TRANSCRIPT
Office Ladies | Episode 303 - Mike Schur is Back!
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 [00:00:08] and we're best friends.
Jenna [00:00:09] And now we're doing the ultimate Office lover's podcast, just for you.
Angela [00:00:13] Each week we will dive deeper into the world of The Office with exclusive interviews, behind the scenes details, and lots of BFF stories.
Jenna [00:00:21] We're the Office Ladies 6.0.
audio cue: [musical sting]
Angela [00:00:00] Hi!
Jenna [00:00:00] Hello there!
Angela [00:00:02] What's up?
Jenna [00:00:03] What's up with you?
Angela [00:00:04] I don't know, you've kind of got that look that, I don't know, is something going on? You have that look and you're like, "Eww."
Jenna [00:00:10] No! I'm just excited to be here because we're coming back from a little bit of a vacation. So I'm excited to just be sitting here face to face.
Angela [00:00:18] You're just happy and I'm like, "What's going on?"
Jenna [00:00:21] I know. I know. What have you been up to? I haven't seen you in two weeks, lady.
Angela [00:00:25] Oh my gosh. Well, okay, our kids are doing these summer college programs, where you go to a university. They had to apply and they go to university, Isabel and Jack are doing this. They live in a dorm for four weeks. They take a course. They get three college credits out of it. You know, they're gonna be seniors in high school next year. But this is a true, like, "Hey, here's what college is gonna be like." A little bit, right? It's a little practice run.
Jenna [00:00:55] Cause you moved them into the dorm rooms, like, they're getting a whole dorm room thing.
Angela [00:01:00] Oh yeah, they each have roommates that they didn't know until they got there and signed in. They found out who their roommate was. We had to do that thing where we got bins and we labeled everything and we packed it all up. We got there and the two different dorms they're in, one of them, the line for the elevator to move in was so long, because everyone showed up with their parents. Isabel's on the fourth floor. Josh is like, "Let's just take the stairs," lady.
Jenna [00:01:28] What?
Angela [00:01:28] Yes, we moved her in just walking upstairs all day, carrying things. Josh is very fit. I am not as fit, so...
Jenna [00:01:40] You are fit. But there's a difference. You have a type of, like, tennis fitness that doesn't translate to carrying heavy things and climbing.
Angela [00:01:51] Anyway, so I am sore today, but we got them moved in. By the time you guys hear this, they will have completed their program. But that's what I've been up to. I've be packing up two teenagers and taking them off to this college and getting them moved into a dorm room. And now they're there. We get calls. Isabel's like, "I'm gonna do laundry, but they don't take coins anymore." I'm like, "What, how do you do laundry?" I would save up my coins.
Jenna [00:02:18] Of course! A ziplock bag full of coins for the parking meters and the laundry.
Angela [00:02:21] I didn't even think about it. It's all an app now.
Jenna [00:02:26] Don't get me started.
Angela [00:02:27] Do you know how many apps they've had to download? It's so many apps.
Jenna [00:02:29] We don't want to look at our phones that much, but you need an app for everything. We got a garage door and the garage door guy was like, "Do you want an app on your phone to open and close your garage?" I said, "I don't. You know what I want? I want a freaking button that I hold in my hand."
Angela [00:02:46] Give me a clicker, please.
Jenna [00:02:48] He was like, "Settle down lady. Sorry, I triggered you by asking you about an app." I was like, "Well, you did."
Angela [00:02:55] I know, everything's an app now. Anyway. It's good to see you, how have you been?
Jenna [00:03:00] I've been good, you know. Lee's movie, "Nimrods," comes out very soon.
Angela [00:03:04] I know!
Jenna [00:03:05] And we are trying to figure out our red carpet looks. Cause lady, the whole family is walking the red carpet. We've never done this before.
Angela [00:03:13] Oh my gosh.
Jenna [00:03:13] So number one, I'm just trying to wrap my head around that. Like, "How do I prepare them for that experience? What's the impact of that experience gonna be?" But then also, what are we wearing?
Angela [00:03:26] Are you gonna coordinate?
Jenna [00:03:27] These are the questions we're asking. I don't think so, that feels too complicated.
Angela [00:03:32] It feels like a-
Jenna [00:03:32] and too precious.
Angela [00:03:33] It feels like a Christmas card, right? You don't need to be a Christmas card tableau. And I love a coordinating Christmas card. Don't get me wrong.
Jenna [00:03:41] Oh, I know.
Angela [00:03:42] Maybe for the red carpet, you all have your own looks.
Jenna [00:03:44] Well, we all have our own ideas. I know Isabel did a red carpet once, and you gave me her dress that she wore. It's beautiful. And you were like, "One day, if Harper ever needs it." And she was around this same age.
Angela [00:03:56] Yes, my friend had produced the movie "Mulan," the live action, and we went and saw it. Me and Isabel and Jack. Jack wore a suit and Isabel wore a dress. It was really cute. We got it at the mall. It's really a cute dress.
Jenna [00:04:09] Oh, it's beautiful. It's beautiful! Well, unfortunately, the dress doesn't fit.
Angela [00:04:14] I was worried about that because I gave it to you, like, two years ago and I'm like, "I don't know if it's going to fit her."
Jenna [00:04:19] I don't even know where to get clothes for myself for the red carpet.
Angela [00:04:22] I know.
Jenna [00:04:22] I don't know what we're all gonna wear.
Angela [00:04:23] I hate red carpets.
Jenna [00:04:25] I know.
Angela [00:04:26] I'm excited for the movie. I will be on the red carpet with you.
Jenna [00:04:31] Yes, you will.
Angela [00:04:31] I don't have an outfit.
Jenna [00:04:33] We should really be thinking about this because it's happening.
Angela [00:04:36] I know it's exciting.
Jenna [00:04:37] The movie comes out August 14th, everybody, in theaters worldwide.
Angela [00:04:41] Worldwide. Global.
Jenna [00:04:42] Global release. Oh but also, lady, they are doing special early screenings of Nimrods in select theaters. It's happening on Tuesday August 11th. So everyone check the listings at your local theaters and see if they have one of the early screenings. My folks, my sister and some of my high school friends, they all got tickets to one of the early screenings in St. Louis.
Angela [00:05:05] Aw.
Jenna [00:05:06] I know, I'm so excited for them to see it.
Angela [00:05:08] Well, it's such a fun movie to see with a group of people in the theater.
Jenna [00:05:12] Yes, in the theater! Because of course, there's all the great music in it, too. You wanna hear that and see that on the big screen. So everyone, please grab your friends and check out Nimrods.
Angela [00:05:21] That's so fun. We're gonna be in a movie, lady.
Jenna [00:05:25] Together!
Angela [00:05:25] Together, in the theaters.
Jenna [00:05:27] Very exciting.
Angela [00:05:28] It's so exciting. We've been on a TV show together. We have written a book together. We have done a podcast together. We have never been in a move together.
Jenna [00:05:38] Oh my gosh, the last thing would be if we did a piece of theater together.
Angela [00:05:43] Oh, that would be so cool. I don't want the lead. That's too much pressure. I want to tell you right now, you can be the lead, I would just like to be someone that makes a lot of entrances. I think those are so fun. I love it when I go see a play, the person I want be is like... Let's say you're at a restaurant and it's the waitress that comes in and out and she has a little business and she says something, then she's back out. And then she is back in with something else she's carrying and saying, I want to be that person.
Jenna [00:06:11] You know, when we were in New York, I saw this play called "The Ballisters." Oh my gosh, lady, it's so funny. It's about a neighborhood association meeting. It happens in a living room and it's a series of meetings and it all about whether or not they should put a stop sign on a road or not.
Angela [00:06:29] I would love that.
Jenna [00:06:30] It does not disappoint and it so good and it filled with all these amazing characters and there are two characters that in another 15 years, you would be so perfect as great entrances. Just drop mic comedic timing. You'd love it.
Angela [00:06:48] Okay. Yeah, I'll put it on my list.
Jenna [00:06:51] Okay. There's two older women in this and I think we could pick which one we each want to be and then we can be in a play together when they revive it.
Angela [00:06:59] Okay, okay. There it is. We figured it out, you guys. We had a lot of banter here because we haven't seen each other. But we have a fantastic episode today.
Jenna [00:07:11] Yes. We had the most amazing conversation with writer, producer, director, and author, Mike Schur. He was in studio with us, and we cannot wait for you to hear this interview.
Angela [00:07:22] It's so fun. He's so smart, it's great. We talk a lot about The Office. So last time, when Mike was here, it was in 2022; episode 107 of Office Ladies. It's a great listen, if you haven't heard it. He zoomed into the studio. We didn't actually have him in person that time, so it was really fun to be sitting across the table from him today. In that first interview, we talked with him about how he got his job on The Office. We talked a lot about him playing the character Mose and what that was like. Also, what he learned in the writer's room and what he'd learned from Greg Daniels about writing comedy. That is a great interview. I didn't think we could top that with him. And then today we dive into his episodes that he wrote.
Jenna [00:08:05] Yes, we asked him if we could just sort of take him through some of the episodes that he wrote and his memory for detail,
Angela [00:08:13] For lines!
Jenna [00:08:14] And specificity, and just how a story was crafted or how a joke was crafted. Oh my gosh, and he was so generous with his time. Then we had an amazing conversation about his book that just came out. It's called "Big Fan." He wrote it with his friend Joe Posnanski, who is a sports writer. And they just traveled around the world, trying to discover what makes you a fan of something, (like sports, music and TV) and what that phenomenon of fandom is to us as human beings, and it's a great conversation.
Jenna [00:09:08] And in the Mike Schur way that he is, he just has a way of understanding people and what makes us human.
Angela [00:09:17] He's a great observer.
Jenna [00:09:19] Yes, yes, and so we just can't wait for you to hear it.
Angela [00:09:23] Well, why don't we take a break? We will save our chit chats and Around the Town for our next episode because we thought we were gonna chat with Mike for about 25-30 minutes. You guys, we talked for an hour, but it's so good. And you're gonna love it.
Jenna [00:09:36] We want you to hear it all. So we'll take a break and we'll be right back with Mike Schur.
audio cue [00:09:39] [musical sting]
Angela [00:09:44] Here we go! Hello! Hi, Mike!
Mike [00:09:47] I am so happy to see both of you. How have you been? How is everything?
Jenna [00:09:51] We're good.
Mike [00:09:52] Yeah?
Angela [00:09:52] Yeah.
Jenna [00:09:53] How are you?
Mike [00:09:53] I'm great.
Jenna [00:09:54] It's so great to see you. You look literally the same.
Mike [00:09:57] I was thinking the same thing about you. I don't know if you're supposed to say that to people.
Angela [00:10:00] Oh, get out.
Mike [00:10:00] No, look, we all are aging at exactly the same rate. One day per day. When I see people from The Office, I think like, "Yeah, that's how the person looks." If you've known the person continuously, they just stay the same in your brain.
Jenna [00:10:14] But you know, it's crazy? So I was cleaning my sag award the other day.
Angela [00:10:18] You were what?
Mike [00:10:18] First of all, incredible way to start a sentence.
Jenna [00:10:21] I know, right?
Angela [00:10:22] I've never cleaned mine.
Jenna [00:10:24] I was dusting!
Mike [00:10:25] [pretend disbelief] You've never cleaned your SAG award? Did you not consult the manual for proper maintenance?
Angela [00:10:31] I haven't, and also it has a tush. So you know...
Jenna [00:10:34] It does.
Mike [00:10:35] Is it like taking care of an infant, a little bit?
Angela [00:10:39] I don't know. I haven't thought about it. Go on, Jenna.
Jenna [00:10:41] I was moving things on my bookshelf in my office. So I was cleaning my SAG Award, and I looked at the date on it, and it said 2006. And I was like, "Wait, that was 20 years ago?"
Mike [00:10:56] 20 years ago.
Jenna [00:10:57] What?
Mike [00:10:58] Yeah. I know we're passing all those milestones now. You see things on social media that it's the 25th anniversary of something, and it's hard to believe. But yeah. I mark this every June 1st, because I moved to LA on June 1, 2004, to start working on the show. So every June 1st, I'm like, "Oh, wait, how many years has it been that I've lived here?" And now it's 22 years that I've been here. We started working on this show, I think, right after July 4th weekend, maybe, the writers met for the first time. That is inconceivable to me. I mean, it feels like both forever ago and also yesterday.
Jenna [00:11:32] Well, listen, the last time you came on the show, we talked a lot about how you got your job on the show and how you became Mose and all those things. But we didn't get a chance to dig into some of the specific episodes that you wrote.
Mike [00:11:46] Great, let's do it.
Jenna [00:11:47] So we were thinking maybe we could talk about a few. So speaking of the early days, "The Alliance," it's season one of The Office. You guys are trying to establish what is the American version of this. How do we make it our own thing? Can you take me back to that time?
Mike [00:12:04] Yeah, so that first season me, Mindy, and BJ were the only full-time writers. Then the late Lester Lewis (RIP) was a consultant, and so were Larry Wilmore and Paul Lieberstein. It was a very small crew. In classic Greg Daniels fashion, we came up with 270 episode ideas to make five episodes. I want to say in The Alliance, one of the things that is going on in the first season of the British Office is the threat of downsizing.
Jenna [00:12:38] Mm-hmm
Mike [00:12:38] and the threat of consolidation and a branch closing and that sort of stuff. It sort of runs in the background. Greg wanted to maintain that because it was and is such a part of corporate life that you're always like, "Is someone gonna buy our company and are we all gonna lose our jobs?" And so he wanted that theme to run through the season in a low grade way. The simple nugget of the idea was that in this kind of vague threat of something bad happening in the office, that because "Survivor" was such a big deal at the time... People forget, Survivor had debuted in the year 2000 or something, and around 2004, it was the biggest deal. It still is a huge deal, but it was biggest deal. I wanna say it was BJ, my memory might be failing me, who pitched the idea of just Dwight asking Jim to form an alliance with him, Survivors style. And we liked that idea. Obviously, Jim and Dwight, famous antagonists, but the breakthrough was that... Someone pitched (I'd like to take credit for it, but I don't know if I can) that Jim's response was, "Absolutely I do." Like, instantly.
Jenna [00:13:41] I was gonna ask you about that, because that's such a famous couplet that comes back later.
Mike [00:13:49] Then the talking head that comes after it is, "Anytime Dwight asks me to do anything, my response is absolutely," you know? Because Jim's sole goal in life, in that moment, is to enjoy this mundane business environment in any way he possibly can.
Angela [00:14:05] Just escape the boredom.
Mike [00:14:06] Just escape the boredom, and it's one of the great lessons of writing (that I've learned 100,000 times) which it's the classic improv thing, right? It's "yes and" it, just say yes. If you say no, the story ends. If you yes, you get a story. So as soon as we came up with the idea that Dwight makes an absurd request of Jim and Jim's immediate response is yes, then okay, we're off and running. So that was the simple nugget of the story. Then it became how does Jim enjoy torturing Dwight and enjoying his life in this boring day and sharing it with Pam, of course. My favorite scene that came out of it is the one that's sort of a spy scene from up top, looking down at them in the parking lot. They're standing outside and it was, as it always was in the valley, 111 degrees. But it was supposed to be November in Scranton. And so the two of them just are grabbing their arms in the classic pose of a person trying to warm up.
Angela [00:15:05] "I'm cold, I'm cold."
Mike [00:15:07] Which we would then do 50 more times over the course of the first couple seasons. And having that private kind of Survivor-like conversation about how to play things and what they've learned and all that stuff. So that was it. It was what made that show so special to me, was that's what you needed for a story. You didn't need a gigantic, huge plot. You needed one of the ridiculous characters to make a request of a sane character and have the sane character decide to go along with it for the day. And that was that.
Angela [00:15:36] That's a really great way to look at The Office now, like the next time I watch an episode and be like, "Okay. Who's the ridiculous character asking the same character to do something?"
Mike [00:15:45] That's all it is. Yeah, and it's usually that Michael is the ridiculous one asking Pam or Jim or someone to do something, to go to Hooters or whatever it was. It was either a sane person doing something sane and watching the lunatics respond or vice versa. Like, a lunatic doing something lunatic and then the sane person's responding.
Jenna [00:16:04] You also wrote "Valentine's Day."
Mike [00:16:05] Yeah.
Jenna [00:16:06] And this puts the character of Michael Scott in New York City.
Mike [00:16:10] Yes.
Jenna [00:16:10] There are so many funny moments. What was it like to do that? Like, you're from the East Coast. So seeing New York city through Michael Scott's eyes...
Mike [00:16:20] So that was season two...
Jenna [00:16:22] Season two.
Mike [00:16:24] And it was the beginning of Greg wanting to expand the world of the show, occasionally, rarely. But saying that we can break out, a little bit, of the rule we had stuck to, which is that every episode happens in one day and every episode happens inside the walls of the office or on the grounds of Dunder Mifflin. So we had this idea that he would go to New York. There were two really important things that I think came out of that episode. The first was like, "Let's take a skeleton crew to the city, walk around with Steve Carell, and just do a bunch of jokes." In the room, I remember we called it "Michael Scott's New York." That's how he thought of it, because his whole thing is "I'm an expert on everything." And so we thought it would be really fun to put him in Manhattan, a place where you've got to spend a lot of time in Manhattan to be an expert on it, and he is not. So the joke I wrote that's probably the most famous joke of that episode is the one where he talks about taking the camera crew to his favorite pizza place, and it's a Sbarro. It's the one that comes back to me the most still to this day.
Jenna [00:17:27] I mean, people post online pictures of themselves in front of Sbarro,
Angela [00:17:32] In Manhattan.
Mike [00:17:35] Yeah. "Gotta get a New York slice."
Jenna [00:17:36] Yeah, exactly.
Mike [00:17:38] That episode is largely about him and Jan and him believing that he has a relationship with Jan that he does not actually have.
Angela [00:17:46] Mm-hmm.
Mike [00:17:47] But this was the other really important thing about that episode, from a world-building point of view, was a question that had been asked many times of the show by critics and fans and all sorts of people was, "How did this dummy get this job," right? How did Michael Scott get this job? And Greg had thought it out very carefully. It was a living example of what's called in corporate structure the "Peter Principle," right?
Angela [00:18:10] Yes! We know the Peter Principle.
Jenna [00:18:10] We've discussed.
Mike [00:18:12] We've discussed, right? People who do a good job at their job are then promoted to a position in which their skills have run out and are no longer qualified. But it was still a question of like, "Okay, even given that, this guy has done a lot of ridiculous stuff. So how do we justify it?" So the whole point of this episode was we were like, "We're gonna see four guys (including Michael) who have Michael's job at different branches. Two of them are gonna be demonstrably more competent than him and one of them is gonna be less competent. We are going to absolutely show that there are people who have his job who are dumber than he is." And that was that character who just was like, "I thought this was more of a meet and greet kind of video."
Angela [00:18:54] Yeah, he's very funny too.
Mike [00:18:56] Yeah, he's very funny. Craig Anton, I think is his name. And so Michael does something kind of important too in that episode, which is he has made a ridiculous video. The CFO, David Wallace, has asked him to make a presentation about his branch: numbers, facts, revenue, streams, stuff like that. Instead, in classic Michael Scott fashion, he decides to make video that's a heart string tugging kind of like "these people matter to me." He presents that video and David Wallace's reaction is like, "Wow, but also do you have the facts I asked for?" And the key thing is that he does. That was a big deal.
Jenna [00:19:36] Yes, he passes out these really nice spiral bound things.
Mike [00:19:40] Yes, and it was a demonstration that even though he's an absurd person, he's not incompetent. He knows what he has to do and he also was hoping that David Wallace would start crying because he was so moved by his video that he would see what Michael sees in the incredible people of Dunder Mifflin in Scranton. So that was the whole purpose of that, besides obviously advancing the Michael/Jan relationship.
Angela [00:20:02] Because she gives him a kiss at the end.
Mike [00:20:03] She does indeed. She's surprised by his maneuver, that he owns up to the relationship and takes the fall for it and protects her. She's so pleased with how he handled it that she ends up giving him what he hoped he was going to get, which was a romantic Valentine's Day New York moment. There's another very important thing that came out of that episode for me and for America. When we auditioned people for that role that Craig Anton did, and it was very funny, and one of the people we saw was Nick Offerman.
Angela [00:20:37] Oh!
Mike [00:20:37] He auditioned for it, and we were like, "That guy's really funny," but then it immediately came to us, before we could even offer him the part, maybe, that he had a conflict. The conflict was he was shooting an episode of "Will and Grace" at the same time, because he is famously married to Megan Mullally.
Jenna [00:20:55] Mm-hmm.
Mike [00:20:56] So I wrote the name Nick Offerman on a post-it note and stuck it to my computer as a reminder to me that this guy had auditioned was really funny. Then three years later, when Greg and I were developing "Parks and Rec," I was like, "Oh, that guy. That guys really funny." And he came in and read for a bunch of parts and ended up playing Ron Swanson. And when the show ended, I saved the post-it note.
Angela [00:21:21] Nice.
Mike [00:21:22] And I had it framed. In the intervening time it had fallen off my computer and been stepped on. So there was a footprint on it and some random phone number was also written on it or whatever. But I saved it and put it in a frame and gave it to Nick as a present at the end of the show. That was where I first saw him.
Jenna [00:21:40] Oh, I'm so glad you told that story for any aspiring artists out there who have gone to an audition and they don't get the part. But you might be on a Post-It note on someone's computer, like, that might grow into something in three years.
Mike [00:21:57] Yeah, it was wonderful the way it all worked out and it taught us a really important lesson. I think this started at The Office, if it didn't it definitely started at Parks and Rec or we took it to Parks and Rec, we used to have a folder on our computer that called "Good for Something." We would audition people for roles and then if we didn't cast them but we like them we would just take their audition and throw it into that folder. Then in a future episode if it was like, "Who can play this part?" We would go through that folder and look at all those auditions and we'd go, "Oh, but that lady was funny. We'll get her to do it," and people would constantly show up and be like, "I didn't audition for this. How did this happen?" Well, we saw you audition for that thing a year ago and we found you and we liked your audition and saved you. Most of the actors always had that same reaction, which was like, "Thank you so much." But for me, it was like, "Why wouldn't you do that?" You like an actor, they did a good job. Actors don't grow on trees, save them and use them in something, you know?
Angela [00:22:56] Two things, one, I think it's very Michael Scott of you that you stuck it on your computer.
Mike [00:23:01] It is very old-timey.
Angela [00:23:04] I did tidy up but I normally have post-it notes and I open my laptop in there here, because I don't want to forget. But then also you said, "Actors don't grow on trees," which made me think of "Branch Closing" because I watched it this morning.
Mike [00:23:20] Did you really?
Angela [00:23:20] I love it. Oh my gosh. Yes. It's always been one of my favorite episodes. I haven't watched it in a bit since we first broke it down. But like, did you write "Stanley doesn't grow on trees?"
Mike [00:23:30] I believe I did, yeah.
Angela [00:23:31] Because you just said it, so it might be, just, deep within you.
Mike [00:23:36] Show me that farm. Just Stanley's and Phylis' growing on trees.
Angela [00:23:41] It's such a good episode. It made my morning. I watched it with a cup of tea.
Mike [00:23:46] I remember thinking, like, that's season three, maybe?
Angela [00:23:50] Yes, it's season 3.
Mike [00:23:51] I remember watching Steve, specifically, in that episode and thinking "this is an actor at the height of his powers." It's a great showcase for him for a couple reasons. One is the very first scene is Jan coming in and saying that this branch is closing. Usually on the show, like, there's a little bit of a ramp in, you know? It starts with some slice of life, and then Michael has some dumb thing, and then whatever. Eventually a couple minutes in, the premise has sort of sprung. That episode, Jan walks in, and he's going "Jan Levinson Gould, blah, blah blah," and then she just goes.
Angela [00:24:29] Like, he's singing "Levinson in the morning" or something.
Mike [00:24:34] And then she's like, "I'm here to tell you the branch is closing." So 30 seconds in, he gets the worst news of his life. That monolog, that talking head he gives of like, "Show me that farm" is so good. He has so deeply internalized the degree to which this office is his entire life. It's an incredible performance. And I remember that was the year, not to divert the conversation too much into something that doesn't really matter, but that was the year that everyone was like, "Steve Carell is going to win the Emmy for best actor in a comedy. It is a foregone conclusion." In fact, it was such a foregone conclusion that that year they had Stephen Colbert and John Stewart present the category because it was going to be a "Daily Show" correspondent's reunion on stage, and they were going to give it to their friend Steve Carell. And then I believe Ricky Gervais ended up winning for the show "Extras," which was a BBC show that HBO had just bought and thrown on the air, and he wasn't even there. It was one of those deals where they showed a black and white photo of him on the screen, and they were like, "Ricky Gervais isn't here, so instead we're going to give this to our friend Steve Carell," and Steve jumped up and ran on stage and bowed and everyone cheered. But I remember thinking of all of the robberies that occurred from folks who worked on The Office over the years, that season three Best Actor in a Comedy was number one on my list, because he was the funniest person in America, and he was best actor on a comedy in America by a wide margin. I always think of that performance in that episode as exhibit A in that argument.
Angela [00:26:11] He's fantastic in it.
Jenna [00:26:12] And he never won an Emmy for the role of Michael Scott.
Mike [00:26:15] He never did.
Angela [00:26:15] He never did.
Jenna [00:26:16] When I speak to acting classes, I remind them of that fact. That you can do the best work,
Mike [00:26:24] You can be the very, very best at what you do. Yeah, I know. At this point, you can make a better cast and show out of the folks who never won than the folks who have won, I dare say. And he's the lead.
Angela [00:26:37] They had a camera on us. I've told this story before. We were in a row together. It was Jenna and John and me in the same row. Steve was in front of us. When they're announcing the nominees, the camera guys just run right up. They just put a camera right in your face. And so it's right in Steve's face and then we're directly behind him. When the didn't say his name, I guess I said, "Motherf**ker."
Mike [00:27:04] I mean, that's the correct response. Yeah.
Angela [00:27:07] And I had one or two friends say, "Did you say motherf**ker?" I think I saw you say that. And I'm like, "Yes, yes I did."
Mike [00:27:14] "It came out of me. I didn't have a choice."
Angela [00:27:16] I couldn't believe it! So many of us couldn't because he was amazing.
Mike [00:27:20] The other scene in that episode that I think of when I think about how great he was, is the one where... So the plot is that he and Dwight decide that they're going to go to David Wallace's house and just stop him and make their argument as to why Scranton shouldn't close, and he never shows up. They just end up spending the entire day outside his house. He and Dwight are sitting there at the end when it looks like all is lost, and he just says like, "Alright, top three. What are your top three moments ever, your three favorite moments at Dunder Mifflin?" And Dwight names a couple, one or two things I think we've seen in the world of the show.
Angela [00:27:55] Mm-hmm.
Mike [00:27:56] The concussion, when Michael took Dwight to the hospital, and Dwight gets a little emotional. There's also one thing I think that we didn't see that was a reference to something that happened before the documentary started shooting. Then Dwight says, "What about you? What are your top three moments?" And he says, "All of them, every single moment. Every single moment was wonderful and perfect and special." And it's really a beautiful moment. And then, Dwight says, "What about when Jan came and told you the office was closing?" And he's like, "God damn it, Dwight."
Angela [00:28:24] It was so perfect to Dwight, like, just who he is,
Jenna [00:28:30] He's so literal.
Mike [00:28:30] He's like, "Every single moment? Well, I can think of one that's bad." Yeah.
Angela [00:28:36] They did this great thing where Dwight is going to practice being David Wallace and Michael's going to plea his case, why they can't close Scranton branch. And Dwight just very matter-of-factly is like, "Well, it's a dying business, for one. And it's like, it just comes down to numbers. It's just math." And he's so matter-of-fact, and Michael's like, "Stop it, stop it. He's never going to say that."
Mike [00:28:59] Well, there's a wonderful moment that was improvised between the two of them. I think the way it ended was Michael was like, "Just start over and be more scared of me."
Angela [00:29:07] Yeah.
Mike [00:29:07] And so Dwight goes back, and he wasn't supposed to do this, but Rainn walked up again. And Michael says, "David Wallace." And Rainn yelps and jumps backwards. And we had to cut it off. Literally, the frame where we cut it off is the last frame before they both started laughing. It's a good memory of that moment.
Angela [00:29:27] It was really fun to rewatch it. I highly recommend, guys.
Jenna [00:29:31] Well, since we're talking about season three, this is actually a question I wanted to ask you. The arc of season three is such an impressive arc. You have the whole storyline of Jim going to Stanford. You had to create this whole other branch. You had fill it with people who were then going to come merge with the Scranton branch and then some of them stay. Like, you had to cast Rashida Jones. You had cast Ed Helms. It was this massive ongoing storyline. Like, can you talk a little bit about how that was created? Some of the conversations in the room and how far into the season did you get when we started shooting?
Mike [00:30:06] It's a great question. This was a big swing that Greg decided to make, which was at the end of season two after Jim and Pam kiss, and Pam sort of lets him down (in her mind easy, but for him not very easy) Greg was like, "He's gotta leave. We can't just start season three with him back at the office. It's not following through on the story we've told. The story we told is that Jim stays in this office because of Pam."
Jenna [00:30:31] Mhmm.
Mike [00:30:32] And so if he makes a play for Pam and Pam turns him down, he's going to leave. So he had a general with Ed, I remember. We were all Daily Show fans. And so we were like, "Ed Helms is here. That's fun." We came into that season, and Greg was like, "Jim is going to leave. He's going go to another branch. We're going to meet an entire group of people who work in that branch. Then at some point early in the season, they're going fold together. The branches are going to merge." So the important people were Ed's character, Andy Bernard, Rashida's character who was gonna be Jim's new love interest because Greg was like, "When Jim comes back, he's got a girlfriend." That was a huge thing too. Then the manager of the office who was Josh, who was going to play an important role in the story, in that he was going to seem like an incredibly competent, well-functioning, high-function manager who was clearly better than Michael Scott at managing. But was also kind of a self-interested guy who didn't really care about the office and was going to leverage this corporate upheaval for his own gain. Which led to one of my favorite Jim lines where when that is revealed, when Jim says, "Say what you will about Michael Scott, he would never do that."
Angela [00:31:42] Yeah.
Mike [00:31:42] Which was like, that was the whole storyline that was laid out.
Angela [00:31:46] And Charles Esten was great.
Mike [00:31:47] He was so good. Yeah, he was really great. He was a perfect just handsome, charismatic guy who everyone was psyched to work for and you know... The hardest part, obviously... Ed you cast because he's hilarious and like he is a guy who you're like, "Well this guy will fold naturally into any ensemble and will be wonderful and great."
Angela [00:32:06] Can I say one thing about that episode? When they find out that Scranton is going to be closed down, he goes up to Jim at the Stanford office and goes, "In your face!" Jim's like, "I don't work there. I work here."
Mike [00:32:23] Of all of Krasinski's tiny line readings, it's one of the tiniest. He goes, "HA! In your face!" and John goes, "Well, I work here now." You can barely hear him, he speaks so quietly. It's wonderful.
Angela [00:32:37] But anyway, I'm so sorry. So, so Ed, obviously.
Mike [00:32:39] Ed is like, "Cast that guy, he's great." He's a New England preppy. I was delighted because Andy Bernard is everyone I grew up with in Connecticut. I was like, "Oh, I can write this guy forever. Like, wind me up and set me loose." The hardest part was Rashida, because this is one of the hardest things to do in any show, right? Is there are two people on the show who are soulmates. It's very clear that they're soulmates. They are going to, at some point, get together. Greg was like, "If they get together, they're staying together. We're not doing Ross and Rachel," which they did, obviously, incredibly effectively over 10 years. Which is a get together break up, get together breakup over and over again. He's like, "When Jim and Pam get together they're gonna stay together." He always kind of knew that. So what we needed for the obstacle was a woman who Jim could date, who was a good match for him. He also didn't want to do a move, which I think is kind of crappy and slightly misogynistic, which is you give the protagonist of the show a girlfriend who's just a terrible person. She either cheats on him or browbeats him or is selfish or is mean or whatever. It's cheap because it makes the audience just root for the person to go with the other person. Greg was like, "That's just fake." Like, you know that's fake. Greg, he had this very, very Greg like analogy, which is he told the story, I wanna say it's General Sherman in the Civil War. This is, it's a classic Greg thing.
Angela [00:34:08] Oh my gosh.
Jenna [00:34:09] Amazing.
Mike [00:34:09] Yeah.
Angela [00:34:10] Did he tell it while laying on his back stretching his hamstrings?
Mike [00:34:12] A hundred percent he did, yes. He was lying on the floor, on the dirty floor of the writer's room. The story from history was that (I think it was Sherman, it might have been Grant, or I'm getting all of this wrong) it was an army marching south through the U.S.. The opposing forces, the confederate forces, were very skilled fighters. Even if they were outnumbered, they could win a theoretical battle if they knew where they were going. So if Sherman were marching on Richmond, Lee would marshal all of his forces in Richmond and be ready for him. So what Sherman did, according to Greg, was to drive his army halfway between two possible destinations, halfway between Richmond and Atlanta. So Lee would then have to send half of his army to Richmond and half to Atlanta. Then at the last second, Sherman would break towards one of them, and then he would only have to fight half of the Southern Army, and would win. He used this analogy by saying, "We have to create a girlfriend for Jim, who is compelling enough and a good enough match that half of our audience is rooting for him to say, 'I'm sorry, Pam, you missed your shot.' And half of the audience is reading for him to say like, 'Get rid of this lady and go with Pam.'" And so that required a lot of things. One, some good stories where Rashida was funny and interesting and compelling and smart and cool, and it required an actor to play that role that people wouldn't hate. So we looked forever. We tried so many different versions of just combing through the other shows and seeing what actors have been on these shows, who seem good and funny and whatever. I met Rashida my second day of college and we've been friends ever since. So I was obviously, quietly being like, "Cast Rashida," and then she had met John already. So John liked her and was pushing for her. But Greg, famously indecisive in these moments. Or I guess indecisive is not the nicest way to say it. Thorough would be the nicest way to put it, that he exhausts every avenue of possibility. We looked and looked and looked and eventually settled on Rashida. Then the challenge became, in like six episodes, introduce her and build her into a person who at least some of the audience was like, "Wait, I think she's a better girlfriend for Jim than Pam is." And that was really hard. That took most of the time of the writer's room and the time between season two and season three was spent just doing that. How can we meticulously form a character that audiences are rooting for? It was very hard.
Jenna [00:36:48] You know, what I think worked about it? Is that I liked Karen, as a woman. I wanted to go to lunch with Karen. I wanted be friends with Karen, I'm like, "Oh, this is a woman I'd wanna spend time with. She's cool." And they seemed like, exactly what you're saying. Jim and Karen seemed like a couple who were compatible enough and had enough fun that they'd have a three-year relationship and then break up, you know? Like, Pam aside. Jim was not gonna end up with Karen in the long run, whenever he met her. But this was a solid choice. This was a person to spend three years of your time with.
Mike [00:37:27] She was cool.
Jenna [00:37:28] Yeah, she was cool.
Mike [00:37:30] She was smart. She was good at her job. She was funny. The huge breakthrough for the writers was the Christmas episode that year, which was extended (which Jennifer Celotta wrote, I wanna say) and which was so good (and the late Harold Ramis directed). It was so good that it was the first time that the cut came in at like 42 minutes, as it always did, and instead of cutting it down to 21:30, Greg went to the studio and was like, "We should make this a two-parter, we should this an hour." And we ended up writing and shooting another six or eight minutes of stuff in order to then boil it down to the best 43. But the plot that mattered so much, was that Karen and Pam were on the same team.
Angela [00:38:15] Well, yeah, it was like Churchill, right? Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.
Mike [00:38:25] Yeah, common enemy, yes, and so there you were. Pitching out that story was a huge relief for us because we were like, "Right, the story of this doesn't have to be a rivalry between Pam and Karen." It can be that, like you said, Pam is like, "I kind of like this lady. I want to be friends with her, legitimately. Not as a way to weasel my way back into Jim's life" but just because for Pam, life in that office could be pretty lonely in terms of ladies that you can hang out with and talk to. Suddenly here's one right here and she's cool. So in the slow, deliberate sort of brick by brick construction of Karen as a character, that was a huge moment. That we were like, "Oh, there should be an episode where they happily and joyfully find themselves on the same team."
Angela [00:39:12] I think shout out to Rashida, too, because she just has a natural presence as Karen that puts you at ease. That's her just instincts as an actor. Then also in real life, she is one of the coolest people you'll ever meet.
Mike [00:39:27] That's the thing.
Angela [00:39:30] I took a trip with her, we've talked about this before. I went and did this work with this nonprofit that helps save the world's oceans and Rashida and I went together. There are still things she said, as we traveled to Belize, that I still say to people.
Jenna [00:39:47] "Emotionally expensive."
Angela [00:39:48] That's one of them. I kind of was going through some stuff and she was like, "Angela, that person is too emotionally expensive for you." And I was like, "What? This is brilliant." The other thing is she gets on a plane, she's like a professional. She has so many lotions and she hydrates. She's like, "My friends call me lotions and potions on planes." Now I bring hand lotion and chapstick on a plane and I think of her.
Mike [00:40:14] She was, I mean again, I'm coming from a medium sized town in suburban Connecticut. But even so, when I met her on the second day of freshman year of college in 1993, she was the coolest person I'd ever met. Now, 33 years later, she is still the coolest I've ever met.
Angela [00:40:34] Well, I think to wrap up this part of our Office convo, we wanted to ask you (and this is kind of one of those questions when people ask me, I'm like, "Oh, it's so hard"), do you have an episode that you wrote that's near and dear to your heart?
Mike [00:40:47] I mean, all of them, obviously. I will say Branch Closing, I was very delighted in how it all turned out. I think the one that I think of the most is "The Negotiation," which was one of the super sizey ones, which I was so happy about because there was so much going on. It's the one that starts with Dwight spraying mace at Pam's boyfriend and stopping an attack.
Angela [00:41:13] And Angela's titillated by it and keeps having everyone retell the story.
Mike [00:41:17] So this was the best part of it, was Roy comes in and Dwight maces him. He's about to attack Jim and maces him. That's a great beginning to an episode, right? That's so exciting. Then a bunch of stuff has to branch out of that. Because the story that we had for Michael was that Daryl wanted to renegotiate his salary because Roy had been fired and now he was like, "Okay, I'm stepping up and whatever." So that whole thing, that whole story is huge. They go to the corporate offices and he talks to Jan. It also flips and Daryl finds out how much Michael makes and is humiliated for him. And is like, "You got to get a raise. You have to get raise, so then I can get a raise." It's a real Craig Robinson showcase, that whole episode.
Angela [00:42:03] Mhmm.
Mike [00:42:03] But then the B story was Jim feeling like he owed Dwight a debt of gratitude. And was like, "How do I pay this guy back?" He tries all these silly ways to pay Dwight back. Dwight, in his like weird code of honor, is refusing to accept a payback because he says that citizens do not accept prizes for being citizens, that's how he puts it. So both of those stories were so great. Put Michael Scott and Craig Robinson in a room together and send them off and it's gonna be great. And also, Jim feeling a debt to Dwight that he's trying desperately to fill because he hates the feeling of owing Dwight something is fantastic. The problem was, the best episodes of the show were always ones where everyone was involved. You're talking about two huge stories where it's just Michael and Craig (Toby at the end) and then Dwight and Jim. So this was a risky maneuver. But on my own, when I went off to write it, I was like, "I'm gonna add another story." And the story was that Angela heard the tale of heroism for Dwight and was turned on by it.
Jenna [00:43:08] [laughing]
Mike [00:43:08] And kept asking other people, like, "Well, I didn't really hear what happened. Can you repeat the story?" And she's fingering her necklace. Then the wonderful thing that came out of it was that Jim had hit a wall where he just couldn't figure out how to pay Dwight back. He came out of the bathroom at the end and saw Dwight, because Angela has gone up to Dwight and been like, "I've heard of some incredible tales of heroism," and there's no one in the office (they think) and they start making out. Jim sees it, and he gets so excited and then he realizes and says "I am never gonna say a word, and that is how I will pay Dwight back.' It was the perfect dovetailing of stories that involved everyone in the office entirely. So the way that all kind of coalesced into a big, giant, fun story. Then we had this wonderful thing for another bunch of episodes, which was that Dwight thought that no one knew, and Jim (his worst enemy) knew this thing and wasn't telling anyone. I think it just made Jim really likable. He was doing a nice thing without Dwight knowing it, which was just a really sweet little backstory, you know?
Jenna [00:44:23] Aww. I love that.
Mike [00:44:25] Yeah, that one was really fun. I was so happy that it was supersized because it allowed us to keep all that stuff in the episode.
Angela [00:44:32] Oh my gosh, you're so just fun to talk to. You are! You just... You're smart and you remember things.
Mike [00:44:41] Well that's.. I mean look, I've said this the last time I was here, that show was so formative for all of us. It taught me everything I've ever learned about writing and about story creation and about working with actors and all that stuff. It was such a vibrant laboratory, is how I think about it. Greg threw us into the deep end of the pool in the best way. I'd never written on anything before and there I was on the set, dealing with directors and talking to actors. In the edit bay, making editing decisions. I didn't know that isn't typical. Now, you know, 20/30 years later, I'm realizing how atypical it really was. So I've tried, in my life now, running different shows to replicate that process. It's not easy. It requires a lot of faith in the people that you hire and it requires a a lot time to walk people through all of the mistakes that they make when they don't know what they're doing. Like, we all made horrible mistakes and wasted enormous amounts of time making terrible editing decisions. Even then I was aware of how special it was. The lessons I learned and the moments that stood out are very deeply embedded in my brain, and I don't think they'll ever leave.
Jenna [00:45:53] You know, I'm really moved by you saying that. I got a little choked up because it is such a gift that Greg gave all of us. The actors too, bringing us into the process so intimately. I left that show a better actor because I knew everything that was happening besides just my acting. Because he brought us into the edit bay and into conversations and into the writer's room. Seeing how a story was crafted and why it was important and little things like, I don't know... Like, you get a line or you get a scene and you're like, "I don't get it." He didn't just say, "Do it cause I wrote it." He'd be like, "Let me tell you where we're going with this." And you're like, "Oh, I gotcha."
Mike [00:46:37] It was obvious to me very early (I think I told this story the first time I was on your show), my meeting with him was two hours long and it was very different from all the other meetings I'd taken. I sent my agent an email when I left and said, "I don't know if that guy's gonna offer me a job but if he does I'm gonna take it because I think he's gonna teach me how to write." And he did offer me the job and I did take it and he did teach me to write. So I knew from the beginning that this was a person I could learn from. Then the process of that first season of breaking stories and slogging through all these different versions and everything sort of made it clear. But then the first episode I wrote was "The Alliance" and he was editing it. I was working on "The Comeback," this first season of the show on HBO at the time. And so I wasn't able to be around a lot. And he was like, "Hey, we just finished our first assembly of The Alliance and I'm gonna send it to you so you can look at it." So I watched it and it was completely different. Obviously, it was a completely different. The first cut was 38 minutes long and this one was 24, or whatever. And I remember watching it and my heart sinking because I was like, "Wait, he cut this and he cut that and he moved this scene over here." And I panicked. And I wrote him this long email where I was like, "Hey, so here's just a few thoughts on this and you cut the cold open and the cold opened really does this thing where it sets up this and. By starting this scene here, you do blah, blah, bah, blah." I remember sending it off and being like, "When he reads this, he's gonna rethink some of his decisions." And then he wrote back, and I remember it so clearly. He wrote like, "Hey dude! Responses below, see if they make sense to you." Then just one by one, everything I had said, he took the time to write out a long paragraph of "here's why I did this and here's why it's good, I think, and here is why it makes sense and here is why it helps the episode." Then it was my heart sank again, somehow, because I was embarrassed but also rose back up into my chest. Because I was like, "Oh this guy knows everything. This guy is seeing the matrix code behind the show in a way that I could never, in this moment in my life," and I just remember thinking "There is nothing that I could suggest to Greg Daniels that he has not already thought about." He knew the show from beginning to end before he started working on it, somehow. When you know that you're in the hands of someone who cares that much and knows that much about what he's doing, it's so freeing. You're just like, "I just trust that the decisions that are being made are coming from a place of thoughtfulness and understanding and love of the characters and love of world that makes me just very at ease," you know?
Angela [00:49:24] Yeah, he's smart and thoughtful and funny. Oh my gosh, all the things. The one thing he said to me about my character (and I don't know if I've shared this before) but there was a moment where we didn't know if we were gonna be series regulars or not, the supporting cast, and I think I just sort of insecurely just said to him without even thinking, "I don't know if my character brings much," you know? And he said, "Oh, Angela, your character's the bitch. You always need the bitch." It's like, "No, that's a very good character." And I was like, "OK, OK. Maybe I'll be around a while."
Mike [00:50:06] Did we talk about the Secret Santa Christmas episode about Angela, specifically, the last time I was here? I can't remember.
Angela [00:50:11] No, uh-uh.
Mike [00:50:12] This is one of the great writing lessons. I feel like every time I was in that room, I learned something about how to write. But I had to write the Yankee Swap/Secret Santa Christmas episode. So I did this thing where I did a real drawing. I put everyone's names into a hat, and we knew that for the plot, Jim had to have Pam, because he was going to get her the teapot and Michael had to have Ryan, because he gave him the video iPod. But everything else was up in the air. So I did a real drawing in my house when I went off to write the script, and I forget who had Angela. But anyway, the point is that the person who got Angela, it wasn't a plot point. We just needed people to open gifts, right? So the gift that I wrote in was one of those sort of Joel Osteen Christian books. Like, self-help books or whatever. I think it's because Angela had said in the fire episode, when you're playing "What books would you have in Desert Island?" She mentions one of those books. And so I was like, "Okay, so the person will just get her one of these books." Greg was like, "We need to change that," when I turned in the script. And I was "Why? It's in universe, she's already said she likes those books." He's like, "Yeah, but that's the reason we need to change it." He said that in every episode of every TV show, you should learn something new about every character, if you can, that should be the goal. You move the ball slightly down the field of character development for as many people as you can, because that's what leads to rich characters, right? And I was a little bit like, "What does this matter? This episode is so complicated already and this is not a plot point. This doesn't matter. It's just a moment where Angela opens a gift and then we move on." But we, of course, put like seven hours of thought into it and ended up that someone gets Angela a poster of babies dressed up like adults, right? First of all, immediately it's like, that's way funnier. It's a way funnier little moment. If it's just that moment, it's much better than just a book. Cause who cares. But then, whatever, 10 episodes later that poster becomes the centerpiece of an entire other episode.
Angela [00:52:24] Yes.
Mike [00:52:24] And suddenly Oscar is wearing it as a shirt.
Jenna [00:52:27] Yes!
Mike [00:52:29] It was just such a great lesson because it's like, right, even if it doesn't matter in the moment, make it as interesting as possible and say something new about each character. Because you don't know how that's gonna pay off down the line. That poster became a very important thing in the world of the show. It's just because he cared at that granular level of like, make every moment 1% better, and then suddenly the entire episode is 15% better and the entire season is 30% better and future episodes are 500% better. That's the level of detail that he was putting into all of that story breaking work.
Jenna [00:53:06] Oh, wow. That was a great specific example of that.
Mike [00:53:10] Yeah.
Jenna [00:53:10] That's awesome. Well, Mike, we also want to talk to you about your book.
Mike [00:53:15] Great.
Angela [00:53:17] Yes. Mike has a new book.
Jenna [00:53:20] Let's pivot.
Angela [00:53:20] It is called "Big Fan" and you wrote it with your friend and an amazing sportswriter, Joe Posnanski.
Mike [00:53:26] That's right.
Angela [00:53:27] I did read this little blurb and I thought I would share it with our listeners so they can get an idea of the book. It says "bestselling authors and podcast hosts, Joe and Mike love games, almost any games, and they bring readers to the front row and sometimes even right onto the field. Whether ringside at WrestleMania in Las Vegas, singing along with the maniacs at the World Darts Championships in London, or just watching eight straight hours of football at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Dallas, they bring us to the very heart of what it means to love something so much, it hurts."
Jenna [00:54:02] I got this book for Lee for Father's day.
Mike [00:54:04] Did you really?
Jenna [00:54:05] Yes, I did.
Mike [00:54:05] Aw.
Jenna [00:54:06] Yes, and my son has already stolen it.
Mike [00:54:08] Great.
Angela [00:54:09] I got it for myself and I was on a flight to Utah and I started reading it and the man next to me was like, "What's that?"
Mike [00:54:16] Look at you.
Angela [00:54:17] I don't know his name.
Mike [00:54:17] You're doing Dutton's marketing work for them.
Jenna [00:54:21] Yeah, exactly.
Mike [00:54:22] One person at a time.
Jenna [00:54:25] Tell us about this book and how it came about.
Mike [00:54:28] So a couple years ago I was sent a video by a friend of mine who said "Look at this, it's hilarious," and it was a video of the World Darts Championship in London. A thing I did not know existed. In the video, a couple very stocky European gentlemen with no expressions on their faces are just playing darts. They're just throwing darts at a dart board and they seem to be doing fairly well because behind them is a crowd of people, like 3,000 people. With every throw, they are absolutely losing their minds. They just are going crazier and crazier, it's escalating. The announcer, with the thickest (I think) Scottish accent you've ever heard, is losing his mind. It's a very funny juxtaposition of just no expression, just thunk, thunk. And people going totally berzerk. Then I start to realize that the crowd behind them are all in costume, different costumes. Some of them are dressed like Harry Potter, some of them are minions, some of them are the Jamaican bobsled team, some of them are dressed like giant bananas or tomatoes or British barristers with white wigs on. I was like, "What is this? What is this event?" And I was laughing so hard at how crazy it was. By the way, by the end they're literally jumping up and down and throwing pitchers of beer in the air and throwing napkins up and hugging each other. I was like, "These people are lunatics," and then I was like, "But also, that's probably kind of how I look to my wife when I'm watching sports that I care about." It does make you crazy to be a fan. I just had this idea that my friend Joe, who I've known forever and who's a legendary sports writer, that he and I should go to a bunch of kind of strange events. Not the Super Bowl and the World Series and stuff like that, but weird events where fans really care. And just try to figure out if there is something universal about fandom. Like, is it the same at the World Darts Championship as it is at a Dodgers game? What is it about fandom that matters so much to so many people? Why do so many put their lives on hold and carve time out of their busy days and stare frantically at a TV screen and pace around in their living rooms and bite their nails and fall into deep spells of depression when their team loses and celebrate euphorically when they win? I was like, "This is a phenomenon that's worth investigating." So I called him and pitched him the idea and he immediately saw it and we were off and running. So we spent like a year and a half going to a bunch of different events. We do go to mainstream American sports. We go to basketball, football, baseball. I went to the Olympics in Paris and watched the US men's basketball team. He went to a Montreal Canadians hockey game with some friends in Montreal. We do this stuff that matters most to Americans, but we also went to some really fun stuff that we had never heard of before. Joe went to the indigenous stickball championships in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which is a sport that native tribes have used to settle disputes for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. It's sort of like field hockey or lacrosse, but it's played by dozens and dozens of people at the same time. It's like lacrosse plus rugby plus a fist fight.
Angela [00:57:40] Oh gosh.
Mike [00:57:42] And it's in the middle of Mississippi in the summer, and it's 140 degrees with 140% humidity. We went to places where there are games that matter, and we tried to figure out what it was about them that unites all of them and the fans who love them.
Jenna [00:57:58] But you also went to a Taylor Swift concert, which is another kind of fandom.
Mike [00:58:03] Yeah, so we didn't want it to just be about sports. So one of the things that we did was, there were two really fun things that were non-sports related. One of them was I had the idea that we should each send the other one to something that the other hated.
Angela [00:58:18] Okay.
Mike [00:58:18] So it was like, "I know you hate this now, but go see if you can figure out why people like it." So I sent Joe to play pickleball in a pickleball tournament because he's a tennis player and
Angela [00:58:27] Me too!
Mike [00:58:28] He's like, "Pickleball is taking over and I hate it. I hate the sound."
Angela [00:58:31] [makes pickleball noises]
Mike [00:58:31] "I hate the kitchen. I hated that it's named after the guy's dog." He just hates everything about it. But he sent me to WrestleMania because I don't care at all about wrestling. I don't like combat sports. I think they're ridiculous. So I was like, "Alright, fine, I'll go to WrestleMania." Then my agent called me and was like "I'm taking a bunch of people to a Dead & Company show in Vegas for my birthday. Do you wanna go?" And I was like, "I can't, I'm going to WrestleMania." He was like, "Well, WrestleMania's also in Vegas and it's the same weekend." And I was like, "Crap," and I realized in that moment that I should do both things. It's funnier to do both things. So I embark on what I refer to in the book as the "World's Weirdest Biathlon," where on Saturday night I go to a Dead & Company show and Sunday night go to WrestleMania. But then, we were writing this book in 2024/25, and it was impossible to write a book about fandom without including Taylor Swift. My wife and I took our daughter and some of her friends to the Heiress tour.
Angela [00:59:27] We did the same.
Mike [00:59:28] Did you?
Angela [00:59:28] Yeah, both of us. Yeah.
Mike [00:59:29] Yeah, at SoFi?
Angela [00:59:31] I was in New Orleans.
Jenna [00:59:33] I was Vancouver. I was at her last show.
Mike [00:59:35] My wife and my daughter were also at her second to last show.
Jenna [00:59:38] Oh, wow, yeah.
Mike [00:59:40] But my wife and her friend also went, her friend from college, and their daughters came. My wife's best friend made one of those photo books about it. The title of the book is "Better Than Our Weddings" because they both agreed that evening was better than each of their weddings.
Jenna [00:59:58] They're like, "It was more joyous, I was happier."
Mike [01:00:00] Yeah, "It was more important in my life." Joe had taken his daughter to a Taylor Swift concert in North Carolina. And so we were like, "Well, we have to write about Taylor Swift, but what are two 50-year-old dudes going to say about it that will matter? Nothing, but our daughters should do this." So I had my daughter, Ivy, who's 14. I was like, "Just write a chapter about what Taylor Swift means to you," and his daughter did the same. Then we put them together and we did not edit them. They are unedited. They are like, "This is what she wrote." I added a few commas, but other than that... So it's just a great little snapshot in time of like what Taylor Swift means to girls at different ages in the year 2024. So there's we tried to cover not just sports, but all fandom. I wrote a long section on TV fandom, too, and wrote about what I've observed about why TV matters to people and what is it about sort of bonding with characters on long-running TV shows that makes them feel like they matter in their lives and that sort of thing. So it's really an attempt to be comprehensive about fandom as a phenomenon.
Angela [01:01:01] And you have some great pictures in here, too, from different events that you guys went to.
Mike [01:01:05] Yeah, there's some good WrestleMania pictures. We were very close to the ring, and I'm still not a wrestling fan, but holy moly, those athletes are doing some crazy stuff, man.
Angela [01:01:16] Their bodies...
Mike [01:01:18] The thing I write in the book is that wrestling might be fake but the sounds their bodies make when they hit the mat are not. They are really jumping and flying and twisting and it's really wild. I went with my friend, Jen Statsky, who wrote with me on Parks and Rec and "The Good Place" and then created "Hacks," because she's an enormous wrestling fan. Eleanor Shellstrop, Kristen Bell's character in The Good Place, is a huge wrestling fan and is deeply in love with Stone Cold Steve Austin. That all came from Jen, that was all Jen's thing. I asked Jen to come with me to like be my Sherpa, to walk me through it. I was like, "Help me understand this. I don't, I can't access this. It's like not a real sport." And she goes, "No, that's the whole point." She goes, "The thing that's great about wrestling is that it is the perfect marriage of sports and theater." When you think of it as the intersection of sports and theater, you can figure out why it's so compelling. I have to say, it was the perfect thing to say to me. It was like, I changed my frame of reference from, "This isn't really a sport," to "it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to a dramatic performance done by the world's best athletes." And that really helped me get to the heart of why people are so nutty for it.
Jenna [01:02:35] It's funny that you mention not being a fan of something and then getting absorbed by it. So I was in New York this year When the Nicks were in the playoffs. What is the thing you win?
Mike [01:02:49] The championship.
Jenna [01:02:50] The championship, just the NBA championship?
Mike [01:02:52] Yes, correct.
Jenna [01:02:53] Does it have a name like the Stanley Cup? I don't think so. So here's the thing, I have never watched a basketball game on television in my life. I've been to one Lakers game, I took my son. I don't particularly care for basketball. My opinion is that you could just turn it on in the last three minutes. You don't need to watch the whole thing because it just goes back and forth, the whole game, and it's just sort of like, "Well I'll just watch the end." So haven't ever been a fan of basketball. I spent seven days in New York during this time, and by that last night when they won, I was at a neighborhood watch party on the street.
Angela [01:03:28] She was outside, sending me messages.
Jenna [01:03:30] At a bar, like a bar has like a TV, and I was like, "Oh my God, if they don't fucking win! They deserve it! It's been 50 years!" I was so hardcore and then they won and I was on the street.
Mike [01:03:46] Euphoric.
Jenna [01:03:47] It erupted and cars are honking and the guys got a giant blow up basketball that we're all kicking down the street. I was like, "Oh my god. I didn't even know."
Mike [01:03:58] I know. It is deeply inside us, fandom. That's one of the things that we really learned is that you can go from "I don't care about this at all" to "if Jalen Brunson doesn't win the MVP of the finals, I will throw myself in front of a train," in like a second. The most interesting part of this whole experience was we talked to this professor who studies sports fandom. His name is Daniel Wann. He teaches at Murray State University. The thing he said to us that rang so true was, "Look, if sports were just fun and a good way to kill a couple hours, that would be fine. But it wouldn't explain that reaction you had, and it wouldn't explain why a billion people in the world care about it so deeply." And he said, "In order for that to be true, it must be the case that sports fandom, and fandom in general, is satisfying some kind of deep emotional need." Like, an emotional need is being met by this phenomenon. That's why it erupts out of us the way it does. It's because it's drilling down into our souls and meeting us at some very deep and primal place. So my son is a huge sports fan, but has never liked soccer. I've tried to get him to watch with me. He doesn't care, he thinks it's boring, there's not enough scoring, all those things that people think. He was out with his friends on the first night of the World Cup, and he was like, "What do you guys wanna do?" And they were like, "There's a watch party in Koreatown. Because South Korea's playing in the World Cup," and he was like, "Fine." All of a sudden, I started getting these texts that was like, "This is low-key, the most incredible thing I've ever seen."
Angela [01:05:38] "Lock in, dad."
Mike [01:05:39] And it's my son and his friends and like a thousand Koreans at an outdoor park in Koreatown watching the World Cup. When they scored a goal he was like, "I've never felt anything like this in my life. It was like a jolt of electricity." That night, he's staying up until three in the morning learning about all the players on the team: where they play, what the European leagues are, learning about the transfer system in soccer, which is incredibly complicated. Now he's just got World Cup fever, and he's living and dying with all these matches. I just think it speaks to something. There's a lot of reasons why fandom occurs in people. But life is a little bit lonely, and sports creates communities that we can feel like we're a part of. You're standing on the street in New York City suddenly feeling like nothing has ever mattered more to me in my life than this thing that I did not care about one week ago.
Jenna [01:06:34] I mean on game four, we walked to Central Park and we watched the game through some trees. They have the Central Park watch party but it was at Wolman rink and so it was kind of a closed thing. We're standing on some rocks. I'm like, "Who am I? I didn't even know this team existed four days ago."
Mike [01:06:57] Yeah, I know.
Angela [01:06:59] I'll tell you when I fall apart, it doesn't matter what sports I'm watching. I love sports, I quickly just glom onto whatever, "What are we watching? Oh, we're watching World Cup, great. Okay. Oh, champion, okay, whatever." I just glomb on and I love it. It's the minute that moment of either triumph or failure happens and you see the different emotions go across the faces of thousands of people who are sharing this moment with each other. Like, I cry.
Mike [01:07:30] I cry every time.
Angela [01:07:32] Every time. I didn't know anything about Jalen. I call him by his first name now. Hearing his life story, I'm just like [sobbing noises], and then you see his mom and I'm just like, "Forget it." Like, it's amazing.
Jenna [01:07:47] But you're right, that shared grief is part of it too. Like, it's not just the winning.
Mike [01:07:52] 100%
Angela [01:07:52] It's failures and tryouts.
Mike [01:07:55] New York would have gone crazy no matter what, but 53 years means that there are whole generations of people who have never known their favorite team to be a winner at the end of the year. The most extreme example of this, in my life, is I'm a Red Sox fan and they went 86 years. So 33 more years than the Knicks did without winning and in that intervening time (sort of like the Knicks) had a bunch of near misses, like, a bunch close calls and tragic failures and embarrassing errors made at the wrong time. When they finally won in 2004, there was an article written (many articles written) about the celebration that happened. There was a story that I think about all the time, which is at three in the morning a guy had a thought which was, "I need to share this with my dad," and his dad had passed away many years earlier and had never seen them win. He lived his entire life, in a world in which they had never won the World Series. His dad was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, outside Boston, and he got a bottle of champagne and a Red Sox hat. He was like, "I'm gonna go to my dad's grave. I'm going to leave him this bottle of champagne and this Red Sox hat and just celebrate with him." He was walking towards the cemetery and he was thinking like, "How am I going to get in? Like, it's three in the morning. There's a gate, it's locked." As he was walk, he started to see other people walking in the same direction. He got to the cemetery, the guy who was the night guard at the cemetery had anticipated this and had unlocked the gate and opened it. He walked to his dad's grave, put the hat and the champagne down, and saw like 11 other people just in his line of vision speaking out loud to people in their graves.
Angela [01:09:34] This is making me tear up!
Mike [01:09:35] I know! It's beautiful. It is so important and meaningful. If you think of sports as a distraction or a diversion from the banality of everyday life, that's fine. That is what they are, at some level. But when you have communities that bond around these teams and the fandom is passed down from generation to generation, important moments and memories are made alongside those teams and alongside those moments. Then it becomes something else. Then it becomes a thing where, like, you are not thinking about necessarily, OG Anunoby is incredible in game four. What you're thinking about is your grandmother, who used to sit in her living room and watch Knicks games and root for them, and who passed away 22 years ago, and how much she would have loved this moment. It connects you to her, and it connects to your kids, and to your friends, and it really is... There's a great quote from the Pope of all people, not this current pope, but I think it was John Paul the second, who said about soccer (calling it football as Europeans do), "Of all of the unimportant things, soccer is the most important." And that's how I think we should think of these things. It's like, "Yes, of course it's not as important as like a Supreme Court decision, or a federal election or the eradication of a disease." But it is important and it's important in a way that really does matter to an enormous number of people and that's why we wanted to write the book.
Angela [01:11:07] That's so great. Well, I think people are gonna love your book. You know, we're so thankful for our Office community and the Office Ladies fans and the fandom and family that we have found with them. And you guys, we love Mike Schur. We know you do too. You're gonna love his book. I'm gonna put a link to it in our stories.
Mike [01:11:25] Thank you. Hope you like it.
Jenna [01:11:27] Mike, thanks for joining us today.
Mike [01:11:29] It is my absolute pleasure, it's lovely to see you.
Jenna [01:11:32] And your generosity in talking all things Office and all things sports and fandom.
Mike [01:11:34] I love talking about The Office. I'll talk about it forever. Anytime you want me to come talk about The Office, I'll come back.
Angela [01:11:40] OK, great. Well, we have two more years of our contracts.
Mike [01:11:44] There you go.
Jenna [01:11:46] Well, good job. Thank you.
Angela [01:11:48] Alright. Thanks so much. That was wonderful.
Mike [01:11:50] That was so fun.
Audio cue: {outro music plays]
Jenna [00:00:17] Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.
Angela [00:00:19] Office Ladies is a presentation of Audacy and is produced by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.
Jenna [00:00:24] Our senior producer is Matt Beagle. Our audio engineer is Sam Kieffer, and our associate producer is Aynsley Bubbico.
Angela [00:00:32] Audacy's executive producer is Leah Reis-Dennis.
Jenna [00:00:35] Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.
Angela [00:00:37] Our theme song is "Rubber Tree" by Creed Bratton.