Second Drink: Stress Relief Pt 2

Welcome to your second drink of stress relief part two. Stanley is back to work after his heart attack, and there was a storyline that would have kicked off this episode that was added back to the Superfan episode that's really fun. Okay. People are sort of making a fuss over Stanley. You know, they're hovering over him. Phyllis has brought him lunch and it's driving Stanley crazy. Let's listen. I brought you some lunch, Stanley.

Yeah. What is that?

It's uh three bean salad, cashew and brussels. If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it.

Thank you.

No, I appreciate it. You must be really freaked out to eat that.

Andy please.

Hey, whoa. What's going on? Stanley, are you okay?

I'm fine.

God.

Philosophy, you take off your shoe. It's Stanley's lunch.

No wonder you're dying.

You will excuse me.

Ready to go to the bathroom?

I am not going to the bathroom with you. Please stop trying to help me.

Stanley, we just want you to get better.

How can I get better? Since this happened, I haven't had a single moment where I haven't been reminded that I'm sick and probably gonna die in this office. Not one single moment.

They're just like all on top of him. They will not let him have a moment's peace.

And they keep reminding him of everything. So it was after this exchange that Michael gets the idea that he needs to do a roast for his employees.

Yes. He needs to lighten the mood. And what better way than to have a roast?

Yeah.

So you know the way this episode would have started, lady, is like Michael and Dwight, they're commiserating in Michael's office.

Uh-huh.

Well, the super fan episode has a tiny extension to that scene. Dwight is gonna hand Michael a pen and ask him to sign something. It's the thing where like Dwight's getting everybody's acknowledgement of his apology for setting the fire drill.

Mm.

And in the original episode, it just sort of cuts off right there, like Dwight. Hands him a pen and Michael signs it, but there's a little bit more and it cracked me up and I think we need to hear it.

I don't get it. Do I stress you out? Nothing stresses me out. Except having to seek the approval of my inferiors. Speaking of which. I am a good person. I'm a good person. You are. You're a good person. I'm a good person. Why can't they just see that? You just put my pen in your pocket. No, I didn't. I own all the pens in this place. No, I I brought that in from home. It says Washington Mutual on it. It has a little piece of chain. Okay. Can Empty your pockets. Meeting is over.

Dwight.

Jerk.

So that is the stuff I love the most. I'm so sad that wasn't in the original. I'm so glad it's back in.

Lady, it's amazing. As soon as he signs the clipboard, he puts the pen in his pocket and Dwight calls him out. And it's hilarious because when he says it says Washington Mutual has a little piece of chain. Now you know Dwight stole it from the bank. Michael is stealing it from Dwight.

Dwight probably popped it off the chain at the bank counter.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

He thinks balancing a checkbook is putting a checkbook on his nose and shouting, look at me, look at me!

Para ti, para ti. Okay, what is he saying, lady?

So here's the thing. Liz, he is talking way too fast for me. The only part I could understand was para tea, para tea. But I went online and according to the folks on the internet who were able to translate it, here's what Oscar is saying. They give you kind of two versions. Quote, I get an ulcer every time I wake up and have to come to work. For you, for you. Or optionally, you give me an ulcer every time I wake up and I have to come work for you. For you

So he gets an ulcer from Michael.

Yep.

Well, speaking of the roast, in our breakdown, we mentioned that the candy bag for the roast was 207 pages.

That's bonkers.

Lady, I think we need an episode of Office Lady Six Po called Boom Roasted. Where we dig into some of those alts.

That would be really fun.

All right. Well we'll get started on that. And for now, please enjoy your second drink of stress relief part two.

And I'm Angela Kinsey.

We are on the office.

And we're best friends.

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.

It's Stress Relief Part Two.

Part du Oh Is that

We're gonna be very refined today.

Part du coup.

Oh.

Third language, Indonesian. Part 2.

We are a classy show.

Ha ha ha.

This is season five, episode fifteen, written by Paul Lieberstein, directed by Jeffrey Bliss. Let me give you a summary. Last week, if you remember, Dwight took matters into his own hands when his coworkers failed to pay attention to his fire safety seminar. He did a big fire drill.

He liked trapped us in a burning building.

He did. Stanley had a heart attack. Dwight was in hot water with corporate. We have that.

Right.

This week. Michael learned that he was the source of Stanley's stress, not Dwight, not the fire drill. And so he thinks the best thing to do is to throw a roast.

Like an old school roast.

For himself.

Yes. Yeah, drinking.

Martin. Yeah, this is Friars Club. This is gonna be his comic relief moment. Meanwhile, Jim is still embroiled in these marital issues that Pam's parents are having. Pam's dad has been staying with Jim and Pam, and Pam at the end of the last episode said, Jim, will you talk to my dad? Ugh. Pam, find out what's going on. That's

the worst. Like Pam, will you go talk to my parents?

Yeah.

I can't do it. You go do it.

I cannot imagine asking Lee to go talk to my parents about their marriage.

Oh my lord.

Did you imagine? So weird.

I know.

Incidentally my dad's name is Jim.

Does the world know that? Because is someone out there right now being like

And my brother-in-law's name is Dwight. Yes.

Do you guys know that?

And my niece's name is Cece.

Okay, and her best friend is named Angela.

What's going on? I think we mentioned this fact in an earlier podcast, but it is interesting.

All right.

Also last week I want to remind everyone that this episode played after the Super Bowl. It was a super big deal. Mm-hmm.

And the network wanted big name stars and our show was like, hey no, we don't do that. Not at this moment. And so we had this whole little movie playing out. So that's going on too.

Yeah, Jim and Pam and Andy are watching this pirated movie that stars Jack Black, Jessica Elba, and Cloris Leachman.

What happenin'?

I think we caught you up.

Yeah, you're caught up.

Fast fact number one, Jeff Blitz won an Emmy for directing this episode. Yeah. And he deserves it. This was complicated, but

So Jeff Blitz has been on our show before. We love him.

I mean I literally love Jeff Blake.

I know.

I love him as a human being. As a director. I would also like you to know that our editors, Dean Holland and Dave Rogers, were also nominated for an Emmy for this episode.

They deserve it.

Dean edited the first half of the episode with the whole fire drill, and Dave edited the second with the roast, which is what we will be talking about today.

Okay.

Jessica K and Claire R asked Who wrote the jokes for Michael's roast? Did the cast help? Was it the writers? Was any of it improvised? Short answer is the roast was totally scripted.

Yeah.

We as actors did not participate in writing these jokes about one another.

These were all written.

All written. And I found out who pitched this part of the story. The idea of the roast. Who? It is none other than the man behind Princess Unicorn, Halstead Sullivan.

Oh really? Yeah.

Halstead told me that they had the CPR storyline for the first half of the episode. And they needed something for the second half. So he told the writer's room that when he was growing up in Atlanta, his father was president of a medical school. And every year the medical students would put on a show. And it was like Kind of like a Follies show. And they would do skits where they imitated their professors. He said the audience loved it. The professors not so much.

Ha ha ha. Well, you know, I think Michael thinks everyone doesn't like me because I'm this jerk. They think I'm a jerk boss, right? Yeah. So here's your chance, guys. Have it. you know, roast me, say whatever you want. I love that he's like, make fun of, you know, how great I look in shoulder pads or

Also traditionally, roasting kind of started with the Friars Club, I believe. And it was a great honor to be the person being roasted. Oh yeah. It meant something. It was a position of status. And so I think that's another thing that is playing off Michael right now, which is that He's gonna be an honoree.

Yeah. This is a big deal. You guys are so lucky. You get to roast me.

Speaking of roasts, you know, Comedy Central has kind of taken over where the Friars Club left off and they do these roasts of people every year. The Bruce Willis Rose is real good. But in particular, Ed Norton roasts Bruce Willis. I was like rolling tears, streaming down my face. It is such a good roast. When we were prepping this episode, it came to my mind I went back and I watched it twice. I wish I could play it. It's way too long.

Oh I wanna see it.

Check it out.

The first time I saw Amy Schumer was on a Comedy Central roast and she was so funny. And there were a few dudes that were like kind of thrown her shade and she just decimated them.

Wow. All right, moving along. Fast fact number three, Cloris Leachman.

Cloris frickin' leechman.

We told you there's this mini movie, and Cloris Leechman is one of the stars. She kills it in this mini movie.

Legend legend.

I mean, incredible. I needed to do a little breakdown of Chloris Leechman. Here it is. Cloris Leachman was born in Des Moines, Iowa, Midwesterner.

Did not know that.

As a child, she performed at the Des Moines Little Theater. Then she won a special scholarship to study broadcast drama at Northwestern. She stayed there for a while, but then she returned to Des Moines to finish high school. Then she returned to Northwestern with a theater scholarship this time. But she dropped out again. to enter a beauty contest. This beauty contest?

Wow.

I'm not sure. Eventually she moved to New York. She studied at the actor studio. That's a big deal, acting school guys. Then she made her Broadway debut in nineteen forty-eight in a production called Sundown Beach. She became a household name when she was cast as Phyllis Lindstrom on the Mary Tyler Moore show. And then she had her own spin-off show, Phyllis. She won a best supporting Oscar for Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, Angela.

Which was written by Larry McMurtry, who is from my hometown of Archer City, Texas, and they filmed it in Archer City. And it was written by, you know, Larry never officially claimed it, but folks in Archer City. So they'd be like, Were you so and so? Did you sleep with that person? What's happening?

Oh, so people were like trying to figure out who everybody was. Which person is Sybil Shepherd? Which person is Floris Leachman?

Yeah, exactly. And Larry said it was inspired by, you know. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I don't know, I feel like there's some woman named Doris who knows. She's like it was me.

Jenna, I actually read The Last Picture Show a few years after I had left Archer City and I was in college. I was like, you know what? This is a book about my hometown. I want to read it. It's so great. It's a great read.

A great book and a great movie is what you're saying.

Yeah. So I'm saying don't skip the book on this one guys.

Over the course of her career, she won a total of eight Emmys for both drama and comedy, by the way. She won a daytime Emmy. She won a Golden Globe Award. And in 2008, at the age of 82. She was a contestant on season seven of Dancing with the Stars. She was the oldest contestant to ever dance on Dancing with the Stars. And she was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2011. I mean the legacy of this woman. Sadly, she passed away in 2021 at the age of 94. And she was on our show.

I know.

This legend.

Legend, amazing woman. Jenna, did you know I got to spend a little bit of time with Cloris?

Yes. No not during this episode.

Not during this episode.

Because none of us met these guys during this episode.

No, we didn't film when they were there, which was a bummer. But I ended up co presenting an award at the two thousand and twelve Genesis Awards with Chloris. We were co presenters.

Oh my god.

We had to hang out backstage. I met her daughter Dinah, who is lovely. They were the cutest mother daughter duo. And then Cloris and I went out on stage together. We presented this award and she truly was such a hoot. She I think was at the age in her life and in her career where she gave, as the kids say, zero Fs.

uh-huh

And then I would run into her and her daughter at different events and we would say hi because we had formed this little connection. Yeah. But anyway, she was just so fun and so full of life. And I'm so glad I just got to just interact with her those few times.

Yeah. I love that story, Ange. Why don't we take a break and we'll come back and break down this episode? Okay.

Great.

History That Doesn't Suck is a legit, hard-hitting American history podcast told through stories. As we approach America's 250th anniversary, now might be the time to go back and learn how we got here. With more than 200 episodes, you can bend your way decade by decade, defining event to defining event from the Into the 20th century. Join me, Professor Greg Jackson, for History That Doesn't Suck, an Odyssey podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

We start this episode with Pam being kind of upset. She's just gotten off the phone with her mom, and she's gonna go find Jim and say, hey, what did you say to my dad?

Yeah, her idea of having Jim talk to her dad did not go well. Apparently her dad is now looking for an apartment, and the divorce is Pam gets really worried. She has this talking head where she says, What could Jim have said to make my dad want to leave my mom? And at what point in their marriage is Jim gonna say this to her? She's spiraling, I think.

I think she's spiraling.

Yeah, I mean that's a big leap.

That's a big jump.

But she's upset.

And she's scared, right?

We had a fan question from Sally Kay. Was the divorce of Jim's parents a setup for the Michael Helene relationship in season six? Helene is Pam's mom, everyone. No. This was crafted as a small representation of how our show had dramatic moments in addition to comedic ones. But because this aired after the Super Bowl, we wanted to stay away from existing storylines. So the writers had to create kind of like

Yeah.

Yeah. So that was kind of why this storyline was crafted. And I remember John and I really fighting for the drama of this. Like really saying no, we want to play this real. Pam is really upset. This isn't funny upset. Like I remember when I was shooting a three camera show, I was supposed to get mad at one of the other characters and I was supposed to call him a jerk. I was supposed to say, You're a jerk. And the director came over to me and he said

Yeah.

Single cameraman.

Yeah. Funny mad, funny, sad.

He said, maybe go up at the end. You're a jerk. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, okay.

Or stomp your foot.

Yeah, something

Drop something on your toe and then go, ow, you're a jerk. What?

Oh see, this is why you were good at the three camera, Angela.

Ha ha.

I couldn't get it. I couldn't get it. So anyway, John and I were like, we're gonna do real upset. And it's gonna be okay because all the rest of the episode is gonna have the comedy.

Mm-hmm. You know, the first three camera I did after the office. I played it really real and really quiet. It was a show called Hot in Cleveland. I was really excited to do it. Amazing actresses on that show. Craig Ferguson was a guest star. He was in there. And the director came over to me and was like, Uh could you talk faster, maybe louder? And could you lower your voice or something? I don't know. Can we get her like a some glasses?

Anything to make you like a character.

character or something. Come eat it. Yeah. And Craig Ferguson started cracking up when the director walked away and he was like, maybe get her a top hat, a patch, maybe a parrot for a shoulder. Huh.

Ha ha ha.

And Wendy Malik was also in the scene and she came over and said to me and she called me kid, which I loved. She goes, Kid, you gotta sell it to the back row. This is multicam. I said, Gotcha, got it, got it, okay.

Yeah.

They did get me glasses though.

They did? Were they funny?

Funny. Betty White did tell me I was funny though. That was my takeaway.

Do you have any more stories about legends? You've got Cloris Leechman, you've got Betty White. We met Carol Burnett once.

Well I didn't speak though, remember I was too nervous.

I didn't speak either, but we stood next to

But Kate Flannery talked to her and we just stood there and spoke.

And then her and Kate got like a whole friendship going. I thought. We were so We just need to go up to Carol Burnett laughing next time.

Oh no.

I'm gonna try that one again. Oh I'm gonna get that one out in the future.

You're gonna bust it out.

I am.

Alright, where are we? Okay, Jim and Pam are playing Real Moments. Michael and Dwight are sharing a bottle of mini booze.

Very tiny bottle.

Jenna, this is not the first time the tiny bottle of booze has been in an episode.

When was the first time?

All right. In the deleted scenes of the duel, Michael is building up the courage to tell Andy and they're walking out to the car together, and Michael hands him a mini bottle of booze out of his pocket in the elevator and goes, drink this.

Hundred percent did.

Right? Of course. That's what I wrote in my head anyway. Or from

Yeah. First class.

Yes!

In this scene as they're sharing this mini bottle of booze, we are reminded that Dwight needs to get the signature of everyone in the office. As an acknowledgement that they have accepted his apology for dismembering the CPR dummy last week.

I mean how many apology notes is he gonna have to have people say?

I don't know, but he has to get everyone's signature. He's having a hard time.

That's the only thing that's stressing him out.

Well this is when Michael gets his big idea. They should roast him.

Uh-huh.

This is great. He's gonna bust into the bullpen. He's gonna announce, we're doing a roast. I want you to really go at me. Don't hold back.

Yeah, you can comment on how fit I am or the fact that I'm a womanizer.

He doesn't want to write the material for them, but he wants it to be good.

Everyone is pretty excited. I mean Kevin is like a giggly, he's so excited.

I liked Oscar's talking head.

Say it.

He was like, Listen, I'm a good person but I am gonna try to make Michael cry.

Ha ha ha.

We had a fan catch from Samantha S and Michelle S. Two people noticed this catch. Okay. If you're following along, starting with part two at one minute 15 seconds, Kelly is standing in front of the shelf. and her notebook is closed. But in the very next shot it is open and upside down.

Oh well, we missed that one.

Surely she's not really taking an inventory of anything.

I have a question for you.

What is it?

Who is planning this roast? There's no party planning committee meeting, but I want you to know in deleted scenes I found this gym. Michael is having a meeting with Daryl in the warehouse. Oh. Yeah. So I'm like, wait, is Daryl in charge of this party? Cause it's in the warehouse. So Michael is telling Daryl everything he needs. He says, I would like a stage. And Daryl points to a few wood pallets.

Okay.

And he's like, Well, okay. And he goes, also I need a big comfy chair or maybe a throne.

That made me spit out my coffee.

Then he tells Daryl that he would like all the other roasters to be up on the stage too. Like, you know, the Comedy Central Roast where they have the dais of other roasters up there. Yeah. And Daryl's like looking at these tiny wood pallets, like, mm, okay.

Oh, he's planning out that this is gonna be so funny he's gonna need to spit out his drink.

Like, uh, you're not spitting in the warehouse. Then Dwight rushes in and he's got this eight by ten photo of Michael. And Michael's like, no, no, no, no, no. I want this photo here. Just gotta cover like the whole back wall. Okay. Yeah. And then he says, I also want a drum and cymbal so I can do the ba-dump bum.

This is amazing because all of these things are going to appear in the warehouse.

Yes. So I'm thinking Daryl and Dwight planned this. They were the PPC for this event.

I don't wanna give too much of a spoiler, but next week we're gonna find out what happened to the P P C and why there is no one in charge of party planning right now.

Oh yeah. So So this was like foreshadowing.

Little bit. Well I guess they set everything up and Dwight has a great idea. It's actually a great idea.

Brilliant.

He tells everyone as they're entering that they have to sign in for the road. But what they're really signing is his oh.

Apology.

Yeah.

Yes.

Phyllis.

So good. She's so good. She is just busting his butt through this whole episode.

She will not sign. She's not gonna sign. She's the holdout.

Yeah.

Everyone takes their seat. Michael sits on his throne and now the roast is gonna begin. Shall we take a break?

I think we take a break and we come back with the roasting.

Okay folks, the roast is on. Michael welcomes all these jerks.

Yeah. Who's first up? Who can't wait to get up there and roast Michael Scott? He can barely finish his sentence and she's grabbing the microphone.

It's Angela Martin.

That's right. Jenna, I noticed something in rewatching this multiple times, like we do each week. Is Angela Martin ripping off Jeff Foxworthy bit?

Yes. You know Angela Martin is a Jeff Foxworthy fan. She's

I mean listen, listen to Jeff and then listen to Angela. If you've ever cut your grass and found

a car.

You might be a redneck. And now Angela. If you ever put sunblock on a window, you might be Michael Scott. If you ever called the fire department cause y your head was stuck in your chair, you might be.

Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok

She clearly is doing Jeff's bit.

Yes, a hundred percent.

When I rewatched that I was like, Oh my gosh, that had to be the writer's inspiration for Angela's comedic style.

I was very impressed with how prepared Angela was.

Prepared and her mic work. Like she took the mic off, waved it to the crowd for everyone to say Michael Scott. She was into it.

Next up is Kelly, and she does a list of who and what she would rather kiss than Michael Scott.

All right, I gotta jump in and just tell you guys there is so much extra stuff in the deleted scenes for the roast. We also find out Kelly has a second bit where she says she knows that Michael dyes his hair. Oh yeah. That one day it was raining and his hair dye dripped onto her arm. And she color matched it and Michael uses Claire on Natural Instincts Midnight Black. She does this whole other bit.

Oscar wroasts Michael in Spanish and he speaks very quickly. He has a lot to say.

A lot to say. Very passionate. There's so much more Oscar in the deleted scenes. First of all, he does multiple jokes in English before he gets to his Spanish roast. And I think we need to hear'em.

The only man in the state of Pennsylvania who is less likely to get legally married than me is Michael Scott.

Uh

Yeah.

Michael Scott is so dumb. He thinks balancing a checkbook is putting a checkbook on his nose and shouting Look at me look at me. Michael is so bad with money, he invested in Enron. Last week That was privileged. Michael is the biggest idiot I know. And uh finally, sometimes I lay awake at night, I'm sure all of you do too, and wonder what the hell did I do to deserve a boss like this?

I mean

My god.

He just calls him an idiot. Oh my gosh.

Michael is kind of realizing that maybe this wasn't as fun as he thought it would be, but things are in motion now. Yeah. And everyone can't wait to get up on stage. Toby tries to have a turn, but Michael shoots him down.

Yeah, he says only friends, friends only. And then there is a deleted scene, Jenna, where Oscar brings a cell phone up on stage because Jan, who isn't there, has decided to call in so she can roast Michael.

Amazing.

Alright, we gotta hear it. Well, Michael, you ruined my life. Okay? Everything you touch turns to crap. Okay. You have no sense of how to please any woman.

I can't believe...

That once you wrote a phone message on my diploma. And you used my daughter's christening gown as a bib when you ate ribs? I mean you're just-

You're just

Completely an ass Hey Michael, you're an ass

Okay, I have to say clearly the writers had a lot of fun writing this roast because in addition to all these deleted scenes, remember last week when I said our candy bag for this episode was two hundred and seven pages?

Were they all roasting jokes?

Almost all alternate roast jokes.

Well I do

Pages and pages and pages.

Oh my gosh. I do remember Jenna that people got up multiple times.

Oh yeah. They just kept handing us stuff to go say in the candy bag they had all these alts for Jan when she called in. So in addition to this deleted one, this one really

Please.

Yeah. It only took one night of misguided drunken passion with Michael to ruin my entire life. I would have been better off if he'd just given me syphilis.

Oh my gosh.

Jim is gonna get up and he's gonna, I guess, list all of the sayings that Michael has butchered.

Spiderface.

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Dwight is feeling bad for Michael, so he hops up on stage to defend him, right?

Yeah.

And Michael's like idiot, you're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. And then Dwight snaps and is like What, you're calling me an idiot? Like he's up there trying to defend him. He's like, You're just a small, pathetic little man. You have no friends, no family, and no land. And he walks off stage and everyone cheers.

Well now it's Pam's turn. I remember so clearly shooting this. I remember because after roasting him about falling for internet scams and being lazy at work, I had to say that Michael's penis is small.

I mean, this is the ultimate nail in the coffin of the roast. For Michael in particular. I mean, Michael, who's like

Like Because remember, in an earlier episode, Pam knocked on the door and Michael said, Come in, and he did not have his clothes on. And Pam was like, Why did you say come in?

He was changing for fun run.

Exactly. So Pam is gonna call that back and she's gonna make a joke at his expense. We did this a few ways. That we started by having me just say it on the stage, but then they thought this is kind of a low blow, right?

Yeah, and it's bold for Pam.

It is. So they were like, let's try this one on the move.

Yeah, like a throwaway.

Exactly. And so that's what ended up making it into the episode.

And then we have an old tech alert that helps you really just punch him one more time.

Oh yeah, everyone's like, how small is it? And then Pam says, if it were an iPod it'd be a shuffle. Do some people even know that joke? Do they even get that joke?

Do people still have iPods? It was a big deal. We were so excited to have our iPods with all of our music on it.

Just music.

Only music.

And they came in different sizes and shuffle was the smallest.

Yeah, and you could get a tiny one and like clip it on your like armband and go running. I never did that'cause I don't run but

You could.

You could have. It looked cool.

Yeah.

With your headphones that had a cord that had to go to it. So you couldn't pump your arms too hard.

No. No. Oh, how many times did I just yank that cord out of my iPod? Because I was gesturing not exercising. I'm so sorry. Please don't get the wrong idea. I was gesturing wildly.

Well, now Daryl's gonna come up and this one was really cringy. Daryl says, Michael, you always say we're family, right? Yep. So if you're family, you know everyone's names. What's that guy's name? And he points to a warehouse employee. And Michael clearly doesn't know his name and it's so awkward. His name is Michael. And not only is his name Michael, but Michael gave him a car ride home and they were in traffic for like an hour together.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's written the song. We have it. We gotta hear it.

That was so amazing. It was so amazing on the day.

We were all singing.

I want you guys to know, people have asked, you know, Ed did not write those lyrics. That was written by our writers. Ed figured out how to play the song on the guitar, but That was scripted. It was so good.

So good. But you know what? Our writers could throw Ed anything. And I felt like he just was like, done.

I mean that's a good thing to have.

It is

Secret weapon.

Secret weapon.

Well guys, Michael isn't happy.

It looks like he might cry.

And then the next day, the phone rings and Pam says, Michael's not in the office. Michael didn't come to work. No. He's so depressed. Dwight says it's very unusual for Michael not to show up. He is either depressed or maybe he's been impaled by an icicle. He does have a terrible habit of standing underneath them, staring up at them, despite Dwight's many warnings.

Any warning? The gang is in the break room, you know, sort of saying, Is he okay? What should we do? Yeah. And Creed has one of those lines, Jenna, that made John break. Yeah. It's a classic Creed line. Phyllis says I hope he's okay, I feel bad. Creed says give it up, he's dead. Jim says he just sent a text. Creed goes, What's a text? What's a text? Like sent everyone into laughing fits.

That aspect of Creed's character was John's Kryptonite. Yes.

Yeah.

That you're not real.

Not real. What's a text?

Yeah, like he loved that stuff. Well, we do eventually find Michael. He is sitting alone at a playground. Like what is this?

I know and he has like nice jeans on with like appropriate sort of black dress shoes kinda.

He's feeding full slices of bread to invisible birds.

Yeah.

I'll have you know this location alert, this was North Hollywood Community Center Park. Where we shot this little bit of Steve and his turtleneck.

There's lots more in the deleted scenes. Him him talking to little kids, him trying to shoot baskets like

Michael explains in a talking head that, you know, sometimes he has to get away, he needs to get perspective, and we learn like he is not okay.

Right. But him imagining a spaceman on a star very far away.

That might help him. Get that perspective. Yeah. Back in the office, Dwight is still trying to get Phyllis's signature.

She's the only one. She's the only one that hasn't signed.

So guess what? Delivery. There's a delivery man. Yeah. Who has come in in a very, I would say noticeably generic uniform. Mm-hmm.

There's a package for Phyllis.

For Phyllis, but she has to sign for it.

Yeah.

I loved this gay. She signs the clipboard and as soon as she signs the clipboard like disappears from the man's hands.

It's got a like one of those chains and it's being dragged away. The pin has a chain to the clipboard.

And it's Dwight over in the hallway. He got his signature.

He did. Well this was a fun cameo played by our very own producer, James Carey.

Yes, James Carey who's been helping us out on the podcast.

Yeah!

This is him, if you wondered what he looked like, there he is.

There he is. James was on the show the whole time.

Yeah, he was with us from the very beginning.

very beginning, so it was really fun to have him on stage with us filming, and we reached out to him and asked him about this moment.

James said that he never asked to be an actor on the show. And one day he just got this random phone call from Ben, who worked in Allison Jones' office. Ben was Allison's casting associate. And he told him, We have a role in stress relief. There's one line. We'd like you to play it. And James was like, Yes, of course I said yes. And this was just, you know, this was just a cool thing that Greg and Allison would do from time to time. They would feature longtime crew members in the show.

Well, we would always get really excited. And James told us that for him the day on set was really fun, exciting. I mean, he'd he'd worked for a long time in the entertainment industry. But he said when you're in front of the camera and other people are depending on you to hit your mark and deliver your dialogue, all of a sudden he got really nervous. And he said he was expecting a little more directing because he's not an actor at all.

Okay.

But they didn't really give him much. They were just like, Go there, say you're lying. But he did say after one or two takes, Jeff Blitz suggested to him, Maybe look like you're up to something. You know, give it a little something. And he's like, I think that's the take they used. But his whole family saw it because it was on after the

Super Bowl. Yes. But James said when they first said, We've got a role for you, it's one line as a delivery man, he didn't realize it was for the stress relief episode. Yeah. So when he said yes. He just wasn't putting it together that he was saying yes to the Super Bowl episode. He said his dad was particularly excited. And when he told his brother and sister at first, he said he thinks they didn't believe him. They thought he was kidding.

Yeah, yeah. He said they were like, Yeah, sure, you're gonna be on, yeah, whatever.

And then there he was. He was on it.

Well the episode is wrapping up and so is the movie, Mrs. Albert Hannity. Mm-hmm. And he's moved to tears. He's watching Jack Black and Cloris Leechman break up.

Yeah, she's very slowly moving up the staircase in her special motorized chair.

He's crying saying, Hit reverse

So I shared last week that we shot this on location at a house in West Los Angeles. Randy told me the house already had this chairlift. We did not install it.

I would think that they scouted a house with a chairlift.

He also said that because they wanted this mini film to really look like a real movie, we shot the Mrs. Hannaday sequence on film.

Dang!

It was our first time shooting something for our show on film. We normally used the digital cameras. We even had a steady cam film camera. And since they only had one day to shoot all these scenes, Jeff Blitz and Randall Einhorn did a full blocking rehearsal with stand-ins. where they planned out every single shot. They created official storyboards just like you do on a film. And Randy even sent us pictures. Yeah. And they exactly match the mini movie.

Yes, so Randy sent us pictures of how they staged it. And it was so fun to see them because Anna, who was in charge of locations, played Jack Black. Yes. And then Jasmine, who was our second AD, plays Cloris Leachman. So we'll have to put one of those pictures. in our stories. It was fun to see their faces.

In addition to wrapping up the movie storyline, we're going to find out what exactly Jim said to Pam's dad.

Yeah, Pam's dad comes to the office and they have this whole conversation in the parking lot. Now we can't hear it. We see it, but we don't know what they're saying.

We had a fan question from Stephanie P. What did Pam say to her dad in the parking lot? There was never any dialogue for this in the script. This was always a silent spy shot. In fact, here's what it said. It said, Jim's POV, Pam is talking with her father. The conversation goes back and forth. Pam looks angry. The dad says something. She looks up at Jim with tears in her eyes. The dad leaves, and Pam walks back inside.

So you guys just had to fill in the blanks there.

We did. Now, Pam's Dad was played by Rick Overton and he will be back again in Niagara. And Rick is actually a really funny guy. He's like an improvisation comedy veteran. He's also a writer. He won an Emmy for writing an episode of Dennis Miller Live. So it's funny to me how we would cast people with great pedigree to stand and do a silent POV shot in the parking lot.

Ja.

But that was because this is a big role, Pam's dad. If we bring him back, we need to make sure this person has the chops to go the distance. Yeah. And Rick was great. And we just improvised dialogue. We just improvise. what he might be saying to her that would cause her to be hurt. It it was mostly a spin on like, I'm sorry, but I need to leave your mother, you know. He knew that scripted line.

That's great.

Well this all leads us into this pam talking head that gets quoted back to me all the time.

It's a very sweet talking head.

It is Pam says When you're young you assume your parents are soulmates. Her kids are gonna be right about that. Yeah.

Andy overhears it, throws papers in the air'cause he's like his whole running bit is that Pam and Jim are sort of relationship geniuses and that they can see all of this stuff happening in a movie that he can't see. Yes. This deep relationship like storyline that he just can't see.'Cause it's not there, Andy.

No. He says he would never be insightful enough to be a movie critic, but he could maybe be a food or art critic. Mm-hmm.

Hm. Hm. Here comes Michael in his black turtleneck and his black coat. I'm still like obsessed with this outfit. He said he spent the afternoon in the park trying to feed pigeons, but I guess they'd all flown west for the winter. Yeah. And he just had some thoughts he wanted to share with everyone. Pam says what?

Mm-hmm.

And he said I wrote'em down, so I wouldn't forget.

Oh boy, here it comes. This is The boom roasteds.

Mm-hmm.

Boom, roasted. So you know I told you that Halstead Sullivan came up with the idea for the roast storyline. Yeah. I had to know who came up with boom roasted.

Who did?

All right, I got a hot tip that it might be Justin Spitzer or Jean Stubnitsky.

Okay.

I reached out to them and said.

And nope. Nope.

They thought maybe it was Charlie Grandy.

Oh, was it?

I don't have Charlie's info. Oh. So I reached out to Jen Salada.

Plot thickens.

I said Jen. Do you know if Charlie Grandy wrote Boom Roasted?

Ja.

These are the emails I exchange with her.

I know. Oh, I know.

Jen said, I think so, but let me text him. And then I just love Gen Solata so much.

I know.

She writes me back. Boom roasted was Charlie three exclamation points. We did it. So I wrote Justin and I said, Justin, it was Charlie Grandy and he said, Great, I would like some credit on the podcast for sending you down the right road. I said, You will get it.

Thank you, Justin.

Thank you all of you guys. I had to know. Boom roasted. It's so famous. Charlie Grandy.

Carly Grandy. Well, I think we need to hear these. I'm gonna read them to you. Michael says. Jim, you're six eleven and you weigh ninety pounds. Gumby has a better body than you. Boom, roasted. Dwight, you're a kiss ass. Boom. Roasted. Pam, you failed art school. Boom, roasted. Meredith, you've slept with so many guys, you've started to look like one. Boom. Roasted. Kevin, I can't decide between a fat joke and a dumb joke. Boom. Roasted. Creed, your teeth called, your breast stinks. Boom

Boom, roasted.

Oscar, you are gay. Boom, roasted. Andy Cornell called, they think you suck and you're gayer than Oscar. Boom, roasted. Well now Stanley is cac.

Hysterically laughing.

He can't stop laughing. I mean it's egging Michael on. He's laughing. Everyone seems to have turned a corner.

Michael is very good at roasting, I guess.

And Michael has a talking head that wraps up the whole moment. He says they say that laughter is the best medicine. So Stanley, you can throw away those pills. You are cured. Actually, you know what? You should you you better hold on to those pills just in case.

Well, lady, I had a lot of fun looking at the candy bag alternates for this as well.

Oh, what do you got?

Oh, okay. So first of all, with a lot of characters, they had a lot of roastable things. Your character, Evangela Martin, every roast is a spin on hiding behind a grain of rice. Everyone. It was so funny to me. They clearly came up with that idea. I couldn't see you behind that grain of rice. And they were like, that's it. We're not gonna do better than that. Cause there were some slight alternates, but it always ended with, Oh, I'm sorry I couldn't see you behind that grain of rice.

Oh my gosh.

But they are all just Michael telling him to F off and that he hates him. Here's an example in all caps. Toby, f you! I hope you die. Boom roasted!

Well the episode's gonna end with our movie, Mrs. Albert Hannity.

And it's a real surprise ending. Yeah. Big twist at the end.

Just Jack Black as Sam He's returning to Lily's house, played by Cloris. He's got flowers and a walking cane in his hand. Yeah. He's running up to the front door.

Mm-hmm. As he gets there, he looks through the window. She's with another man, another young man.

Yeah, and they are in the throes of passion.

It's very, very, very much of a love scene.

It's a make out.

It's a big makeup.

It's a real big make out.

The man she is making out with is her writer's assistant, Nate Fetterman.

Nate, we had to know how did you get this job?

He sent in this audio clip, and I promise you you will hang on his every word.

Hi, my name's Nate Fetterman. I was one of the writer's assistants on stress relief and I got to make out with Cloris Leechman and this is my story. Originally my part was supposed to be for Zach Ephron and there were actual lines, but he turned it down, and so did Corbin Blue and Christopher Mint's plot. And the day before it was supposed to shoot, they hadn't cast it and all the lines had been cut and they really just needed somebody who was young

Crack.

So when they called action, I grabbed her ass and I really got up in that crack. And uh we did the scene. We shot it many times. They had to get it from a lot of different angles. So we ended up making out quite a bit. She did say a variety of other uh

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your story.

I mean, what an amazing story.

Amazing. Hey Nate, Zach Ephron isn't available. What are you doing tomorrow? Yeah. Can you do something for me real quick? Sure, what is it? It's just that scene where you make out with Cloris Leechman.

Mm-hmm.

Oh okay, sure, I guess so.

And you get five hundred bucks. Yeah.

Yeah and a great story.

And a story for your lifetime.

You know what? In these kind of over the top moments, you have to go for it. And Cloris was saying, Sweetie, I give you permission to go for it. You grab my butt.

Sell it.

That's what the scene needs, and we can't be shy with each other.

Yeah.

Yeah, we have to go for it. And I've been in situations with actors where we've given one another permission.

Yeah!

So helpful'cause it gets you out of your head and you're like, okay, good.

Now we can just Have fun with it. I mean, you guys watch every single Dwight Angela make out.

Exactly.

Sometimes you just gotta go for it. And on our set, I think we were so good about being like, Okay, I'm cool with this, you do this, we're fine. You know, we communicated.

And I have to imagine, you're with this legend performer, Cloris Leachman.

Yeah.

Yes, you've never met this person.

Yeah.

So for her to just be so fun and up for it like that and to just say, do it, baby, do it. I love it. Yeah. Well there you have it.

Stress relief.

Part two, do you feel less stressed? Have you had some relief of your stress after listening to this podcast, everyone?

hope so. I hope her podcast Doesn't stress people out. If we can leave anything with you from stress relief other than boom roasted, it's ah.

I was just gonna say that

Staying alive, stayin' alive.

Now people are stressed.

You wonder if there's a lot of people.

I'm so sorry.

Bye you guys. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.

For lecture circuit.

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies Second Drink.

This episode was initially created in collaboration with Earwolf.

Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. Our senior producer is Matt Beagle.

Our second drinks episodes are produced by Molly Nugent.

Our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer.

Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.

Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.

Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.