Q. Was the abrupt cut off of Michael’s “suck balls” intentional for comedic purposes or did NBC require it be trimmed at the last minute for censorship reasons? | Mason
John: That was an idea I had in the editing room with Dave. I wanted to play on exactly those network censored moments. And if the documentary crew actually aired the footage, the network would have to cut him off!
Q. Whose car did Michael hit when he threw the Sabre water bottle? | Anna
John: Haha! Stanley’s … it’s always Stanley!
Q. I think Jim’s Christian Slater impression might be my favorite. Who came up with that slice of genius? | Jen
Jen: Hmmm … I’m not sure who thought of him doing the impression — that talking head came from the room. But John looked at some tape of Christian Slater right before he went on set to shoot it to try and get it down and it was amazing.
He does really good impressions of people – you could see his “Dwight” in one of our episodes, but he also does a great “Kevin” as does Rainn.
Q. I know that the man who played the daycare worker was also in Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. Did John have anything to do with this casting? How much pull does the director usually have in regards to casting and bigger decisions such as that? | Kanne
John: Joey Slotnick played the daycare worker. And good eye on spotting him in Brief Interviews! Joey is definitely a close friend, but he got that part all on his own!
The casting process is a real family process, everybody has a say. Joey has auditioned several times for
the show and was always great, so the casting director (the insanely talented Allison Jones) was just waiting for the perfect part for him … and I think she found it!
Q. Jen: How did the interview at the daycare go?! I was hoping for some kind of resolution in the tag! | Ampay
Jen: There was a final scene to the Jim/Pam story. Pam and Jim are walking down the street, being defensive about not getting in and saying they didn’t want their kid to go there anyway because that guy was a jerk.
They start to explore their other options. Jim brings up that their second choice is where Meredith’s son went and Pam wants to hear their third choice.
I felt that story-wise, we didn’t really need this scene. I liked the scene but I thought we could tell that the interview scene was a bust and we could use this time to squeeze in some more scenes from the other stories — but those are always hard calls.
We had a 40-minute or so rough assembly of this episode and we needed to get it down to 20 minutes! The cool thing and the hard thing is that there are so many different 20 minute episodes buried inside our longer cuts. That’s why having killer editors like Dave and Claire is really important.
Oh, a few people asked why there weren’t more kids at the day care. There were a bunch of kids in “Story Time” off to the side when Pam and Jim first come into the daycare — but it was cut for time.
Instead, we jump ahead with Jim seeing the cubbies. When we were breaking the story, we thought it was important to show that the daycare owner (played by the very funny Joey Slotnick) wouldn’t use the toilet while kids were running around and could walk in on him — we even had pitches where the owner would decide how long he had based on the book the kids were reading — so if it was a longer story he’d go for it.
But at the end of the day, the shot of the kids had to go, too.
Q. How did you come up with the idea of Jim walking up on that guy in the bathroom? It was hilarious! | Hedvig
Jen: The idea to have Jim walk in on the daycare owner came from one of our writers, Halsted Sullivan. Right before his interview for Williams College, he walked in on his interviewer going to the bathroom.
He went into the meeting and said that there was no getting around it — they were both uncomfortable and the whole interview was awkward. He said it was so bad that he never even applied to Williams!
Andy Buckley in the house! We miss you! Thanks all for answering our questions.
I thought when I heard it that “Taste a Rainbow” was a shout out to Chris Kattan’s Mango character, who always said crazy stuff like that. Love these Q&A’s.
You are all so talented. The show is just so great. I am 55 and worked in banking for 32 years, I can’t tell you how many scenes from all the shows I could relate to over the years. I envy all of you for getting to do what you love and are all so great at.
The Q & A’s are great. Hoping the show will be on for many more years. Thanks for keeping me entertained.
This was definitely one of the best episode Q&A’s ever! I loved all the surprise guests, especially Andy Buckley, that was fantastic. And I’m super excited for Rainn’s directorial debut, who knows what crazy things he might come up with? JKras did an incredible job and I hope he can do more episodes in the future! Thank you so much to the cast & writers, you’re the BEST :) Tanster, you rock for being in such close contact with all of them!
[from tanster: my pleasure! i love these Q&As. and it was fantastic to get so many Office members involved this time around!]
Thanks to everyone and Tanster! It is so amazing and unusual to be able to learn more details like this. Fantastic!
Wow, what a great Q&A…especially since we get no Office tonight. I think that made up for it.
Wow, what an amazing Q&A! Thanks to everyone – we really do appreciate you putting the time and effort into doing this and doing such a thoughtful job answering the questions.
That was GREAT! Thanks to everyone for participating.
I still want to know.. “John.. how did you become so awesome?”
That was SO much fun to read. Hearing the fun behind the scenes stories make the episode even better, in my opinion. Thanks Tanster! :)
Thanks everyone for answering the questions. It is amazing the information that you share with us fans!
LOL at Creed.
[from tanster: i wrote creed, and that is the exact response he sent me. :) ]
What a fun read. And, once again, Creed steals the show.
W00t! This made my day! Thank you so much, Office Cast and Staff! (And a special thank you to Tanster. You’re the best!)
Best Q&A yet! Thanks tanster!
One word…AWESOME!
Best Q&A ever! …but that was with John Krasinski so I might be biased… ;) Creed: perfect answer!
Thank you so much everybody: Jen, John, Andy, tanster… :)
To echo others – that was amazing! I always love the Q&A’s, but this one very well may be the best one yet. Many, many thanks to everyone involved!
And Creed’s answer nearly caused me to spit water all over my computer monitor. Classic!
Loved Creed’s answer,spot on. And I loved the insight into the shenanigans of the writer’s room! Making magic wands out of chopsticks is a fantastic idea…I know what I’ll be doing this weekend!
Woo! One of my questions was answered! Thanks Jen! And thanks Tanster for setting this up! :-)
Awesome Q&A! One of the best! I love all the behind the scenes stuff. Any chance we may be getting one for the birth? Please?
Yay! My question got answered! Thanks everyone for an awesome Q&A!
Hooray! Andy answered a question from me. So fun. Thanks to everyone! What a fun Q&A!
Oh, and I love the Harry Potter stuff! Too funny. I had to read that out loud to my coworker.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone involved in the Q&A! It was awesome!
Seriously, how can you not love these people? Cast, crew, and of course, Tanster, all totally awesome.
We are not worthy.
That was fantastic! I love these Q & A’s. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
That was awesome, thank you so much for being able to make things like this happen.
Love this. I am so ready for The Office to come back. I am having Jim withdrawals…
john answered my question… i can die happy!
the answer was great too… 9ft. 2in… heeeeeee. oh john how i love you.
Thank you so much! This was the best Q&A — it made me laugh and smile and made my day! All this insight and funny stuff was such a great added bonus to yet another truly great episode. There is no other cast, crew, writing team in the business that gives so much to their devoted fans! What a truly functional, happy, crazy-talented bunch. Thanks again to Tanster and The Office!
Thank you Andy for answering my question. In my opinion your David Wallace and Amy Ryan’s Holly are the only ones who have managed to bring out the most tenderful and precious side of a man who has a tendency to create havoc for himself and others. Michael Scott of course.
Yay! My question was answered. Thanks again Tanster for putting this together. I love all the behind the scenes info!
my question was answered! thanks so much jen & john (:
“Which one’s John?” – Classic.
Loved this Q & A! Best one yet! Thank you Tanster for making this happen! it certainly helped my Office withdrawals (1 more week!)
This was great! And John answered my question!! *dies a little* Thanks again for having this Q&A, reading all these answers and the behind the scenes tidbits was so much fun. :)
So great. I loved the Harry Potter story, the true story behind the awkward interview, learning that it was John’s idea to have Wallace be so creepy, and of course, Creed’s statement. Thanks so much to EVERYONE for chipping in and answering our questions! (And thanks, Jen, for answering mine!) This Q & A just reminds me why I love you guys so much– thanks for loving us back!
Wow, so so fun. THANKS again, Tanster and amazing Office peeps who make us fans love you and your show so much!
As far as Office Withdrawal goes, I can only be thankful that these two weeks at work have been crazy! (plus, this Q&A allowed me to spend Office Time – which would start roughly 20 minutes from now if it were a good Thursday – doing some Officey-thing : ) Woot.
Lol I love Creed.
My question was answered!!!! That was really cool and insightful!! :)
i loved creed’s comment about john
Thank you so much for this. Great Q&A. Special thanks to everyone for taking the time to give interesting and funny answers. :)
I noticed that John mentioned making a Director’s Cut of this episode. Is that why we never saw any deleted scenes on NBC.com? And does this mean the cut will be shown at some point on the website and/or included on the DVDs?
What a great Q&A! I just love the show, the cast, the crew, and OfficeTally, of course!
Nice Q&A! I loved Sabre! Creed’s comment just killed me!
Awesome Q and A for an awesome episode. The cast and crew are some of the most likable and naturally funny people around, and it’s always interesting to hear how much thought goes into even the minor details. Thanks to everybody involved!
Thanks so much!!! That was fun to read!
Great Q&A! Huge thanks to everyone involved, especially John, Jen and Tanster :D
It was an honour to have one of my question answered… It’s not very often that fans get this kind of opportunity to interact with the cast and crew like this!
Also, did anybody else think of Skittles for the “Taste a rainbow” quote? Maybe it was just in Canada, but a couple years ago, Skittles had a promotion called “Taste THE rainbow” =P
Thank you so much for this tanster, you never fail!
Michael Scott with a sixpack would’ve looked weird, indeed.
@Ampay, the “Taste the Rainbow” quote made me think of Skittles, too!