“In Japan, heart surgeon. Number one. Steady hand. One day, yakuza boss need new heart. I do operation. But, mistake! Yakuza boss die. Yakuza very mad. I hide in fishing boat, come to America. No English, no food, no money. Darryl give me job. Now I have house, American car, and new woman. Darryl save life. My big secret: I kill yakuza boss on purpose. I good surgeon. The best!”
The Office’s B.J. Novak was kind enough to provide some details about that amazingly hilarious tag from ‘The Office’ episode Happy Hour, starring Hide the warehouse worker:
It was a particular mission of mine to get that in the episode. We shot six versions — two entirely different backstories, and filmed each of them solo at the warehouse, solo at the bar, and at the bar with Darryl.
I liked the idea that Hide (played by Hidetoshi Imura) had a life story infinitely more dramatic than anyone else the documentary crew has been following, but that they had never thought to ask. He’s been a background player for years.
Hide improvised one piece of the monologue: the inclusion of “American car” among his good fortunes. I did not quite understand why someone from Japan would take such specific pride in owning an American car, but I enjoyed it and we went with it.