Pod Insights Office Ladies The Office & HIMYM: Favorite Cold Opens! About this episode This week on Office Ladies 6.0, Jenna and Angela are joined by Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas from the How We Made Your Mother podcast to talk all things cold opens! They swap favorites from The Office and How I Met Your Mother and break down what makes those opening moments so memorable. Plus, Jenna and Angela kick things off with a Taylor Swift–inspired chit chat, and reveal which episodes of The Office were their favorites to film. So, don’t skip the first two minutes… and enjoy!
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Transcript 0:04 Speaker 00 I'm Jenna Fisher.
0:05 Speaker 01 And I'm Angela Kinsey.
0:06 Speaker 00 We were on The Office together.
0:08 Speaker 01 And we're best friends.
0:09 Speaker 00 And now we're doing the ultimate Office Lovers podcast just for you. Each week, we will dive deeper into the world of The Office with exclusive interviews, behind the scenes details, and lots of BFF stories.
0:21 Speaker 01 We're the Office Ladies 6.0.
0:26 Speaker 01 Hi there, everybody.
0:27 Speaker 00 Hi.
0:28 Speaker 01 We have such a fun episode today, lady. I'm really excited about it.
0:32 Speaker 00 We do. We are going to be discussing our favorite cold opens.
0:37 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
0:38 Speaker 00 I think you guys have heard us use that term before. That's sort of like the two minutes of a TV show that precedes the title sequence.
0:46 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
0:47 Speaker 00 A lot of times on The Office, this was a standalone comedic bit that was separate from the plot of the episode, but sometimes it was on plot of the episode.
0:57 Speaker 01 Yeah. And we're going to get into some of our favorite cold opens with some special guests today. We have Josh Radnor and Craig Thomas, the hosts of How We Made Your Mother. We love their podcast. You guys know it. It's on our network. They re-watch each week an episode of How I Met Your Mother, and we're going to talk cold opens with them today.
1:18 Speaker 00 Yeah. We thought it would be kind of fun if we traded some of our favorite The Office cold opens, and they told us a couple of their favorites from How I Met Your Mother.
1:27 Speaker 01 But before we get to that, we have a really great chit chat.
1:30 Speaker 00 Yeah. This week's suggestion comes from Bailey M. in Oklahoma City, who said, "Hey, ladies, Taylor Swift recently released a music video for her song Opalite, and Donald Gleason is in it. It is glorious." She put a period after each word.
1:50 Speaker 01 Like, like, like she wrote it out, like, "It is your birthday."
1:53 Speaker 00 Yes.
1:53 Speaker 01 But she put, "It is glorious."
1:54 Speaker 00 Yes. Bailey said, "There's some Ned-like dancing. Please discuss."
2:00 Speaker 01 Okay Bailey, we were very curious about all of this as well. And we did some digging and this music video came about because Taylor and Donal were guests on the Graham Norton Talk Show, which is a really fun talk show. It's in England, there's like a big sofa and there's always a random assortment of celebrities on this sofa. And if you watch the episode of the talk show, you can literally see Taylor's eyes alight up when she has the idea for this music video. It all started with Killian Murphy and Taylor Swift complimenting Donal on his performance in the paper. Let's hear it.
2:37 Speaker 02 Donal is magnetic in that show.
2:39 Speaker 03 I love that, I love that show. I want to say too, I'm so happy it's coming back and his character is like-
2:44 Speaker 02 It's so good.
2:44 Speaker 03 The loveliest, most romanticizing character. He like romanticizes his life and it's really sweet and beautiful. And also I don't think that you just sound American, you seem American.
2:54 Speaker 01 I know, your accent is so good.
2:56 Speaker 04 You have to leave that in the show.
3:00 Speaker 04 Your number perfect skyrocket, thank you Taylor Swift.
3:04 Speaker 02 Can I also say, thank you Killian, thank you everybody, thank you Killian. Thank you, thank you. No, no, folks. He started it. Thank you. Can I also say, it's just worth watching for Donal's dancing alone.
3:13 Speaker 03 Oh my god. Yes, absolutely.
3:18 Speaker 04 I'm hoping to get in the Taylor Swift music video. I'm hoping.
3:22 Speaker 01 And as the music video came out, Graham Norton was a guest on a podcast called Wanging On and he talks about all of it. Let's hear it.
3:31 Speaker 05 So tell us who was on your sofa that night?
3:34 Speaker 06 So, basically, okay, I'll tell you what happened. So I got contacted by Taylor and Taylor Swift and they wanted to discuss, I think they wanted to discuss something and I was like, oh, what's that about? And then something about the music video and I thought, oh, what's that? And then I got through the thing and it was like, the whole thing came to her in a blinding flash on the sofa.
4:01 Speaker 05 Which you see in the video.
4:02 Speaker 06 At the end, if you stay to the end of the video, you see her get the idea. And it was, so she was on the show with Killian Murphy, Donald Gleeson. Greta Lee, Jodie Turner Smith and Lewis Cabaldi. And Donald Gleason said something about his dancing and he said, oh, I'm hoping to be in the next Taylor Swift video. And you see her little eyes go, but dooing, little lightbulb moment. And the next thing you know, she's written this whole treatment and we're all in it. And everyone was available, everyone agreed to do it.
4:31 Speaker 01 He also said that it was, quote, like shooting a movie. It was a massive, massive deal and everyone was lovely on set. It was a really, really fun experience. And he said they filmed his scenes at the Whitgift Shopping Centre in South London towards the end of 2025 and he was so excited to finally be able to talk about it.
4:53 Speaker 00 Well, I mean, first of all, if Taylor Swift asks you to be in her music video, of course the answer is yes.
5:01 Speaker 01 Come on.
5:02 Speaker 00 Of course.
5:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:03 Speaker 00 I mean, anything Taylor, of course.
5:06 Speaker 01 I mean, Taylor, if you need two, you know, ladies of a certain season.
5:11 Speaker 00 Yes, we're there for you, Taylor.
5:13 Speaker 01 We're there for you, Taylor.
5:16 Speaker 00 Well, it's very funny because I have a little fun surprise to share also about Taylor Swift. I was in our general mailbag for office ladies and I found this letter from Kayla M. in upstate New York. And Kayla, I thank you so much for this letter because I didn't know this. And it was a very exciting moment for my family.
5:43 Speaker 01 Oh.
5:43 Speaker 00 Here is what Kayla said. Hi, office ladies, this is urgent. Did you know that Jenna can be seen in the Taylor Swift, The Era's Tour, The Final Show concert movie? I noticed and screamed.
5:59 Speaker 01 What?
6:00 Speaker 00 Yes, lady, yes.
6:02 Speaker 01 Ah.
6:03 Speaker 00 So Kayla says, "Just toward the end of All Too Well during the Red era, you're in the crowd singing along and wearing your friendship bracelets. I cannot believe I just noticed this considering how many times I have watched it. Love you ladies."
6:20 Speaker 01 You are kidding me. We both went to Taylor's era's tour. I cannot believe, I was not at the one in Vancouver. You were in Vancouver. I was in New Orleans. Lady, you made it into her movie?
6:32 Speaker 00 I can't believe it. I cannot believe it. My daughter and I went to that together. I took a screen grab of it.
6:41 Speaker 01 I was gonna say, I need a screen grab immediately.
6:44 Speaker 00 It's a very fun moment because I am just looking up at the stage with just like stars in my eyes. I look really happy. I've got my friendship bracelets and I was really happy. It was such a special night for me. So lady, I took a screen grab of it. Here it is. Look at me. I've got, I'm holding my hands up under my chin. I'm looking up. I'm smiling.
7:07 Speaker 01 Oh my gosh, I see you.
7:09 Speaker 00 I got my light up bracelet on.
7:11 Speaker 01 Yes. Oh, that is so special. That is so fun.
7:17 Speaker 00 And you know, right to my left there is my daughter, who didn't make it into the movie, but who was there that night and it was just such a special night for us. And yeah.
7:25 Speaker 01 But isn't that crazy? That is crazy, crazy. Okay, so I also went with my daughter, but Jenna, what did you wear? Cause I look back at my pictures. I wore like sparkly cat ears and I had glitter on my face. Like what, what did you wear?
7:41 Speaker 00 So I wore, remember that sparkly sequin jacket that I got from Macy's?
7:48 Speaker 01 Yes.
7:49 Speaker 00 Yeah. So I wore just black pants and a tee shirt. And then I wore that sparkly jacket because I was deep in hot flash mode at that point. And I knew I was going to be taking my jacket on and off.
8:02 Speaker 01 Yeah. You went sparkly jacket. I bought a shirt that said karma is a cat and I wore cat ears. Like, I'm so, but what a glorious, wonderful, joyful experience that was. And I cannot believe you're in the dang movie. That is so cool. Taylor, our offer still stands. I know Jenna's been in the movie, but if you need us to be in any future music videos.
8:26 Speaker 00 Literally any future anything.
8:28 Speaker 01 And actually, anything, right?
8:29 Speaker 00 We're here for you.
8:30 Speaker 01 Well, thank you so much to Bailey for writing in with that chit chat. I had a lot of fun watching all of those clips. We're going to take a short break, and when we come back, we're going to discuss cold opens with Craig and Josh.
8:49 Speaker 00 I have a new section on Quince that I've been shopping from. I'm now into the handbags. I got the Eloise handwoven clutch in a cream off-white. I love it.
9:00 Speaker 01 So chic.
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9:10 Speaker 01 Well, guess what? I have decided this is my season of the cardigan.
9:14 Speaker 00 Oh, okay.
9:15 Speaker 01 So I got the 100% organic cotton cropped cardigan. I got it in the camel color. It is so stinking cute, and it was $49.90. Look at that.
9:27 Speaker 00 Oh, it's so cute.
9:28 Speaker 01 I know.
9:29 Speaker 00 I like the buttons.
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9:56 Speaker 00 Hello there, fine gentlemen.
9:58 Speaker 04 Why hello?
9:58 Speaker 07 Oh, is that us? We're the fine.
9:59 Speaker 04 That's us.
10:00 Speaker 07 We're the fine gentlemen. I was so confused.
10:01 Speaker 00 You are the fine gentleman. My goodness, of course. It's so great to be chatting with you again.
10:07 Speaker 07 We love chatting with you guys. Thanks for having us back.
10:10 Speaker 01 Yes, fine gentlemen. It's lovely to see you. Top of the morning to you.
10:14 Speaker 00 Well, we're really excited to chat cold opens with you. And Craig, it's really cool to have you on the podcast today because you're going to give us a little bit of, I hope, a writer showrunner's perspective on the cold open. Could you tell our audience, what is a cold open?
10:31 Speaker 01 No pressure, by the way. No pressure.
10:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, I know. I have to define the entire genre of cold open.
10:38 Speaker 07 And this will be canon, whatever you say.
10:40 Speaker 04 This will go right in the dictionary. It's a little funny thing at the start of the show. That's the really short version.
10:48 Speaker 04 I think the Office was amazing at doing ones that.
10:50 Speaker 07 Were these little self-contained movies, these little mini short films that kind of that stood alone sometimes. They didn't always kick off the story. Am I right, you guys? It feels like that was often true for you guys. That's so hard to do that. We almost never did it on How I Met Your Mother. We were too lazy. We're like, it's too hard to make a little like gem. So we often, we usually started the story off somehow in our cold opens. You can either kick off the plot in the cold open, or it's just a funny little thing. And those are sort of the two ways to go. We sometimes did the funny little thing version on How I Met Your Mother. But usually we try to get the story started in some way. I would argue that doing the funny standalone way is probably harder. Because when you're starting the story, it at least has some momentum. But you guys did it ingeniously on The Office.
11:33 Speaker 01 Well, you know, we all today picked one of our favorite cold opens from each of our shows. We're going to share those. We'll set them up and we'll talk about them. And I know the one I picked, I'm not going to say it yet, but I almost picked the episode, The Injury. And that was a time we had a cold open on The Office that did kick off the episode. That's when Michael has a George Foreman grill by his bed because he loves the fresh bacon in the morning and he steps on the grill. But so that cold open where he calls Pam in a panic is one that then leads into the whole episode. So we did that every once in a while, but you're right, mostly ours were these standalone little movies.
12:09 Speaker 07 Did you guys tell us in the, one of the episodes we did together that often they would write it for one and it would end up on another episode? Like they would mix and match them. They weren't always the ones that you thought you were, they were going to be paired with.
12:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
12:22 Speaker 00 Because they were movable because they were their own little story. But also sometimes they just got rid of them completely because they needed the time to tell the story of the episode.
12:35 Speaker 07 Right. And if it is self-contained and modular like that, it's easier to take out. Whereas if you start the story, you're kind of stuck with it.
12:41 Speaker 04 Right.
12:41 Speaker 07 Did you guys always do a cold open? Because we didn't do it every episode. We did sort of longer, like full act ones. We started the show with titles for the entire first season and then kind of mixed and matched. Although we realized like in season two, that we had a great theme song to smash cut to.
12:57 Speaker 04 Yeah.
12:57 Speaker 07 Do you know what I mean? With that like hard cut to the dun dun dun dun dun dun, ba ba ba. It's like. It's perfect for that. How are we not, we're like, why aren't we doing this? I was gonna say, though, both our shows have really iconic Grab You By The Lapels kind of theme songs. Yeah. And there's something especially about if you do the first season, people get to know the theme song. By the second season, it's actually really thrilling to do a cold open and then cut, you know, do the needle drop to the theme song.
13:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, I feel like our theme songs were almost the button at the end of the scene sometimes, right?
13:27 Speaker 07 That's right.
13:28 Speaker 01 Yeah. You know, Craig, we did usually have a cold open. Every once in a while, we wouldn't for time, but for the most part, we did. And I think about our writers' room and how much fun they had coming up with these standalone cold open ideas. I mean, Kevin's Chili, my lord.
13:44 Speaker 00 Yeah.
13:44 Speaker 01 That one, that was Aaron Schur. And I just, people quote that to Brian. I think for the rest of his life, he's gonna hear that.
13:52 Speaker 00 I think also, it's a great way, if you have a card on the wall, that's a funny idea, but you just can't make it a whole episode, but you could make it a really funny two minutes. I think a lot of our cold opens were things also that might be feeling a little too absurd for our little documentary show that we were putting on, but we could be a little more broad in our cold opens as well. Which brings us to, speaking of a little bit of a broader cold open, Angela, your pick. It's one of our classics.
14:26 Speaker 01 So I wanted to pick a cold open that was a real all ensemble moment, because sometimes the cold opens were mostly, you know, Michael or Dwight and those kind of storylines. But this had everybody. It included a huge rehearsal with our camera operators, our boom operators. It was like a real dance, if you will. It's something I get yelled at the airport, okay? So basically, this is from Stress Relief, the episode Stress Relief. It is that famous fire drill cold open where Dwight is gonna teach everyone how to survive an office place fire.
14:59 Speaker 00 By setting a fire.
15:01 Speaker 01 Yes, by locking the doors and setting a fire. It's absolute instant mayhem. We pulled a clip from the middle where Dwight is trying to get everyone to do all the steps in the chaos. Here it is.
15:21 Speaker 04 Use a what to cover them out? A what? A rag, a damp rag perhaps. Let's remember those procedures. What are the options? That's the wrong way. We've already tried that. Remember your exit points. Exit points, people. What's next? Oscar! Stay alive, I'm getting help! Pull me up! You're too heavy! I only weigh 82 pounds!
15:43 Speaker 07 Save Bandit!
15:47 Speaker 04 How about 911? Anyone? 911?
15:54 Speaker 07 Oh my god.
15:55 Speaker 01 I mean, it's so ridiculous.
15:55 Speaker 07 It's so good. It's so great. Can I ask a question? How long did that take to shoot that? That looks like an entire movie.
16:03 Speaker 01 Well, it was a full day to shoot it, but it was also a bunch of rehearsal. Yeah, I came in a day early and I had to work with this cat and the cat wrangler. And we had a fake cat. We had a real cat and a fake cat. And I had a body double. Like, that stunt, just that moment of throwing the cat in the ceiling and it coming out the other side was a huge stunt.
16:26 Speaker 07 I just love, like, the unexpected. Like, the first throw of the cat is hilarious and unexpected. But so soon after is that second falling cat, which you're not quite expecting, which is like the actual enormous laugh of that moment.
16:42 Speaker 01 And the cat was totally okay, everyone listening. Our line producer had put a whole bunch of, like, Ferny pad things, so he did hit something squishy and soft.
16:51 Speaker 07 I love also, though, Rain's unflappable kind of commitment to, like, saving. Everyone is absolutely panicking around him. I heard Adam McKay say this thing, that there's nothing funnier than people being confidently wrong. And so much of Dwight is confident wrongness. And so much of, like, the humor on The Office is confident, absolute wrongness.
17:14 Speaker 01 Well, that's definitely Michael Scott. He's like the most confident idiot ever.
17:20 Speaker 07 There's something about us. We love it. We love that confident wrongness. Yeah.
17:25 Speaker 00 All right. So we asked you guys to pull your favorite cold opens. And I know there's, it's always so hard to pick one. But Josh, which one did you pick?
17:33 Speaker 07 So I picked an episode from season four. It's called Right Place, Right Time. I think it was episode 22 from season four. It kind of starts off in a little bit of a minor key in terms of, you know, Robin and Ted and this morning scene and he's running out to, he's gonna go get a bagel, like a very kind of low key New York morning. And then he goes out the front door and he's about to turn one way, but he stops and he turns another way. He goes another direction. And then the narrator comes in and starts talking about, you know, almost the butterfly effect, essentially, like our seemingly innocuous choices are all kind of adding up together in this magical way to deliver us where we need to be. And also, right when he leaves, he grabs the yellow umbrella, which at that point, we
18:18 Speaker 07 had established as an iconic prop. Yeah, we told the audience that is involved in how Ted is going to meet the mother eventually. That's like this magical, like little flash forward. We saw the yellow umbrella as part of that meeting. Right. So he's like, he's just going outside to get a bagel, but he grabs this yellow umbrella. And then it's, oh, my God, like now this is very, very significant. And then it starts to rain and he opens the umbrella and then he gets a tap on his shoulder and he turns and we don't know who he's seeing. But the fake out, of course, is this must be the mother. Right. And that's when you cut to main titles and you don't see the face. You have to watch the whole episode to see who's behind that umbrella.
18:53 Speaker 00 I loved this cold open. And I also love the voiceover, which is by Bob Saget.
18:59 Speaker 07 Yeah.
18:59 Speaker 00 So I would love to hear that because it's poetic and wonderful and I love it.
19:08 Speaker 00 Kids, I've been telling you the story of how I met your mother. And while there's many things to learn from this story, this may be the biggest. The great moments of your life won't necessarily be the things you do.
19:19 Speaker 04 Also be the things that happen to you. Now, I'm not saying you can't take action to affect the outcome of your life. You have to take action and you will. But never forget that on any day, you can step out the front door and your whole life can change forever. You see, the universe has a plan, kids, and that plan is always in motion. A butterfly flaps its wings and it starts to rain. It's a scary thought, but it's also kind of wonderful. All these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there. The right place at the right time.
20:02 Speaker 01 Ah, there it is. That is so beautiful.
20:04 Speaker 07 Craig, I think that's some of the most like kind of lyrical narrating writing that you and the gang did. And I also, it really strikes me that the entire DNA, like blueprint of the entire series is in that cold open. Yeah. Right? Like. Yeah.
20:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:21 Speaker 07 The whole show is spelled out thematically and illustrated in that. And then as the episode goes on, again, we talk about a lot about How I Met Your Mother. One, it's a big mystery. It's a nine season mystery. But also a lot of episodes start off with something very strange and disorienting and what is going on? And then the episode solves the mystery. So it's like mysteries inside mysteries inside mysteries. Yeah. And this is like, this is a great mystery episode, but it's also, it just lays out all the themes so beautifully at the beginning. And Bob, man, I love hearing Bob's. Bob.
20:53 Speaker 01 I know.
20:54 Speaker 07 I get such a chill note hearing Bob do that one. He was such a secret weapon of the show. He was so good at being future Ted, telling his kids that story. Yeah. And I think it's an underrated kind of like track in the overall song of our show. You know, that was, that's like a really crucial instrument in the orchestra there. And he was wonderful. It makes me miss him. He was just a great guy and he.
21:16 Speaker 04 Loved playing that part. He took a lot of pride in being future Ted. He and Josh developed a real bond because he's like, I'm future you. I'm the voice of future you. And you guys like really became close over that and you hear it. He would watch the episode, he'd tap into where Ted was emotionally and he'd perform that. And I love that about him. And yeah, this is kind of the whole series in miniature. Since this whole episode that you're having us on is a symposium on cold opens. This is another way we used cold opens, which is we liked teasing a mystery. We liked really getting right up to a mystery moment, hard cutting to credits. And you have to stay tuned for the next 20 minutes to find out. In this case, who's behind that umbrella? It turns out to be Meryl Streep playing herself. You know, but it's, you need to watch the rest of the episode.
21:59 Speaker 04 And that is, that's what I mean by we, we usually put, the cold open on How I Met Your Mother was like a load bearing support of the architecture. Because we really start the story there. We plant a mystery or we kick something off in some way. We didn't do as many free standards as you guys did, which again are really hard to do.
22:15 Speaker 07 One, one other thing I want to say about that, that cold open. Again, you know, when Craig and I've been doing How We Made Your Mother, part of it is like the mystery of why people love the show so much? And why do people still want to talk about them and play them for their kids and all this stuff? And one of the things that I think people find so much solace in is that it's a meaningful universe. How I Met Your Mother says, the universe, both in this show and presumably the one that you're existing in also is meaningful. And every little encounter has meaning. And it's kind of an antidote to cynicism. It's an antidote to nihilism, you know, or chaos. That, that there's a plan and there's benevolence and there's a guiding hand. And I think that even if people don't articulate it that way,
22:59 Speaker 07 that's part of the warmth they feel when they watch the show and why they keep coming back to it.
23:03 Speaker 01 I so agree. It's like comfort, you know? When I watch your show, I, it makes me feel like everything's okay in some way. And I want you guys to know, just yesterday, I met a woman who told me she loves your podcast. She's an Office Ladies listener. She's so excited it's on our network. And then she told me that her and her husband. Recreated the moment with the umbrella, with the trench coat where you only see the legs, you know? And she pulled out her phone and showed it to me. And then I was like, I'm actually seeing them tomorrow and we're watching this cold open. So I just think that your show is really meaningful to people and that's a special thing. We need those touchstones. I think we're two for two. We're hitting them out of the park. And so, okay, who's up next?
23:48 Speaker 01 Jenna, it's you.
23:49 Speaker 00 Sure. Well, I felt a little shy about picking this one because I am the star of it. But I only ever got to star in one cold open and it is one of my favorites. It was in season nine and it also features the whole ensemble because those were also my favorite cold opens. You know, a lot of our cold opens were a great opportunity for Jim to play a prank on Dwight. Those are some of our most famous ones. You know, Bear's beats Battlestar Galactica, when he puts his desk in the bathroom. Or it features Michael doing something crazy like parkour or needing to put his face in cement. So this one was really fun for me. It's Pam's chore wheel and it's near and dear to my heart.
24:31 Speaker 00 If there was one prop that I wish I had from the show, it would have been any of these chore wheels. I wish I had that hanging in my office. But basically what happens in this is the office is really dirty. It's messy. I mean, you even see like a little rat crawl across the floor and Pam's the office administrator and she has to try to come up with some sort of cleaning schedule where people divide up all of the chores. So she tries making a chore wheel. We have a little clip from the top of this one. We can take a listen.
25:03 Speaker 00 The building's custodian is on vacation for the month and Dwight is too cheap to hire a replacement. So instead, we're living in filth, but not for long because I have created the chore wheel. Oh, yeah. Can I spin first? Well, it doesn't spin. We'll just move the wheel one notch each morning and you see what chore you get that day. A wheel is supposed to spin. Yeah. You know, like, no, I'm familiar with spinning. It's just that wouldn't work with a chore wheel because people might get the same chore.
25:34 Speaker 06 Bah, boring. All she talks about is chores.
25:38 Speaker 00 A wheel wants to spin, Pam.
25:41 Speaker 06 Spinning would be more fun.
25:47 Speaker 00 Okay. Okay, that's what I'm talking about.
25:53 Speaker 00 Big money, big money.
25:58 Speaker 00 So she makes a spinning wheel and then they get mad because the only thing that you can win is a chore. So then she has to make another wheel where you win fun stuff. But there's one thing on the wheel that's called tiny wheel. And if you hit tiny wheel, you have to spin a tinier chore wheel that's really cute. And that has actual chores on it. But Pam says, no one cares because the tiny wheel is so cute.
26:29 Speaker 00 And it was just funny and, you know, silly. And I don't know, I love it. I would love a chore wheel in real life.
26:35 Speaker 04 I was gonna say Jenna, I don't know you that well yet, but this seems to me like entirely door to door, something you would do. Am I right about that?
26:42 Speaker 00 Yes, bingo. That I think it's another reason why she loves it is because in real life Jenna, you do make a chore list.
26:49 Speaker 07 Are you a Virgo Jenna?
26:50 Speaker 00 I'm a Pisces. I'm a very organized Pisces.
26:55 Speaker 04 The tiny wheel feels very you. I feel like you would definitely do the tiny wheel part. We're gonna make this fun. We got a tiny wheel.
27:00 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's super tiny. And I think it just also, it's like having kids and trying to get them excited about chores. Like, there's all these adults in the room, but they're just acting like children. And she's having to like manipulate them into keeping their own space clean. It's like, don't you want it to be clean, guys?
27:18 Speaker 07 It's also fun to play as an actor when it's like you against everyone else. How everyone unites as like a single hive mind where they're like, no, it should spin, like a circle should spin, a wheel should spin.
27:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
27:30 Speaker 00 Even Jim doesn't have a bat.
27:33 Speaker 07 But it's a little like, I always like Simpsons crowd scenes are so funny when everyone like picks up like pitchforks and lanterns and just like storm city hall or whatever.
27:42 Speaker 00 So quickly over the, over anything.
27:44 Speaker 07 And kind of shows like our ability to fall into like mass psychosis as a society.
27:50 Speaker 00 I loved as part of the ensemble, whenever we would all collectively like react to one character. I love.
27:57 Speaker 01 Loved it so much. I mean, Pam rarely had to hold everyone's attention in the conference room. That was normally Michael, right? All the time. But it was so fun to just be like, be in the crowd and be like, we don't get it. I don't get it. Do you get it? I don't get it. It was super fun.
28:11 Speaker 00 I remember it was very intimidating to stand in front of you all, too. I was standing there and I was like, oh, my gosh, Steve did this for seven years. How did he do this?
28:22 Speaker 07 But don't you feel like that's how Pam would feel? Like, that feels very usable, like where actor thing and character thing are probably close?
28:30 Speaker 00 Yes. Like, she has like this really great idea that she feels really confident about, but also as soon as anybody pushes back against her, she's like, oh, no. Craig, I think it's your turn. You're the person who hasn't shared yet.
28:45 Speaker 07 I'm very nervous. Now, the funny thing is, we've, this is by far the simplest one of any of the ones that we talked about today. I chose it mainly because I'm looking at it through the lens of doing our podcast, of doing a rewatch podcast where you go back and you investigate what the hell you did, if you can remember it. And the way I felt about this cold open at the time was, I really liked it, and I'll tell you why. And then we got up to this episode just a couple of months ago, and we had the writer of this episode, Greg Malins, who worked on Friends and How I Met Your Mother. And he came on and he dropped a couple of bombs on me that made me completely change how I see this cold open now. So I chose mine to be podcast relevant. I'll set it up really quick. So I think we're gonna play a clip and then we're gonna surprise you with a couple of
29:28 Speaker 07 subsequent clips of the podcast. Okay, so it's early season two. Marshall has had his heart broken. Lily and Marshall broke up at the end of season one. Marshall is tepidly trying to like tiptoe into being single. He's flirting with a woman at the coffee shop. They're actually hanging out at a coffee shop because he likes this woman who works there. And there's a debate about coffee shops versus bars.
29:49 Speaker 04 So I guess that decides it. Yep. Hanging out at a coffee place, not nearly as much fun as hanging out at a bar.
29:57 Speaker 07 Okay, so it goes on from there. You see a flashback of Marshall flirting all week with this woman who works at the coffee shop, telling really stupid dad jokes, basically, but she's into it. And you kind of catch up to reality. He's gonna ask her out. And they discover along the way that she drew a heart on his cup, but didn't do anything on Ted's cup.
30:14 Speaker 05 Well, what if the heart doesn't mean anything? What if she writes it on all the cups? Mine says Ted, no heart. Mine says. Swarly.
30:24 Speaker 05 I think it's Swarly from Barney. It's not even a name. Who would ever be called Swarly?
30:31 Speaker 05 Oh, please don't start calling me Swarly.
30:36 Speaker 05 This would never happen at a bar.
30:40 Speaker 05 Man, what's up with Swarly?
30:42 Speaker 07 I know. You almost never see old Swarls get that upset. Here's why I love that, that when we did this in 2006, I guess that earned. When we launched How I Met Your Mother, we really wanted to separate ourselves from Friends. We wanted to be able to say, we are not one of the 75 other shows that has tried to recapture what Friends did. But of course, we look like Friends. If you put it on a poster, it's like young people dating in New York. It looks similar. We wanted to differentiate ourselves. I thought this was a very clever way to do that because it seemed, that opening joke about the coffee shop versus the bar, our home base set as a bar, it seemed obvious. And it was written by a Friends writer, Greg Malins, the only writer who wrote for Friends and How I Met Your Mother. And I thought, that was such a great way to differentiate the two shows.
31:22 Speaker 07 Well, Greg came on our show recently on the podcast, cut to 19 years later. And he revealed to me two big things that really undercut my feeling that had differentiated us from Friends. One was his assertion, and he swears to God about this, that he did not mean it as a Friends versus How I Met Your Mother joke. And literally every single person working on How I Met Your Mother and the millions of people who've seen that episode, every single person thinks it's a Friends differentiated from How I Met Your Mother joke, except the guy who wrote it. He's like, no, I just thought it was like a funny line.
31:55 Speaker 00 Can I raise my hand on that one? When I watched it, I was like, oh, that's such a fun tongue in cheek.
32:02 Speaker 07 Oh, yeah.
32:02 Speaker 00 Like wink to, we're not friends in a coffee shop.
32:06 Speaker 07 Right.
32:09 Speaker 07 We all thought, this is a fun joke. Dig it, Friends. Like 100% everyone thought it. There's one guy on planet Earth who thinks it's not a Friends reference, and it's Greg Malins.
32:20 Speaker 01 That is so crazy because also like there's the cute like waitress like barista like kind of like Rachel like wow that's crazy Greg oh my lord.
32:30 Speaker 07 And the second thing that came out of that was even more disturbing. Greg made another confession about that last joke right before you cut to titles that again, I was so proud that we were differentiating our show from the long shadow cast by Friends. Well, 19 years later, a couple of months ago, Greg Malins said this to me. Here's the truth, and I've never told anybody this. This is a revelation and it's not something that A, I'm proud of and B, makes me feel
32:57 Speaker 02 good and C, makes me look good because none of the above are true. The end of the cold open of this episode, I wrote that joke already on Friends.
33:08 Speaker 01 Oh my gosh.
33:10 Speaker 07 And while we're at it, can we play the clip of the joke on Friends? Which again, I never knew until 2026.
33:16 Speaker 05 Okay, for now temporarily, you can call me Clint.
33:23 Speaker 07 No way are you cool enough to pull off Clint.
33:26 Speaker 05 Okay, so what name am I cool enough to pull off? Um, Gene.
33:33 Speaker 05 It's Clint. It's Clint.
33:37 Speaker 07 See you later, Gene.
33:38 Speaker 05 Bye, Gene.
33:40 Speaker 05 It's Clint. Clint.
33:46 Speaker 05 What's up with Gene?
33:49 Speaker 07 So you can see how this slightly undercuts my feeling that this was differentiating us from Friends. You're allowed to steal from yourself.
33:58 Speaker 01 I did a series with Greg after The Office called Your Family or Mine on TBS and now I want to re-watch it to see if there's any Friends like sliding into Your Family or Mine.
34:08 Speaker 07 He just keeps using them. Yeah, maybe he puts some Helen at your mother jokes on that. He always takes the show previous and puts it on. But he was, I thought he was so noble and like there was something very brave about confessing to that 19 years later. That episode is a beloved, wonderful episode. Him and fans go to coffee shops in 2026 and say the name Swirly and they send us pictures of them doing the, having had Swirly. Like that's an iconic episode written by Greg. He's a great writer. He did a great job in that episode. He slugged that one joke in figuring that we would beat it and we never did. It got a huge laugh at the table rate and you thought, oh shit, this Friends joke's gonna end up staying.
34:43 Speaker 04 And the whole time I'm blabbering about, I love that it differentiates us from friends. And, and you know, 20 years later, I learned it, it did not differentiate us from friends in any way.
34:54 Speaker 01 That's great.
34:55 Speaker 00 Awesome, guys.
34:56 Speaker 01 Look at all the things you're discovering through the podcast, through the rewatch, you know? How fun is that?
35:01 Speaker 07 Yeah.
35:02 Speaker 01 Yeah. Love it.
35:03 Speaker 00 Are you guys loving it? Are you loving the experience, Josh, of having to watch it? And is your wife still watching with you?
35:09 Speaker 07 She is, yes. Although I think I might have mentioned this to you. She, she's dying because she, she wants to just keep going. She just wants to binge and we have to dole it out. And I have to watch them in order and she can't run out ahead of me. So she's having to.
35:26 Speaker 01 To wait on you?
35:27 Speaker 07 So she doesn't like that. But other than that, she's having a great time and it's so nice to watch it with her and to let her see this huge part of my life before I met her, having a different perspective on it all these years later, which is what the show is kind of framed as, as a man looking back on his life when he was younger. And so it's just been a blast. And, you know, like we've, we talked about before, but the hearing from fans and, and also learning about myself now versus then and where I was then and kind of forgiving myself for how hard I was on myself then. And it's just, I don't know, the whole thing has been like quite a blessing. So we're really thrilled.
36:04 Speaker 01 Oh, my goodness. Josh, Craig, thank you so much for coming on to talk about Cold Opens with us. Y'all are such a delight. We enjoy you so much. You got to come back.
36:12 Speaker 07 Please, yeah, we'd love to have you back on our show. We love hanging with you guys.
36:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, thank you guys so much. Thanks for taking us under your wing and showing us how to do a podcast. We're thrilled to be paired with you guys. Thanks for having us.
36:23 Speaker 01 Next time, tags.
36:25 Speaker 04 Yeah, man. Bring on the tags. We'll define what tags are. We'll have a whole philosophical discussion.
36:30 Speaker 01 Good times. Love you guys.
36:32 Speaker 04 Thanks for having us, you guys.
36:33 Speaker 01 Thank you so much.
36:34 Speaker 04 Bye.
36:35 Speaker 01 Bye.
36:45 Speaker 00 Well, I love those guys.
36:47 Speaker 01 I mean, they're smart, they're funny, they're insightful. I mean, come on.
36:52 Speaker 00 And kind and warm.
36:53 Speaker 01 And kind. I know.
36:55 Speaker 00 Lovely.
36:56 Speaker 01 Lovely. Love them. Go check out their podcast, How We Made Your Mother. And now, folks, it's time for
37:08 Speaker 01 Our first Around the Town is from Jessie P. in Chesterland, Ohio. Jessie says, "My family is in our third year of making our own maple syrup from the red maple trees on our property. My husband spends every Saturday in March boiling down sap in his homemade evaporator. We make enough for our family for the whole year and a little extra for friends. Our kids no longer like store-bought maple syrup and won't even touch, quote, 'pancake syrup anymore,'" [laughing] face.
37:38 Speaker 00 That is so cool. This tells you how much I know about maple syrup. I didn't realize that Ohio had red maple trees. I mean, of course, right? I mean, we have maple trees in Missouri. I guess I didn't think you could get syrup from them.
37:53 Speaker 01 I mean, I don't even know how you get the syrup.
37:57 Speaker 00 Do you? This is a crazy question. Do you put like a spigot in the tree?
38:03 Speaker 01 In the tree? I mean, I don't know.
38:05 Speaker 00 I think you spigot the tree. Is that crazy? Did I see that in a movie? Was that a cartoon? Was that like a Bugs Bunny cartoon I saw in my youth?
38:13 Speaker 01 I don't know, because I feel like I saw a spigot in a tree too, but I don't know why. Maybe it was in a movie or something?
38:20 Speaker 00 I don't know.
38:21 Speaker 01 Okay, yes. Well, according to the internet, a spigot or a spile is used to tap maple trees for sap, usually from February to March.
38:32 Speaker 00 Well, there you go.
38:34 Speaker 00 For whatever reason, I just thought all the syrup was coming from Canada. I never allowed syrup to come from anywhere else. I'm sorry, Ohio. This is wonderful.
38:43 Speaker 01 I wish we were neighbors with you, Jessie, so we could trade. I would like to give you some lemons for some of your syrup.
38:50 Speaker 00 All right, our next Around the Town is from Heidi J. who said, "My friend's pet Dotson, Walter Pickles, won first place this last weekend at the Canterbury Park 2026 Winter Dog Race for Wiener Dogs." His description on the lineup sheet said, "Walter Pickles is a very social-friendly mini Dotson. He loves chasing bunnies and squirrels and taking long sniff walks. His favorite human food treat is popcorn." Aw, congratulations, Walter Pickles!
39:24 Speaker 01 That is adorable. I want to see the Winter Dog Race for Wiener Dogs. That's got to be the cutest thing. All right, next up, and oh my goodness, did this one make my heart happy. It's from Kate W. in Chattanooga, who wrote in and said she was so inspired by the office lady's breakdown of the paper and our shout out to my grandmother, Lena May, in her newspaper column that she started a local newspaper of her own called The Chatty Nugans, get it? To highlight the everyday lives of the people in their town. The first issue just went live at the beginning of March and featured work from local artists,
40:05 Speaker 01 a growing tie collection, an escape room crawl, and a goth-themed train ride. You can check out the first issue, it's on their Instagram, thechatty_nugans. And she also went on to say a big thank you to us for being part of the inspiration behind this passion project.
40:25 Speaker 00 This fills my heart with so much joy. I love this. I love this for your grandma. I love this for the Chatty Nugans. It makes me happy.
40:35 Speaker 01 It made me so happy. I just thought of my grandmother, you know, if she would have never even imagined that something like this is possible, that her little Around the Town column... Would just be touching other people's lives like this. Oh my goodness, Kate, thank you for sharing that.
40:53 Speaker 00 That's legacy, right? This has now become part of your grandmother's legacy. It continues to grow. She continues to reach people. That's really cool.
41:02 Speaker 01 That's so cool. All right. And we always now in these episodes with our Office question of the week. This one comes from Catherine R. from Mississippi. Catherine says, which episode of The Office was your favorite to film and why is it your favorite? Oh Catherine, this is so difficult.
41:21 Speaker 00 I loved this question because I feel like we're always asking our guests this question, but I wondered, have we answered this question? I've been asked this question before in interviews and I have a few answers because there's sort of the episode that was my favorite to film.
41:43 Speaker 00 Because of maybe stuff that happened on set, behind the scenes that are just special to me, but then there were episodes that were just so incredibly funny or creative or interesting that those were really fun to shoot too. But Angela, do you have an answer?
41:57 Speaker 01 This is really, I mean Catherine, I feel like this changes for me every couple of months because you know, Jenna and I re-watch the whole show and then every once in a while I'll catch an episode with the kids or something or it will pop up, you know, like you're traveling, you're in a hotel room, you're like, oh, The Office is on Comedy Central, I'll watch one. And this might surprise you Jenna, but I was feeling very nostalgic recently for beach games.
42:25 Speaker 00 Oh, that doesn't surprise me. I mean, that was a hard shoot. Is that why you think it would surprise me because it was a little grueling?
42:33 Speaker 01 It was grueling. We were outside in the heat. It was like dusty and sandy and like we got sunburned. It was long days.
42:40 Speaker 00 But then at night it was freezing, but we had to be in our same clothes that we had, that was the thing about beach games. You established this warm weather clothing for the day and then at night you were stuck with that same outfit and you were freezing.
42:53 Speaker 01 And you were freezing. Yeah. So it was physically a difficult shoot, but you know, I was going through some old pictures and um, it was so just special in so many ways. Okay, one, I loved my storyline with letting Andy just float away.
43:11 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
43:12 Speaker 01 And I love that line where I say, "Did you say sandwich?" And Dwight says sabotage. I remember Jen Salata laughing her butt off and almost ruining a take because she cracked up every single time I said, "Did you say sandwich?" But then I also just remember us hanging out in between scenes by our trailers. We had like a little camp they set up and someone brought a football and we were throwing the football and Harold Ramus came over in the morning and we would all have coffee together and sit outside one of the trailers, having our coffee, talking in the morning. It's just, it's amazing to me that I got to be a part of all of that. And I would say, not to be totally sappy, but I am a bit of a sap.
43:57 Speaker 01 One of the things that was really special to me about it was watching you, as my best friend, have this absolutely amazing monologue that had so much. It was so long. I remember when we got the script, it was like half a page. And you nailed it in front of all of us and it had all this emotion and I was so proud of you. Anyway, I don't know, I've just been very nostalgic for that episode. What a wonderful memory. I really hold it close to my heart.
44:31 Speaker 00 It's so funny that you picked that one, Angela, and for the reasons that you picked it, because there were two episodes that popped into my mind and they're one right after the other in season two. And the first one is Booze Cruise.
44:47 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
44:48 Speaker 00 And again, you'd be like, "Why are you picking the episode where we were up till the crack of dawn and we were all nauseous and you got lost at sea?" But you know, it's that thing where those memories are now part of the lore and the joy of the show. They're part of the adventure of it. And we all really bonded. And that was the episode, Angela, where you guys found out you were going to be series regulars.
45:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:12 Speaker 00 And so there was that extra added celebration and joy to that episode. But then it was also just really funny. It was fun being stuck together. It was like a summer camp at sea, you know?
45:25 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
45:26 Speaker 00 And we all got to stay in a hotel, even though we never saw each other, except on the boat, because we were all so tired. And then, you know, the next episode after that was the injury. And I remember this was when we were finally not worried we were going to be canceled every single week.
45:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:45 Speaker 00 I think we could exhale a little bit. You guys were series regulars. And then Mindy wrote this script that was just so bonkers and weird and so funny. And I laughed so hard shooting that episode with Steve and the butter and all of his antics with the bubble wrap.
46:06 Speaker 01 The bubble wrap.
46:07 Speaker 00 Yeah. So that section right there, those are some of my fondest memories.
46:13 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, obviously, I have favorite ones because I loved us all in the conference room and we would get so punchy. So I look back on episodes where at the time I was like, I cannot believe we're spending five days in this one room together, this one tiny conference room. But those are the ones, though, that feel so special because we were all sort of in it together, you know?
46:35 Speaker 00 Yes. Yes. I feel like if someone said, okay, I'm going to send you back in time and you get to reshoot one episode, you get to re-experience shooting one, I think I would choose the injury because it's in the bullpen.
46:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:50 Speaker 00 You know, I would want to go back in time and be in the bullpen.
46:54 Speaker 01 Right.
46:55 Speaker 00 And I just remember laughing so hard. And it was so absurd. And we were all like still very young and fresh and we were experimenting and we were finding ourselves. And that's just such an exciting time creatively.
47:10 Speaker 01 That's such a great question. If I could go back and relive one, I mean, that's really hard to pick because I loved Dinner Party, but I would want to redo one with everybody.
47:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, in the office, right?
47:21 Speaker 01 In the office. And I was thinking, gosh. Selfishly, I would also love women's appreciation.
47:27 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
47:28 Speaker 01 Those scenes of us in that van, in Meredith's van, with all the trash and junk in it. And, you know, we got to spend a whole day with Steve. We got to have Steve to ourselves. And that was so fun. And of course, you know, we had scenes in the office, too, so we would get to be with everyone. But I would do that day again, for sure.
47:48 Speaker 00 Yeah.
47:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:50 Speaker 00 Aw, well, thanks, Catherine. Thanks for letting us answer that question that we've asked so many people ourselves. It's fun to think about.
47:57 Speaker 01 Yeah. And thank you guys so much for writing in. We're really just loving doing these segments with you all. So go to officeladies.com. You can click on "Submit a Question." We have lots of fun folders where you can write in.
48:09 Speaker 00 Yeah, we've gotten really organized, everybody. We did it. We're very grateful to Iliana, who helps us with our website. We have a special folder for second drinks, where we want you to go in there and tell us your favorite moments from episodes. And then we also have a folder for Around the Town, for chit-chat questions, and now officially, a folder for the Office Question of the Week.
48:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, so go check it out. And we hope you guys have the best week. We appreciate you all so much.
48:36 Speaker 00 And a big thank you to Craig Thomas and Josh Radnor for joining us today. We'll see you next week, everyone.
48:41 Speaker 01 See you then.
48:45 Speaker 00 Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.
48:47 Speaker 01 Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.
48:52 Speaker 00 Our senior producer is Matt Beagle. And our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer.
48:57 Speaker 01 Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.
49:00 Speaker 00 Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.
49:03 Speaker 01 Our theme song is "Rubber Tree" by Creed Bratton.
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