Welcome Party

I'm Jenna Fisher 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.

Well, I am, and I'm also ready to haul some cube, yeah.

Let's haul Cube today, it's season 8, episode 20. This was written by Steve Healy and directed by Ed Helms. Here's your summary.

With Erin.

Present.

I don't know what to say, I have less to say.

We have texted about it, we have feelings about it.

We have strong feelings about it.

Fast Fact Number One guest star Brett Gelman as The Magician.

I need to just clap for a second, I need to clap for a second. I love him, he was so fantastic. We're going to talk a lot about it. But oh my gosh, did this guy make us laugh?

I did not know Brett Gelman before he guest starred on the office. He came in and we didn't know what to do with him. He was so funny.

He destroyed us all.

He did, you guys out there probably recognize him from the gazillion things he's been in? He gets a lot of love for stranger things. I absolutely loved him in Fleabag and Love.

Everything he did in Fleabag was perfection. I do have a crossover shout out.

Oh, yes.

Yes, not monk, but fresh off the boat. He played Dusty Nugget and I played Amy Chestnut.

So did you guys work together?

We did not. Oh, but we have a crossover moment.

Crossover connection. Well before he was on the office, he had done a lot of shorts for funny or die presents. This ran on HBO, very short lived. He had been on Curb your enthusiasm, he had been on Bored to death.

He dresses as a black cat, he has a headband on with little black ears.

It's very serious.

Very serious.

Brett did an interview where he said he had been doing it as a 30 minute live show at Upright Citizens Brigade for like, eight years. And then it ended up on the Funny or Die HBO show. The Funny or Die sketch opened with a video of his character talking about his stage show, 1,000 Cats, and why it's important to the world.

Oh my gosh.

I think we should listen to it.

Okay.

1,000 Cats is not a play, it's not a musical, it's not even really a performance. It is a universal consciousness that is physicalized through me. Of course, the appropriate venue is not the theater that I will be performing it in.

I saw part of the performance.

It's amazing, it's 1,000 cats, but they have 9,000 lives and 9,000 stories, and he's going to tell each one.

Each one and sing, sing them, yes.

It's a musical.

It's a musical, did we mention? it's a one-man musical. About 1,000 cats.

So Halstead was familiar, and when they were breaking down the script, he said, I know who should play the magician. Alison Jones put him on tape, everybody watched this tape and loved him, and Ed Helms was the director of this.

I can't imagine anyone else playing this part and I'm sad we don't see more of him. I'm like, why couldn't someone have dated him on the show?

Right?

Right?

Who would it have been, Angela?

No, I don't think she would like anything to do with Magic.

She would date the 1,000 cats guy, though maybe would she be attracted to a man who has a musical about 1,000 cats.

A hundred percent.

I think so, all right. Well, let's move on to fast fact number two. We had a very special cameo on this show that caused a fan mail flurry.

It's her sad box.

Yes, let me explain why this caused a fan mail flurry. All of our letters were from folks in the UK. First off, Becky O, from County Durham, England, said I noticed the shoe box is for the brand Clark's shoes.

That is fantastic, I totally missed that.

I missed it, too.

Oh my gosh, thank you for writing in about it.

Anna B, from Lancashire, United Kingdom, said I need to know everything about the amazing shoe box choice in this episode. This is exactly where someone like Nellie would have bought her work shoes from. And Liam C, in Glasgow, Scotland, said I love that Nellie's box of photos, a.k.a. Benjamin, was in a Clark's shoe box.

That's so great.

Well, everyone. I checked the script and there was no mention of the kind of shoe box this was 100. Phil Shea paying attention to detail. I love that it resonated with so many people. This is just a sample of the letters we got and I love that.

Yeah, I remember doing that. There was one children's shoe store in the mall and you would go and get your foot measured and pick out a pair of sneakers or whatever. This is such a sweet memory and I love that.

Nailed it well. I thought it might be fun to do a small deep dive on Clark's, this company that delighted people so much.

Great.

So here we go. Clark's is a British international shoe manufacturer and retailer. It was founded in 1825 by Cyrus Clark. In the small village of Sweet Somerset, England, this is the most adorable small town. I looked at pictures.

Did you google it? Of course. did you look at images of it? Yes, okay.

Of course.

I want to go, I already know I want to go.

I know I do, too. This town. It only has about 11,000 people living there, but the Clark's world headquarters is still there.

Love that.

The company has about 1,400 branded stores and franchises around the world.

You know, there's one in our mall, but I wonder if it's the same company.

It has to be right.

Now I'm excited to go there even more.

The company is very well known for their Desert Boot and their wallaby. The Wallaby is what Walter White wore on Breaking Bad. And, of course, children's school shoes. I am pretty sure that I wore Clark's on the office. I think they do really comfy work shoes for the lady executive.

Yeah.

With good arch support.

I mean, we all know I wore Sass.

And then the working man. They've got some nice loafers. I've been all over the website, clearly, but here's what I needed to know. Is there a Clark's factory that we can tour?

Is it in England? In that cute little town? No, that's where the headquarters are.

No, there is no factory tour. I did find the Clark's Shoe Museum, but unfortunately it closed in 2019, after 70 years, it just closed.

Can I please put Kevin and Ruth's blog link in our stories?

I'm sure they would be delighted.

I would love to check it out myself.

They have a great blog, they have lots of pictures and they just travel all around.

Amazing, yeah.

Maybe we should meet up with them somewhere. Interesting. Kevin and Ruth Kevin and Ruth, we can be on their blog.

All right.

Finally, fast fact number three Office ladies announcements. Yes, these announcements are based on some popular mailbag letters.

Yes, they are.

In our general mailbox.

Mm-hmm.

First off, Peyton, from Georgia, and many others sent in requests asking if we would please update the office. Ladies Instagram story highlight.

I did it, guys, I did it. I sat down one day and updated them all. I'm sorry I got a little behind.

Yes, we are very excited to announce that all past episode stories are now available. So when you're listening and you hear us say we're going to put it on the pod, you don't have to worry if you missed the day that we posted.

They're all there, just go to the highlights.

Go to the highlights.

Okay.

Suzanne in New York wants to know where did they get Pam's pink mug on the show? Suzanne wanted to know Jenna. Was this mug originally yours? If so, where did you get it? Is there any brand on the bottom of the mug? I don't know where they got it, Suzanne.

Perfectly.

Yes.

Perfectly.

I can't drink coffee out of it.

Because it will fall apart from the heat. But now it's like a souvenir for you of your time in the office.

And I love it. However, I did find a woman online who makes homemade pottery, she makes the PAM mug. I bought one from her. She didn't know it was me.

Jenna looked at me very pointedly, and Angela, you will put it in highlights.

Will you highlight that?

Yes, I will highlight it, I will put it in stories.

Well, since we're on the subject of mugs, I want to plug a few of our office ladies merch mugs. ANGELa They make great holiday gifts. And I don't know if everybody out there is already thinking holidays, but I have a personal goal to get all of my holiday shopping done by December 15th. I want to be ahead this year, not behind, okay?

No end of the year scramble for gifts? No, okay.

So anyway, we have a really adorable it is your mug, mug, it's blue.

It's so cute.

The writing is etched, etched, it's not printed on, it's etched.

And it's that sort of light blue, and then the rim of it has like a little kind of brown ceramic color. I want you guys to know we gave Steve Carell one of these when he came into studio and he was like, This is a good mug.

It is a good mug. Yeah, I love the shape, I love the size, I love it.

That's what she said.

She said, All that.

She did.

It's $35.

Well done lady.

Thank you and finally.

Oh my gosh.

So Ange, I wrote you, I said, Can you read from your journal today?

Yes, I can, I can, and guess what, I have some Angela Journal updates for everyone.

What are they?

You know, we've been doing some home construction and I haven't been able to get into our shed, where we keep everything right. Finally got into the shed the other day. We're digging around. All I was looking for was some seasonal doormats that I kept. I found a little box that, said Angela's trailer.

I know this is such a find.

It's such a find I wrote about the basketball episode, Lady, you did not.

Like all of these specific things.

I was like, in journal overload.

I was like, Oh my God, when am I going to share all this?

But I'm going to wait, I'm going to save those for special things. I wrote about filming the pilot. I have little notes that, like Oscar, gave me, taped inside the journal, I have my call sheet, lady.

Wow, I know.

And we found so much stuff when we did our book.

Is it making you want to call the publisher and say, we need to do a reprint? No.

So I'm not going to read from that journal today. I thought I would save that journal. For when we get to the end of the run, that's fun, yeah.

Okay.

Because I also found a card you gave me, oh, I know, so I'm going to save all that. But today's Angela's journal, you guys, I have a journal that I titled Travel Journal.

You do, and when you travel, you leave me the most amazing messages about the people you were surrounded by. It's so entertaining and detailed.

Okay, well, here we go, you guys. This is written at 5.56 p.m. on a flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. It was 2005..

Okay.

Okay, I have now been on this flight for three hours. I write 5.56 p.m. in all caps, bored exclamation point, and then I write. Ken Kuapas, the director of the office, actually has a movie on this plane. It's the sisterhood of the traveling pants.

Oh, yeah, now they give you headphones, yeah.

This is in 2005.

This is amazing.

And this part cracks me up. The guy next to me has been diligently reading a book on Texas Hold'em and furiously scribbling notes. He ran out of paper and has started to write on his plane ticket. He keeps covering his notes with his hand, like, I'm going to steal his secrets.

That was amazing. Angela Oh, you guys. Oh, I loved it, I loved it.

Can you believe I went and gave the guy a piece of paper and he's like writing on his plane ticket.

You're not going to give the airline $5 for headphones or $7 for a snack, you're not sharing your paper.

I'm not going to spend $12 on things I need.

No.

Oh, ridiculous. $7 for snacks.

I absolutely loved it.

Well, there you go, that's my Angela's Journals updates. I will save some of our early years that I wrote about for the end of our run.

That's all I got for Fast Facts, Lady. I could really just do a whole episode of you reading your journals.

You know, what this made me want to do is journal again. When I travel, I used to always journal.

Me too, yeah.

It's such good character study. if you're a writer or an actor, it's great character study.

I always love your messages when you've gotten off a plane because that's what they are. The description I get, you really paint a picture, all right. Well, should we take a break? And then when we come back? Does Stanley have a mustache?

Oh, there's a hot debate.

Yep.

Do you have a memory of getting a real pun card? Because I do.

No, we give my dad pun cards.

Does he like a pun card?

He loves a pun, he's a punner.

There's one in every family. I am not the punner, but somehow I still get cards with puns. I got one one time from a friend of mine that it was just a picture of a sofa and it said, You're sofa king, awesome.

It took me a second.

Yeah.

And everyone's like, No, he does have a mustache.

Well, some people feel very strongly that he does, some people feel like no way he does not, and then some people are waffling. I did break it down. Here's how the dunder Mifflin bunch voted by show of hands.

I feel like Phyllis raises both hands, she has two hands up at the end.

Yes, that's true.

She might be unsure.

She might be in team unsure stache.

I mean, Pam even draws a picture, she draws a mustache Stanley and a no mustache Stanley. That didn't seem to help, but we did get a lot of mail about these drawings. Jocelyn V. and St.

That's very funny.

At 50 seconds, she is standing next to Phyllis, and at 58, she says, okay, and then holds up. Two full page, recognizable sketches of Stanley. In rewatching the scene, Pam's frantic faux speed sketching in the background of Jim's line had me cracking up. That means she only had four seconds for each of those pictures. Who really drew? Those pictures? Were you directed to draw really fast?

Well, Jocelyn, Millie and Zoe, I have a curveball to throw at you. What if Pam has sketched everyone in the office and keeps them in her desk drawer?

That sounds like something Dwight would do, I know, because he's going to need a wanted poster at any moment.

Pam has drawn Dwight.

This is true. Well, first of all, I did not draw those pictures, they were preset for me. I'm pretending to draw feverishly. But there were a few lines of dialogue in this scene that got cut out.

So don't ask creed ever.

Don't ask, creed. The script did say that I was supposed to hold up two quote hastily made drawings. It also noted that the one with the mustache should be a giant mustache, not an accurate mustache. So there you have it. That's what happened.

You had more time, but still not enough to do those two drawings, in my opinion. But that's okay, it's a little bit of TV magic.

I feel like I would have doubled my time. Do you think 16 seconds is enough time? It might have been more, because, you know, Kevin does a whole visualization thing, I don't know.

Well, I guess it depends on your skill set because I would have needed all day to do that.

We got a fan question from Veronica R in Park City, Illinois, who said Where did the idea of Stanley having or not having a mustache come from? Was this based on a real conversation about whether or not Leslie had a mustache? Well, Veronica. We got to trade some messages with our writer Steve Healy, and he said that this idea came up in the writer's room. He said it was either Mindy or BJ who pointed out that it was really hard to visualize whether or not Leslie had a mustache or not.

I thought this was so relatable when Steve shared this with us. Because how many times are you sitting around, like at dinner with friends that you've known forever? And someone's like, Oh, yeah, you know, Jenna has blue eyes, and they're like, No, she doesn't like, What are you talking about? She has blue eyes. And then that whole debate starts.

When I was watching the Cold Open.

Did it make you second guess it did?

Me too, I was not sure.

I was like, Wait, no, he does, he does, doesn't he? he does, yes.

But you just plant that seed of doubt and then you aren't sure.

Yeah, well, Steve was so gracious. We reached out to him with a few questions and we're going to sprinkle those in.

Well, I've got something to share from him right off the top. After the opening credits, we got a fan mail flurry again about Nellie not being featured as the manager.

Yes, I noticed that, too. I thought, for sure this opening credits would have something with her on her desk, but no.

I asked Steve Healy about it, I said, Did the writers have an arc in mind for Nellie as manager? And he said there was not a clear plan with the other managers. It was sort of preplanned, They knew it was going to be an arc.

Oh jeez, yeah, oh my gosh.

He said he did remember talking to Catherine Tate one day at lunch early on, and she had shared that she found California kind of odd compared to London. So they did try to incorporate some of that kind of fish out of water stuff into her character, so that was something that they had preplanned for her arrival to Scranton.

But they didn't know about Nellie's position within the Dunder Mifflin hierarchy.

Or how long she would be staying manager? They were kind of deciding week to week how that would go.

Got it well, Robert, California is going to arrive, and he's not greeted by anyone because Aaron is in Florida. He sneaks up behind Pam, who has headphones on, She's drinking her coffee, she's rocking out.

Yeah, she is listening to Drake featuring Swizz Beatz. I have an audio clip. Would you like to hear what Pam was warming up with for the day?

Oh, I know what she was warming up to, but I think we should all hear it. It's fancy. Oh, I know.

Go go, go go ahead. Oh you fancy, huh? oh you fancy huh? oh you fancy huh?

Yeah.

It got me thinking, Do you warm up with music? Ang, I texted you. I said, I think we should each think about this and we should play our warm-up-for-the-day music.

A hundred percent.

You do, oh yeah.

And sometimes if I think the kids, you know, I have teenagers now, need to pick me up on the way to school. Maybe they got a big test, maybe they got to get amped up. I do the Carpool DJ stuff, I play some songs to get us going.

Oh, wow, you got your Carpool playlist?

But it's the mom version, I don't know if it's exactly their stuff. I have a good mix, I really do.

Okay, what is your main go-to?

I really have two.

Okay.

That I love. I love Alicia Keys, Girl on fire, mm-hmm. And I love a little Joan Jett. Hey, I'm a kid of the 70s, and Joan Jett really wakes me up.

Yeah, let's hear it.

Living in the past is a new generation.

I love it, I just added it to my playlist.

Isn't it a good one?

That is so good, you know? Lee wrote and directed. A movie called Ordinary World stars Billy Joe Armstrong and Joan Jett makes a cameo in it. It was also right around the time that both of them were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year. Like the same ceremony. Mm-hmm.

Rock and roll man, love her, love her. Well Jenna, what about you?

Well, as you know, I mostly drive in silence.

I know, I know this.

But sometimes in the mornings, if I'm dragging or something, my go-to warm-up pick-me-up is the musical Hamilton.

Oh, I love Hamilton, that's on our mix, too.

I will always end with the same song, like, as I'm getting close to home, I'll switch so that I end on room where it happened.

Oh, I love it.

That's my major pump-me-up and I have a clip.

Yeah, I want to be in the room where it happened.

And here's the pièce de résistance. No one else was in the room where it happened, the room where it happened, the room where it happened, no one else was in the room where it happened.

I love it so much.

I've seen Hamilton on Broadway three times since it came out, once with the very original cast, The OG, The OG. I had to get the super expensive, terrible seats, you couldn't get a ticket, and I've seen it twice since with the current cast. The energy in the theater, yeah, for this whole show, is like, I don't even know how to describe it.

I love it, too, I have to say. Also on my mix are a few songs from the musical Six. Oh, yes, and I also love if you don't have this on your playlist. I'm Every Woman by Chaka Khan. Sure, yeah, it's so good.

Well, now I feel pumped up, actually, I feel especially pumped for the rest of this podcast. Robert gets distracted from his conversation with Pam because Nellie is gonna finally arrive. He's giving Pam a speech about how the best work is done between 9 and 10 a...m.

Nellie's gonna walk in the door at 950.

The biggest eye rolls, I mean, is that one of your eye roll memes, Angela?

Because it's not it should be needs to be. It's an eye roll that I do, kind of a weird thing with my mouth like it. Delicious. I wrote a lot of big acting choices in this episode, I.

I want to do a fan catch here for you from Sophia D. in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, who said that at two minutes and 20 seconds. Nellie mentions that she snoozes her alarm clock in nine minute increments. Sophia said This made me wonder why the snooze feature on alarm clocks are nine minutes long, because it seems like such a random number. So I did a mini deep dive. Oh, cool, Sophia's gonna tell us, thank you, Sophia.

Hmm, should we be able to choose our snooze? Yeah, you can. you can choose. now I can choose my snooze. Well, you can set a timer.

So when I hit snooze, do I preset my snooze time? Because I don't want to in the moment to wake up if I'm like, having to, yeah.

No, I don't know about that. Just like do like the wheel, like I just spin it, I'm like, Yeah, okay, ten minutes.

I know that there's someone out there who knows how to operate their phone and they're dying because we are asking questions.

I think they're answering, we do this often, Lady, I think we have our moments and they're like, Oh my gosh, you are our two old aunts.

Well, if you could change your snooze time from nine minutes to something else, would you?

Probably not, I would maybe do seven, seven, lucky number seven.

You know why? Because I want to snooze twice, but 18 minutes feels like too much snoozing.

But maybe 14 minutes feels right to me. The fact that you're breaking it down like that tells me you're not a real like.

Professional snoozer No, I very rarely snooze. Uh-huh. I don't see the point I wait to have my alarm go off until the very last minute.

Well, Nellie is a snoozer whack, she hits it a lot. Robert says he thinks there's something more going on with her than just a lack of willpower. You know, mm-hmm. And he's gonna have Jim and Dwight help her move and get settled.

He's concerned about her. Not only that, he's gonna tell everyone in the office that at the end of the day, we're gonna have a welcome party for her. So start planning. Yeah, Robert is so invested in Nellie and her happiness.

You know, when we were talking to Steve Healy, our writer, he said. In an early version of the episode, this episode was called Help me Not to do her.

I love that we get these nuggets from our writers, I know that's incredible.

And now we have some rapid-fire, back-to-back talking heads. It's Pam, Jim, Pam, Jim. They're like, Why are we throwing a party for someone who's horrible? Why is Nellie even here? why is she here?

I know now we are gonna join Andy and Aaron, they're in the car, they're driving back to Scranton, they're so cute, Taylor, M, from Brunswick, Georgia, said. I love the callback to the season 6 episode, murder, where Andy asked Aaron out on a date in Savannah while as their murder mystery characters. And now they're back together again, and they're wearing their Savannah t-shirts.

They're making up songs, you guys, and he's gonna sing to crazy kids on the Journey of life. Aaron's gonna chime in going to Pennsylvania. Mm-hmm. All the hope in the world, these two.

They're gonna make a pit stop, mm-hmm, they're gonna have a little lunch, and they're gonna explain that. They're on their way to Jessica's parents cabin in southern Pennsylvania, Andy thinks this is gonna be a good place to let her down. Easy.

Her parents cabin. There are so many moments in this episode where I thought, You know what, Andy and Aaron belong together? I'm changing my mind. Jessica, you know what? You narrowly escaped? It's so true.

I have the location of the park, we got some mail, people were curious. This is a little bit of movie magic because this scene in the park quote-unquote park was shot on the same property as the cabin. Oh, it was kind of right next to the cabin.

Aaron and Andy get back in the car, get on the road, and he thinks, maybe it's time for a little smoochy smooch, but Aaron shuts that down. Uh-uh, buddy, not till you're officially single. Mm-hmm. So they got a wait. Yeah, we don't care. I know we were team Jessica.

It did, although I'm gonna have a moment where I turn on Jessica a little later, Okay, okay, so I just so everyone knows I can turn on her.

Okay, I think I know the moment all right. And I think they needed it because I think we had to start rooting for Andy and Aaron. Up next in the break room, I titled this scene Mean girls in the break room. And if anyone wants to write a pop song version about it and tag us, I will gladly play it. Phyllis, Oscar, Pam and Angela are really griping about having to throw a party for Nellie, and then Phyllis proposes, maybe on purpose. They throw a bad party, like a really crappy party. Mm-hmm. Angela's like, Ooh, maybe we should have the party right here in the break room, and then they giggle.

Have 90 million catches from this scene. Let's go number one. When did Oscar join the PPC? I don't know.

Not flat ironed. No, it is leftover event hair. Okay, a hundred percent. And then Kim had to match it every day because we always got excited when I had leftover event hair. Also, did you catch at 5 minutes 28 seconds that my ponytail holder is the exact same color as my hair?

I thought it was your hair. No, I thought they did a wraparound.

No, it's a ponytail holder. I have a catch at 5 minutes and 30 seconds. What's that?

I am not wearing my PAM engagement ring and wedding band, I'm wearing a different ring.

It looks like someone wore at home and left it at home. I don't know what I did. That would happen. Sometimes we would just leave set and I was like, Oh, no, I'm wearing Angela's earrings and her rings.

Yeah, the wardrobe department had doubles of everything for me, for earrings and necklaces, because I would do that so often. And then, you know, you take them off at night to shower. And you, you tell yourself, I'm gonna put this on in the morning, I'm gonna put this on in the morning, and then you leave. And now, like, Jenna, mm-hmm, what happened?

Every time you guys catch Phyllis having a St. Louis accent, it's one of my favorite things. I agree. Well, lady, let's take a break, because when we get back, we're gonna be hauling cube.

We had a fan question for Mallory C in Durham, North Carolina, who said. In the scene where Andy and Aaron are practicing for Andy's breakup with Jessica. It looks like Ed broke and genuinely laughed when Ellie said, What is it? I didn't sleep well last night. Was that scripted?

That's lingo, for he didn't the car the actors are in. He pulled a lot of horse trailer, sure, farming equipment. But he also loaded up a bunch of my stuff and drove the flatbed truck with a trailer attached to it. And that's how I moved to L.A. How much stuff did you take? stuff in the flatbed and in a trailer behind it?

Load up, we're gonna bring her some furniture. Oh, that was really nice, I know well, this flatbed was large.

We've done it before, we did it for Pam and Jim's engagement, but we did not do it this time. No real road. Now, everyone, we're gonna haul some cube, thank God.

How much stuff has Nellie brought with her from Florida? I know, and it's just now arriving a lot, she's unpacked. Nothing, I just want to point out.

I think that Nellie just brings a bunch of boxes and one big, comfy chair, and that's it. She just digs in the box when she needs something that's possible.

Nellie's apartment was in a real apartment complex on Wilkerson Avenue in Valley Village. We did not build this set, we went on location for this as Jim and Dwight helped Nellie.

They're really struggling with one of her big, oversized chairs, Dwight says. You know what? We'll work our magic, we'll make it fit. Nellie's like, No, no, no, no, no, no magicians. No, no, no, let's not go there.

Well, Jim's gonna use that information. Pam's gonna call him on the phone and tell him all about their hilarious bad party plan. And Jim says, Oh, hire a magician, trust me. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Well, we asked Steve Healy if they had been planting a seed. About this magician storyline with Nellie, because remember, in last week's episode, when Nellie arrived in Scranton, she said she hated the Houdini Museum. I'm surprised she went. I, I don't think she went, I think she just knows it's there. Mm-hmm.

Well, remember, I was a comedic magician. I performed my comedic magic show, Oh, at stand-up nights. I still want to bring that back.

I want to make it part of our live show, I want you to do your magic act, of course. Why have I not been doing it? I don't know.

Done, done. I still have the cassette tape of music, and I bought a what do you call it? a tuxedo jacket with tails.

At a vintage shop, I have it. I know the perfect moment in our live show, I love our live show. This has to happen and I think I will be your assistant on roller skates.

I am so disappointed we are only just now thinking of it, but I am so happy that we did.

We have to add it. Andy and Aaron are going to arrive now at Jessica's family cabin. It is so charming. Mm-hmm. In the shooting draft, there was a scene where Aaron and Andy notice as they pull up that there seems to be a lot of people there.

Well, the Knock on the window is from Lauren, played by Sue Redman. She studied acting at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago and studied improv at Second City, Chicago. And, according to IMDB Fun Fact, she played a nurse in the movie Contagion and accidentally lodged a prop piece of medical equipment in Matt Damon's right ear.

How do you do that? I don't know, chief.

Misused the prop equipment? I suppose I. She's giving him an exam and she lodged it in his ear. Yeah, I'm sure. Temporarily, oh.

My god.

You know what? This is exactly why I never, ever want to be on a medical show, I.

Would do that? You might hurt somebody, I don't know, I just don't even know how you come back from that. What is your end-of-the-day convo like after a day like that, when you call your best friend?

Yeah, that's how you would lead that convo, for sure. Well, Lauren's gonna tell them that Jessica is not there, she's gone for a jog. This is right around the time when Erin and Andy realized that they've come upon a bachelorette party. She's wearing a veil in her hair.

I would like to play a bullshit card. What is it? Andy and Jessica are dating? They're in a full-on relationship, right? How is it that Andy wouldn't know that?

You know, he knows she's at the cabin, but he doesn't know why she's just there solo. Is he a bad listener? You know? Did Jessica say? Hey, this weekend I'm gonna be up at my parents cabin?

I'm hosting a party, it's kind of stressful. I have to buy extra groceries, extra gummy penises, gummy penises and a veil, and we have to have games. I'm gonna blow up a bunch of balloons and put people's names on them, tape it to a poster board. I'm very busy.

We got a fan question from Santa M. in Houston, Texas, who said Where was Jessica's cabin actually located? It looks a lot like East Coast cabins. Well, I'll tell you, we shot this at a filming location called Canyon Ranch. it is in the Santa Monica mountains, it's just a film location.

Yeah, has it been used for a horror movie? Because I always feel like places with lots of cabins or where all the shit goes down.

I am sure, but if you go to the website, they have a lot of rugged terrain. So you know, the shot of people like driving off-road to set up camp at a creek, yeah, Canyon ranch got it. Yeah, I saw a lot of those on the website. Okay, I didn't see any horror movies, but I'm sure, right.

We'll never know. Well, Steve Healy said that the cabin they filmed at had some really kooky angles. Oh yeah, and it was very challenging to get some of the shots. He also said that he didn't think the Santa Monica Mountains looked much like Pennsylvania, but our writer, Danny Chun is from that area and vouched for it. I thought it looked authentic and.

The fact that the cabin came fully furnished probably means that we didn't move stuff around, which was challenging for us. Mm-hmm, I see that. Back to Nellie's apartment, Dwight is unpacking things and he wonders out loud if king-size sheets are called presidential in England. And he really wishes he had a tweeter account. Let me tell you what happened to me.

After this comment, let me guess something to do with either bedding or tweeter.

Bedding Okay, I wanted to know what our king-size sheets called in England? what are they called? Well, the sheet sizes and bed sizes in England are called single, double, King, Super King and Emperor.

So if I bought a queen-size bedding set and moved to the UK, it would not. Throw in the trash, throw it, throw in the trash, maybe cut it up, use it for rags. Well, what am I gonna fit on your bed? What am I doing cutting up if?

You rank the large beds by size, here's the order it would go in, from smallest to largest.

Okay.

King, That's the smallest of the large beds, okay, it goes. King, Super King, California King, Emperor. The two beds that are closest in size is the British Super King and the American California King. They're both 71 inches wide, but the California King is much longer. Yes, then the Super King. The Emperor bed is 7 feet wide and 7 feet long.

Hey, get ready for your next cocktail party, you're gonna be a delight, guess what?

There are more king beds than you could have ever imagined in America. There is more than just the King and the California King. There is the Alaskan King, the Wyoming King and the Texas King, and they're all bigger than the California King. The Wyoming King is the same as an emperor bed. in the U.K. the Alaskan King is the biggest bed.

Yeah, big room, I guess. I mean, I guess, if I'm a professional basketball player, I got a sweet pad and I need a lot of legroom. Yeah, I mean, remember those shows, was it on MTV where it was like you went and got to see people's houses, was it called like cribs or something?

Maybe he had the Alaskan king. Did he have a big bed? He did, but it was like a giant circle bed.

It was like a huge circle. Did your list include any big, king-sized circle beds?

Not specifically. That would be a custom bed, and it did say in the article that many N.B.A. players have custom beds made for themselves to best fit their size. Oh, mm-hmm.

Well, Shaquille O'Neal had one, and you know what? It had a giant Superman blanket on it. Oh yeah, in fact, this whole house had Superman stuff everywhere, like the logo would be in the garage, on the shower doors, in the hedges. So yeah, he likes the theme, it was a nickname, and he really leaned into it. Superman was one of his nicknames.

Cuz he's clutch, he's the clutch. yeah, he's of the team, he's the superman clutch.

He's the SC of the game.

We would be so bad, I cannot, Oh gosh.

Anyway, okay, I'm so sorry. Back to your king-sized beds, that's it.

Okay, that's what I got. A lot of these very, very large beds are for family sleeps, people who like to co-sleep in one great big bed as a family. Okay, and also your dog, I guess, your giant dog.

Mm-hmm, your small Shetland pony.

You could a hundred percent put a small Shetland pony in this bed and still have room for your family of six.

Michael Scott could have slept at the foot of this bed and never even bothered. Jan a hundred percent.

This would have solved all their problems. No bench needed.

Jim and Dwight are now gonna find a shoe box that says, do not open, so of course, what do they do? They open it? Dwight's going through all the pictures. Mm-hmm, I.

Asked Steve Burgess, Who is the man in the pictures? This was a background performer that they hired. He and Catherine had a big photo shoot on Monday morning of this week. It went from 7 to 9 a...m and they changed their wardrobe.

Nellie is gonna walk in and find them going through the shoe box, and she says, Oh, I see you found Benjamin, but Benjamin isn't the name of her ex-boyfriend. It's the name of the box mm-hmm that contains pictures of Henry.

That's right, her ex-boyfriend, mm-hmm. And this is when she's gonna share with them all about this tragic breakup. Yeah, she had to sell their home at a loss.

Yeah, and then there's a photo of Nellie and Henry. And he's got a looks like a magician's cape. And they're like, Is this for Halloween? And she goes, No, that's the worst of it. Mm-hmm, he is the magician.

So Jim tries to call, Pam, tells her to call off the pranks, cancel the magician. At least, yes.

So in the shooting draft, the mean girls in the break room scene actually was mid process. They were still trading horrible ideas and Pam leaves to take the phone call and comes back. But there was a whole added beat where they're still trading ideas before Pam gets the phone call. And Angela actually gets very tickled, and she gets the giggles in the shooting draft, it says. Angela giggles into her hands.

I got one. Let's pretend that we thought it was her birthday and get her a cake with a few too many candles on it. Like, 49 Pam, that is brilliant.

Wow, wow, I mean, I remember doing that. I remember brainstorming with Ed and Steve about what does it look like when Angela's this tickled. So they had me cover my face with my hands. Almost. Kind of like what Mindy does when she gets to, when she actually laughs, when she actually laughs and is trying not to break on camera. And then they just said, Angela, just like a high-pitched kind of giggle over and over, so I did.

And.

Anyway, it was cracking us up. It was kind of like the moment when we learned Angela eats like a squirrel.

You know, lady, when Pam does come back in the break room after her phone call with Jim, mm-hmm. At 11 minutes and 22 seconds. I am now wearing my PAM engagement ring and wedding band. They're back.

Someone caught it, someone found, yeah.

Pam is gonna try to get them to call off this prank party and no one is having it. Yeah, yeah, toots, we're not stopping this train, so get off the tracks, Phyllis says. That's right in the shooting draft.

One of the things that Pam tells Jim is you need to stall, like if she's gonna like, rearrange this party, he's got a stall. And this scene made it into deleted scenes, Jim trying to stall. And we learned some new things about Nellie. I thought you might like to hear it.

All right, then let's get going, all right. Oh, you know what, though? House really isn't a home until we've made some memories here, some conversations, so let's sit back down and let's mix up.

I would know I don't go in for that cheesy reality stuff. Okay, more of a survivor fan, right?

Well, I think that cricket is a stupid version of baseball.

Everything is a stupid version of something a bike is a stupid car, a baby is a stupid adult. Come back to the office, I've got a list, Nellie Stupid.

That was delightful. Uh-huh. I loved every minute of that. Nellie is a survivor fan.

She also has a list of stupids, and I asked Steve Healy. I was like, please tell me, you guys pitched Nellie's list of stupids, he said. I'm sure we did, he said. I couldn't find it, but she has a lot on her list.

I have to imagine that Nellie's list of stupids took up like a good two hours of one of their evenings. I feel like they just would have loved pitching on that. Mm-hmm, we are back at the cabin. The Bachelorette party is playing a game. And rather than Andy asking Jessica to step outside with him while he has a private conversation with him, they have instead decided to join the bachelorette party again.

Mm-hmm, I've done a 180 because the two of them together make.

Horrible choices. I know this is why the balance with Jessica was so important. Or whatever. We've said it, we've said it so much, we've let, we're gonna let it go.

Let's also point out that the Bachelorettes have been day drinking and this party is amping up. They're popping balloons of all the exes that have done her wrong and making speeches. First balloon to go is John. I also saw Matthew, Greg, Mike and some other name that started with a C. They're really gonna get into it.

What Sam Cassie, have you seen a gummy penis? Oh yeah, of course I haven't, okay.

Sam and Jen are like, Uh, duh.

Penis straws and all the bachelorette you haven't seen, like the gummy penis straws, I've seen a penis straw.

I've never seen a gummy penis, but guess what? You can buy them on Amazon. The ones I found are called jelly willies. Mm-hmm. But oh man guys, there's so much. There's penis shaped chocolates, lots of lollipops, cakes.

What's that? It's a waffle shaped like a penis, but it's seasonal, so is it like pumpkin spiced? Well, okay.

Yeah, what season? At Christmas, it looked like it had strawberries and whipped cream that doesn't scream Christmas to me. Well, listen, I'm not gonna argue with the people in Iceland about their penis waffles.

Sounds delicious, a lot going on. I love how surprised you are by all of the penis.

There's a whole industry of penis.

Desserts Yeah, out there, maybe there's some.

Savory penis stuff. I didn't see any penis crackers, someone get on it, penis potato chips, they're probably out there.

Why? That's so funny to me? There's a whole untapped market, is what you're saying. Get on it at this point. Megan, who was played by Dana Powell. You might recognize her from Bridesmaids or The Good Place or Modern family. She's gonna come up to Andy and just give him a bunch of big bear hugs and say, you know, he's nothing like these awful exes. And she wants him to sing, she wants him to sing for everybody.

Dana is hilarious and the shooting draft, it said. Her name was Megan are. there were two Megan's I know, and she was the drunken rugby girl. Dana and I have known each other a long time.

She was great in this episode, I know I love everything she did. I know we had a fan question from Rose T and Canada, who said When Andy starts to sing a song? I'm not sure if you're familiar with the song, but it's called Loch Lomond and it's an old Scottish folk song. The story is sorrowful, but the song is so beautiful and full of hope.

I am so excited because Rose, I have been to Loch Lomond. Hey, I have stayed at Loch Lomond. I've been on a boat on Loch Lomond. It's beautiful, I want to hear the song.

Oh.

Scotland.

But me and my true love will never meet again on the Bonnie Bonnie Banks of.

Isn't that beautiful? It is beautiful. That was Peter Hollins. Well, I loved it, and Loch Lomond is gorgeous. I will share a picture in our stories that are now highlighted.

Well, Nellie's gonna arrive, and they're gonna start with Creed serenading her. Mm-hmm, he says. Get comfy. This first song is over 30 minutes long.

Oh my gosh lady, I remember us cracking up. I know there was a candy bag. Alt for this. Okay, so funny. Creed would have. Instead of saying the song is 30 minutes long, he would have said the first song is audience participation.

Wow, can you imagine I have a fun fact about the guitar that Creed is playing? Is it his actual guitar? It's his personal guitar? It's a limited-edition replica of Robert Johnson's 1926 Gibson L1. Robert Johnson was an American blues musician and songwriter.

Mandolins and a banjo, and the man like Ed, he can just pick up anything with strings pretty much and play it, yeah.

We're going back to the cabin again now, and Aaron tells Andy, I think we should leave, but Andy says, I'm gonna get this breakup over with. He pulls Jessica aside. Finally, he's babbling, and she says, Wait a second, are you dumping me?