book excerpt

An Oral History of The Part's Insane Fire Drill Episode

An excerpt from The Function: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s.

Photo: Netflix

On Feb i, 2009, nearly 100 million Americans sat down to picket the Pittsburgh Steelers squeak out a 27- to-23 victory over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII. The second it ended, the action went from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, to Dunder Mifflin for a special double episode of The Office. The prove was already NBC's most popular comedy, with upwards of 9 meg viewers a dark (fifty-fifty though it never came close to Friends-like numbers), but this was a adventure to introduce it to a new mass audience.

Ben Silverman, producer: I was running the network at the time and I was talking to anybody nearly what nosotros should put on subsequently the Super Basin. They're like, "Should we put The Amateur on?" I'm similar, "No, The Amateur is fine and information technology's got that audience already. It'll do well, but it'southward not gonna exercise that much improve there. What nugget do we have that tin also grow, sustain, and help really drive the night?" Anybody came effectually to the thought of information technology being The Office and said, "Allow's do this and permit's figure out how nosotros stunt information technology and brand it large."

Jen Celotta, author: We wanted people who didn't know most The Office and who were watching the Super Basin to enjoy information technology. That caused us to think a picayune differently than we unremarkably would about the show. Nosotros concluded up throwing out a bunch of story ideas and we never did that before or since.

Halsted Sullivan, writer: We were tasked with making information technology a stand up-solitary episode, merely making it something that fans who have been along for the ride all v seasons could savor, simply likewise people who tuned in to the show for the first time would be able to enjoy. It was very of import. Nosotros were given a lot of mandates and they didn't even come up from NBC. They came from Greg [Daniels, producer]. He was like, "Look, this is our opportunity to sort of re- pilot the bear witness and innovate a whole new group of people to The Office. It's very important to accept a really grabby opening."

Warren Lieberstein, author: It needed to exist an electrical opening considering we were concerned about channel switching.

Gene Stupnitsky, writer: That was a very stressful time because Greg came in ane twenty-four hours and he had a big thought inspired by some French film he saw. Basically the thought was that Jim loses Pam in a poker game. He was like the male parent of u.s.a. all and nosotros were like, "Dad … Your idea … Nosotros're non and then sure almost information technology."

Lee Eisenberg, writer: Only nosotros started breaking the poker game episode.

Gene Stupnitsky: We went pretty deep into information technology.

Lee Eisenberg: It was a prove that needed to exist small, real, and relatable. And then it was similar, "Okay, he loses her in a poker game… ."

Greg somewhen came to his senses and approved an idea where Dwight stages a mock burn down to test anybody'south safety response time, causing Stanley to have a heart set on. The fire drill took place seconds into the episode and was a scene of absolute mayhem, complete with Angela desperately hurling a cat into the air, Oscar crawling through the ceiling for assistance and falling to the ground, Kevin breaking into the snack car and stealing all the candy, and anybody else badly trying to find a way out.

Ben Silverman: The fire drill was insanity. Greg and I talked about information technology and were like, "Okay, let'due south make this one hundred percent like a movie, like a stunt. When it happens, how do people not change the channel?"

Kate Flannery, actor: That scene was a large deal. It was so fun, simply I also knew that it was expensive, so it'due south like, "Don't fuck this upwards." Information technology was definitely similar a little nerve-wracking considering you just didn't want to be the one that messed it upwards for everybody else.

Anthony Farrell, writer: Greg was similar, "It's the Super Bowl episode. We need information technology to be big and crazy and wild and this is the first matter they're gonna see, and so nosotros desire people to stick effectually." He said to me and [swain writer] Ryan Koh and some of the writers' administration, "You guys piece of work on this cold open." We knew information technology would beginning with Dwight setting off the fire alert and Greg was in a place where he was like, "We need it to be bigger and crazier." So nosotros just started adding all sorts of crazy shit happening with the mayhem and the melee, like them using the photocopier as a battering ram and cats falling out of the ceiling. A lot of it wound up getting shot.

Randy Cordray, producer: All of the characters recall they are going to die. Oscar jumps up on his desk-bound and climbs up into the driblet ceiling and Angela pulls out a cat from her file cabinet and says, "Save Brigand!" And she throws Bandit up to Oscar, who doesn't desire anything to do with Bandit. And then moments later the true cat crumbles through a panel of the drop ceiling and falls back down. This was a large sequence that Greg actually wanted in the show. Well, you tin't injure an animal, and so nosotros had to figure this out. We had to build a stuffed animal to match Bandit. It was virtually $12,000 because seamstresses have to lucifer the coat of the cat, they have to meticulously paint hirsuite cloth and create the verbal shape and size of Bandit.

Jeff Blitz, director: In the original script, Oscar was already in the ceiling when Angela threw upwards the cat. They had thought that information technology would just be like a stuffed cat. Oscar would extend his leg out from the ceiling to boot the true cat back down. I idea that that would seem really mean-spirited. I thought it would simply exist actually funny if the throw is just a fiddling besides stiff and so the cat went too far and then came downwards. And so I was convinced that we couldn't apply a blimp cat because it would look like a stuffed cat existence thrown. We ended upwards using two real cats. There was 1 trainer who was continuing in the ceiling to catch the showtime cat and another trainer to throw an identical true cat back down. Then there was a true cat thrower who had an Angela wig and Angela wardrobe on that we had to bring in for that.

Randy Cordray: I worked with a wonderful animal preparation company at that time that provided us with the cats. We talked at great length with them. They absolutely will protect their animals. The animals are their livelihood. And you only don't want to hurt an brute in filming. It's illegal, it's a felony, it's unethical, and none of u.s.a. want to practise that.

Jeff Blitz: The trainer had said that she was comfortable with u.s. only doing information technology like two or three times. Greg wanted to know why that was and she was like, "Well, because the cat gets scared of doing stunt work and can't do this kind of piece of work anymore and then it volition need to be retired." Then Greg wanted to know what the lifetime income of a cat like that might be so that if they wanted to practice more than takes they [would] only buy it out forever. When Greg floated it, Randy was like, "No way, can't practice that."

Randall Einhorn, director/cinematographer: That whole scene was pandemonium to shoot, simply really fun.

Jeff Rush: There's a moment when they commencement to run and the photographic camera goes downward. I recall that'south an bodily take where Randall didn't mean to autumn, but nosotros only used it.

But a zany burn drill scene wasn't enough for NBC. They wanted the episode to feature big-proper name guest stars to describe in a bigger audition.

Lee Eisenberg: The network was insistent that nosotros go celebrities, and that was really complicated. I remember wanting Matt Damon or Ben Affleck to be on it. I was like, "Okay, we'll get somebody who has a blue-neckband feel to be running a warehouse or they're gonna get up against Michael somehow. It'south Matt Damon or Ben Affleck versus Michael Scott." For a lot of reasons, people simply decided that putting someone similar that in just takes you out of the reality of the evidence.

Randy Cordray: Greg was really at odds with NBC over this. His indicate was, "How does that fit into a prove based in an function in Scranton, Pennsylvania? What would celebrities be doing interacting with a paper company office in Scranton, Pennsylvania? Why would you pitch that idea? That makes no sense. What would celebrities be doing in Scranton?" His way of doing that was to make a picture within the movie. Andy had admission to stream a pic on his laptop and so nosotros created this movie. That was our way of satisfying the network creative people and putting promotable star talent into the Super Bowl episode.

Halsted Sullivan: The Office always shied away from stunt casting. At the time, Will & Grace would have someone similar Cher or J.Lo on every episode, and the episode [would exist] most that person. What we didn't wanna do is have some stunt casting in our opportunity to showcase The Office every bit a new pilot to the earth and say similar, "Oh, y'all're gonna get Jack Black every week if you tune in." So, instead we had Jack Black and Jessica Alba in that stand- alone moving-picture show and so we could promote them. They were in the show, merely at the same fourth dimension, at no signal did our characters get outshone past these big movie stars.

The pirated picture show that Andy shows Jim and Pam, Mrs. Albert Hannaday, is almost Jessica Alba taking her boyfriend (Jack Black) to run into her grandmother, played by Cloris Leachman. Black falls madly in honey with Leachman and they furiously make out in a bathroom.

Jeff Blitz: In one of the early on drafts of it, the movie itself had a martial arts spin to it. Only then they landed on this weird Mrs. Robinson matter. The solar day we shot it felt very un-Office-like. Jack Black was very into it, but nobody was prepare for the energy that Cloris Leachman brought to information technology. At the time we shot that, Cloris Leachman was in a frame of heed where whatsoever was on her mind, she would say. In no way was she restrained and she let everyone there know she was excited well-nigh the idea of making out with Jack Black.

Warren Lieberstein: I love the Harold and Maude dynamic. Simply knowing the two of them were going to be making out, it was worth the price of having that in there.

The 2nd half of the episode centers on Michael's thinking it would be fun to phase a Comedy Fundamental–manner roast of himself in the warehouse, just he grows deeply depressed when everyone takes the opportunity to viciously insult his intelligence.

Halsted Sullivan: This was probably the about difficult episode to write that season. It took longer than whatsoever other episode because information technology had to be an hour and it had to be stand-alone. I remember for a long, long, long time we did non have an ending. And I came upwards with the idea for the roast. That's considering I grew up in Atlanta and my father was president of a medical schoolhouse. Every year, they had a follies where all the students would make fun of the professors and we would get to that. It was a fun evening, but it was also like, "Oh, is this actually what you think of me?" And that turned into the roast of Michael, where he was able to bring the office together once again and restore order after all this chaos by condign the victim. Of course, it did really injure his feelings, only in the end it brought the office back together.

On a more than serious note, Pam's dad decides to leave her mom after having a private talk with Jim. Pam is freaked out and wonders what Jim could have maybe said to him. She finds out in the cease. "He said that you told him how much you dear me," a teary-eyed Pam tells Jim. "About how you feel when I walk in a room, and about how you've never doubted for a 2nd that I'm the woman yous want to spend the residue of your life with. I guess he'due south never felt that with my mom, fifty-fifty at their best." The Jim-and-Pam scenes are as dramatic and heavy as the residual of the episode is goofy and absurd.

Jeff Blitz: In that location was a lot of talk with Greg nigh whether Jim and Pam's emotional stuff should play with as much drama as it does. I remember Jenna and John felt strongly that the truth of it meant that they had to go to a identify of drama and that seemed then right to me.

Warren Lieberstein: Nosotros definitely were aware that there's a sure part of the audience that very much likes the Jim-and-Pam stuff. And there's a huge swath of people that liked the antics of Dwight. We knew in that particular episode we had enough time, an hr, to really satisfy and hit all different kinds of viewers that we could possibly hit that enjoyed our show.

20-two million people watched the full episode and 37.seven million people watched at to the lowest degree some of it. It was the highest-rated NBC show in well-nigh five years in the coveted 18-to-forty-ix-year-old demographic.

Paul Feig, director: My greatest regret from The Office is that I and so badly wanted to straight that one. I had just directed the Meredith's-intervention episode that I don't call up the network liked, so they wouldn't let me direct the hour-long episode, and then that ended upwardly winning an Emmy for Jeff Rush. I always feel similar, "Oh, I nigh had an Emmy." Jeff did a great chore though. It's a really good episode.

Ben Silverman: That really propelled the show. It exposed it to a whole new audience that showed up and kept watching and grew.

From The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s by Andy Greene , published March 24 by Dutton, an banner of the Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random Firm LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Andy Greene

An Oral History of The Office'southward Insane Fire Drill Episode