Mike Schur - Pt. 2

the Office. He went on to co create Parks and Wreck with Greg Daniels, as well as some other huge TV shows of our time like Brooklyn, The Good Place, just to name a few. Now, as I mentioned in the last episode, which you should definitely check out if you haven't already, Mike as a writer, as a producer, as an artist, he's had some insane achievements, and we're

gonna get into some of those. But more importantly, you're going to get to hear about the one thing that he always hated, that he described as a quote waking nightmare. That's right, his role as mos Shrewd. Now, I was, Oh, you have no idea how happy I was to find out that my suspicions were correct, that Mike had to play Mos as kind of a cruel joke in the writer's room, a writer's room joke because they found it funny to make him do all of the stupid stuff that he had to do. And boy, he had to

do some really stupid stuff. But I'm glad he did, and I'm glad he is back joining us today because Mike is a force in the world of TV, and more than that, he was a huge and important part of the Office family. So please join me in welcoming the man who helped create so many of the iconic TV personalities we know and love. Mike. Sure, Bubble and Squeak. I love it Bubble and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker

Cookie every month left over from the night before. You and I. You may have forgotten this, but you and I share an Emmy. We do we do yes for the webisodes, for the webisodes. Yes, um, did you ever get yours? I don't think I have a actual trophy for it now. Well I did, I do, partly or all because we were invited to the ceremony and we accepted them, and it came home with me. Great. Yeah, so I have it. Look it's great. Actually, it's really

was really fun. I have nothing but fun memories of that little crazy day that we spent around you and Paul wrote them and it was longer than a day. It was three days and three days. It was ten episodes over three days. That was like before everyone did webisodes all the time and these little extra things like that was a really fun like side project that we

just sort of threw together. They're really funny too, they are, yes, And I think Randall's idea was we were able to do some things there that we well, we couldn't necessarily do that without the full camera crew. I think, yes, it was. The premise was it was like a holiday or something because we didn't have everyone to be in

the background. So yeah, that was right. It was. We had a lot of backstory for why it was the way it was, but um, the accounts significant because um, I have an Emmy, congratulate an actual emmy, but you also want an Emmy. But we were never paid for it, and it led to the writers strike. I've watched a video of you yesterday from when we were on strike. When you were on strike, Yeah, you guys produced a

video and you said a number of things in the video. Okay, I don't remember any of them, but I saw it and I was like, oh my god. And then we were joking that you guys were coming up with bits as you were walking the picket line and making the video. Kind of funny anyway, um, but you said in part that you're watching this on the internet, a thing that pays us zero dollars. They were put on NBC dot com and they so old ads and we won a Daytime Emmy and didn't make any money. The writer strike

was a really big deal. I don't know. Just talk to me about that time and what you remember of Greg saying no, we're not going to produce material for free. There It was a very inspiring moment for me personally, because the central issue at the time, this is two

thousand and seven. The central issue at the time was jurisdiction over the internet because Netflix hadn't started making original shows yet, but people felt like they were going in that direction, and NBC and every every network had a website and they were starting to like stream in primitive fashion, the stream things on the over the internet, and suddenly

it was like, well, if this is the future. It didn't take a genius to think like, well, this is the future, Like who cares whether you it's a television screen you hang on your wall or sit on a platform, or whether it's your computer screen. This is how people are consuming the work we do, and we ought to get paid for them. So so those episodes were like a big part of that because I they were shot

with the union labor and no one got paid. So that was like the you know, it wasn't like because of those episodes that the writers could want one strike. Those we episodes were an example of the kind of thing that we were trying. We were saying, like, if this is the way things are going, we gotta do something about this, right. So because the companies at the time, we're saying like, you know, we don't have enough information.

Let's just let's just let's just wait three years from now, we'll have more information and then we'll know what the future of this is. And we were like, no, you're you're trying to you're basically trying to grandfather in the internet as like a thing that you don't pay for him. So, um, we went on strike and it was a huge deal and it was very scary. It was like unclear what was going on. The communication wasn't sublime. And Greg was like, well,

we're gonna pick out our own show. And the reason we're gonna pick out our own show is isn't a show of solidarity. Isn't a saying like this is the thing we care about the most in the world. And we were in that little Chandler studios out in the middle of Van Eyes and it was not on a major studio lot, and so we all showed up to work at six in the morning and we pick it at our own show. And we were in the middle

of season four. We were about to shoot the Dinner Party episode, one of the most famous episodes of the show of all time, the best read through I think we ever had. You remember that read through? That read there was was like it was like a rock concert. And we had finished that script. That script is ready to go, and that script could have been shot. The actors could have just executed the script and the directors were on strike and the crew wasn't on strike. But

Steve Carrell said, um no, I'm not. This is the way we make this show is collaborative. And there's writers on the set and there's producers on the set, and we changed things and we work out new little moments and pitched new jokes, and I don't think I'm gonna make the show without the writers. And he didn't shot up, and so they shot a couple of scenes from the episode that Michael Scott was in, and then there was nothing else to do and the show shutdown. And that

was such a heroic thing. He just stayed home and he got calls from a lot of lawyers and a lot of studio executives, from really really powerful people saying you have to do this, and he was like, no, don't watch me. And Greg called him and he was home and Greg was like, hey, I know that you've been had a lot of pressure coming at you. Are

you okay? And he was like, yeah, I'm home, I'm playing with my kids, and was totally unfazed by it and had the attitude of like, this is a collaborative effort, this is a thing that we do together. We don't do this, this isn't without writers on the set. We don't make the same show. And I'm not going to make that show fire me basically, was what he was saying, he called their bluff and the show shut down and writs around strike for four months, and then they gave

up jurisdiction of the internet. We went back to work and then we made the Dinner Party, which is amazing, and it was truly the story of what he did spread like wildfire. Um, he did not have to do that. There were very few people who were in the position that he was in, obviously as the star of a very popular, successful, gigantic, monolithic hit show. But still he didn't have to do that. He could no one would

have been mad at him. He wasn't on the actor and I was, you know, I remember having a huge, long conversation with my representation saying like, how can I walk past them? How can I cross how can I cross the line? And he said that that you know, you have no choice. You have to show up, and we knew that, and Ed, I remember Ed came out and was like hey, guys, and he hung out with us, and I remember Ed going, I'm really sorry, but I have and we're like, no, no, no, we get it.

Your union is not on strike here, like you're not. We get it. It's fine. No one's bad at you. Like, no one had any animosity towards any of the actors because you were in breach of contract if you didn't show up. Steve was in breach of contract. He just said, I don't care fire me. And it's easier for the star of the show to do that than it is

for anyone else. But the story spread like wildfire, and Mindy wrote a sign in marker um hung it on his trailer that said like Steve Corral American hero or something and took a picture of it, and it spread very quickly around the town and it was a real like wind beneath the wings of the guild at the time. It's amazing. I mean he you can't sort of overstate just what an amazing guy he is and person to work with ya, I mean, the person who's number one on the call sheet sets the tone of the show

age He or she just does. It's people take their cues from that person. That person kind of says like, this is what's allowable behavior, and this is what isn't allowable behavior in a in a number of different ways, actively and passively. And his presence at the top of the call sheet, especially in that early going, but his professionalism, his his dedication. He was never late a day in his life. He knew all of his lines, and when he didn't, he improvised something that was funnier than what

we had written. Um. I don't know if you know this story, but there was a even on successful shows. In fact, especially on successful shows, networks are always trying to slash budgets, right, Like it's when something's making money. It's not like thank God, we're making money, it's how do we make more money? And there was a budget

meeting with NBC and Greg. It must have been after season four because Greg and I were developing Parks and Wreck and he asked me to come to say, like, you're gonna have to deal with this kind of crap and you should see what it's like. And there was a budget terry meeting and they were trying to slash the budget and one of the things on the table was reducing the size of the cast because at that point, how many series regulars were there? Twenty two or something.

It was a lot by far, the largest cast of any show on television. And Greg was like, I don't think that's a good idea that people invest in these characters. Everyone has a different favorite character, and even a side character, a character like you know, Jan or something who was not even a series regular, Like if you don't have her on the show in a certain number of episodes,

it doesn't feel like the same show. And they were like, well, we have to find the money somewhere, you know, and we're only making seven eight million dollars a year on

this thing. And so we went back and we had a meeting with Steve and I can't remember who was there, but Greg was like, okay, so here's what happened in the meeting, and they want to cut the budget in this and that, and they threw out a number of options, one of which was reducing the cast, and Steve went no, no, no, no, no, no, Like he said no like eight times in a row. And Greg was like, well that was my reaction to and Steve just went, no, it's not happening. That is

not happening. We with that is not going to happen, Like he just so completely shut it down as even he was like, this is the show. These are the people on the show. This is how the show will be until the end of the show. That's it. That's it, And and there were executives in the room, and it was like that ended the discussion. It was just over, like there was no It was a little bit like

sue me or fire me. It was like, in so many words, he was saying, I won't do the show if you do that, like I will walk away, and it just shut it down and shut it down forever, and no one ever ever came up again, never once. So mazing. Yeah, he's just he's just such a mench and and his like it wasn't angry, he wasn't pounding his fist. He was just saying, no, that's not going to happen, that nonstarter. Move on, what's next. And that's

the way he is he was. It was just this quiet, firm leadership that he exhibited all the time in every direction. And he there was another time in two the big

future of TV was product placement. That's where money was going to really be made, right, you were gonna Greg used to say, like the deal was you have to take some medicine when you watch TV in the medicine as these ads, but then you get a yummy treat and the treat is the show you like, right, And product placement was they were going to try to whirld of medicine into the the and um Ben was like a big proponent of it, and so was it by the way everyone else like it was like this is

the future, Like the futures were going back ironically to like the fifties, and it was like the Lucky Strike comedy exactly, this is delicious. So we have this big meeting, all hands on deck meeting. Um we had done the Staples thing, remember the Staples where you had it. You you you bore the brunt of it because you had to play with that shredder and Staples didn't send me a check. No,

Well that was that was that was partly. That was a big part of Greg's objection to it was like, if Brian wants to do a Staples ad, then he can go do a Staples ad and they can pay him money. But Staples is getting free Brian baum Gardner and free Rain Wilson and free whoever by like giving NBC money and the show doesn't even really benefit. It's this kind of complicated calculus, right, But we had this big meeting where we were really being sold on product placement,

and it was it was getting away from us. It was being put to us in a way where it was like, you're going to say yes to this. We're going to keep telling you to do this until you say yes. Talk talk talk talk, talk talk. And then Craig went, Steve, what do you think? Which was a brilliant idea, and Steve said, you know, I started in commercials, and commercials are great when you're a struggling actor and

you need money and stuff. But what happens in commercials is you do a commercial for coke, and you know, you do a take where you take a sip of coke and you say mmmmm, coke tastes great, and then they go, okay, cut, can you rotate the can a little more like this and hold it like this? Okay, good, Go again and you go coke. I love coke. Coke takes right, and they go great, But can you raise it up to your lips an inch higher when you take the sip? Because you just do that over and

over and over again. And he said, the idea that anyone would have that kind of influencer control over our show and the way we make our show, which is loose and fun and collaborative, and the operators are diving for different things, and the actors get to try different things every time. I remember him saying the idea that Rain would say something funny and we wouldn't be able to use it because he wasn't holding the coke can at the right angle. I don't think that's a good idea.

And there was a pause and then it was like, Okay, well, let's we'll pick up this discussion, you know, next week or something. Never brought it up again. He just like he was just the He was the guardian of the show. In that way, he and Greg were just they had two different versions of the job, but the onset world of the show. Steve was the guardian protector of what we did and how it was done and who did

it and no one messed them. It was just like he was the final arbiter because he knew, he understood so implicitly what made it great and he wasn't interested in letting anyone mess it up. What to you makes the office the office? Or what does the office mean to you? Oh? God, well those are those are even questions? What makes the office the office? And what does the office mean to me? What? What what does the office mean to you? Well? I mean, it's where the Office

is where I learned how to write. And I mean that in exactly as fundamental a way as I'm saying. And I didn't know how to write before I got the job, and now I do. And it's because of that show, not just Greg's tutelage, but the mechanics of the stories that we told and the the obstacles we

had to overcome. Obstacles are good for comedy, and the Office had the basic obstacles of being a network show and having to cram a story into twenty two minutes and all that stuff, which are great obstacles everyone should learn how to write on a network sitcom. But then it had all these other artificial obstacles the Greg added and the mocumentary style added, and the number of characters that in the show. So Greg taught me how to

actually write, and then the show taught me how to write. Well, I think, because any episode you did, you would look at it and go like, well, it's like a jigsaw puzzle. There are twenty people in the cast, and there's there's three stories, and I have twenty one minutes and thirty seconds, and how do I put this all together? And you learn to be really non precious with your own writing. You learn like these things are disposable. They're not poems.

Greg used to say that the scripts aren't poems, right, their architectural blueprints there. They're living documents, and they change, and it's okay for them to change, Like you can think this is great. There's only a couple of times in my life where something didn't really play well and I really really odd for it, knowing that it wasn't gonna play well. One of them, this is like, this is like my own, this is my own like indulgence,

but I wrote it. I wrote a Dwight has a talking head where he says, um, it was always backstory that Dwight's and maternal ancestors were maybe Nazis, And so we did a talking head where Dwight says, um, my maternal grandmother is like a hundred and two and still puttering around down in Argentina, And then he says, um, I tried to visit her once, but my visa was protested by the show of Foundation, and I just I it didn't really It got like a moderate laugh because

a lot of people probably didn't what the show of Foundation was. But like I remember fighting really hard for that in the edit, like Greg wanted to cut it, I think, and I was like, please, please, please, please please. But that's the exception that proves the rule. Mostly it was like you watch, we watched these cuts together, and you see what works and what doesn't work, and you just cut everything that doesn't work, like you don't get precious?

Was the show foundation in there? Yeah? That that aired? Okay, Yes, that totally aired, and it makes me laugh every time I remember that. I remember that part of it. No, it aired, It definitely aired because I was basically like, I will never ask you for anything for the rest of my life if you leave this in. Was there anything that got cut that you wish hadn't. I'm sure there was. I don't remember offhand. So in the Job

I think it was. In the Job we wrote talking Hand for Dwight that was I think an entire page long.

It was insane. It was like, um, a version of a much shorter version of it aired, but there was a It was about how one of his cousins, I think or Moses brother or something was had one leg that was shorter than the other one, and when he ran to the bus he would have to curve in like a long arc because the natural awkward gait of one leg being shorter than the other one would cause him to run in like a into like a long curve.

And it was nonsense. I mean it was. It went on for so long on Paul and I were just in a crazy giggle fit and we wrote like the Endless talking Head for Rain and he loved it and he like memorized the whole thing and like nailed it. And I was like, I wish this could air, but there's no way to justify it. It's complete. There's nothing to do with the story at all, you know. Um. Greg Greg also introduced this concept of double duty. Have

people talking about double duty. Greg's thing was like, look, we have such a limited time here, and he said the bad sitcoms split there lines. Some are jokes and some are are like story, because he said, what happens is if you've separated the story and the jokes, you cut all the jokes to get the story, and then you have nothing but stories. So he was like really hard on us of like, you have to make the story.

Minds funny. They have to do double duty, and if they don't, then it's not good enough and you gotta do it again, do it again, and do it again. Yeah, and it's that was an amazing lesson to learn it because it was like, yeah, you don't have time. You can't have talking heads that are jokes, except for when they were about the show A Foundation. Yeah, I mean, they're definitely worse. So that's so funny. Yeah, I want to get you out of here. You have talked so

much about Greg and so poetically and articulately. Is there anything that you want to say about you leaving with Greg to start Parks and Wreck? Yeah? So he was actually during the writers strike, we were picketing UM at Paramount and he was like, Hey, I want to talk to you, and he basically said like the network wants me to do a new show, and I want to do it with you, which was like, you know, I remember,

I remember, like what what does this feel like? And I was like, oh, it feels like Mozart told me he wants to design a piano with me or something like. That's the closest analog I could come. Was like, this is the this is it, Like this is the moment that my life changes even more than it has already and so at the time Ben wanted to do a spinoff of the Office for obvious reasons. But I was like, is that? What was that? What this is? And he

was like, I don't know. I told Ben in the network that I would do another show with with you and if it turned out that the best idea this is, It's classic Greig. It's like, if the best idea is to do a spinoff of the from the Office, great, But if the best idea is something else, then we should do something else. Which is such a again like Greg also is a man of enormous integrity, creative integrity, and personal integrity. But the idea that he wouldn't just

cash in. He could have cashed in so easily. He could have taken every department. He could have taken the accountants and spun them into his own show. And he could have taken Kelly and spun her into a show. And he could have taken Jan and spun that into which he could have it. He could be the dick Wolf of comedy if he wanted to. But he was like, I don't want to harm the integrity of the office proper.

If there's a way to do it that doesn't do that, then great, but if not, then we'll do something else. And so the strike ends and we go back and we make I don't know fifteen or sixteen episodes of the show that year. And then he and I started meeting. We went to um Norm's diner, and we met for breakfast like three times a week, and I pitched him I don't know, two hundred and seventy five ideas for TV shows, and he and he picked, and he to me like it wasn't a one way street. Some of

them were spin off. Some of them was like, well, maybe we could do something with the warehouse, you know, or maybe a different branch. I mean, he called the show. I don't if you've ever heard this story, but the reason the show is called the Office cole in an American Workplace is because he, thinking a thousand chest moves ahead, was like, if this works, you could do the school an American workplace and do a show about teachers. You could do like, you know, the Team, an American workplace

about a monor league baseball team. Whatever. So some of them were spinoff, some of them weren't. We ended up settling on what became Parts and Wreck, which was basically like the Office is an investigation of the private sector, and we could do it at the same thing with the public sector. And then we got really excited about like we can invent dunder Mifflin, but an entire town, like an entire ecosystem with media outlets and restaurants and city hall and local celebrities and all and a history

and all that stuff and now. So that was what set our brands on fire. So I was around for the beginning of season five through Weight Loss and a couple other episodes, but really mostly what I was doing was focusing on Parks and Rack from that time. So, I mean, I I was very nervous because The Office is the best job I had ever had in my

life by a factor of a thousand. But again I was like, I don't you don't turn down the chance to develop a show with Greg Daniels would be like telling Mozart, no thanks, I can find a better piano teacher, you know. Um. So it was very scary, but it was also I was like, yeah, this is right, this is the right move. And obviously I was correct. Right, here's a I don't know, this just occurred to me. If Greg had not said that to you, would you have left the office? No? God, no, No, I would

have stayed. I mean I don't know if I would have stayed the whole time, but I certainly would have stayed. I had no plans to leave, like I was happily working there. I would have worked there for at least another I think my contract was like two more years at so yeah. I mean I wasn't looking to leave at all, Like, there was no part of me that was itching. I mean when he offered me that chance, and I sort of did my evaluation of like, is

there any reason not to do this? The only reason not to do it was how much I love working on my current job. And like any obvious risks involved with starting something new, there is a real scary thing in this business of like if you've got a bird in the hand, man take like leave in your hands, Like what are you doing? But then I was like, well, if it blows up, I'll bet he'll hire me. Still find some junior writer to kick out of the way.

Can I tell you my favorite here's my favorite Greg story maybe ever And it doesn't even really involve Greg. So we're trying to come up with the idea for Parks and Wreck, and I got really excited about it. And I was like, oh yeah, it's like it's like

a comedy West Wing. That's the like, if the stakes of the West Wing are Russia and China are going to go to war in Kazakhstan, the stakes of this show are the boys soccer team and the girls soccer team both are trying to use the same soccer field, right, And I just saw the whole thing. I saw and Greg was the one who came up with the idea that there's like a pit that she's trying to fill in.

And and so we talked and talked and talked about like a full day session where we'd like pitch and it's usually with ideas for episodes or anything like you know, it's good when, like you, it feels like you accidentally hit an oil vein, you know, the oil spurt, like ideas are just flying. But because he's Greg, he didn't commit to it. He was like, Okay, good, we've got that. Let's keep let's keep pitching, trying to come up with

something else. And we talked about a family show, a mockumentary about a family, and we talked about I can't remember what else, but just day after day after day after day, and the whole time, I was like, no, we have the idea, we know what it is, we know what it is. So Greg used to have people over to his house to watch episodes, right were the whole cast and all the writers, everybody who come to his house. And I saw his wife, Suzanne, and she was like, how's it going? And I was like, it's

going great, you know. And she was like, do you know what the ideas yet? And I was like no, and she was like, I kind of hope it's that government at one And I was like I kind of couldn't mask my like anxiety. And I was like, yeah, yeah, me too, me too. And she laughed and was like,

let me tell you a story. And I said okay, and she said, so early on in Gregg's in my marriage, we were driving, I think they were driving from Chicago to New York and she says, uh, it's ten o'clock at night and I'm starving and we're driving through like shull Kill, Pennsylvania. And I said, honey, you gotta you gotta start, you gotta pull around, starving. I just need I need someone to eat and he was like, okay. So we pull off the highway and we see I

was like, there's a dinner. Go to the dinner. So we go to the diner. We walk in and the waitresses comes over and Greg starts going out, what do you guys serve here? Like what is everyone like? What's everyone's favorite dish here? And she was like, oh, people, we really like the meat loaf and and he goes like, like, how do you prepare it? And she doesn't meat loafing and whatever, and he's like what else do people like? And Suzanne says to him, can we just sit down

and eat? And he goes, no, I don't want to know what kind of food they have, And so he asked that hunter more questions and she goes, Honey, I'm starving less to see and he goes, Susanne, we may never be in Schulkill, Pennsylvania again. This might be the only time we're ever here. We have to like eat at the best place. We have to like learn everything about this place, like get the best dining experience in Scholkill, Pennsylvania. And she said, Then we pulled out and we we

we left. We didn't sit down. We what drove to another restaurant. We went in, he repeated the asked, you know, more questions, what do you serve here? What do people like? Whatever? And finally they found like the fourth place they went to, and maybe they even doubled back and ended up going back to the first one. But she tells me this story and I'm like staring at her mouth agape, and she goes, that's the man I chose to marry, and that's the man you've chosen to develop a TV show.

And it was like I was like, you're right, You're totally right, and like the truth is, I'll bet they did have the best meat loaf in Scholkill, Pennsylvania, and like there's no better TV show that I would have created other than the one that we created together, and like it's it's just who he is. Yeah, well let's

let's play that. Uh played number six. I thought it was weird when you picked us to make a documentary, but all in all, I think an ordinary paper company like dunder Mifflin was a great subject for a documentary. There's a lot of beauty and ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point. So it's really to me clear that's what Greg thought it was all about. Did Lee or anyone to talk about truth and beauty? Has that

phrase come up? Truth and beauty. There were a bunch of phrases that were like sort of the mantras early on, and Greg's the number one most repeated allem with truth and beauty. And he was like, everything that we make should be true, should be real, should feel like it's true, and it should be the attempt should be to find the beauty. And whatever you're doing and the writing and the acting and the directing and the set design and the costumes and everything, truth and beauty, Truth and beauty.

And it just got deeply ingrained in us. He gave us an analogy for what the show was um in the first season, which was, imagine a completely paved parking lot in an office park. It's stretching out as far as you can see, and you're walking across it, and it's a hot day and as you're just in a corporate industrial waste land, and then you look down and there's a crack in the asphalt and there's a single little dandy lion growing through the crack. He's like, that's

what the show is. It's finding that Dandylion right, finding that little tiny glimmer of truth and beauty and happiness in aggressively unbeautiful landscape. Greg used to say, I'm really I found like like a like a cult member. It's we're talking about Greg as much as I am, but it's impossible to talk about the show without talking about him. The truth and beauty was like, it didn't surprise me

when that was the end of the show. I remember thinking, like, yeah, he nailed He like at the very end of the day, he sort of laid out his view of what why the show mattered for everyone through Pam, which is the right character to do it through. You know, Pam believes that Michael may have been whatever lead, but that Pam was truly the heart of the show. Who said that,

Jenna Jenna, I think she's probably right. Um. I've had this conversation with a bunch of people in the US with the with the weird resurgence of the show in the last couple of years. I've talked to Gentilata and Paul and and Lee and Mindy. I think about like just when you rewatch it, one of the episodes that hit you the hardest. I think that the maybe maybe the best episode that we ever did was Pam's art show.

The ending of that episode is no one comes to her art show because no one likes her at that moment in the show, and at the end of it, Michael shows up and one of the things that she drew was the office and he is just like so blown away by it, and it's so meaningful that he's there for her because no one else showed up, Jim didn't show up, nobody showed up and um, and she hugs him and then there's a great joke that I think they added on the set where she's like, what's

in your pocket? And he goes chunky and she looks at him and he pulls it out and it's an

actual chunky. But that the moment where he shows up, I think is the is maybe the best moment and that we ever did, like him showing up at her our show and her reaction to it and her hugging him, like I think she's right, Like Pam, that is the She is the person in those moments who makes Michael feel better when the bird dies, and who like he's kind of the gatekeeper of everybody's emotional status and stuff and yeah, I know, well it's interesting that you bring

that up because that coupled with that talking head. That's the last moment of the show, is Pam picking up that drawing and taking it with her. That's right, Yeah, I know. And it was very That episode was very hard to break. I remember I think Brent wrote it Brent Forrester. As we did every episode, we rewrote it over and over and over and over again, and like that was the that was like a late addition, was

like that the way out of this. We're always looking for the for the off ramp for Michael of like how does he get out of his whatever miserable circumstance hands he put himself in. And it was like, oh, the way out is he goes to Pam's art chow and then the idea that she drew the office and he takes it back and hangs it up like he's It was like that was the emotional solve, and uh, it was like, oh, he should that's where he should

hang it, right outside his office. It should be the thing that he sees every day before he goes to work,

you know. Is I mean those little those little tiny consistencies, that's what's so great about having a show that lasts for a long time as you get to do these things in season three or whatever that are there and that like end up mattering a whole lot in season I mean, as a fan, I wrote the episode with the teapot and the note and everything, and then it was like in season nine when I was watching just as a fan and I was like, oh my god, it's coming back, right, and we had I had um

John write the note himself and I said, don't tell anyone what you're writing. Write whatever you want, right, whatever you think Jim would write. And I don't know what he wrote. I no, I've never seen it, and I don't think he ever told anyone. I don't think Jenn ever told anyone. Like it's like I think I believe it's like a secret shared by the two of essentially by the two of them and maybe the props department if they steamed it open and looked at Wow, Um,

what do you think it's legacy is? I mean, it's legacy is Uh, it's going to be enormous, I think. I mean for a couple of reasons. One is it's really good. Two is the cast is incredible. And every time, every time someone discovers Jenni Fish or John Krasinski or Rain Wilson or you or Angelo or anybody or Craig Robinson, they're going to go, like, where did this person start? And then they're gonna go back and watch the show.

But also it just was on. It did that, We did two episodes, Like there aren't many shows that do that anymore. That era is over, Like there, how many more shows are going to even do a hundred in this era that we're in a six episode, eight episode, ten episodes seasons, even shows that last ten years do

eight episodes or something. And I think the reason why so many people have discovered it and have like really sat with it is because it's one of the last shows, one of the most recent shows where you feel like you can watch a new episode every night. And and you know, my son is eleven now. My son was was born in season four of the show, and he's now eleven, and he just watched every single episode, and every kid in his grads watched every single episode. By

the way, here's another thing Greg did. We used to try constantly to like put pop culture references in the show, and Greg was like, you know, no no pop culture references. Um, this show needs to feel like it could. It's timeless, like it could be happening in any moment in time from the seventies until like two thousand fifty. And I remember thinking at the time, like, all right, you're pretty high on yourself there. But they just think that this

show is gonna matter. And now look it's twenty years later and it matters just as much. And my son doesn't know that that show isn't on the air. Netflix shows and ABC shows and are the same. And it's crazy because now you can watch it and it doesn't feel dated because there's no references to, you know, things that were happening in two let's see. I think it's different than that. I respectfully slightly disagree. Interesting because when

you watch it, which I recently did, it doesn't feel dated. Yeah, we'll see when I think it was? Was you guys in the writing, we're so specific. The characters were written so specifically, and so it almost functions that because you don't watch a documentary about the seventies and go that feels dated, right, It's just like that's when it happened. So now we're watching a documentary about this very specific placement at this very specific moment. I I think maybe

it's both things, right. It's like we didn't call attention to when it was happening, and also we were very specific about what was happening. And then that way, it just feels like it's a moment in time, of place in time, wherever you want to put it. So I

like the in terms of its legacy. To get back to that, I keep getting off topic, but I think that people settle into the show and watch this show because it has this incredible specificity and it has this just deep It feels like you're eating the richest dessert a tiny bit at a time, and that is a

really lovely feeling to have. Like, you know, it's a different kind of hangout show from other successful hangout shows, from Cheers or Friends or the It's a it's a hangout show that that feels like the emotional lives of the characters are completely wrought and thick and juicy, and you can really follow people's psychologies and their lives as they grow over the course of nine years. And I don't I think a show like that is very rare, and I think that people will still be watching this

show a very long time right now. When was the decision made for writers to start acting in the show from the before the before the pilot, I mean Greg coming from SNL, Greg wanted SNL is very um. The membrane between writers and actors is very thin, and all the actors write stuff, and a lot of the writers are in sketches and stuff. And almost everyone there's a writer performer, even if he or she is only on

staff as a writer or something. And he liked that, and he wanted to get rid of the false dichotomy of writers and actors. So he hired Mindy specifically because she was a performer. She was in a play called Mattin Band that she had written in New York. He hired b J because BJ was a stand up and a writer. He and then like we made Paul against his will play Toby in the first season, like we forced.

He did not want to do it. He hated it, he hated acting, but we forced him to do it because he was so funny to have him be the guy that Michael Scott hates more than anybody. But it was that was always the design. I think he wanted everybody to to write and perform ideally except for me, because he made me a freak. Most famously and most annoyingly to me, played the character most shrewd. Oh my god. We never talked about most Oh my god. I assumed it was gonna be your first question. I I know,

I have a whole section on it. But you were so great? Um, all right, well then just very quickly sure you were cast as most I was, and you're happy about that. Hated it. I hated every second of it. Why did you hate it? Because I was wearing wool clothes and had a neck beard and it was always really hot, and I didn't The joke was I didn't talk, and that's not a funny joke. And it was always like I had to get up at four thirty in the morning and drive to the middle of nowhere and

wear wool clothes and it was. And then the joke came with the writers because they knew how much I hated it. They loved like, what if you're shirtless, what if you're on a seesaw, What if you're on a trampoline, What if you're running as fast as you can alongside a car like a dog I was at Parks and wreck and they would call me and they like, we need mos And I was like, I have a job, I have a life, I have young children, and they

would just make me do it. They would compete with each other to see what was the most humiliating possible thing they could have me do. But that that episode Paul So, Paul wrote that episode where they were Jim and Pam go to Shreot Farms, and he wrote in the in the script, it literally says, Mose appears out of nowhere and runs along the side of the car like a dog. That's what it says. That's I'm a human being. And so we did that scene. It was

a hundred and forty degrees. I was in woolf clothes and and old work boots that like didn't fit properly. And that sprint is probably a hundred and fifty yards down that dirt road from the time I come out to the time I had to run all the way up into Shrewt Farms. Of course cuts off long before I ever get there, of course, but they like, you got it, Paul was directing, was like, you gotta run all the way there. So I did over and over and over again, probably twelve or fourteen takes because Paul

delighted in it so much. And then later in that episode, I'm in Jurassic Park pajamas that don't fit me properly. And then Greg pitched the thing where he was like, what if there's a loud noise and Pam goes to the window and looks at it, and Moses in the outhouse with his pants down and the doors flapping clothes. I mean it was like it was aggressive. It was They knew I never should have been. If I had said, like, I love doing this, they never would have put me

in the show again. But because I hated it so much and was so vocal about hating it, well, you have confirmed something. Moses a is a fan favorite. You hear about people loving most. Okay, let me tell you something. What I have always said is I think Moses a writer's room joke. Oh, you have now confirmed without a doubt that it was literally a writer's room meant to torture you, meant specifically to make me miserable. Yes, yes,

was in a coffin. I was like hanging upside down somewhere, like there were a bunch of things that we did that were then just cut out of the show. I was riding a moped over like trying to jump a bunch of cars. They made me do that moped thing. I don't know how to drive a moped. I don't know how to drive a moped. No one taught me how to drive. They were like, just get on and just rev the thing, because the point was if I wipe out, it'll be really fun now, and then run

across the roofs of these cars again. If you slip and fall and break your pelvis, it'll be really funny. Like they was. The subtext was always the worst this goes, the funnier it will be when it happens. Well, I this was after you left. I mean sort of from the beginning, but then more and more Kevin started having

a lot of physical comedy type stuff. And there would be times where I would go to the writer's room and say, I don't remember if you were ever there, but I would say, you guys are writing for Homer Simpson right now, and a cartoon you can force to do whatever you'd like him to do. He can do whatever, right, but I can't. My body doesn't work that way. No one does right, like the most painful. I feel like I still have pain from it. Is the most innocuous.

You would never ever ever know. The office workers have to go to the warehouse and move boxes, so they decide they're gonna put remember that episode Boiled Down, so they could move boxes to get to the troll. And everyone thought the big guy falling is really funny. So I just kept falling slipping and which means on a concrete surface with oil, kneecap on concrete over and it's like, guys, I can't keep You've got to like, yeah, there has

to be some other solution. We had a We had a similar thing on Parson Wreck, where Nick Offerman's character Ron Swanson was a sort of he was a little cartoonish in his abilities to do various things, and we wrote this joke where he wanted to get he was eating a he got lunch and he was eating as hamburger, and and the joke was he wanted to get out of the lunch as quickly as possible, so when the script, he shoved the entire hamburger into his mouth and ate

it in one bite. So they Dean Holland was directing it and he was like okay action and Nick did his best, but then Dean was like, you you really need to eat the whole thing in one bite, and he was like this is a like a half pound hamburger. Okay, Like I maybe the character can do this, but a human can't. And yeah, all right, yeah right, sorry, yeah, you're not your character, right, Okay, I almost wiped out super hard on that moped. Like well, first of all,

the joke was someone pulls up in the car. It was the Garden Party episode. Someone pulls up in the car night and I'm the valve most of the valet and I get in and they're like, just get in and tear off down this road, right, And the joke at the time is why is most driving so fast and so insistent? And so I did, and like I tore off down the road and I'm not a stunt driver.

I don't know, like and suddenly I'm going sixty five on a dirt road and on a set and the back tires fish tail because it's a dirt road, and I like slowed down and was like, oh right, I'm not This isn't a no One's gonna like save me if I crashed this car, I'll die because I also got in and didn't put my seatbelt on because the joke was you get in and take off, and I was like, oh my god, I just I forgot for a second that I'm not fictional. I'm like, sure, I'm

not fictional. I'm a human could suffer consequences. Mine very similar to that was I think it was when there's the storyline of Dwight telling Holly that that Kevin is slow, and there was a scene we did a number of different ways. This didn't end up in but where I'm

driving and she's like you're driving. You have a car, and I'm like, yeah, I have a car, And at one point they were like, okay, so do that, but then get out of the car, but leave it running, like leave it, leave it like leave it, leave it in gear. So like as you step out, the car is going to move forward and then we'll have somebody else who can jump in and stop it. Yeah, I did ideas like profound Meanwhile, it's vedas car, right like

her real car. I uh. That joke that they did with Kevin in the later years where he didn't know the alphabet elemento. Paul pitshed that in season two and we were like, Paul, that's insane, Like you can't say that he doesn't know that he's an accountant. He's a working accountant. Like he might not be the best accountant, he's an accountant. It made Paul laugh so hard. And the second that Paul took over the show, that joke aired, and I was like, well, that's what he got what

he wanted. Six years later, he told me it was his favorite joke that he ever wrote. Yeah, yes, element he told me and us that and and tried to get it into the show and like season two or three or something, and we're like, you know, there's crazy stuff like that. I mean, you know, again, this is a writer's room joke that no one would ever know. But what was Kevin's band going to be? And having

it be the Police? This sounds like a you thing actually, But the idea that I was a drummer lead singer of the police, and with the Police, the lyrics and the singing is off of the beat of the drums because they had like rhythms. You would have to be a musical savant to be able to play drums and sing. Well, it wasn't the Police Originally it was Steve was Steve Miller band and they were called the Midnight Tookers. My friend scotts Olvery was in a Steve Miller cover band

in high school called the Midnight Tookers. Scott's a writer, and I always thought that was the perfect amount of stupid for a cover. But like Midnight Tookers is like, oh, what a great and so it's a Steve Miller band. And then they didn't give us the rights to the music, yes, and so we had to change it. And so I think Mindy maybe pitched Scrantnicity Mindy or Paul. But I remember being so bummed out that it couldn't be the Midnight Pokers, just because I had really had my heart

set on it. I sang, we did the whole video, right, that's right, and we're trying to volume down because it was too like jet Airliner or whatever, remember what it was. But yes, and maybe it was the Joker. I don't know it was, yeah, right, But I'm happy at the end of the day, I'm happy that it was Scrantnicity. Yes, that was a good solution to that stupid problem. Um, okay, you've given us so much time. Thank you so much,

so really fun. I like walking down memory Lane. It's fun. Yeah, it's such a I mean, it's just actually awesome to see. I know it's been too long, I know. And congratulations on everything, and um, thank you so much, my pleasure, wow the things that could have been. Thank you Mike for coming back and sharing so much of your story with us. It was so great to have you and just so great to talk the office with you. And thank you all as always for listening week to week

or day to day. Don't forget to come back next Tuesday, same time, same place, for another very special episode, because that day, next Tuesday, is the day that we, or at least I have been waiting for. It will finally be here the launch of our brand spanking new book Next Tuesday. Head to Amazon dot Com, Barnes and Noble

Books a million, wherever you get your books. Basically, go the pre order your very own copy of Welcome to dunder Mifflin, The Ultimate Oral History of the Office, and if you do, you could be reading it one week from today. Grab one for yourself, grab one for everyone that you know, because when it comes to a gift, you shouldn't have a hard time getting it in. That's

what she said. Wait, no, you shouldn't have a hard time getting it in time for the holidays or you know, any day, because every day is a holiday when you're with me. Oh okay, have a great week everyone. The office. Deep Dive is hosted and executive produced by me Brian bond Gartner, alongside our executive producer Langley. Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer. Our producers are Is Hayes and Diego Tapia.

My main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by Seth Olandsky.