Entertainment Weekly - 04.2020

JUSTIN SPITZER There was one

whole episode in season one that

Greg [Daniels] wrote that they

never shot. We always would talk

about it as our “break the glass

episode” that we’d do if we ever

were totally in trouble. It was

called “Pet Day,” where everyone

took their pets to the office. I can’t

remember much about it, but

it was funny. I think Michael

had a parrot named Jim Carrey.

There was a moment at some

point in the run where we real-

ized, “Okay, the characters and

their situations have changed so

much now that we can never,

ever do ‘Pet Day.’ The show has

changed too much now. It

wouldn’t play.” There were a few

seasons where we were like,

“There’s always ‘Pet Day’!” when-

ever we’d get into trouble.

HALSTED SULLIVAN We talked about

maybe there’s another company

that moves into the building.

They had done [the meeting of the

office-park leaders] the five

families [in the fourth-season epi-

sode “Chair Model”] before, but

it was like, “What if there’s a rebel

in the building?” We had tried

to break what it could be. Is it

like a high-end stationery com-

pany or something like that? But

it just didn’t really gain that

much traction.

WARREN LIEBERSTEIN We thought

of one called “Premonition.” It

For a sitcom with as many classic

installments as The Office—the Dundies!

Office Olympics! basically every

Christmas episode!—you’d think that, over

nine seasons, most great or wild

ideas to come up in the writers’ room

would eventually find their way into

an episode. But as author Andy Greene

reveals in his hilarious and fascinating

new oral history, quite a few (potential)

gems never made it to air. In this

exclusive excerpt, the scribes behind the

Emmy-winning series reveal the story

lines that came oh-so-close to becoming

reality—only to get the Dunder Mifflin

paper-shredder treatment. —DAVID CANFIELD

was really an interesting story

about someone having a dream

that someone died on the way

home from work and no one

wanted to leave the office

because they started to believe

that it was going to come true. So

everyone kind of stayed late, but

we never figured it out.

JEN CELOTTA I wanted to do an

episode where it started at the

beginning of the lunch break and

everybody just went off and we

followed everyone, what they did

for lunch. It would almost be a

real-time episode. I wanted to

see them outside—I mean, we do

see them outside of the office,

going on a job-related mission, or

at a party, but I wanted to see the

reality of the everyday lunch.

AARON SHURE I had a crazy pitch

that never got in but I kept pitch-

ing. It was that Michael Scott gets

accidentally crucified. I had a

whole thing where he was playing

basketball at his house with Jim

and the garage door opens up in

such a way that his shirt gets

caught in it and he gets pulled up

by the garage door, underneath

the basketball hoop, which is like

the crown of thorns. And no one

notices and they leave him there

overnight, so he comes into work

feeling Christlike because he

spent the night kind of, somewhat

crucified. But obviously no one

ever took that one on.

f

Appeared as people considered for Michael Scott’s replacement; Kevin’s Scrantonicity bandmates; played Dunder Mifflin regional managers — ANSWER

JUSTIN LUBIN/NBC

APRIL2020.THEOFFICE.LO A.indd 34 FINAL 3/3/20 10:38 AM