A Look Back on Valentine’s Day

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And I'm Angela Kinsey.

We were on the office together.

And we're best friends and now we're doing.

The ultimate office rewatch podcast just for you.

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.

We're the office ladies.

I am so excited for this one, me too, I liked this one so much.

I watched it an extra time, I did too, in my prep, just for pleasure, I did, too.

My husband Josh was like, Babe, how many times are you gonna watch that episode? I was like, I am really enjoying it.

I think this one sneaked up on me because there are certain episodes that I remember as being favorites, yeah, and this one was not on my radar.

And then I watched it and so many memories came back, too, so many. Okay, this is a goodie.

This is season two, episode 16, written by Mike Schur and directed by Greg Daniels. I mean, honestly, that's all you need to know.

That's like the super team.

Yeah, of course, this is a great one, all right, I'll give a summary. It's Valentine's Day at Dunder Mifflin. Michael has to go to the corporate offices in New York, He has to meet and do a presentation for the new CFO Chief Financial officer.

It's a big deal.

It is, and he's gonna be there with Jan on Valentine's Day. Oh, no. Back at the office, Phyllis is overwhelmed by gifts from her boyfriend, Bob Vance at Vance Refrigeration. They just come all day, these gifts.

All day.

Pam patiently waits for a gift from Roy that never comes.

No, no, and she really dolled herself up. Oh, yes, that's my fast fact number one. Angela, do it, do it.

Fan question from Baltimore Ashley What was the thought process behind Pam's hair for this episode? Was there another special meeting?

I bet there was.

Oh my gosh, you guys. I also got similar questions from Casey McMillan and many other people asking if there was a special meeting for Pam's hair. There was more than a meeting.

It was like the joint chiefs of staff, it was came together for your hair.

So the thought process here was that Pam and Jim in this episode, they're gonna be a bit estranged. So wouldn't it be an extra nail in the coffin for Jim if Pam just looked super duper cute? So we thought, can we please do something different with her hair? I had a MySpace blog at the time and I wrote about my hair. And I said that. Kim Ferry and I worked for weeks on different versions of this look.

Well, knowing Kim Ferry, like I do, like you do. She must've been so excited because she was so good at hair, but she never got to do much with our hair. No.

Okay, so here's what we tried. We tried a ponytail, a barrette and headbands. We took a picture of each choice and we presented them to Greg Daniels. And he went through the photos and had to pick a hairstyle, and he picked the headband, and there were various headbands. I was gonna say, I was gonna say.

Were there 12 different headbands?

Yes, yes, so it was. And also ponytails, high pony, low pony, side pony.

No side pony.

Well, Side Pony shows up later at the art Fair.

I wore a side ponytail to my prom.

You did a side pony to prom.

Yeah, I did a side who?

Did you get that done at a salon?

Or did you do that at home?

No, my mom did it.

My mom did it and that was the year the year before we had all had dates and none of us had a good time. My group of, like, really close girlfriends, so that was the year. The guys thought they were being really cool and they were like, we're not gonna take dates this year. I went to a small school and so the girls were like, fine.

Lady, I did an all girls prom for my senior prom, too.

You did. We would have been in the same dance circle.

We would have you would have loved my side pony. I have a card about that fast fact.

Tell it.

I mean, not only is it Pam's hair, Pam is wearing a pink sweater, her headband's pink, she has a heart necklace on, she has pink earrings on.

I mean-.

Little Pink Dangle earrings.

The lady came like she came to be noticed.

She did, she's, I think, a little lip gloss.

Yes, it was a whole look.

I have to say, when I first saw myself on screen, I was a little bit like, Oh.

Oh, Pam went for it.

Pam showed up today.

And I mean, it's gonna play out later in the episode. But like Roy, come on, this is someone who clearly wants a Valentine, so clearly, no matter what, she says, Okay, sorry, fast. Fact number two.

Fast fact number two A portion of this episode was shot in New York City. That is true. We got a lot of fan questions about this. People wanted to know if we did Steve stand in front of a green screen, did we shoot on the streets of Los Angeles?

And Guava Aura asked.

How long did it take to shoot this episode in New York, and was the rest of the cast in California? Yes.

We did not get to go.

We did not.

We were all pretty bummed because it sounded like so much fun, so I reached out to Randall Einhorn, our director of photography. Jenna, you know, I did this.

I know, and you guys, she wouldn't tell me what, he said. She's got all this good information about the New York shoot and she made me wait. Well, this is something we do.

We both love to, like, dig up nuggets of info and then we don't tell each other because we want the surprise, I know.

So I've been waiting like five days for this.

Okay, here we go. So I reached out to Randall and he said the crew in New York was just him and Greg and Steve. That would go out on the street when they would film. And in the van, they had, like, I think, two crew members that were New York-based because they had to do things by the rules. And our line producer Kent Zbornak. But whenever the van doors would open, it would just be Greg, Steve and Randall. He said that this was right at the height of 40-year-old Virgin.

Well, wasn't this also right after his Golden Globe win?

Oh yes, yes, it was all of that. He just won the Golden Globe. There was a billboard of him in Times Square and they're gonna film on the streets of New York.

Bonkers.

Bonkers.

Now this was scripted, though they had certain scripted spots, but I know that Steve was also improvising and riffing at the same time. It was very loosey-goosey.

That's true, that's true. So I asked Randall, Okay, what were some of the things that you know were scripted? he said. The Rockefeller Center portion, he said, that Sbarro was scripted. But he said that he's pretty sure. When Steve goes into the subway and sees a man pooping in the box, that that was improv, that was Steve just goofing around.

There's a bunch of deleted scenes of him on the streets of New York that I think are a lot of improvisations.

They're fantastic, the deleted scenes for this are great and I'll bring up some more of them later. And then I said, Randall, is there a fun story or a memory you have from filming in New York that maybe doesn't even have anything to do with the episode? And he said, Yes, this is what he said.

Aw, I love that.

I know me too.

That's one of the cool things about the show, where there's some circumstance that brings you to an experience you would not have normally had.

Yeah, yeah, so cool, so cool. And Greg and Kent Spornack talk a little bit more about New York in the DVD commentary. So if you want to give that a listen, all right, Jenna, that's my New York City nuggets.

They were great and they were worth waiting for. Thank you. I loved them. Thank you fast.

Hey now. hey hey hey now.

Hey, who's here?

Played by Andy Buckley.

There we go, he is in studio with us now.

I've got to put on the Wallace glasses.

Put on the Wallace glasses, bam.

Andy, you appeared in 37 episodes of the show.

Yep, 37, that's crazy, yeah.

Here's some stuff I learned about you by looking you up on the internet. Well, get ready. We should say the three of us are friends in real life, so it was a little bit interesting to google a friend. But here's some things I learned about you.

None of it is true. Oh boy.

But it's probably all true, that's good to know, it's probably all true. You were born in Boston.

Yep, Salem, Massachusetts grew up in Mobblehead, swampskate, Peabody, mostly mobblehead, and I have the smart pack.

You do smart pack.

John Krasinski, Smart Pack.

You graduated from Stanford University, but you got a degree in political science.

Yes, that was-.

Not theater, not acting.

No, so I did. I was a golfer in high school and I went there to play golf, like I was on the golf team, like on a golf scholarship. Yeah, they didn't have a ton of money, but I got in through the golf program and they gave you a thousand bucks.

You're a good golfer.

I used to be I'm still good, but I used to be, but yes, so, and I was a polysci. I mean, I did plays there, and I had done plays in high school also, and loved acting. And saw a James Dean movie when I was in high school and thought I was gonna be like a brooding young, brooding golf playing James Dean. Political science. None of it worked.

But when you were cast on the show, you were working as a wealth management advisor, which I believe is a fancy word for stockbroker.

That's exactly it, yeah.

At Merrill Lynch.

Yes, I study acting, I moved to Los Angeles. It does not go well for the first, like seven or eight or nine years. I get little bits and pieces here, Alison Jones being possibly my only fan, luckily.

She would like get a job.

Get a job, literally just basically get a job.

And you're working at Merrill Lynch.

I'm just a guy getting up and being in the office at six and talking to clients, or, you know, potential clients.

Now, knowing Mike the way we know Mike, he loved that, I know that he loved that. That you were actually working at Merrill Lynch was probably one of the coolest things to him.

I figure that's why I got hired and then I go back to my office and I'm like, all right, and you just go about your day. And then the next morning, Alison calls and says, Hey, they're gonna hire you. And it was so I was so excited, it was like, Oh man, this'll be awesome.

Yeah, I was gonna ask you when you auditioned. Did they say this was one episode with the possibility of more, or did they give you any indication that this might lead to 37 episodes?

No, they didn't say anything, and I mean, that was it. It was so whatever day the audition was and then the next week, I guess I did it.

Now, where did you film the boardroom scenes? My memory is that it was right next to our Dunder Mifflin set that you could walk from our set to your set.

Right, that's what it was, yeah.

So you were just right there.

I was right there and I show up and Steve couldn't have been nicer, everybody, you know, everybody couldn't have been nicer.

Oh my goodness you guys, your facial reactions to the video that Michael makes is so amazing. It was so wonderful.

So when do you get the call that they want you back for another episode?

A year later, a year later.

Oh my gosh, Andy.

Oh, it was great, Allison calls and says, Buckley, you're in an episode in a couple weeks and you're all over it. Like you're having a party at your house, everybody's there, it's crazy and she's like. And J.J. Abrams is directing.

You're like, Hold, wait, I have some meetings.

I have to rearrange, yeah, I gotta change around. But it was after we hired Ryan at the very end of season three that I kind of thought, Oh, maybe I'll get to be on this like two or three times. He's like, we're coming to corporate, he's coming to corporate.

You could see a possible storyline.

I thought, Yeah, like, Oh, wow.

Do you get recognized a lot? Do people scream? Suck it at you?

Yes.

And then do other people wonder why people are screaming, suck it at you?

It's funny and that definitely happens sometimes. And all of this has started to happen so much more in the last three or four years because of Netflix, and the show is so much bigger and everything.

Andy, do you still work at Merrill Lynch?

No, so I left. The last season of the show was when I finally left.

Well, you've gone on to do a bunch of stuff now. You're now a full-time actor. What are you working on right now? Can we tell people where to find you now?

Super, super lucky. So let's see. So I get to be on a cast once again by Alison Jones's HBO show called Avenue 5, which is super funny. And it's the fellow that wrote, created Veep, it's his new show.

Right, right, had finally figured it out.

And Hugh Laurie's the captain of the ship. Oh my gosh, yeah, and Zach Woods is on it. It's great because, oh my goodness, is he so funny.

He is so funny, he's so funny, and he's so smart, He's so smart. Thank you so so much.

Thank you for coming. You guys can find Andy on Instagram as well and Twitter. you've got quite a nice Twitter. Tell us your handle.

I'm at just andybuckley and then on Instagram I am andybuckley2020 in case I decide to run for an office.

Great, but just for this year.

Just for this year.

Well, I am following you andybuckley2020 on the Insta.

I appreciate it.

We're Insta pals, I appreciate it, I know, and you'll have to come back.

You'll have to come back. Yeah, you are. I would love to come back.

Do you have 36 more episodes?

Yeah.

And we've only really covered your origin story, so there's more to talk about.

All right, Andy, thank you so so much.

Thank you very much, thank you for having me, ladies.

And we're back, hello.

Let's start breaking down the Valentine's Day episode, Ash.

Let's get into it, lady.

All right, so we start with a Pam talking head, she explains. It's Valentine's Day. This is not your typical cold open, where it's a standalone kind of prank or joke. This applies to the story of the episode we noted earlier. Her hair is down.

She actually says, I like Valentine's Day in this office.

Yeah, because we all hand things out to each other. She talks about how last year Jim gave her a card, a hilarious card with Dwight's face on it.

It was so funny.

But then she says that her and Roy are saving money this year for the wedding, so she told him not to get anything too big.

Too big? But she's still clearly expecting something.

She still wants something.

Well, I have a few little background things for this talking head, okay, that I found very interesting. Yes. So behind our talking heads was normally you could see Leslie David Baker, who plays Stanley, our Phyllis.

Yeah, at their desks.

You would never see Jim behind you during a talking head because his desk is over, closer to Pam's at reception.

Is Jim in the background of this?

Jim is in the background of your talking head, he's like sitting over there, talking to Creed, you can see him in the distance. And you know, I was listening to the DVD commentary, and one of the things that Greg and Mike talked about was in this episode. Jim and Pam barely speak, but they're always in the foreground or background of each other's shots.

That is so interesting because I noticed that in the background of Jim's talking head. Later, Pam is delivering Phyllis a little piece of candy, yes.

So see, this was thought out. Now there's one other thing I wanna point out. Because in the deleted scenes, Oscar at the top of the episode is handing out valentines. And this is footage behind your talking head, you say, I like valentines at this office.

Oh my gosh, that is a great catch.

Yeah, and then I think just before we get into this episode. I would love to give a little props to the party planning committee because, you know, they were in charge of decorating the office. Yeah, did you see all the Valentine stuff?

I did fan catch from Izzy Garrigan, she said, around 22 seconds. Pam has a football plush on her desk, but I noticed that she has Valentine's Day themed candy. She has a cup of pens and a Valentine's Day cup on the top of her desk.

And the cups are even sort of like red pins. Yes, and then she even has.

There's all these like decorations on the front of reception.

She's got like a Valentine's Day poster, and there's a heart shaped candy dish. There's red jelly beans, there's like a little squishy heart dude on top of the jelly beans. Over by accounting, there's heart garland, there's a heart poster.

So the ladies, really, we did a good job.

They went all out, by all out, they put up two posters. It's still within their budget.

But it was fairly decorated, I will say I noticed as well.

All right, so next up.

Phyllis gets a giant bouquet of roses. Did you catch the card? It made me laugh out loud. No, what was it? The flowers are from Bob Vance Vance Refrigeration.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, I did catch that, yes.

Just that Bob Vance Vance refrigeration was part of the card.

Was part of the card that does make me laugh. I don't know about you, but my husband when he gives me a gift like his card skills, Babe, I love you. Okay. First of all, I appreciate the thought. But for Valentine's, his card said to my wife from your husband.

So we find out now that Michael is heading to New York to do a presentation about the Scranton branch for the new CFO. And we know this is important because there have been rumors of downsizing, and so Michael has to really prove the worth of this branch. So that no one gets fired. In this scene, he packs his passport.

For a two and a half hour drive, guys, for a drive, it's a two and a half hour drive.

Not even flying.

Not going across the border.

Nope.

Passport got it.

Dwight asks if he's excited to see Jan because it is Valentine's Day. And then Michael has a talking head where he says, I would have to be a raving lunatic to try to talk to Jan about what happened between us. Her words, not mine. She sent me an email this morning. I loved that.

I love that so much. Also, did you notice, right after his passport, Dwight hands him what looks like it looks like a Blackberry? Do we have some old tech, some old tech catch there?

Ooh, old tech catch.

Old tech catch I can't even say that old tech catch, old tech catch, okay?

As Michael is leaving, he asks Pam if he can pick her up. Anything in New York. I love Oscar's response.

Because Oscar's like the dad he is, he's kind of the dad.

He's like, you know, the best gift would be just do a good job on the presentation so we can all keep our jobs.

Yeah.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks a lot. And Michael's like me in New York. Oh, I own that city. Forget about it.

Yeah, but you have to go back and look at Oscar's face. Oh my god, it's so good. If that's not a meme, it should be.

That should be.

So then we have our opening credits, and when those are over, Michael is driving to New York. No need for a passport.

Two and a half hour drive don't need it, within the continental United States still don't need it.

And then Jim has a talking head where he tells us that he is not dating anyone and he's just gonna have like, a party with his buddies. Well, what the heck happened to Brenda? I don't know.

He's not dating anyone. He left Brenda that ridiculously awkward voicemail.

I guess that didn't work out.

I guess it didn't. Now, during his talking head, you can kind of get a glimpse at Pam's wedding invite list.

Yeah, there's a shot of Pam at her desk and I had a fan question about it.

Okay, you know, I did a screen grab and tried my best to read every name.

Oh, I wanna hear what they are, Louisa J said. Are the names on the wedding invite list characters or made up, or based on real life people?

Now I was looking at some of these names and part of it looked like maybe Phil Shea had started the list. But it looked like you had added to it during the scene.

Yes, the typed list was provided to me by Phil Shea. Yes, the handwritten list are the names of my real aunts and uncles and cousins.

I was gonna say, I saw Emily, which is your sister. Yep. So I was like, as I screen grabbed it, I was like, Oh, Jenna just started writing her actual family, I did.

Okay, that's what I thought, yeah.

I wrote down Bob and Millie, Jim and Debbie, Ed.

Yeah, you wrote down Ed, Mark, Jim and Debbie. It looked like, Ann, which is your mom's name? That's my mom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, I just thought it would be fun because maybe they would get to see their names on TV.

No, I think that's fantastic. I would have done the same thing.

I'm pretty sure my uncle Bob did write me an email because he noticed, or someone noticed and told him. So that was like a fun little thing.

I think it's also good that your family has somewhat like common names. Because, like, I would have done the same thing. But my list would have been like, Bertie, my mom, my aunt Thelma, like, it'd be like, wait, this list looks a little southern.

Let's see next up. Dwight gets a Valentine's Day gift. Oh, he gets. There's a box on his desk.

He gets the best gift ever.

Yes, he gets a Dwight Bobblehead, a bobblehead of himself. And we had a fan question. Actually, a lot of people asked. But Callie Peck and Enza, from Chicago, both asked, How was the Dwight Bobblehead made? So Phil Shea found a bobblehead maker on the internet. And he had Rain pose for pictures in his Dwight outfit, and they took pictures of him from all directions.

All angles.

Yes, and sent them in. It took a couple of weeks and they sent back a sample. They were able to make notes and then they sent the real thing and they just sent the one guy.

I remember the real thing, too, was kind of fragile, yeah, and it was heavy, heavy, heavy.

And if you want one of yourself, the guy's still making them.

Oh, what's his name?

Let's give him a shout out.

It's bobblemaker.

Bobblemaker.

That's right, and it was originally called It's You Small, It's you Small.

I like that.

It's you small, but yeah. Bobblemaker.com, that's where you can get a bobblehead made of yourself. And I went on there, and they're really great. You can also get them made of your pets, your whole family.

The coffee mug giving birth to your face.

Yeah, but the bobbleheads are amazing.

I would kind of like a bobblehead of our cat Oreo.

I thought the same thing about Sunny Oh, we should get kitty cat bobbleheads.

I want a kitty cat, bobblehead.

Okay, where are we?

I had another question about the bobblehead from Dagmara K. Did anyone end up keeping Dwight's bobblehead? Well, I just assumed that Rain got to keep it, so I texted him and he said, No.

Who kept it?

NBC and they auctioned it off when the series ended. Oh, that makes me a little sad, it makes me a little sad, too, and it brought up a question for me.

Oh, there was a big auction, I think they auctioned off all the desks and furniture.

A bunch of stuff from the desk, a bunch of furniture. But it made me wonder, with all this talk and speculation about a possible reboot, how do they get all the stuff back? How do they even recreate the set if they auctioned everything off?

I think that probably doesn't bode well for a reboot.

I think that people are like, nope, they'll have to get Bobblemaker.com to make another bobblehead. I guess, I don't know.

I actually have a Dwight and Angela Bobblehead and I bought one and Rain signed it for me, so I have a signed Rain Bobblehead.

After this episode, people started asking for Dwight Bobbleheads, and so NBC made a run of bobbleheads. They found a way to make them.

Mass produce them, yes.

And they sold out immediately. All right, so next up in the episode, Michael is walking the streets of New York.

Oh, he's so happy.

Oh, he walks by his favorite local New York pizza joint.

Sbarro You can only find it in New York. It's such a great joke because you guys know.

Sbarro is a huge chain, you can get it outside of New York City, however, this made me curious about Sbarro.

So guess what, I found out. What'd you find out, Lady? let me tell you.

Sbarro began in 1956, when Carmela and Gennaro Sbarro opened an Italian grocery store in Brooklyn that also happened to sell food.

Okay.

So they had a little deli.

They had a little market.

Yes, and one of the things that they sold was pizza by the slice. Mama Sbarro, as she was known, had this pizza by the slice. And it became super popular with construction workers, shift workers who needed to grab something in one hand and eat on the go. They became so popular that they ended up opening a second location that was only about pizza.

Okay, pizza only. We are not sponsored by Sbarro, we are not, probably because I can't say it.

SBarro.

Sbarro, sbarro, not sbar-barro, not sbar-barro. That's a different restaurant.

Sbarro, sbarro.

And so. Since then, though, Sbarro has expanded into 630 eateries across 28 countries.

I'm applauding you. Sbar-barro, sbarro.

And also on their website, it says quote "'You're welcome world.

Well, not only pizza slices, but pizza slices with sass, I like it.

That's some sbarro sass.

That's some sbarro sass.

But I thought it was interesting.

Because the joke of our episode is kind of that. Michael doesn't get what a local pizza joint is, but it did actually start as a local pizza joint.

It did start local.

It did start local.

Just not in Times Square.

So there you go. So next we go back to the office and Jim and Kelly are in the kitchen.

I love this scene so much.

John Krasinski Your acting in this scene is delicious.

It's delicious, Mindy's acting is delicious, so good. I was like, she's so funny in it, she's full on mindy.

Yeah, it's full mindy, this is full mindy.

I want you to know, when I was listening to the DVD commentary, I almost like, spit out, like the water I was drinking. Because Greg and Mike both go, "'oh, I mean, Mindy just took over. "'like there's no more Kelly. "'it's just Mindy. "'This was a whole thing. Yeah, what they don't know?

Is that it happened last episode?

Okay, well, I felt very validated that we didn't even know that. Like, they totally talk about it in the commentary, that's amazing.

Well, basically. She tells Jim that her and Ryan hooked up last night.

Yes, and Mindy says in the DVD commentary she goes, Mike. I really feel like this scene is just like a transcription of a conversation you and I actually had about a guy, which cracked me up.

Well, it leads to the very famous Ryan Talking Head. I hooked up with her on February 13th.

I know it was like, so perfect.

All right, so then we head back to New York City again, and now we're gonna see Michael in Times Square. You know, a lot of people, he tells you, they get to New York and they go to really touristy places like the Empire State Building, but he likes to go to Times Square.

He likes to go to the most tourist spot in New York.

Which I love. And then, at five minutes, 26 seconds, Michael is giving us a tour of Rockefeller Center.

Yes.

Where, he says, founded, of course, by Theodore Rockefeller, and he also says that the Rangers sometimes practice there. Okay, I did a deep dive.

The Rangers don't practice there.

The Rangers don't practice there, but they do sometimes practice at this rink in Central Park, like once a year, there's a rink there. I know this because I have a huge hockey. Yeah, I'm a hockey mom.

Your husband plays hockey, your son plays hockey, you're a hockey mom.

Yes, we've been in New York when the Rangers have practiced on this rink in Central Park and it's super cool. It's a thing they do for the fans, but never at Rockefeller Center. Also, there is no one named Theodore Rockefeller. I did a deep dive on the Rockefeller family and I could not find anyone named Theodore.

Okay, I know 30 rock really well because I worked there.

Oh, that's right.

I was an intern on the Conan O'Brien show.

And so were, like, a bunch of office people.

MINDY Ellie John But not at the same time, not at the same time. I'm much older than those guys. I was there the very first year of Conan, when they thought they were gonna get canceled week to week.

What do you do when you're an intern on that? Like, what is that?

Well, there was-.

What does that mean?

Well, there was different types of internships, like there was a writer's intern, so when I got the internship, they already had the writer's intern, so I became a general intern. So I just basically got everyone their coffee and I didn't know New York City.

Did you get to meet Conan or interact with him as an intern?

I didn't, I mean, he would walk past and he was always nice, he would kind of give a nod or a wave. But he was busy and I knew not to bug him. Like, I had enough like awareness that I wasn't gonna be like, Hey, Conan, I'm the new intern.

So could you-?

You could do a backdoor-.

Like watch SNL ever.

I, actually, one of the people that worked on Conan, knew that I was pretty strapped for cash. And she got me a weekend job on Saturday Night Live as an extra. So there's a whole season of SNL that I'm an extra and I'm in a bunch of skits. What? Yes, there's a great scene with Chris Farley and I'm like, sitting in front of him and everyone was so nice.

Yeah, because all that stuff is happening in that same building, that's what's so crazy about that area.

And like NBC News is happening and the Today show, it's all right there. Can I tell you one of the coolest moments? What is right outside the stage doors where we recorded? I'm standing in this hallway alone, there's no one in the hallway.

That is pretty awesome, so we got a lot of fan questions about this. Tina Fey Conan O'Brien business.

Yeah.

The first one is from Sarah Marshall, 44.

Well, you know, Greg and Conan were very good friends, they went to college together, they were roommates. I think some of their very early writing jobs on SNL and Simpsons, they were like, they lived together, they're friends.

Hard to blend?

Hard to blend. Mike Schur said that he wrote the scene with fake Tina Fey as a shout-out to her. A little nod to their time together on Saturday Night Live. Because he said tourists were constantly mistaking other women with brown hair and glasses. For Tina Fey, it was almost like a joke they would watch other women get tapped on the shoulder, and it was never Tina Fey. And he said that many times, him and Tina would take a coffee break in between writing and walk outside, and no one would stop her.

No one would stop the real Tina Fey, no one would stop the real Tina Fey.

But they would mistake all these other women. And so, he said, that scene was kind of his little nod to Tina.

Oh my gosh, I love that, I did too, I love that, all right. So next, we go back into the office and more flowers arrive for Phyllis.

Oh, gosh.

From Bob Vance.

I mean, Bob Vance not for Pam, they're for Phyllis. Pam is getting annoyed and you know who else is taking it hard?

Meredith, Meredith, she's taking it real hard.

She's looking real sour, yeah.

Well, then we have this awesome covert scene between Dwight and Angela at the copier.

Yes.

He says, Thank you for the gift.

I haven't gotten anything, no, now. This has nothing to do with the scene. But I have to bring it up right now. Because this is the first moment you really get a full shot of me right on camera. Yeah, do I look tan, Jenna?

Yes, now that you mention it, oh, I am very tan.

Because in my journal, You guys, I wrote, We shot this during the Golden Globes when I got that mystic spray tan.

Oh, that's right. When we went to the Golden Globes, when Steve won, yeah, you got a spray tan that was real dark.

It was Orange, guys, I watched this episode and the next one, I am like Orange for two weeks.

Oh my gosh.

I am so tan, it's ridiculous, and they tried to make my face look lighter.

They tried to tone it down.

I wrote about it in my journal that they tried to tone down my tan, but what happened was I just look weird. I thought you looked good in this episode. Well, I have a mystic tan, oh.

He says, You'll get something by the end of today, he needs to give himself some time, yeah, to get something all right. So then we have the scene where Jim is on the phone.

John Krasinski does such great fake phone you guys.

Great fake phone.

Fake phone is not easy.

No, there's no one on the other end of that call.

I fully believed he's talking to someone and his laugh seems so organic. Yeah, I'm like, John. Applause for fake phone skills.

Great fake phone, really, really good.

And this is also sort of the time in their relationship. If you will, where Jim, I mean, you have a wedding date set? Yeah, it's like, all that Pam is talking about really is like planning the wedding, and Jim really starts to pull away, and then you see Pam feeling that absence.

Well, and remember, in the last episode, they got in a full fight.

Yeah.

About Pam's decision to not pursue her graphic design internship.

Yeah.

And so I think Jim kind of feels like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here, I don't know where I fit in anymore.

Yeah, and she's getting married. Yeah, yeah.

Then a giant teddy bear arrives, and it's being delivered by two guys. Advanced refrigeration outfits. They were played by our writing team of Jean Stepnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, but you only see Jean Lee got cut out.

Lee got cut out, it's in the deleted scene. Yeah, they get in a fist fight. Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous.

But Jean is the person who says Phyllis Lappin. So if you're wondering which one is Jean and which one is Lee, Jean is in this episode. And they come back later, they're gonna recur and you'll actually get to see Lee.

There's a very funny little sort of exchange between Jean and Brian as Kevin, where Kevin's like, That thing's as big as me, and Jean's like, No, it's not. No, it's not, Kevin's like, zip it.

So now Michael has finally made it to his meeting. He's done wandering the streets of New York, and he's gonna meet with the other branch managers in a conference room. And I just wanna mention we said this earlier, this part of it was not shot in New York, this was shot on some stages.

Right there, where we film every day in California, yes.

Look out the window, they did such a good job, the backdrop, it really looks like they're up high in a building in New York.

No, they're our-.

The trickery is so good.

Our set design team was phenomenal. Yeah, but really.

They are on ground level, in a warehouse.

In a set in Van Nuys, California.

Yeah, kind of amazing.

But let's meet the other managers. Yes, I have a card.

All right, give me your card, lady.

Here's my card. So the other managers are Dan Gore, who manages Buffalo, played by Dan Cole, Josh Porter, he manages Stanford Branch. Craig Michael calls him. Craigers, played by Craig Anton, manages Albany.

Yes.

So here's a little tidbit about the Dan Gore character. Okay? In the DVD commentary, Mike Schur says, the quiet guy in the conference room he named after his good friend Dan Gore, the writer Dan Gore. Oh, yeah.

He's gotten kicked out of all the strip clubs in Albany.

Very proud of that, we find out.

And then he starts insulting Jan, Yeah, yeah, he says.

He calls her the B word, he does.

And Michael comes to her defense. He says, Oh, come on now, come on now. And he stands up for her first by saying, That's my girlfriend, Oh.

Boy.

And then he backpedals and says, I mean, we hooked up.

And then Josh Porter's like, you hooked up with Jan.

And now he's in it.

He spilled the beans.

Dang it, Michael.

Michael, He's only been there like five minutes.

Yeah, he's been in a room with these people for five minutes, and he's already told everyone that he's hooked up with Jan with their boss, yeah.

Oh, Michael.

And then it's like crickets in the room.

All right, well, maybe we should take a break.

Yeah, with that news.

On that news, Michael has just spilled the beans. And we'll be right back. We'll be back because one of my favorite scenes is happening back at the office, yeah.

It's good stuff.

It's good.

Your reaction when he says, like, a ham, yeah.

And you're like, No, not exactly like a ham Jenna. It's so funny. I don't even know how you kept a straight face, though.

My intention in that was like I was talking to like a five or a six-year-old, and I couldn't let them see my real feelings.

About the things they were saying.

Yeah, exactly. We had a fan question from Suzy Young, 22. She wanted to know if, like a ham was scripted or improvised, it was improvised.

Did he improvise a bunch?

Yeah, so on the day, we didn't really have an ending to this scene.

Okay.

We had him coming in and asking for advice and they wanted a button. And this would often happen in scenes, and the writers would then come over and give us a list of options.

Like suggestions, yeah.

So like, a ham was improvised, but then there were all these other options that were written on a piece of paper. And so we shot all of these things that he said, like a this, like a that, like this, like that. It was so hard not to laugh. I did laugh at like a ham, because it wasn't on the piece of paper, so I was not expecting it.

You didn't see it coming.

No, no, so my response is definitely like, take four or five. Because I remember everyone just lost it when he said it. And then they were like, Okay, wait, that's good.

That's good.

That's the one we want. And so then they were like, pull it together and do it again.

Do it again. Okay, I have a question for you. When he says, shut up, I know exactly what to do. Was that improvised?

That I don't remember.

I don't remember, because I do think that that final look to camera was that was some direction I was given, which is like, I know the camera's out there.

Yeah, and your look to camera's like, Can this day get any worse? It's so weird, I'm not getting any gifts.

No.

Jim has barely acknowledged me, and Dwight just asked for my help and then told me to shut up.

I also love when rain, how rain responds to me, saying, like, she's a little like, tightly wound, and he's like, Yeah.

He, like, chose to be, like, turned on by it. It's so gross, kind of creepy. Did you notice how many times we were in scenes in the break room, in the kitchen? Like in this episode, we're in quite a few?

Yeah.

So it's interesting. And I don't know if that's because they were constantly trying to keep Jim and Pam apart. Maybe so, or there were these secret conversations about relationships. But I feel like this was a very interesting episode for that reason, because a lot of the scenes don't actually happen in the bullpen.

Yeah, they're not at our desks this time. Yeah, so Jim is in the break room with Kelly and he's kind of trying to give her advice. He's really just trying to eat his bag of chips.

Yeah.

He tells her to take it slow, and then Ryan walks in.

And she asks him out in front of Jim, and the way John played this moment, like, he's like, not in front of me.

He's like.

Oh, no, not while I'm here.

No, I'm here, please.

Oh, so good.

But Ryan shoots her down. He says, I can't, I have plans with friends and I can't.

It's so cringy and she's like, Oh, hey, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, no, it's not a problem, not a problem. ugh.

Back in the bullpen, more gifts for Phyllis. And Meredith is drinking heavily.

She's had it, she's full on mixing up a cocktail in that super gulp. I have been to family reunions where I have one or two aunts that walk around with a giant 7-eleven super gulp, and I'm always like.

What's in there, what's in there?

Why are you nursing on that 7-eleven super gulp all day?

Well, I used to do an opposite thing in college, so I was not a big drinker. But I wanted to go to the parties and not be judged.

So you'd bring a super gulp full of like soda.

I would bring a red solo cup full.

Your own solo cup to the party?

I had my own red solo cup and then I would put something non-alcoholic in it.

And you'd be like, I'm good, I've got my drink, I'm good, yeah, I got it.

I'm fine, I'm good, I don't need to get drunk.