Transcript - Ep 231 - An Interview with Dave Rogers

TRANSCRIPT

Office Ladies | Episode 231 - An Interview with Dave Rogers

Jenna [00:00:04] I'm Jenna Fischer. 

Angela [00:00:05] And I'm Angela Kinsey. 

Jenna [00:00:06] We were on the office together. 

Angela [00:00:07] And we're best friends. 

Jenna [00:00:08] And now we're doing the Ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you. 

Angela [00:00:12] 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. 

Jenna [00:00:19] We're the office ladies. 

Angela [00:00:24] Hi there. 

Jenna [00:00:25] Hello. 

Angela [00:00:26] Hey. So today on Office ladies, we have a very special interview with the person I call the architect of the Office. It is our editor and director, Dave Rogers. 

Jenna [00:00:37] I like how you just jumped right in with it today. And what is happening in the new year. Are you becoming me? I think so, because, look, I'm taking us on a tangent. Should I read my diary or my journal? 

Angela [00:00:49] And I'm just like,  let's get to it. 

Jenna [00:00:50] Like, I want to. I want to. What's happened this year? 

Angela [00:00:54] I don't know. I feel like my 2025 mantra is, let's get to it. 

Jenna [00:00:58] Okay. 

Jenna [00:01:00] Well, let's get to it then. Dave Rogers worked on The Office from 2005 to 2013. He started as our editor, but then, as you all know, he started directing in season five. 

Angela [00:01:12] In total, Dave edited 95 of the original broadcast episodes, and he directed eight of them. He knows the show better than anyone. 

Jenna [00:01:21] Well, Angela, I guess you are going to share some digital clutter with us now. So you are staying in your wheelhouse in a way. 

Angela [00:01:30] I'm a combo.  It's combo year. It's yeah, I'm a combo platter. It 2025 is let's get to it. But also let's chat a little bit. 

Jenna [00:01:39] I'm really liking this. 

Angela [00:01:41] So I did share with Jenna that I found something pretty fun in my digital clutter and I'm excited to share it with you all. So I have talked about this before on the podcast. Years ago, when the show was on the air, I teamed up with the NBC digital folks, with Joya and Scott and Carol. All those folks, they're awesome. And we did a little series for the website called Adventures with Angela. 

Jenna [00:02:03] They were so cute. They are all these videos of you kind of showing different aspects of the show. You would introduce different actors or different crew members, and you sent me this one. Angela It's cute patoot galore. 

Angela [00:02:17] I had so much fun doing these. They're just a little behind the scenes of life on the set of The Office. Well, the one I sent Jenna was the week I went into Dave's editing bay. We found the footage. I thought it would be so fun to hear it. I'm going to share it in stories as well. And it just took us right back. 

(IN CLIP) [00:02:36] Hello, NBC.com. We have a behind the scenes exclusive with Dave Rogers, one of our fabulous editors on the show. That's Dave it's also donut cart day which is ridiculous. Did you get it? I did not. Yeah. So good. Take one. Dave Rogers worked on the single guy Seinfeld show, Newsradio, Entourage. You gotta have entourage stories like, come on, those guys there while they're crazy, right? I was in an edit bay, far away from all the locations that they shoot. Such a line. You know everything. Absolutely. You hear everything they like. They hear everyone's conversations. Okay. You've been with the office since the pilot. I came on right after the pilot and tweaked a little bit of it.  Dave was a first time director this season, guys that's  really awesome. You know the show so well. I have to say, I'm pretty, like, blown away by. I mean, because he sort of sits here and watches take after take. . One thing I'm learning right here now is that the editors room.  A little toasty. Yeah, a little toasty. Can we talk about your desk for a second? Yeah. Yeah, Let's talk about my desk. Who's this guy? That's Bryce, right? Yeah. You know, Hugh, sometimes he comes in and I almost brought him in today because I knew you were coming in. And as a as a tribute to you in the in the Super Bowl episode, having your little cat bandit. And we're going to have the right here If you can swing this way. This is where Bryce he does hang out in the closet. He's got a little bed and I've got stuffed food and toys. I wonder if you were the inspiration for that hi tech stuff here. I want to touch all the nobs so bad. Yes. No product placement, but what are we talking about here? Do we have dry skin? Yes. You can feel how warm and dry this room is.  It's warm in here. So I try to moisturize, yes, I never used to. But then the ladies are always like your hand feels like an alligator. I don't wanna know what the ladies say. What's that? Those are technical things. Can I tell you, this looks like something that would be in lost and that they would show for, like, a whole season and then say it means nothing in that picture of Dean. That's our other editor, Dean Holland. Yes. And Dave. And they won an Emmy for our show, which was amazing. It was the episode, The Job, Jenna and I presented at the Emmy Awards when you guys won. For the Academy of Cinema Editors. Yes. And we got a big laugh because Jenna talked about, like an editor's room being dark and sweaty. And I said that it's the place where this noise comes from. *crazy noises* We're going crazy. Yeah, that's I'll show you what that sounds like. *rewind sounds* I can do my rewind girl, Angela we can't write a skit for that. Really? Because it's gold. 

Jenna [00:05:45] Angela. These are amazing. You are an amazing interviewer. You discussed mini donuts, moisturizing his hands, the knobs in the room. 

Angela [00:05:58] I just went through his office and pointed out everything on his desk. Poor Dave is such a good sport. He did show me the closet where his dog Bryce, would hang out. 

Jenna [00:06:07] I loved Bryce. 

Angela [00:06:08] Bryce had a bed, a blanket, a toy. He had a water bowl, food. He was very cozy in Dave's office. And then I didn't realize that while talking to Dave, I threw Shade at Entourage and Lost. 

Jenna [00:06:26] I loved it. I thought it was a great interview. 

Angela [00:06:29] It's a horrible interview, but it was really fun hanging out with Dave in his editing bay. I miss those days. 

Jenna [00:06:35] Well, you definitely have to post that video on our stories because it's really fun to see as well. I feel like I was there because he was editing Pam during this interview, so I'm up on the screen. It was really cool. 

Angela [00:06:46] I mean, I do have a really good rewind voice. I really do. The first time you hear it, that's me, not the computer. 

Jenna [00:06:53] Yeah. And the second time is the computer. It's like, which ones which? 

Angela [00:06:57] You don't know. Should I do it right now? 

Jenna [00:06:58] Please of course. 

Angela [00:06:59] * rewind sounds*  

Jenna [00:07:03] It's so good. That was Angela. That wasn't Sam. No, that was me. Okay, well, one thing is for sure, Dave is the office encyclopedia, and he is here with us today in studio to talk about how he has taken on the very big task of assembling all of the Office superfan episodes on Peacock. 

Angela [00:07:23] I loved our conversation with him because you can really hear how much he cares about the legacy of The Office. Yeah. Dave, along with his team of editors, are being so thoughtful about these superfan episodes. 

Jenna [00:07:35] Yeah. I mean, he shares how they decide what footage to add. And he also I mean, my gosh, he told us so many treasures that he found while putting these together. It's such a great conversation. 

Angela [00:07:50] Yeah. Dave has been working on these super fan episodes for years. He is now all the way up to season eight and you can find them on Peacock. 

Jenna [00:07:58] And one last thing. We also talked with Dave just a little bit about the new spin off show, The Paper. He is working on that as well. So that was fun. 

Angela [00:08:09] Yeah, I know. I can't wait until he can share more about it. 

Jenna [00:08:13] I know. And we can share more about it. 

Angela [00:08:14] About our visit. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed this as much as we did. We're going to take a quick break and be back with our interview with Dave Rogers. 

Jenna [00:08:32] Hi, Dave Rogers. 

Dave [00:08:33] Hello. How are you guys doing? 

Jenna [00:08:35] It is so fun to have you in our studio. 

Angela [00:08:39] I'm just doing like this air hug across the table cause I'm so happy to see your face. 

Jenna [00:08:43] You have contributed so much to office, ladies, but, like, now, here you are in person. It's such a treat. 

Dave [00:08:50] Thank you. It's. It's great to be here. It's great to see both of you. Yeah. Listen, I love the office. I love the office, ladies. 

Angela [00:08:59] So yay. Dave listens to the podcast and he will email us the most lovely email saying, Hey, you guys really crush that one or great details. It really means a lot to us, Dave, because no one knows the show better than you. That's the truth. 

Dave [00:09:13] So that's high praise. A lot of a lot of pressure. But I do I do feel like I'm still living the show and the superfan episodes have brought it all back where I'm back into my original projects, my, you know, editing projects and watching all the old cuts and putting some deleted scenes in and some new material that no one's ever seen before. 

Jenna [00:09:40] Yeah, I mean, how did this come to be? Like, when did they first approach you about creating these super fan episodes? Do you remember that conversation? 

Dave [00:09:51] Yeah, I was on a phone call with Greg Daniels, and I think Howard Klein was on the call and some of the NBC Peacock executives, and I think I'm not sure if it tied in exactly when Peacock, the streaming site was starting or if it was, you know, just something that they had bought the office and then that was going to launch. And so we were discussing, you know, all the goodies that we could give them. And I mean, just like, you know, we used to pack our DVDs with so many things we had behind the scenes videos. We had like Jenna's booze cruise video. We had a, you know, for we had bloopers, webisodes, the accountant, you know, I mean, like just, you know, we had all this great material. A lot of times, you know, people like, they they're just discovering it now. Like, they never they didn't watch the DVDs or they, you know, kind of got onto the show after the DVDs were thing and only watched it on streaming on Netflix or on on, you know, cable. And so, you know, I said, this would be great to have a place to put all of this stuff like to, you know, just we've shot promos that were like full scenes we would do for the Olympics. Yeah. You know, we would do stuff for, you know, just various like, you know, the Super Bowl and even the the more, you know, parodies that. Yes. That were, you know, that these were great and these these aired on NBC during the day you know when the show was on. But it's nice for people just to be able to, you know, have this kind of collection and be able to just access it. That that was kind of my dream, was to have like a whole office portal that people could just, you know, access this stuff. 

Angela [00:11:30] And not have to go to Best Buy and buy a DVD player like I did. 

Dave [00:11:35] Yeah. 

Angela [00:11:35] Which, by the way, I have played my DVDs so much in the last five years and I haven't even shared this with you. My DVD player is malfunctioning. It's starting to make a like a *sounds*  noise. And then sometimes I have to hit stop and eject and then like kind of reboot it to get it to work anyway. Sorry, I didn't mean to go off.  

Dave [00:11:55] I mean, I love the DVDs because we spent a lot of time even just doing the artwork and the, you know, the menus and things like that. And and we did we, you know, again, our show, we'll get into it. But as you know, the style of our show because we were hand held in A36 environment we didn't have so much downtime with lighting and things like that. It was like, hey, we're we're pretty much lit, you know, small adjustments. Yeah. So we could and because the handheld nature of the show, we could shoot faster. So then they would write longer scripts.So we did have a lot of things that were left on the cutting room floor. I mean, just, you know, just a lot of stuff. And some of it was was A level material. But because the, the episodes on on TV were, you know, the time was 21 minutes and 35 seconds to fit a half hour slot including the main title. So much stuff got cut out. 

Jenna [00:12:48] Yeah I mean it sounds like at first, you were just like, Hey, let's just make a compilation of like bonus material that people can find on Peacock. 

Angela [00:12:57] So they don't have to go to the DVDs. And it will be this amazing office portal, right? 

Dave [00:13:01] Yeah, we did that. Okay. We gave them all of this great extra material behind the scenes stuff, bloopers. Yeah, all that. And then Greg said, Hey, we have all of this material, all these deleted scenes. Is there a way we can, you know, reedit the shows and make. 

Jenna [00:13:17] So this is Greg Daniel's idea. 

Dave [00:13:18] This is Greg Daniels idea, okay. And he said, you know, and make kind of a he's like, I don't want to call it like a quintessential, you know, cut because it's the broadcast episodes we originally put on the air pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. But. Still, he said like, you know, maybe we could do something. And really, this is for the fans. And that's kind of how the super fan title came about, you know, super fan episodes. And he also this is very sweet. Part of it was with the pandemic going on, there was not a lot of work. This was like, you know, he's like, this will keep Dave busy. So that was, you know, part of it because we had worked, you know, right before that I had done Upload Season one and we went right into Space Force. You know, so I was working on these two shows. It was great. You know, we had great casts on upload Space for us was amazing to be with Steve Carell again. And then, you know, and then that was it. It was winding down in March. We were we were at home at that point, you know, editing remotely, doing visual effects as the pandemic hit. So as a few months later, I think it was June of 2020 when Greg first, you know, talked about it and and Peacock was like, yep, go ahead, let's go do whatever you need. And so we got together with, you know, got Rob Burnett, who was my he was one of my assistant editors on The Office, and he's become an editor unto himself now. I mean, he's great. You know, he did The Mindy Project, AP bio, Upload, Space Force. And so he works with me on these episodes and he he preps the stuff, but also cuts. And we send stuff back and forth just as editors, like I said, Hey, what do you think of this? And he'll say, Yeah, this, this and then he'll send stuff to me. And I was like, Yeah, this is good. I would I would tweak this a little, things like that. But we've got all the old projects, so we're back into it, I'm just excited. 

Jenna [00:15:04]  But is this really just like a it's like a two man operation? Is it mostly just you and Rob? 

Dave [00:15:10] It's me and Rob, and then we have a couple of assistant editors, Dan Ross and Josh to me. And then on the post side, we have Brett Irwin, who was one of our post supervisors office, and Eric Holden's involved and he's kind of nebulous. He started with us and then he kind of floats around. Every now and then I see like a a bill that he paid for or something like that. But it's just us. And then Greg checks in and Howard Klein checks in. But they just trust us at this point. It's like to, you know, go through the material. And I can tell you more about that process. But it is it's a skeleton crew putting the stuff together. And then and we talk about the finishing, though because we we have you know we online these shows so they look we want them to look seamless from the original ones and we have sound mixes and VFX and it's our same sound mix team. Jon Cook that blue wave who tilted the office It's you know the same guys Bobby Maxton from the office, you know, same guys working on the show. 

Angela [00:16:06] So Dave, this is fascinating to me. And as Jenna and I have started watching the superfan episodes, you know, we're picking them here and there sort of seeing which ones are the fan favorites. And I watched the original airing. I had it on my TV with my DVD player, and then I had the super fan on Peacock, and I watched them at the same time. I synced up the beginning and then I had a notepad. And when one would diverge, right, I would make a note, I'd get the time code and then I'd go to the shooting draft. I'd see what was new, what was a deleted scene. I would go to the DVDs, to the deleted scenes and see like, that's not in deleted scenes, but it's in the shooting draft. I guess we shot it. Maybe that's new. So anyway, Jenna and I have been trading crazy, convoluted messages to one another. Kind of sounds like what you and Rob are doing a little bit. And I'm so curious to know what your process is about. How do you pick what goes in? Like, you must have all this extra footage that isn't in the deleted scenes. 

Dave [00:17:11] Yeah, the first thing I do is watch the show. I take the episode and I watch the broadcast version, right? And then I watch the deleted scenes and I watch. And again, even that we had we had deleted scenes that were on the DVDs and even we had deleted scenes that were on NBC. So even just. 

Angela [00:17:28] Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. 

Dave [00:17:30] Most of the time they overlapped. But NBC always had the website, always had less than the DVD. That's where we would, you know, put more stuff. So I'll watch the DVDs, but then I'll go into the assembly and I'll watch the first cut of the assembling the director's cut. And what I'll do is I have a dupe detector so I can throw the assembly in in the timeline. Let me know if I'm getting too technical. 

Angela [00:17:52] But no, but I wan this, I want that dupe detector. That's amazing. 

Dave [00:17:56] So I throw the cut in and we have the you know, we have the online master, which is the, you know, the picture. And then I have all of the tracks underneath all that, the original dailies and the audio tracks that we did that we, you know, in some of the audio is like temp. It's not, this isn't the mix track. We have that also. 

Angela [00:18:13] And the dailies, there's so much there's, there's so much. 

Dave [00:18:16] There's so many but we had them all backed up. So, I mean, that's the thing. We're back in our old projects. I, I was cursing. I was like, Damn it, Dean Holland didn't label this episode like the scenes, you know, it's like you can see mine are all clean. And, you know, we. Started having some uniformity. You know, early on, I was like, look, we got to. Because if we're jumping into each other's projects, I've got to be able to see what scene is this? And you've got to know what scene. Right, Right. You know, we. 

Angela [00:18:40] You have to have the same system. So you have the dupe. 

Dave [00:18:44] So I'll lay in the cut the master, and then I'll lay in the assembly and I can see what shots are the same. The dupe detector will show me what shots are the same and then what's new. So I can go to areas and see, look, here's a couplet, as we call it. It's like a joke back and forth that was cut out. And I'll watch it and I'll say, this is actually pretty good. So I'll weave it back into the show. 

Jenna [00:19:06] Well, that's what's interesting to me, because sometimes when I'm watching the superfan episodes, I'll notice, well, this scene is all new or this talking head is all new. But then I'll be watching a scene like How We watched Hot Girl. And there's the scene where Michael is in the conference room with Katie, and he's just watching her unpack. And I notice, Wait, this scene is in the original? But I think this has like four seconds of extra creeper stare from Michael. And so, yeah, like, this is this would just be like an example of a couplet that gets added back. Not a whole scene. 

Dave [00:19:44] Yeah. And that's the thing, because there's a lot of stuff that never could make it into the deleted scenes because it's like a joke. 

Jenna [00:19:50] Yeah, it's like a a one off little thing. 

Dave [00:19:51] Just a comment or something. 

Angela [00:19:53] I noticed one that I thought was so interesting and and I wondered how you did it, Dave. But now that I know about the dupe detector. So Michael has a talking head about how charming he is. Yeah, but then he's yelling at Ryan. What did you do to my desktop? Where's my maps? Where am I? Matt? But then he goes back to the talking head, but it's overlaid over each other. And I was like, How did they do that? But this is how. 

Dave [00:20:18] Well this is. But some of that, I mean, the dupe detector just helps us to see, hey, is there stuff that was, you know, from the assembly that was cut out. That's the first thing that we do. But stuff like that, then it's editing again. It's like, we have other footage. That stuff may have been in the assembly, like him yelling at Ryan. It may not be. That just might be in dailies.  We'll go through the assembly and then I'll see also if scenes I mean, that's the thing. Even I like to say, if there's a scene that's in the assembly, a lot of times a scene that was deleted is the same as the deleted scene on the DVDs, but that means it wasn't really polished like it was taken out in the assembly stage, like we lost it when we were doing the director's cut. So we've thrown around the DVD and maybe we've polished it a little bit for the, you know, to go with the DVD. But now I have the freedom to kind of go in and clean stuff up. We'll add music if we need to, like where we didn't have the budget for it on the DVDs. I mean, sometimes I watch some of the deleted scenes and like I can hear the director, you know, things like that, like so things can get cleaned up, you know, which is nice. I have a couple of rules. 

Angela [00:21:24] Let's hear them. 

Dave [00:21:25] So I never change a take of the show. Like, I feel that this is the documentary crew have come in and they've gotten more time to make these episodes longer. So they're just adding in more stuff that they've shot. So I'll never change the performance or very, very rarely there might be something where I'm like, I need, you know, I'll change a camera angle occasionally, but I'll never you won't see a different take. If Michael says something this way, I'm not going to, you know, go to a different take of him saying the same line. I will only add, you know, and that's for all of you. I don't want any kind of parallel universes or anything else. 

Jenna [00:22:02] Yes. 

Angela [00:22:02] I appreciate that. That's like the integrity of the show. So as you're making these super fan episodes, you are doing it as if you are the documentary filmmaker. 

Dave [00:22:13] Yeah. 

Angela [00:22:14] And what has already aired is sacred. 

Dave [00:22:19] Yes. I mean, every once in a while, like a reaction shot might come out because we've added more dialog or something like that, and that was used to cover a gap, let's say. But generally, like no performance changes. The other thing is that there's no alternate things like for example, season three, the job finale, we have footage of Karen sitting on at a fountain outside the building crying and she gets a phone call and she accepts the job. So this was like, we shot that because we didn't we I guess we weren't sure which way we were going to go. Yeah, you get the job, you know. So we shot, you know, that's not going back into a show because it doesn't, you know, it doesn't track with everything we've seen. But I do see, you know, there are things like that that pop up. And I'm like, no, we're we can't use that. That's a different path. You know, we really do our best not to contradict things and, you know, not to have continuity errors, things like that. 

Angela [00:23:12] Right? Keep the purity of the story arc as it was intended. 

Jenna [00:23:16] I remember doing every once in a while those alternate versions of scenes, and I think there is an alternate version of Jim and Pam walking out of the elevator at the end of the job. Or Jim walking out or me walking out. I remember we were trying to figure out that moment. 

Dave [00:23:37] Right, We did shoot that alternate version of you guys in the elevator. I don't know if you're in it and he comes in?

Jenna [00:23:42] That's what I couldn't remember either. 

Dave [00:23:44] I feel like I said it to you. 

Jenna [00:23:46] You did. You were like, Do you remember how we did these alternate? 

Dave [00:23:48] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:23:49] You were probably doing your super fan episode. 

Dave [00:23:51] Yeah, but that was the best, you know? I mean, what we got with the job, that moment is just great when he comes in when you're like, Yeah. And then he's like, Are you free for dinner? And you're like, Yeah, yeah. 

Angela [00:24:01] Your look is so, so beautiful. 

Dave [00:24:03] What was I saying? You know? And it's just there's so many little gems like that. Although I did find the rehearsal for the proposal, you know, that we shot on the backlot very far away. But we have, you know, on our backlot by the trailers, the post trailer in the back, I guess. Paul Feig, It's weight loss. It was Paul Feig who directed Weight Loss. 

Angela [00:24:23] And it was his idea to do this big rehearsal?

Dave [00:24:26] Yeah, but we shot like, you know, Jim proposing to Pam. We wanted to see how it would look just being so far away. 

Jenna [00:24:33] I remember that. Now that you say it. Yeah. It was so trippy. And I remember now that I was a little bit like, Can't you do this with stand ins? Because when Jim goes down on one knee for Pam, like, that's such a big moment for our characters and I don't want to like, do it here in the parking lot as a screen test or camera type. I want to live. I want to save it. Yeah. And I want there to be cars whizzing by and I want there to be rain. 

Dave [00:25:02] We got all that. 

Jenna [00:25:03]  But somehow you guys convinced me. And I do remember going out in the parking lot that day. 

Dave [00:25:08] I didn't. I didn't even know this existed, though, until I found it. 

Jenna [00:25:11] Well, I guess those guys convinced me. 

Dave [00:25:15] And there are things like that that I've never seen before, you know, because I didn't edit all the episodes. So when I'm working on an episode that I didn't originally cut, there are things that I find where I'm like, my gosh, like, this is amazing. 

Angela [00:25:32] I can't imagine how much amazing sort of like reliving a chapter of our lives that you get to do. Because I know just for us, when I find a deleted scene or a blooper I haven't seen, It just warms my heart and just immediately makes me happy just remembering that time. Is that part of this job for you, Dave, as you open up all these old folders of our lives, like, do you have moments of nostalgia? 

Dave [00:25:56] Always. But I've just been so involved with the show for so long. It's not like it really went away. And especially since people, you know, are always, I guess my algorithm, my social media. Everything, you know, The office. Yeah. But like, even just, you know, my nephews, like, they reached a certain age, then they became huge fans. So yeah, I'm constantly, you know, just meeting people who are, you know, they just love the show and they're discovering it and it's easy to see why it's really funny and enjoyable and just there's so many things that happen throughout the course of the series. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, like, I can pontificate about that for, you know, hours, but it's, you know, I'll sit there and stop and watch and laugh and, you know, I still enjoy it, you know. 

Angela [00:26:40] I mean, I that says a lot because you've had to watch so much of the office, but you still enjoy it, I think is pretty great. 

Dave [00:26:48] Yeah. 

Jenna [00:26:48] Are there any things that you found that are like your favorite finds? 

Dave [00:26:54] All right. Well, so the thing that's really amazing is the and you guys are partially responsible for this. So I'm editing season. I think it was season six. 

Angela [00:27:04] Okay. Do you hear the papers rustling, everyone listening? Because Dave has this document of all the episodes and it is it is like a worn document with like writing and checkmarks. Like it's got a lot of love on it. What is this, Dave? Is this your list? 

Dave [00:27:19] It's just my episode title list. And I had this on the show. We made this on the show because a lot of times all I need to do is just see the episode name and then it'll jog whatever information I need. 

Angela [00:27:32] I'm going to take a picture of you with it because this is a loved, worn document. 

Jenna [00:27:37] It is. It definitely is. 

Angela [00:27:38]  You printed that when the show was on the air?

Dave [00:27:41] Yeah. And it's got food stains on it. And I could print a new one like even the hole punches are on the other side and stuff like that. Like, you know, but I don't know, I just. I just like it, you know? And it's got marks all over. It's got notes. I love things like that. I love it. So job fair, Season four, We had a ton of deleted scenes and new material that were not used. You know, that we're just cut out from this episode. And one of the things was a cold open and I'm looking at and it's a complete cold open and it's Michael Scott with his toilet buddy. 

Angela [00:28:23] His invention?

Dave [00:28:23] Yes. Yeah. Toilet, toilet, bloody toilet guard. Yeah. Where he comes out of the bathroom and, you know, he's angry and he's, you know. Dwight goes to help him, and it turns out all of his stuff fell into the toilet. And then a couple of things he threw in anger.  So I'm like, okay. I mean, I remember this cold open, but I'm looking, what did we put it on another episode? It's like, no. I'm like, okay, it's not on the DVD deleted scenes. So we must have saved it. But what happened was, is that by the time we started season five, everything had changed. I'm turning the pages again. Yeah, because Toby was gone and Holly came in, so it was like a whole new thing going on. So it just was lost. 

Jenna [00:29:07] Yeah. You couldn't plug it in an episode now because there would be the wrong people right in the background. 

Dave [00:29:11] Right. So that was the thing. So I'm looking like, wait, did we not put this anywhere? So I go to search on Google. Like for this an article comes up from you guys... 

Angela [00:29:22] From Office Ladies? 

Dave [00:29:22] Yeah. And it says Office Ladies talk about a scene that was never aired and it was this. And in reading that, you had a comment, though, about something where it was, I love this thing where he throws his keys in anger or something like that was literally that was the there was an extra thing and that wasn't in the assembly version. And I put that in there. 

Angela [00:29:46] That was my favorite part. 

Dave [00:29:47] I mean, when I went through to do a polish and it turns out we had so much stuff. 

Jenna [00:29:51] We found that in the script. 

Angela [00:29:54] And we reached out to Gene and Lee about it. 

Dave [00:29:56] Again, I was looking to see, you know, is this anywhere? I'm checking all these episodes towards the end of season four, and then I'm looking at the beginning of season five. And then I was like, This is weird. And then I Googled and then your thing came up. And so, you know, there was some news story about you guys talking about the scene. And I think I reached out to you guys and said, Hey, we have it. I found it, you know, And it was never a deleted scene or anything. So that's great. When you have a full a fully fledged scene like that. That's just so funny. And again, I get to tweak stuff. So I love the shot with the tennis racket and Pam's face is behind it, you know, like the way that's framed. And there was just other things where, you know, there were other versions even of the scene. And it was like really carving. What's the best version? Michael's asking everyone who wants to try. You want to try Kevin and then, you know, coming back to like Creed, so that'll make a great tennis racket. And then there was an extra piece, I think that's in the show in the tag. It's like later Toby goes to his desk and he pulls out his tennis racket and he swings it and it's all bent and broke. And that's what Michael did. He used Toby's tennis racket and he taped he just taped it up. And Toby goes like that, and he's like, Hey, you know, Hey reacts to his broken tennis racket. 

Jenna [00:31:07] That's a pretty good treasure. 

Angela [00:31:09] Yeah. I can't wait now to go watch it. I want to see it in the superfan episode. 

Dave [00:31:13] We found another complete cold open for the Christmas Wishes episode. 

Angela [00:31:19] What is it? 

Dave [00:31:20] Andy leads everybody singing Christmas carols outside. Do you guys remember that? 

Jenna [00:31:25] I think we discussed that this was deleted. 

Dave [00:31:27] Yeah, it was not a deleted scene. 

Angela [00:31:30] It was in the shooting draft. 

Dave [00:31:31] It's in the shooting draft. I don't wanna say too much, but it's, it's really funny. And he has a couple talking heads and you guys are singing and he's trying to. He's like, you guys start doing the echoes like you're singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Like, you know, had a very shiny nose. Like a light bulb. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, Guys, no, no, no. And he's trying to convince you that it's really a poignant song. And, you know, it's. It's very. I think it's a very funny, cold open. 

Angela [00:31:57] Yeah, one of the things we've loved is having the shooting drafts because we read them and I'm like, okay, the scene isn't deleted scenes. We both remember shooting it. It lives somewhere. It's out there somewhere. But it's with you, Dave. 

Dave [00:32:09] Yeah. 

Angela [00:32:20] Was there ever a storyline in one of the episodes you edited that you didn't get to include? And so now that you're going back, do you remember those when you're like, I want one of those in? 

Dave [00:32:29] And I mean, I don't know if there's an entire storyline. It's more just scenes. 

Angela [00:32:35] Like a runner. Yeah, I guess that's a better word for it because I know sometimes I'll look in the shooting draft and they'll be like a runner with Ryan, you know, there was a runner where he did like a treasure hunt in performance review. But it's not. 

Dave [00:32:46] It's all on the super fan. 

Angela [00:32:48] That's right. 

Dave [00:32:48] And at the end, even you discover that it was Ryan. It was Ryan. So for themselves. Yeah. Something to do. Yeah. There's a bunch of runners. I couldn't tell you specifically which ones, but even Meredith in Weight Loss is another great example. Just because we had stuff going on every week. You know, Meredith gets sunburned. Yeah, she's got the blisters on her face. And in the final episode, you kind of see it, but there's no explanation. 

Angela [00:33:12] Yeah, and people wrote in. They're like, What is up with Meredith's face? 

Dave [00:33:15] Yeah, so that stuff gets restored. Those moments that are really kind of funny that we just didn't have time for it. 

Jenna [00:33:20] Well, and something that's really nice about that example is that, you know, because the Meredith storyline of her getting sunburned had to be cut out for time. That also meant like you couldn't even go to her for reactions because she would have had this sunburn on her face that made no sense. So then she kind of ends up not existing in those episodes as much as she would have if she didn't have the sunburn. So now it's like this whole character gets to come back. 

Dave [00:33:46] Yeah. I mean, they happen. It's not too often, but sometimes there is something that it's such a key thing that you're like, we can't even explain this. We don't have the time. So we just have to kind of, you know, cut around it. There's some stuff, like I said, where we've added like even Parkour, we've added a bunch of shots. 

Jenna [00:34:06] To parkour. 

Dave [00:34:06] To Parkour. You know, we did a bunch of things like, you know, they're outside, they're spinning this giant wheel and. Yeah. And one of them jumps on it then like, hurts their crotch and things like that, you know? There's just lots of little things that pepper it. Another great example is business school. Michael is, you know, he's talking to the students at the school. And I didn't again, I didn't edit the episode originally, but there's two takes of Michael where he's ad libbing and not a lot of this made it in because the written stuff was great. Yeah, but like he's got two takes Steve Carell is add libbing with the students and it was you know and so that stuff made it in to the show. I'll give you another example of something in Michael's last Dundies. Everybody's coming in. And there again, I didn't I didn't edit this episode. I didn't see this footage. Everybody's coming in at the beginning, and Dwight is kind of judging everyone. He's like, you know, you know, strangely appropriate, Like, adequate. 

Angela [00:35:01] Everyone's outfits. 

Dave [00:35:03] Everyone's outfits. Yeah. So I'm watching and there's a you know, and Ryan comes in, he's like, the last one. But there's a take where someone comes in after Ryan, and it's Stephen Merchant. Stephen Merchant walks in and Dwight's like, God. And I'm like, This is great. And he starts laughing and I'm like, This is great. We're putting this in the show. Like this can live in the show. 

Jenna [00:35:25] So I guess Stephen was probably just like hanging out?

Dave [00:35:30] He was visiting. 

Angela [00:35:30] I remember that he was there that week. 

Jenna [00:35:33] My Gosh. 

Angela [00:35:33] And they just threw him in that that lineup. 

Jenna [00:35:36] That cameo. 

Dave [00:35:36] He came in and nobody was expecting like Rainn was not expecting it. It just was this thing. And you could see them laughing, but like, we clip it right before it becomes a blooper. Right? So it's just like just one other person comes in and it's like, this is like a real superfan thing. Because if they recognize him. 

Angela [00:35:52] It's a deep cut. 

Dave [00:35:52] Like, look that's Stephen, you know? The creator of the original office, you know, coming in so. 

Jenna [00:35:58] And of course we have Ricky Gervais in a cameo on the show and now I love that in the superfan episode, Stephen is represented, too. That's cool. 

Dave [00:36:08]  So that was whenever I find stuff like that, I get very excited and I'm like, my God, you know? And I was messaging Claire because Claire. Claire Scanlon cut the episode originally. I'm like, Claire, that's a shot at Stephen Merchant. And maybe, like, I don't even know if it was in the bloopers. Do you know what I mean? Like, I didn't even I had no recollection of it. And so that's I was like so I was just very excited. I was like, this is great. We're going to work this into the show. And, you know. 

Jenna [00:36:33] But what happens when you get to an episode? And I'm thinking of, like, moving on. There's no deleted scenes for that. That was an episode. That was Jon Favreau's episode. That was one episode that got turned into two episodes. We even had to shoot an extra storyline to fill it out. 

Angela [00:36:51] And that had to be added in. 

Jenna [00:36:53] So, like, is there anything extra for that? What do you do? 

Dave [00:36:57] I'm not there yet, so we'll see. 

Jenna [00:36:58] Have you had any episodes like that where there's just like, I got nothing. 

Dave [00:37:03] So we started. I didn't know how it was going to work if we were going to do for every episode or just certain ones. And then Peacock was like, Can you do for all of them? It was like, Yeah. So we started, you know, doing that. There were a few episodes. Sometimes it was even just there just wasn't a ton of stuff. We may have shot an episode of four days. As you know, like sometimes we would do that. So one of them was the negotiation, which is a favorite of mine. Mike Schur wrote this one. 

Jenna [00:37:26] It's so good. 

Dave [00:37:28] That's the one Michael wears a lady's suit. And and I honestly, I. 

Jenna [00:37:34] Mysterious. 

Jenna [00:37:35] Mysterious. 

Angela [00:37:37] It had shoulder pads and no pockets. Don't get us started. 

Dave [00:37:43] And that episode, I also I tell people like if you want to a great writing just an exercise it's just just watching that and seeing what a great script it is and how the turns come and how like the act one is one thing and act two, it goes to another place and act three. I mean, it's just so good and such a good use of the ensemble. Like just a, like a perfect episode. Yeah. And there were not deleted scenes that were not deleted scenes for that. I don't think there were any. But I found one thing that was like a Michael talking head. And so that made it in and that made it a superfan episode. It was him talking about shopping and like it was it was just enough that it wouldn't, you know, ruin the episode. And but it was still such as something new. So that made it a superfan episode. We have other episodes that are, you know, we did producers cuts on the DVDs. So I know like maybe starting in season six or 7 or 8, we started doing like longer cuts. Yeah. And it's still, it's like, it's tough then to find it, you know? I still want to give the fans even something more. So it is, it is tricky sometimes just finding is there anything else? Can we can we get anything else that's that's great that's worth putting in. And even though fans, a lot of them haven't seen these producers cuts, again, they're on the DVDs. Right. But, you know, they haven't been on streaming or anything. But still, I do. We look we look hard and we do, every episode is at least something new that hasn't been seen before. 

Angela [00:39:07] Okay. Well, this brings me to this question. So and I know you haven't done season nine yet, but do you have your favorite superfan episodes? If we're going to go and watch some of these, do you have like your top five that you think are a must watch? 

Dave [00:39:23] You know, I love them all. 

Jenna [00:39:24] Like it sounds like business school, maybe. 

Dave [00:39:27] Business school has some great stuff. I mean. 

Angela [00:39:29] Writing that down. 

Dave [00:39:30] Job fair has a ton of stuff. I mean, there was a whole storyline and again, sometimes it's I have to check my notes to see what's we send a list of the new stuff. So it'll say what was deleted scenes and what's new material. I'll send it to to Peacock like just as we go through and they can even time How much is new material and how much has been seen before in some way. But there's a whole I mean, there's so much stuff with like job fair has like 20 minutes of extra footage.  I mean, that's that's really a big one. There's a lot of stuff. Basketball has a lot of stuff, and boys and girls has a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff with Lonnie. It's great seeing Lonnie and Madge. Yeah, Madge has this whole thing where she's wanted in like three states and stuff like that, you know, she doesn't want the camera on her. And there's just more stuff, like with Michael, like, he goes down there and right away he's fiddling with the boombox and he breaks the antenna and then he starts to like, stick it back on. I mean, there's there's a I love that episode. There's a lot of extra comedy in there. Yeah. And I mean, so many of these have great stuff. I could do a little more research and message you like what really are my top five or. Yeah, okay, I can do that. 

Jenna [00:40:43] We will break down Dave's super fan list. 

Angela [00:40:46] Yeah. Okay. Dave's Top five? 

Dave [00:40:49] I'll do that for you. I'll do that. 

Angela [00:40:50] If it's more than top five, let us know , but you can start with five. 

Dave [00:40:53] I'll start. I'll start with top five. 

Jenna [00:40:55] Well, we often debate on the podcast. Does the deleted scene count toward the universe of the office or a character? And we sort of came to the conclusion that no, that like if it's set in a deleted scene, it didn't count. So for example, in the episode Baby Shower, there is this deleted scene about where it implies that Kevin might be the father of Jan's baby, right? 

Angela [00:41:21] And then also in the shooting draft, it says maybe it was Andy Roddick. 

Jenna [00:41:25] She got her sperm from Andy Roddick. 

Angela [00:41:27] So what is the true canon of the show? Is it now the superfan episodes or is it the original airing? 

Dave [00:41:35] You know, this is a this is a deep question. 

Jenna [00:41:39] We talked to Greg about it, too. 

Dave [00:41:41] Yeah, this is my take on it. Like, I don't look at deleted scenes as canon, okay? Because they've been you know, it's not to say that they some of them aren't but as they're just deleted scenes, I don't look at them as canon. 

Angela [00:41:55] Okay. 

Dave [00:41:55] As I've gone through and restored stuff to the show, I do look at it as canon because now I see it as like a fully finished episode. I think fans can can go back and forth. I think it's really up to the individual, but I look at them is like now that these things are have been put into a show that's a finished product, so to speak, I can look at them as cannon. 

Angela [00:42:19] Well, you've put so much thought into it and you've been really, you know, careful to protect the integrity of the show. So I could see that your locked superfan episode for you is now cannon. 

Dave [00:42:32] So here's something. This was a deleted scene originally.  So this was an episode I directed. I believe it was Mafia. 

Angela [00:42:41] Okay. Okay. 

Jenna [00:42:42] This is one of my favorites. 

Angela [00:42:44] We love Mafia. 

Jenna [00:42:45] In our rewatch. 

Dave [00:42:46] Did you rewatch the super fan? 

Angela [00:42:47] No, not yet. Should we put that on our list? Writing it down. 

Dave [00:42:51] In Mafia, there's a you know what the deleted scenes are in that episode. Very controversial. Erin is cleaning. And she--

Angela [00:43:02] She destroys Pam's watercolor. 

Dave [00:43:04] Not in the superfan episode. So in the super fan episode, she doesn't clean, but we still have her storyline. We've restored enough of her storyline where she's just kind of. 

Jenna [00:43:14] She's trying to impress Pam. 

Dave [00:43:16] She's trying to impress. Everybody's kind of given her, you know, crap and then like, you'll never be Pam and all this. So I feel like the best elements of that story. And even at the where she calls, we still have her calling. And Pam's like, Please don't call me again. Like because that was the runner with Pam and Jim, as everyone's calling them. But even at the end of the episode where originally you saw the painting was gone on the wall. We digitally put the painting back in the last two shots. Now, in a few other episodes after that, it's not there. It's not there. Whatever. They were cleaning the frame or whatever, the glass or whatever. 

Jenna [00:43:51] Did you put it in digitally. Now, in those later episodes?

Dave [00:43:54] It's gone. It's gone. But I'm saying at the end of this episode, there are shots with her and the painting is there. There's never any destruction to the Pam's painting. Yeah, still, still. So I will just buy that they whatever they had to clean the frames or whatever they I don't know they had to re flatten the paint. I don't know. Whatever it was. That's why it's missing a few episodes in its back. But it was never destroyed. It's just one of those things, just like Karen getting the job offer, it never happened. 

Jenna [00:44:22] And there are some things that we cannot bring back or reinsert. 

Angela [00:44:26] It's like Voldemort. These things are not spoken. They did not happen. 

Jenna [00:44:30] That's right. 

Dave [00:44:31] But I liked I appreciated Erin's. You know, it was a shame. But I was like, you know, if we get rid of this beat and we get rid of, like, you know, there's a scene with her and Kelly that we had with Kelly working on it, I was like, You get rid of that. The rest of the stuff is actually very funny and that she's trying so hard. And yeah, she has a moment where she's on the phone with you. She's like, you know, where she's, you know, she's kind of passive aggressive towards you. Like, I'll never be as good as you. And it's, it's just I thought all that stuff was really funny and worth keeping the painting still there at the end. 

Jenna [00:45:03] So, Dave, how lucky are fans to have you making these, You know, the thoughtfulness with which and the care that you put into each one of these episodes? Just talking about how much time it must have taken you to be like, okay, I want to preserve this very funny Erin storyline, but I know I can't have her destroy the painting. And then but you figured it out and I know you have taken that same love and care with every single episode, which and it's just what you put into your work. It's just such a beautiful thing to see and we're so lucky. 

Dave [00:45:38] Well, thank you. I mean, I appreciate that, but I just I don't know. I just love the show. I mean, it's given me so much stuff. Yeah. But I just I do. I just love and I care about the show so much. 

Angela [00:45:50] That shows through, though, Dave It really does. Even, you know, we're just entering the world of the superfan episodes and just watching them. I can see how thoughtful and what better hands for them to be and I want to watch them all now. I really do. 

Jenna [00:46:05] I mean, and thank God it's you. Yeah, really. Thank God this wasn't just footage that you just turned over to Peacock. And then somebody who was never part of the show started tinkering with it. Yeah. When I heard that they were going to do these superfan episodes, I panicked. 

Angela [00:46:20] I was a little worried because I didn't know if it was going to be someone who didn't know the world the way you know it. 

Jenna [00:46:25] Yeah. And then when I heard it was you and it was Rob Burnett and that it was Greg and was, you know, overseeing it, I was like, okay, good. 

Dave [00:46:34] And that's it. Yeah. I didn't want anybody else to. I mean, unless it was Dean or Claire. Sure, sure. I have sent cuts to Clare where I've sent stuff for her to weigh in on, like, Hey, what do you think of this and stuff? 

Angela [00:46:44] But these are the original editors of the show. 

Dave [00:46:47] And Dean I trust, you know, with things. But, but I was like, Yeah, I couldn't handle anybody else, you know, not doing that. And that's why I mean, like it's, it's a small group. It's just us. I mean, you know, Rob is amazing, and he knows the show so well, too. The other thing that I get to do when I'm looking at all the dailies is that I get to revisit the Talking Heads. And a lot of times we have, you know, different texts for talking heads. 

Angela [00:47:12] The candy bag alts. 

Dave [00:47:14] And things like that. And sometimes they're different enough that it'd be great to get this other talking head in in the original show was like you picked one for this moment. Yeah So yeah but now let's say if I have Pam commenting on something and then Angela comments on something, I can go back to Pam again. Yeah. And put another Pam talking head or a Phyllis talking it. So that's been great that I can add these things back in these talking heads that were, you know, that, that are awesome and just you know there was no place for them and you wouldn't put them on a on a DVD necessarily either because it's like it's tied to a scene or it's just, you know, I call them like orphans. You know. 

Jenna [00:47:51] I think I notice something like that in this Hot Girl super fan episode. There are so many talking heads of Michael talking about why he's so attractive to women or why he's handsome or why he's a catch. And they're kind of sprinkled throughout the episode. And I didn't notice them in the script either. I feel like these were some Steve improvs. 

Angela [00:48:12] They're candy bag alts. 

Jenna [00:48:13] Yeah, there's like three and you even have one that's like as the tag. And I was like, my gosh, I bet you must have just unlocked all of these amazing bits of Steve explaining why Michael is such a ladies man. 

Dave [00:48:27] Yeah. And, and what's really great is like, even with the tags and stuff like that, you can we can jump cut now. Yeah. I mean, I can buy it for a tag especially. You can jump. We never would do that in the show, but now I feel like it might even be possible in the show. I've jump cut some stuff but but in the tag I can just get you like his best bits. Yeah, he goes off on a lot of things like basketball. He talks about he compares basketball to sharks and he's saying how sharks are such, you know, they just want to play. And he goes off on this whole tangent and there's all this B-roll that we plugged in. And actually Steve Carell actually directed Secretaries Day. And at the end, when he was doing Talking Heads with the cast, he would have them do impressions of other cast members of other of other characters. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So, like, Pam does an impression of Jim, Dwight does an impression of Jim, Jim does an impression of Angela. Brian does an impression of Chandler, which I thought was funny. And then he's like, that's Chandler. 

Jenna [00:49:25] And are these in the superfan? 

Dave [00:49:26] These are in the super fan cut. 

Jenna [00:49:27] And is this like as a jump cut tag? 

Dave [00:49:29] It's it's not even I mean, it's just one after another. They're all just. Yeah, it's like a montage of, of people doing impressions. 

Angela [00:49:35] I wanted to ask you about this because I always felt like when we did Talking Heads and we were handed sheets of these candy bag alts, that was where you could really play around that. The writers got to play around, the actors got to play around and it didn't affect the story that much. So when I thought about you assembling these super fan episodes, I was like, I bet there's a treasure trove of talking heads. Even in the deleted scenes. Some episodes are just a list of talking heads that didn't make it in. So I love hearing that because that is just so fun to me. I'm going to look for those. 

Dave [00:50:09] Yeah, there's a lot of great talking heads from you guys. Yeah, some existed as deleted scenes, you know, but like. 

Angela [00:50:15] But maybe only one. Yeah. So if there would have been one deleted talking head of like, let's say Creed, you probably have 15 that he did that day.

Dave [00:50:25] Yeah. Like even early on Pam talks about her house and like she talks about I think her dream house, but also about Roy and the family. The family really likes Roy, Like. 

Jenna [00:50:37] You know, it was based on my document that I wrote about Pam. Yeah. That I was like, why is she still with him? Because they're such a mismatch. And I was like, You know what I think it is? I think it's that her family loves this guy, you know? And when your family likes your boyfriend and the families like each other and she likes his family, it's sort of like you're so enmeshed. And I remember like somebody Ken Kwapis  or someone asking me questions and I weaved that into a talking head. 

Dave [00:51:09] The whole thing is.  

Jenna [00:51:10] Did that make it in somewhere? 

Dave [00:51:12] Yeah, that's in the superfan episode. I think it's season one or season two. 

Jenna [00:51:16] Must be. 

Dave [00:51:16] But you talk about like the jet skis that he spent the money on, the jet skis, like all the stuff that you came up with like that was recorded. And then so it's you know, so it is a treasure trove of of things like that. So I did want to say like with the talking heads, that's, you know, it's almost its own animal that these can like now live and we can have more than one where it doesn't feel like you know, we had the time constraints before and we could only pick one. 

Angela [00:51:46] Yeah, I love that, especially a supporting cast. I feel like a lot of times are talking heads were cut for time, so I'm going to look for all of them. I just I'm delighted by that. 

Jenna [00:51:57] Well, I wonder how many subscriptions to Peacock we just sold in this podcast today? 

Angela [00:52:01] I would think a lot. And I would think, Dave, it's all because of you and we wanted to have you on today because you were doing a beautiful thing for the show and we're so appreciative as fans of The Office. We're both fans. 

Jenna [00:52:14] And we this is not a sponsored episode. We don't get anything for the. I mean, we don't get money for these episodes that air on Peacock. But what you have done here is a gift. It is a gift to fans. It is a beautiful thing. And it's just we're so excited that we get to talk about it and highlight it for that reason. 

Jenna [00:52:34] Thank you. I'm excited for you guys to watch them like I am, like just to see, you know, to discover it. 

Angela [00:52:40] Applause to Dave and Rob and everyone editing the Super Fans and  putting them together and Claire and Dean. But Dave, before we say goodbye to you, we need to talk about something which we can't talk about. So I don't know how we're going to talk about it, except that we got to go to the set of The Paper. 

Jenna [00:52:57] You were directing. 

Angela [00:52:58] You were directing.  We can't say anything else, really. But how fun to see you directing. And we can't wait to have you on to talk about the paper, for reals. 

Dave [00:53:09] Yes, I'm excited to talk about it. I can't say too much now. It was great seeing you guys. You know, we have a lot of crew. Yeah. That carried over from. From the office. 

Angela [00:53:21] And Greg was so gracious to have us on set. 

Jenna [00:53:24] That was crazy, though, just pulling up. And then the first person we see is Sergio and then we walk a few steps. And then there's Kasha. 

Angela [00:53:35] Then we see Kelly Cantley in the hallway. 

Jenna [00:53:37] And then there you are. Yeah, I mean, it just was. It was so special. 

Dave [00:53:42] Yeah. Yeah, it was. It is really nice to see familiar faces. I mean, Veda is there. Rusty. 

Angela [00:53:50] Rusty, Mahmood. 

Dave [00:53:51] Mahmood is there. So there are. There are a lot of, you know, familiar faces. And that's, you know, it's always nice. We had such a great, great group of people on the show. So it's nice. And there's a lot of great new people that I've been working with, too. 

Angela [00:54:06] That you will tell us about at some point. 

Jenna [00:54:09] That's right. So we can bug them when the paper comes out for all the details on how they designed that set and did those props. 

Dave [00:54:15] Yeah, I will say it was really nice seeing you guys come in on the set and just like, and everybody. I mean, you guys got a huge round of applause and everything. Everybody was just very, you know, just they know what you guys have done and what you guys have brought to, you know, television and this universe, this office universe. And, you know, it means a lot. You guys are royalty. Really? Yeah. So I was I was afraid also. I knew. I knew you guys were coming. I was like, is it the cast is going to be intimidated? Like, are they going to be, you know, I hope they're not like, you're all super nervous, you know? But they're pros. 

Angela [00:54:55] They are lovely. 

Jenna [00:54:56] I feel like I can reveal this one thing because I found it really charming, which is that we also got to tour the writer's space. 

Angela [00:55:04] Yes.

Jenna [00:55:04] Which was really neat when I went into the writers room and they had all the cards on the board, just like we had cards on the board. But then I looked over at the episode that you were shooting and there were three photographs from the office and they were shots of us in cars driving. And I asked about it and Kelly said, yeah, that's because we have some driving shots coming up. And we were just looking at for research, How do you shoot in a car? 

Angela [00:55:38] Yeah. And Greg was saying. 

Jenna [00:55:39] And that was you? 

Dave [00:55:41] Yeah, I'm the one who provided the pictures. 

Angela [00:55:45] Yeah, I took a picture of them. 

Jenna [00:55:47] I did, too! I was in one of them. 

Dave [00:55:51] Yeah, well, yeah, because we should. I think yours was probably Andy's ancestry. 

Jenna [00:55:57] Yes, it was me and Nelly. 

Dave [00:55:58] And Nelly and I had directed that one. So I had that one. 

Angela [00:56:01] And there was one of Michael and Darrell. 

Dave [00:56:04] Yeah, that was another one I did. That was employee transfer. These are those were ones I directed because I had I remember just struggling like, how are we going to do the camera angles? Like what? You know, because you have to choose. You don't, you know, when you're shooting an interior car scene and you have the what we call the lipstick cam, right? You can only get so many cameras in there. Yeah. So it's like, do you want the, you know, a raking shot? Do you want a single or what? You know, so we were just looking at these kinds of frames and to say like, hey, this is, you know, what we're going for. And I had a conversation with the DP afterwards because she wanted to show, like, the camera. She's like, Well, we should see the cameras. You know, when we're outside the car, I'm like, nope. I'm like, We never we did this on the show. We would not. That's unprecedent. Whatever we you know, we would have these lipstick cans, but sometimes we would have, you know, we would go film the actual car and you wouldn't see them. We didn't want to obscure the actors faces. We just by that these are very, very tiny cameras that are in there. 

Angela [00:56:59] So this is so interesting then, because you are now on the paper preserving the look of the office because it's the documentary crew. 

Jenna [00:57:08] It's the same documentary crew. 

Angela [00:57:09] So they will have shot it the same way. 

Dave [00:57:12] There's still some new things that they can do. But yes, there are certain things that, you know, like this is the point is that it exists in this universe. We're not doing like a. I mean, there are so many mockumentary shows out there right now. And, you know, that's that's one thing I'll say, Greg. You know, he kind of wanted to get back to basics with, you know, the style of the office and like like I don't want to have feel like there's 15 cameras around, you know. Right. And so, you know, and there have been a lot of, I think, important creative decisions on just, you know, everything from the casting to the set to the, you know, style of the show and what we're doing. 

Angela [00:57:52] We're excited to see it. Yeah. Last question for you, Dave. Before you leave, you had mentioned that you still have a bottle of champagne in your fridge from Aaron Sorkin. 

Dave [00:58:02] Yes. 

Angela [00:58:02] Will you tell that story? 

Dave [00:58:05] My gosh. Well, one day we got a Greg shared an email with us. I guess Aaron Sorkin had written Aaron Sorkin, the great writer, right. I mean, to Just a Few Good Men, The West Wing, one of my favorite shows, he did The Newsroom, another amazing show. He had written Greg a Letter and he just said how much he loved the office, the writing, the cast, the editing. 

Jenna [00:58:28] Greg printed it out and put it up at craft services. 

Angela [00:58:31] That wall that we had to walk past to get on the soundstage had, you know, people's wedding announcements, a baby photo of whoever had just had a baby. And then this pic, this letter from Aaron Sorkin in the middle. 

Dave [00:58:44] Yes. And he had given Greg like a case of Dom Perignon. So I got a bottle and it's still in my fridge. 

Angela [00:58:53] How many years have you had that? 

Dave [00:58:55] I mean, how many years? 15 years. When did we get it? When did they get. I don't know. What? A long time. 

Angela [00:59:01] When are you going to open it? 

Dave [00:59:01] I don't know. There are times where I wanted to. And then other people like, no, no, no. You want to save that? It's so good. Like, you don't want to just drink it on New Year's or do you know, I'm like, all right. Is it is a live it in the fridge, maybe, maybe this year or next year? I'll make sure. All right. Well, wait. Does anybody want to share? 

Angela [00:59:21] Yes. we'll come over for some  Aaron Sorkin champagne.  

Dave [00:59:24] We'll watch a superfan episode, how's that? 

Jenna [00:59:27] I love that. 

Angela [00:59:29] Well, Dave, we love you so much. Thank you for being here today. 

Jenna [00:59:31] Love you, Dave. 

Dave [00:59:32] Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's really it's I love your show. We're going to talk more about the Star Wars holiday special. Love you guys. I love what you're doing. And yeah, I'm a fan. I'm a fan. 

Angela [00:59:48] Well, thanks, Dave. 

Jenna [00:59:49] Thank you. Dave Rogers is the best. 

Angela [00:59:57] The best. 

Jenna [00:59:58] Dave, thank you so much for being in studio with us today. We just love you. 

Angela [01:00:02] And we want to say thank you to Dave and his whole team for treating our show with such love and care. You can check out all of the superfan episodes on Peacock, and we can't wait to get Dave's must watch list. 

Jenna [01:00:13] I know. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week. Have a great one. Have a good one. 

Jenna [01:00:26] Thank you for listening to office ladies. 

Angela [01:00:28] Office Ladies  is a presentation of Audacy and is produced by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. 

Jenna [01:00:34] Our executive producer is Cassi Jerkings. Our audio engineer is Sam Keefer, and our associate producer is Aynsley Babaeko. 

Angela [01:00:42] Audacy's executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Leah Reis-Dennis. 

Jenna [01:00:46] Office Ladies is mixed and mastered by Chris Basil. 

Angela [01:00:49] Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.