TODD Farewell

want to. But what I wanted to do today was to look back and finally tell the story of how all of this came to be, how this podcast came to be. And then I want to look forward into our vision for where this podcast goes next, for where it goes into the future, and let you know how excited we all are for our next iteration, which to be clear, will be available on the very same channel that you found this episode today. You don't have to go download a new podcast or go looking for me

somewhere else. You'll find me in the very same place that I have been for the last year. But today is February eight and this podcast I launched started almost exactly one year ago today February ninth. Now I'm gonna go into the numbers, because you know I'm a numbers guy. I'm gonna go into the numbers over the last year, which are staggering and humbling to me and a little bit, but I want to start first. Back in September of twenty nineteen, now that is two and a half years ago.

That's where this started. I was shooting a movie in Columbus, Georgia, a Drick Jesus available on all streaming platforms today, and I get a call from Ben Silverman saying he wants to talk to me. Now, if Ben Silverman calls and says he wants to talk to me, I make time to answer the phone. And I was on the East coast, he was on the West coast, and we agreed on eight thirty pm on the East coast, five thirty his time. And I get on the phone and I'm introduced to Lingley,

who works for Ben. And Ben is on the phone and he says, look, we've been working with Spotify about doing a podcast on the office, and I want to know your thoughts or if you have any ideas about how we might approach a podcast on the office. And I said, well, this is amazing, and we run through a couple of ideas, and LNG has some ideas and Ben has some ideas, and I'm like, Okay, this is great. I'm in Columbus, Georgia, and I'm I'm I'm a little busy right now shooting this movie, so let's talk as

soon as I'm back. So I return home and Ling contact me about having a meeting at their offices, and I'm thinking, Oh, I'm just going up and we're just going to kind of continue the conversation about the podcast. This is the idiot that I am. And I drive up and oh, I have this errand and it's taking me a little extra time. And send an email saying like, oh, you know, I'm gonna be a little bit later than I said, and um she says, no problem, no problem.

And so I get to their offices and I walk into a conference room much like the conference room at dunder Mifflin, about the same size and shape actually, with a giant table in the middle. And I walk in and there's I don't know, twelve to fifteen people around the table, but it feels like fifty to me, and there's a spot at the head of the table which is clearly for me, and clearly they have been waiting there in this room for me, and so I think, oh,

this was not what I thought. I thought we were having a casual conversation about how to maybe pursue this podcast. And then the next thing that happens is lying introduces me to the table as the executive producer of this podcast, The Office Podcast for Spotify, and I think, well, that's not exactly where I thought we were at this moment either.

I hope I thought of something good to say, because now I feel completely on the spot And I had this idea we could have put together a podcast which would have been a well, we could have done a professorial explanation of why the Office is so great and all of the people who put it together are so great, and and lectured two our listeners. This this, that idea was not so interesting to me. But what was interesting

to me was questions. And the question that I had, which was a true and real question at the time, was why is The Office bigger now than it was when we were a hit on NBC. Through conversations, most notably I would say Rain Wilson, definitely, Oscar nun Yez and Angela Kenzie and Jenna Fisher as well, but most notably Rain and I would talk and be like, man, I'm getting noticed a lot more in airports again now like it felt different, like palpably different in the world.

And my question was true and legitimate, which is why. So this is November of and so we began work right away on this approach. But there was something that I knew that we needed. We had an essentially an eight hour order from Spotify. We knew we wanted to do was to talk to the key people involved. So immediately I go, well, we need some people's blessing and

we need their agreement to participate. So I contact Greg Daniels and I asked for his blessing and participation, and he not only agreed to participate and gave me his blessing. He was genuinely excited right away, and I thought, Okay, well we've got Greg, which that's dad, that's huge. And then I contacted Rain Wilson and Steve Carrell and Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey because they had started Office Ladies and John Krasinski and I wanted to try to get

some of our key people on board. Every single person I contacted said yes, I'm in. But I contacted Rain Wilson early and I said, well, will you sit down with me? And he says yes, But after the first of the year, I'm going to be shooting this movie. I'm going to be incredibly busy. I would love to do it. Can we do it now? Not? Well, sure, yes,

we're We're prepared. And we talked for over two hours, and I had had this idea that if we're talking to everybody, aren't people gonna want to hear more from these people than just this eight hour story. Well, immediately after this interview, Lane turns to me and says, we've got to release these full interviews. We we have to

because see, for us, there were two parts. One was to tell the story, but the other thing that was so exciting to me was to let people get to know the real people behind the roles that they had played. And I felt like that by me conducting these interviews, that you were going to hear these people in an unfiltered way and in a way that you had never

heard them in a standard interview setting before. So we released Oral History of the Office through Spotify, and people seem to really like it, and we won a Webby Award for an Oral History of the Office and a Webby Award just basically just know this. It's like the Oscars of podcasts. Okay, that's that's at least how it's been explained to me. And you know, all of us were incredibly satisfied with the attention that in Oral History of the Office got because we put our heart and

our soul into it. But I still said, we have to release these interviews. By the time we had completed interviewing folks for an Oral History of the Office, we had over a hundred hours of recorded interviews. I was like, we're just going to cut that down to eight and throw away over ninety two hours. See, there's some of the math at work, and that's where the Office Deep Dive was born. In a year plus, we've done seventy three podcast episodes over the last year. We've never taken

a week off. We had forty eight guests, sixty three call in guests, so listeners like you who have called in, and we have total downloads of over twenty six million. That is staggering to me and deeply, deeply humbling that not only did you tune in for Steve Carell and John Krasinski. But you tuned in for people that may

never have heard of before this podcast. I mean Greg daniels interviews still one of the highest listen to of all and crew members Debbie Pierce, Laverne, Kara KUSI those episodes. People are listening to them just as much as they're listening to some of the well let's just call them household names. So thank you for indulging us and and for listening to those people who without them, the office

would certainly not be what it is. The moments that people gave me throughout the last year, moments that I never knew of out Mike Sure telling me that basically

Steve Carrell saved people's jobs. I will never forget Mike Schuer saying when Steve was confronted with the idea of reducing the cast and his response was no, no, no, no no. I didn't know that from Laverne, are head makeup artist, telling me during the writer's strike about Greg Daniels writing a personal check to everybody on the crew because he wanted them to feel valued and he knew what a difficult time they were going through during the

writer's strike at the holidays, I will never forget that, And I didn't know that before two Phillis and Alison Jones being reunited after so many years, Me and Steve having the opportunity to face time with Billie Eilish after she won fifty seven Grammy Awards the night before or whatever,

and then hearing from so many of you. The greatest gift that the Office gave me, truly, and I mean this is being approached by fans who let us know how important it is for them to tell us that the Office has given them comfort during a very difficult time.

The fact that the show has connected with people and continues to connect with people so strongly and has brought them comfort during times overseas, serving in the military, being hospitalized for a significant illness, having a family issue that they needed comfort for, that the Office has brought them comfort, and that people telling me giving me the gift of telling me that the Office has brought them comfort during

a difficult time. That is the greatest gift that the show has given me, and this podcast has given me. Being able to connect with so many of you who called in, who wrote in questions, who had genuine curiosity about something or just wanted me to know that the office has given them comfort and that they continue to watch is I mean, how could that not be humbling? And I have to tell you this alright my mom, My mom listens to everything. Okay, let me be clear.

She listens to everything all of the podcast, and she rarely responds or makes comments about them. But she told me that her absolute favorite episodes were the call in episodes. Hearing from so many of you. So I think that is a testament to one, well, my mom being cool, but also that everyone who has an opinion has value and that you guys have listened and responded to a again, not just the big stars of the Office, but to everyone who worked on or was a fan of the show.

You know, this podcast also has provided me with so many, uh incredibly surreal and beautiful moments. I've been to Scranton twice since this podcast journeys begin. What's better than that being able to go back to Scranton not just once, but twice through this process. As many of you know, I wrote a book, Welcome to dunder Mifflin. Myself and Ben Silverman co authored the book with Greg Daniels, who

wrote the foreword. We talked to Chris Hasten, who took so many of the pictures never before seen pictures that are included in the book, and went back to Chandler Valley Studios are old home and walking in like it been so long and like I had just been there yesterday. I mean truly like goose bump moments. Seeing Tom Melby, the guy we worked with all of those years. Every

single day he manages the stage there. And he showed up in the parking lot with his dunder Mifflin warehouse shirt on for us and telling us Ben Silverman and I about how he has to keep replacing the wind screen that he puts over the gate so that people don't just stand there and take pictures because now there are other shows and other shoots that are happening there.

So he puts up a windscreen so that people can't stand there on the street and take pictures and be loud, and that he has to replace that because people come with a knife and they slit a hole in the windscreen so they can pry their car, they can pry it open so they can get their camera in to take pictures of the front of well fictional dunder Mifflin. But the front of Chandler Valley Studios. Was so awesome

to be back. There so many incredible moments that have happened over the last year, and I'm so proud of this podcast and the conversations that I've been able to have with people. And look, I want to continue to talk to people. There are still more people from the office that we haven't spoken to, but I wanted to expand the podcast, and I wanted to talk to more of my other friends in the business and meet new friends who have worked on classic television shows and entertained

me for years. I worked with a French director for a number of years in the theater and he taught me an important lesson. You may have heard this before from me, but this is obviously it's made an impact to me. And he taught me that comedy exists off the beat, that there's a predictable rhythm that a lot of comedy falls into, but the true comedy things that really make us laugh or surprise us happen off the beat. And Greg Daniels, then, I mean, the circle is so clear.

Greg Daniels talks about that a lot with the office that he wanted to disrupt the predictable beat, the predictable timing of how things would happen, because he felt like that would surprise and delight audiences right from Pam and Jim getting engaged in the rain at a gas station, right not in the most romantic bridge with a babbling brook nearby, with flowers and flutes and no, that that

surprising moment could bring more beauty than anything else. So my next podcast, that's what I decided to call it, Off the Beat, because I want to talk to people throughout television, other entertainers, other comedians, eventually other figures from the sports world, and talk to them not about what

everybody talks to them about, their Emmy wins. We'll talk about that, but the moments that happened in their life off the beat, the unexpected moments that happened for them that truly make them one who they are and to make the choices that they make in their art or in their sport. So as we move forward, I'm so excited because I want to keep talking about folks who

worked on the office. I have a couple of guests that I am I'm so excited, but you know a lot of them now are known for other works as well. So that's where we're going with this podcast. And I am so excited to continue to explore the same questions that we've been asking, but explore them with different artists who have excelled in their own areas of expertise for years and years, that have entertained us in one way or another, or at least that entertained me. Commune. It

is my show, after all, right. I want to finish this look over the last year with my good friend Michael Padre, my co author of Welcome to dunder Mifflin Ben Silverman. I want to welcome him back onto the podcast here. I mean, look, he's the reason that the office exists in the United States. There, I mean, that's

just a fact. He is the reason that, you know, the show and his insights on well, not just helping to put this podcast together and participate in allowing himself to be interviewed for I think four sessions, but also him and I working on this book together, and I wanted to talk a little bit more to Ben about well about the last year together. So there it is, and here he is. Everybody Welcome Ben silver Man, Bubble

and squeak. I love it. Bubble and squeak on Bubble and Squeaker cookie at every month, left over from the night before. Oh my god, I miss you. I know. How's it going? It's great. What mic are you using? Is that like your headphone? Mike? Yeah, it's my headphone like with the burly tones of Brian b um Ben. I'm so excited to be talking to you yet again. One year after The Office, Deep Dive launched. Now the Office.

As we've talked about a lot, it started as as an underdog show, right, we were like the little engine that could. So much has changed now after all of these years, you don't have to convince anybody to watch the show anymore. And now you and I we've written a book about this show. How does it feel to be a best selling author? It's it's so fun and truly one of the things I tell people first about myself when they mean your father, yes, New York biselling author, Yes, no,

I absolutely, I introduced myself. Actually it is now My first first name is New York Times testselling author Ben Silverman, so that it's something I'm running with. I've taken on so much new kind of creative authority and ownership of my my life process. It's fabulous, right. I just played golf in this LPGA tournament. But when they introduced me on the first tea, there's like the same introduction that they introduced me at at every golf turn, you know,

Emmy winning, blah blah blah. And I made them change it right on the spot. I made them add New York Times best selling author to my introduction just because it, at least it makes me seem smarter than I am. I think it makes you seem smarter, and that's why I am enjoying it. I found it to be one of the more validating runs I am. Um. You know a little sad that our great partners at our book company did not print the millions of books that they

should have because there's so much pent up demand. And these books are now trading on eBay at a premium because they're impossible to find. And I just wanted to make sure that all of your fans and the fans of this great podcast know that there will be a new printing of the book, ordered by HarperCollins that is going to hit the shelves around March. Due to some of the apply chain issues affecting all industries, and you should just pre order now and get excited because the

book will be out. It is already trading at a premium. It's almost like its own n f T at this point. It is creating so much value for that first wave of buyers and readers who won't let the copies go. Buying the book is like buying an n f T. You heard it here. How many of the initial order did you did your family order? Was it like two

thirds of the question? No question that that we put a huge dent into that official supply, but I assumed it would have been an infinite supply knowing the extended Silverman families love of the book and their friends love of the book, and frankly anyone who needed a Christmas President entered my house and saw the book and demanded a copy. What memories were brought up to you through writing the book? What memories about the office came back

to you? I definitely I wish I had spent more time enjoying the creative process and not the regular role around the show, which is kind of where I did all my you know, my work, like my blocking and tackling, was very much on the kind of moat around the show to protect it and allow its creativity to just, you know, flourish without challenges. And I wish I had been on the set more and been around it even more to enjoy it. And as it was going on, we were always kind of fighting for it. So I'm

almost enjoying it more now, you know. Someone asked me how I was doing. An old friend from Europe was asking me about, you know, how I was, and I was like, you know, I've been really happy since The Office became the most watched show in modern or maybe the history of television. And he goes, I understand that, and I'm I'm very it makes me happy. Yeah, how was it for you? Because I know I've talked a

lot about how amazing it was. I mean, there are so many people that I talked to for the podcast and we talked to for the book that we hadn't seen in a long time, like people that I love and love spending time with. Uh. I just wanted you to talk a little bit from your perspective about how it was reconnecting with those people once again. On the process of of the book and the podcast. Well, part of me had avoided asking any of our colleagues and

collaborators for kind of anything. Um post show, I had no problems calling you all the time and asking to stay in your guesthouse or to to play golf. But I did, you know, feel uh some wonderful connectivity and making those calls, which I was nervous about. It was like I hadn't called. It was like calling an old girlfriend,

you know, I hadn't. Yeah, I had such a deep, profound relationship for ten years, and then we kind of broke up for a little bit to go do our own projects or new things or you know, you know, to move off into the world. And so then reconnecting through the book and the you know, collected love of the show and our experience on it was really great and I was happy to do it. And I've kind of since dropped any of my hesitation about doing it as well. And it's been a great exercise in in

appreciation and remembrance and you know, the present day. And also because we're all living the same experience, which is the show's relevance, uh continues to expand and and touch new generations, including our own children, you know, which I never thought would be possible because our kids were like born at the end of the show. Yeah, I to me, that was well both the most delightful um and the

thing that made me the happiest. I think through this whole experience, I talked about calling Greg Daniels and calling Steve Carrell and Rain Wilson and these guys about trying to get them to participate. Would they participate in this podcast? Were they interested in going back and telling the story? And how incredibly excited one that everybody was, and to

how generous everybody was with their time. I mean, I remember you were there when I spoke with Steve Carrell, and I think we we we talked for three and a half hours in in in front of the mics, and then we finished and you said goodbye, and I we talked to Billie Eilish and then I said, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna go, or Steve, I'll walk you out to your car, and we we walked down to his car, and then he and I stood by his car for thirty minutes. You were like, where did Brian go?

Where did he? Where did he go? He just wanted to keep talking about the show, and I was like, we could have done this upstairs and I could have recorded it, Steve, But I mean that to me was so amazing that that I think everybody had the same curiosity that we did, which is why is the show become so big? Now? What happened? Like, let's go back

and really dive into it. And everybody seemed to want to tell totally and um great example, and I think no one had asked, you know, and and so like we gave the book, gave people a format, and the podcast gave people the environment. And I think the phone calls were just the excuse. You know, they were looking to take that experience to the present day, and we're experiencing it through the show's popularity in the present day.

But we weren't like experiencing it together, you know. And I know there had been some kind of zoom bomb things, but these were in depth conversations, pointed and specific around our histories together. Do you have any specific memories, uh, about your initial talks with Spotify about getting an oral history of the office out into the world. Do you remember anything about that conversation or how they felt about it.

I thought Spotify was like Microsoft. I just thought it was like this big corporate thing and I'm knew that. It took me like three or four hours just to figure out how to subscribe or download or utilize it on my phone. But but once I did and I heard they were open and looking for podcasts, they seemed like a cool thing. I thought they were like kind

of the Netflix, e h of of that world. And we brought it up and um, you know, our incredible team including obviously Diego and Ling and the and the crew and and Liz helped us build it out and we we pioneered a whole genre and format. It was great, but I remember, no, it was. It was and we had to build it out and do what we do as producers, which is really make sure that they knew

the story. And we built out a deck, and we built up material, and we showed the narrative, and we really thought through what the episodes could look like, who could participate, why they participate, how we could break it down, and a lot of work went into it. I mean, it was a highly produced experience and at the corner stone of it and the key is who's going to host it and drive it? And that was great that

we did it together. Brian, you know you were immediately the only person, uh that we could come up with who would say yes, and we reached out and no. But having you build it with us from the beginning was amazing. Did you expect the book or the podcast to be to be a hit. Did you feel that there was an appetite to hearing our story? I really did.

I did not to be gross about it, but I just felt like we had not told the story from the collection of great people involved, and that there was a tremendous fandom that had been built around the kind of Office universe, and and you're seeing it with the Office experience in Chicago, which is it's amazing kind of experiential project going on there with with the show, and you see it with our book, and you see it with the the show's continued you know, airings and repeatability

and and viewer expansion. You know, each successive age group kind of falls in love with it. And so I think it had in my mind so much potential, and also because I knew it was us doing it, and that we would do it to its potential, and that we would know that we would be connected enough to the material to actually tell it as insiders as opposed to kind of maybe mislaying some of the psyche of

the show. Yeah, we started the journey of of promoting a book as authors do, and you and I, along with Greg Daniels, who wrote the foreword, got invited to do something very very special to me, but I know that it means even more to you. We were invited by the Street Why to do a live talk talk to me a little bit about sty and what that specifically means to you. It was such a fun uh fun thing to do, even if it virtually you me

and Greg. Greg and I are New Yorkers and have real passion and love for the city, and both grew up with intellectual parents of the city who spent a lot of time hearing music. Are are going to UM concerts or lectures at that Why where we did our event unfortunately not in the theater, but in you know,

the virtual world. And my own father had written a composition in honor of an incredibly important guy to me, a man named Hermann Sandler who family were super tight with our family UM, and he had been murdered in the nine eleven attacks. And my dad composed music and Sting sang the sonnets that my father had composed to and written, and it was just an amazing evening and celebration of my lost father and Hermann Sandler and my my real father in in Stanley Silverman and you know,

my immediate community. And so when we were asked it speak at the y and link tells Us, I was like, Wow, this is uh cool. You know, this is deep. And I knew Greg would love it because it's his backyard, right you know. Well I did just a little looking authors at the street, Y Truman, Capote, Arthur Miller, Paul McCartney, who wrote a book of poems, and you and me. Yeah, I mean, what else can you say except for that? Send me that list, Send me that list that will

now be a part of your bio, your introduction. Gend me that list on a list of authors who have appeared at the ninety second stry By including Yes, something tells me our names may not show up in the same way. I don't think they'll be. They will not be cross reference backed by Paul McCartney or the Capodi estate as they retell their story. Yeah, don't see that. I want to. I want I want to leave you with this. From the very beginning, I started asking a

question I asked you before. I don't know if now a year and a half since we first spoke, if your answer is different. What are you most thankful for

from your entire experience on the office? Wow? I think I thankful in it in a kind of miss American way, for the joy it's brought so many different people and the place it's played in their lives as a sense of comfort and warmth and the familial and that people look to it to provide them that and share it with their friends, and that that's a pretty amazing thing to feel. It's really nice to see that and connect

to people about that and to enjoy their enjoyment. You know, is something well beyond any kind of material relationship or uh, you know, validation from some kind of superficial edifice. Just the kind of one to one fan to fan, you know, anecdote to anecdote that connects people's feelings of the show back to you or to me or anyone involved in the show. Is really a nice is it is a really nice thing to have in your life. Yeah, you know, Greg wrote the last line of the show, there's beauty

and ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point. And I think that that mantra, that that idea has given people such comfort and have have seen such truth in the show. Yeah, I think for me that's the lasting thing. That's why I keep talking about it. I think it's because of the comfort that I've heard from people. Um, thank you, Ben, Ben Silverman for coming on. You know, none of us would be here. I would I wouldn't have a mic in front of me right now, I

wouldn't be a best selling author. Uh. And I know I certainly would not have been on the office. Do you not, with your trademarked tenacity, decided to wrangle Ricky Gervais into a Starbucks and and start all of us on this journey? I think all of us who worked on the show and uh, and I've been a part of this show and every show that has come out of it. Owes you a debt of gratitude for that you were. You weren't just in the room where it happened to borrow a phrase. You kind of were the

room that happened. Thank you, Thank you. I can't thank you enough, brother, and I so enjoyed the great friendship we have deepening through the process of the podcast and the process of the book, and I know the best is yet to come, and I just love it so much. It's been awesome, and I'm excited that you're going to give me a couple of strokes next time we play, because it's been rough losing you on a teen I

in great frequency. I just want everyone here to know that Stars closed the show, and Brian will be closing this show as he closes every golf course hole as in number eighteen, by joining the putt and beating his friend Ben. Here's been good luck agociating the strokes. Thank you well, folks. That does it for our look back over or all the incredible things that happened since The Office Deep Dive launched one year ago. And thank you Ben for stopping by and well, of course for everything.

But don't worry, gentle listeners, this isn't goodbye. It is not the end of the road. Forget that. It is a new beginning. Next week we will be taking The Office Deep Dive off the beat and it is bound to be a great time. The first episode amazing. So I will see you then next Tuesday, same time, same place. I cannot wait. The Office Deep Dive is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner alongside our executive producer Langley.

Our producers are Liz Hayes and Diego Topion. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by seth Olandski