From Jenna Fischer’s TV Guide blog, dated February 2, 2006:
The Office Presents: “Boys and Girls”
by Jenna Fischer, aka “Pam”When we have downtime on The Office [Thursdays at 9:30 pm/ET on NBC], we do more than just sit and watch the boys play video-game football. Angela [Kinsey, Angela] and I like our girl time, too. We like to scrapbook and look at fashion magazines. Or sometimes we have “picnics” where we gather food and drinks from the snack table, go into Angela’s trailer, light candles, and gossip. It was during one of our “picnics” that Angela and I had the idea for tonight’s episode, “Boys and Girls.” We took our brainchild to Greg Daniels, the executive producer of the show.
“What if Jan came into the office and did a ‘Women in the Workplace’ seminar, and Michael got all jealous?” we said.
“That’s funny. What happens next?”
“No idea. That’s all we got.”
He stared at us blankly. (This is why I am not a writer on the show.)
Still, a seed was planted and from it grew this week’s episode, written by the brilliant and hilarious B.J. Novak (Ryan).
In this episode, Jan gathers all of the ladies into the conference room and does a “Women in the Workplace” seminar. She’s looking for potential. She doesn’t find much. Michael is jealous, so he takes all of the men down to the warehouse for a last-minute “Men in the Workplace” seminar. This will be the first time Jim and Roy (David Denman) have been in close quarters since Jim revealed he “used to” have a crush on Pam. It’s good stuff.
This was an interesting week of shooting. We really were separated and didn’t see the men much at all. And it was great! Don’t get me wrong, we love the boys. But it was fun having the office all to ourselves. We talked about shopping and shoes and our periods and sore breasts. We talked about haircuts and manicures and diet plans and all the things we don’t gab about when the boys are in the room. We talked about which boys we thought were cute. We all agreed that Rainn Wilson (Dwight) is pretty hot in his street clothes. When the guys would come upstairs, we would giggle. We behaved like seventh-graders.
I hear the men had a lot of fun in the warehouse, too. They did something that involves a potato gun, a forklift and breaking glass.
So, in the end it is both the most masculine and most feminine episode of The Office yet. I’m just glad no one got hurt. Or cried.
Oh, and I almost forgot. I promised to tell you who won the poker match last Thursday: We didn’t play. Turns out you can’t gamble on company property.
Until next week…