the decision without a whole lot of planning.
41:42 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
41:43 Speaker 01 So Greg thought that the ideal location for this scene would be a gas station. Along the freeway between Scranton and New York, in the rain. And they based the rest stop on one that Greg Daniels had traveled to as a kid along the Merritt Parkway. We did not actually fly to this location. This is the insane part. They built this in the parking lot of a Best Buy that I have been to many times, actually. What they did was they used Google Street View to capture images of a real gas station along the Merritt Parkway. And then using those images, they built it to match in this parking lot.
42:27 Speaker 01 It took them about nine days to build it. To create the illusion of highway traffic, they built a four-lane circular racetrack around the gas station set. They set up cameras on the other side of this raceway and they had cars drive around it at 55 miles an hour. Then they added rain pouring down on us, these giant rain machines. Our production manager, Randy Cordray, said they had about 35 precision drivers. They were driving not just cars, but like semi trucks. When we were standing there on that set, you could feel the wind, like of these cars speeding past you.
43:11 Speaker 01 It was so, so bonkers. But after we shot the scene, they had to hire a special effects company to paint out the background because the background were these California mountains. And so they had to paint out the mountains and put in some trees, like east coast looking trees. In the end, this was the single most expensive scene ever shot during the entire run of the show. It lasts 52 seconds and it costs $250,000.
43:41 Speaker 00 Oh my Lord. Oh my Lord.
43:47 Speaker 00 Wow.
43:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, so a quarter of a million dollars for less than one minute of screen time.
43:53 Speaker 00 Oh, my gosh. Well, listen, they talked in depth, our crew, about this moment in the DVD commentary. Several, obviously, very similar things as what you just shared. So after months and months of scouting and meetings, it was our location manager, Kyle Alexander, who found this enormous paved parking lot. I guess it was off Las Feliz Boulevard?
44:18 Speaker 01 Yep.
44:18 Speaker 00 Acres and acres of paved ground, which is what they needed if they were gonna build a racetrack, basically, right?
44:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:26 Speaker 00 So these cars could loop around. Now, according to Randy Cordray, the reason why it was such a massive, massive, massive parking lot is because it was a paved over toxic waste site.
44:39 Speaker 01 What?
44:40 Speaker 00 Yes. Apparently, years and years and years ago, there was an old, like, ceramics plant or something that had buried lead paint waste into the ground, so they had to seal it and cover it.
44:55 Speaker 01 So Angela, I just want to make sure that we acknowledge that the information you've just given us means that Jim and Pam,
45:02 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
45:03 Speaker 01 our beloved jam,
45:04 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
45:05 Speaker 01 got engaged
45:06 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
45:07 Speaker 01 at a former toxic waste dump.
45:09 Speaker 00 Fluorescent jam.
45:12 Speaker 01 I mean, yikesy.
45:14 Speaker 00 Well, this is what they shared in the DVD commentary. It was a long time ago, they sealed it up, it's a giant parking lot. Apparently, there's a Best Buy there now. Well, Michael Gallenberg shares on the DVD commentary, one of his favorite things that he built of this whole set was the drinks behind the glass doors. It's, in fact, one humongous giant photo. It was an inkjet print on foam core paper. It looks amazing and there's a great shot at 38 minutes, 32 seconds, right behind Jim and Pam. I would have never known that those drinks were a photo.
45:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was an incredible set.
45:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, really just kudos to our set design team and our construction guys. They just crushed it.
45:59 Speaker 01 It was incredible.
46:00 Speaker 00 The one other debate about the scene, which I'm sure you know, was whether to have sound or no sound. This was a huge, huge debate. Greg could not make up his mind. They had two versions ready to go. One with sound during the proposal and one without. And literally, I mean Jake shared on the DVD commentary, Jake ousted that up until the day of airing, it was the air date, Greg was still trying to decide.
46:30 Speaker 01 It's so funny because I vaguely remember that, but we spoke dialogue every time.
46:36 Speaker 00 Yeah.
46:37 Speaker 01 So the debate was just simply whether Jim and Pam were still wearing their microphones and you could hear our dialogue, or Jim and Pam weren't wearing their microphones and you couldn't. So we said dialogue every time. It wasn't like there were two different scenes that were written with or without dialogue. It was just whether or not you could hear it.
46:57 Speaker 00 Yeah.
46:58 Speaker 01 I don't think John and I knew about this big debate because we were just saying our lines every time.
47:05 Speaker 00 Yeah. I liked being able to hear it.
47:08 Speaker 01 I think it was important that you heard it.
47:09 Speaker 00 Yeah. I have a few more things to share that hopefully won't shatter your memories of this moment. Like you said, the trees were digitally put back in, right? They are East Coast trees. They were put in digitally by Stargate. And here was the other thing that was a big, big question mark about how they do this was the rain. How do they do the rain? And they really considered doing it digitally, adding it in post-production, but Paul Feig was very, very against it. He wanted the rain to feel as real as possible.
47:43 Speaker 01 And we could feel the rain. I mean, there were, you know, it was, I don't know if it was just the wind from the cars. I don't remember there being wind machines, but I do remember the rain hitting us. And I mean, even though it was a former toxic waste dump and even though it was a
48:01 Speaker 00 That's by parking lot.
48:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, just like it was actually to be there, really romantic. You know, it was funny, the gas station, it was just a front. If you went in, it was a like a fakey fake. You go through the door and then you're just like looking at trees. It didn't have a back or anything. But it felt magical. It did. And it was so much fun to shoot that scene. I mean, I feel like we got it on the first take and maybe we did a few, but my memory is that we weren't there long, that we got it pretty early and it was a cool moment.
48:33 Speaker 00 It's a really magical moment.
48:35 Speaker 01 Well, when the gang is ready to weigh in again, Jim is late and then he shows up soaking wet.
48:41 Speaker 00 And so happy.
48:42 Speaker 01 So happy. I was a little sad that they didn't get to spend the whole evening together after getting engaged. I guess Pam just had to drive back to school.
48:50 Speaker 00 I know.
48:51 Speaker 01 But Jim is so happy. Holly decides that this yoga guy is never going to call her. And Michael says, you know what? I'll buy the Counting Crows tickets from you. And she's like, really? Everybody thinks this is like going to lead to Michael offering to go with her.
49:06 Speaker 00 I thought they were going to have a date.
49:08 Speaker 01 No, Michael rips up the tickets.
49:11 Speaker 00 Like gallantly, like saving the date. And she's confused.
49:17 Speaker 01 We got some mail from Emily G.
49:19 Speaker 00 Okay.
49:19 Speaker 01 Here's what she said. Having worked at several concert venues, I wanted to let you know that if you lose or damage your concert tickets, you can go to a venue's box office with your photo ID and someone will reprint them for you.
49:32 Speaker 00 Oh.
49:33 Speaker 01 She said, I hope Holly knew that was an option.
49:36 Speaker 00 Oh, that's good to know.
49:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. It didn't seem like Holly knew.
49:40 Speaker 00 No, I didn't know.
49:42 Speaker 01 Well, now we all know.
49:43 Speaker 00 Now we all know. Thank you, Emily.
49:45 Speaker 01 Yeah. In the end, Dunder Mifflin did not win the weight loss competition. Stanley lost seven pounds.
49:55 Speaker 00 Yeah. He says he's going to take off five days anyway.
49:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:59 Speaker 00 And now it's week eight. Toby is on his fifth week in a hospital room in Costa Rica.
50:05 Speaker 01 Oh, poor Toby, guys, remember Toby had his weird moment with Pam, so he moved to Costa Rica.
50:11 Speaker 00 And on like his first day, or day, was it like day?
50:14 Speaker 01 Day three.
50:15 Speaker 00 Day three, he went ziplining.
50:17 Speaker 01 And he broke his neck.
50:18 Speaker 00 Yeah.
50:19 Speaker 01 He hasn't even been to the beach. Did you notice what was playing on the TV in the hospital room?
50:24 Speaker 00 Yes, I did.
50:25 Speaker 01 It is the hug it out bitch episode of Entourage. That is the episode of Entourage that Michael quotes in the coup.
50:33 Speaker 00 Well, I have a little location breakdown for you about Toby's hospital room.
50:38 Speaker 01 Give it to me.
50:39 Speaker 00 It was also filmed at USC.
50:41 Speaker 01 Oh.
50:42 Speaker 00 Yeah, while they were there filming Pam's art school, they used the USC Television Stage Building. And USC asked if eight of their film students could intern and help that day. They had interns in all of the different departments. And our crew said they did a phenomenal job.
50:56 Speaker 01 That is so cool.
50:58 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
50:59 Speaker 01 Before we go, I just want to give a shout out to whoever the guy is in the bed next to Toby. He was a background performer, Angela. I tried so hard to figure out who this is because he is so funny. He just stares into the camera the whole time Toby is talking. It is so good. I watched it three times. I was like, how is this guy doing such a great job with no words? I was so impressed.
51:31 Speaker 00 We couldn't figure out who he was. We reached out to several people.
51:34 Speaker 01 Yes, and I checked everywhere you can check. He is uncredited in the episode. Phenomenal job.
51:41 Speaker 00 Way to crush it. And you guys, that was Weight Loss Part Two. There's so many folks to thank for helping us get this episode out to you. First of all, our crew that participated in the DVD commentary, Randy Cordray, Michael Gallenberg, Brian Whittle, Nick Carbone, Ben Patrick, Alicia Raycraft, Kelly Cantley, and Jake Oust. Amazing. Best commentary. Really such a good listen if you love behind the scenes information. And James O'Carry for letting us bug you with questions.
52:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, we did. We did bug him.
52:14 Speaker 00 We did. Enjoy a Bow for, oh my gosh, I'm so excited to share all of that NBC.com website stuff about Angela and Andy.
52:22 Speaker 01 And then Greg Daniels.
52:23 Speaker 00 Yes.
52:24 Speaker 01 Thank you. And also Paul Feig for that audio clip. I promise not to bother you too much, Paul Feig.
52:30 Speaker 00 Well, we probably will.
52:33 Speaker 01 I know, why am I making that promise?
52:34 Speaker 00 But we appreciate our cast and crew so much. We hope you enjoyed this one. And we are kicking off season five. We'll be back for more next week.
52:43 Speaker 01 We sure will.
52:48 Speaker 01 Thank you for listening to Office Ladies Second Drink.
52:51 Speaker 00 This episode was initially created in collaboration with Earwolf.
52:55 Speaker 01 Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.
53:00 Speaker 00 Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins.
53:02 Speaker 01 And our audio engineer and associate producer is Molly Nugent.
53:05 Speaker 00 Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.
53:08 Speaker 01 Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.
Previous Office News & Blackmail Next Actor Awards & Jenna’s Birthday! Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated