’The Office’ Super Fan S1 E1-2 Pilot & Diversity Day

Intro

Hi! and welcome to belated Binge the office. I’m Zac your host, revisiting some of the most iconic series in recent memory that I nearly missed out on. Like the office which I didn’t watch until like 5 years after the last episode aired on tv and at least a year of all my coworkers saying it was the best thing to stream. 

Now it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it and we’re going through the SUPERFAN edition!

Today we kick off our binge with the first two episodes of season 1 the pilot and diversity day. Michael is a terrible boss. And that’s basically the plot of both episodes. I’ll probably go into more detail but for now, let’s get introduced to the characters we’ll come to love and relive the best cringe humor to ever hit television.. let’s do it!! 

(Music)

Before we get into it:

There will be spoilers - this series wrapped up in 2013. If you haven’t seen it by now, you’re even later than I was…

There will also be adult language.. use ear buds if needed. 

Shoutout to the bonus Binge squad: Alex Swetlin and Hadas Navony! For your own shoutouts and access to bonus episodes, join on Patreon dot com slash Belated Binge. Link in the show notes. 

Let’s start off with the Pilot e1 

The way I want to start each of these episodes is with a quick little segment I like to call… 

Scott’s Thoughts: 

Brief words of wisdom from the mind of Michael Scott…. Probably. 

What do you mean that’s sexist? Oh well, you probably won’t have a job soon anyway. 

• Opening scene of the pilot is our introduction to Michael and establishes the character we’re dealing with right out of the gate. 
• He is trying to “school” Jim in the art of phone paper sales like Jim is asking him for help. 
• The kicker here is that Michael initiated this meeting. So we see right away that he’s performative, full of himself, and has a very problematic leadership style. 
• Side note: in 2023 this plays Sexist at best and potentially transphobic??
• Phone call (that was a woman, deep voice)
• And the cringe begins!
• We get introduced to Pam and then we have this Funny basketball sene (wazzup) we’re revisiting the old Budweiser commercial… 
• This thing drags. Jim is great at not giving into the awkward tension. But aside from michaels awful basketball story, we’ve all been in one of these conversations. Especially at work. You find yourself trying to exchange a little small talk with a co worker but you don’t know each other that well and neither of you have anything to say. 
• Eventually someone does the awkward stretch and “welp good talk back to work!”
• I’m super guilty of the awkward stretch. I used to do the arms raised hands behind the head stretch when I was nervous. 
• I actually did it DURING A JOB SCREENING!!!! To be fair. I didn’t know I was going to be in a screening of any kind. 
• I was at the mall right by the college I had just started at. And I love hats. It’s kinda a thing. I have way too many hats. And I asked the person at the lids kiosk if I could fill out an application. I just planned to hand it to them when I was done and maybe I’d get a call if they were hiring. 
• But no. This lady starts asking me interview questions on the spot when I brought it back and I was SHOOK. completely off guard. And I did the awkwar hands up stretch thing behind my head and in my memory — I was wearing sleeveless cutoff T shirt!! I was full on armpits displayed for this hiring manager!!!
• To this day I’ve never worked for lids in any location. 
• Packer phone call with Jan in the room right after Michael tries to blame Pam for not having an agenda for the meeting. The one he threw away for the camera earlier. That’s a dick move Michael. 
• I feel like as michaels character evolves during the shows run he wouldn’t do this. He would just ask Pam if the fax came through or something. 
• Speaking of which. How old am I for knowing what a fax is??? 
• So now the packer call. 
• This is ultimate cringe and extra hilarious after learning that Creed is the voice of packer on this call. They hadn’t cast the role yet and creed wasn’t on the show yet either. Very funny. 
• Also, again. Very sexist and now we’ve established what kind of world we’re building and working in. 
• In the real world if this scene took place, packer would be fired and Michael would be on a PIP at best. Between that call and the “agenda filing cabinet” he’d be lucky if a PIP was the worst he got. 
• So we know we have to suspend disbelief for this one. It’s going to be a caricature and embellished type of an office environment and the jokes don’t fly in 2023. 
• Jan informs Michael that the company is Downsizing and the Scranton branch, the one we’re in, might have to merge with another branch. Michael is to keep it secret from the office until the decision has been made. 
• This should go well….
• But before we see how Michael fucks that up Jim and Dwight feud over desk territory and it starts because Jim’s papers are hanging what looks to be about 3 centimeters onto Dwight’s desk. And Jim reacts amazingly. 
• First he lines Pencil stakes around the crack between their desks like little spikes and Dwight hammers in like he’s driving a nail home. 
• Then Jim grabs a stack of filing Boxes and puts them up between them. 
• Jim then starts hiding behind them while making Dwight call him to ask him a question. Of course Jim doesn’t answer, makes Dwight leave a message and then sneaks away crawling to Pam’s reception desk. It’s great. I love the ridiculousness of these 2 already if I’m new and as someone who it’s been awhile. I’ve forgotten so much that I’m going to enjoy watching again as we go!
• We’ll I was… because the prostate cancer scene - Michael over sharing with Pam while she’s trying to eat is just…. Wow. This is who Michael is going to be??? 
• I would be asking myself if this was the first time I was watching this show…
• Why is Ryan here? Clear Michael Scott move, downsizing happening and he hires a new temp worker. Spends rest of day showing him around. 
• Meeting in the boardroom to announce down sizing which confirms the rumors that started immediately. So this secret lasted all of about…. 4.2 seconds - nobody believes Michael when he says their jobs are safe and WHO COULD BLAME THEM?? It’s our introduction to Michael but they’ve been dealing with him for years and know he’s an idiot!
• Assistant to the regional manager bit from Dwight is RIDICULOUS- you can clearly see that not only is Dwight a weirdo from his antics at his desk. But he’s an ass kisser who is begging for a single shred of authority. 
• Quick talking head Introducing Jim and Pam flirting/crush - Jim knows her favorite yogurt
• We can clearly see these two have a thing brewing!
• And the iconic Stapler in jello prank
• Dwight trying to show off pics of his car to Ryan and Michael and gets all pissed about the jello
• Michael wants him to eat it out… that’s what she said. Did we get a that’s what she said joke in this episode??? I wonder when those start… maybe I missed it. 
• Michael does get all flustered when he Can’t land the pun jokes with Jim and Ryan who are clearly more clever and funny than him. Which you know chaps his ass because he thinks he’s a comedian. 
• And then we meet Roy, Pam’s fiancé, he sucks
• Awkward… between him and Jim
• And I had almost forgot about this scene. Michael showing off for Ryan is the worst, Pam is fired joke is a disaster and complete lesson in awful leadership and management. Toxic workplace culture. The whole 9 yards. 
• BUT Why did Pam cry? She just said she wasn’t happy or it wouldn’t be the worst thing to get let go in the downsizing… but faced with that possibility she breaks down?? Idk
• More Cutesy flirty Jim and Pam let’s walk down together scene ruined by Roy honking. Roy sucks. 
• Jim ends the episode showing that he put michaels worlds best boss mug in jello… classic. 

And that’s the pilot!

Super fan or super fraud??

This is where I try to guess which scenes from the super fan episodes weren’t in the original and let you make fun of me for getting it wrong!

• The prostate cancer scene with Pam and Michael. Definitely a deleted scene!
• It’s soooooooooooo cringe. 
• I feel like the Jim and Dwight back and forth with the desk territory bit went longer than the original. I remembered the beginning of it. But then the pencils and the boxes and the fake Jim can’t hear you AND Jim slipping away… I think a lot of that was probably left on the cutting room floor in the original episode. 
• Along those lines. Maybe the conference room scene was longer than the original and I felt like the wazzzup basketball story scene was kinda long. I remember it. But I don’t remember it taking so long. Like the Dwight sweating and all that part I feel like was bonus. 
• If I missed something or got it totally wrong, tell me about it. Social media at belated binge. There’s also an exclusive Facebook group for the podcast. Link in the description of this episode. I’d love to have you join and let me know how bad I am at spotting the deleted scenes!!

Reaction to the episode:

All in all we know in the first 30 seconds, this show couldn’t be made today. It would be cancelled on social media within the first 24 hours of being aired. 

But yet, how ironic is it that it’s still one of the most popular shows out there. So much so that if you Google The Office and Netflix you’ll see the complete cluster fuck that ensued when it left Netflix to move to Peacock. 

This first episode was better this time though for me. I remember it was really hard for me to get into this show the first time through. I remember not liking season1 at all and not really warming up to it until sometime maybe mid season 2. Then something clicked and I was hooked. But watching this pilot after having the benefit of knowing the show is good and understanding it’s style of humor going in, I found this episode to be way more enjoyable to watch this time around. 

Before we move onto the next episode. Let’s REWRITE THE OFFICE

This is an idea we’ve had a lot of fun with on the Harry Potter binge so I thought I’d bring it here too. What would happen to the episode if we made one small change? How would it play out?

• Ep 1: What if Ryan had shown up when Jan was still at the office?

I’d love to get your ideas and I’ll let you know how to share them later in the episode. For now let’s get into..

Diversity day E2

Scott’s Thoughts: Brief words of wisdom from the mind of Michael Scott…. Probably. 

Why punish an individual when you can punish the whole group???

• Jim can’t make his big sale, apparently he has one salea year that makes up like a quarter of his commission and first Dwight keeps running shredder and then he gets  interrupted by Michael for this diversity day training they’re supposed to have in the conference room
• Their grabbing diversity training because Michael was apparently dropping N bombs doing Chris Rock routine and people complained. 
• He doesn’t know this. And he keeps screwing up the training for Mr Brown
• Does the impression again
• Insest acronym
• Kicks Ryan out - funny because how much time he spends kissing Ryan’s ass in this series
• Has to sign a paper acknowledging his behavior. Even after the dude tells him that he was only there for Michael’s signature              and Michael signs it Daffy Duck
• Now Michael has to have his own diversity training
• Kicks Toby out for “Indian style” joke before it even starts and I think this is our first taste of Michael’s distaste for Toby. 
• Stanley gets black in the diversity card heads up game
• Jim pulls Dwight prank (Dwight on card, Pam can’t keep it together - is he human reaction is priceless)
• Michael has funny side bar about not using Arab because it might be too explosive. Maybe next year. 
• Ryan chapelle show on Pam’s computer. Ironic since the diversity day and all that. I don’t remember that coming back up again but I hope it sneaks it way into a later episode. 
• Also. I am a child of the Chappelle show era. Half baked. That Neil Brennan partnership. That was my intro to Dave chapelle as a comedian. 
• Michael so pissed nobody is getting ignorant in his game the way he hoped they would. Goes bananas on Kelly with Indian stereotypes. She wasn’t even in the game. Had zero context and the next thing that happens is the only reasonable outcome. 
• Kelly slaps the shit out of Michael. 
• Awkward transition. 
• Jim finally gets ahold of his customer. Dwight stole his sale. Biggest of the year for jim. 
• Michael having a heart to heart with the group. 
• Pam falls asleep on Jim’s shoulder
• “Colored greens” joke with Stanley
• Jim “not a bad day”
• Like 5 mins of Michael trying to shoot his diversity day video annoyed with Dwight the whole time. I don’t think that whole thing was in the normal episode..

Super fan or super fraud??

• Guess which scenes were deleted. Let the audience make fun of you. 
• I don’t remember the Daffy Duck line. 
• I don’t remember Ryan putting Chappelle show on Pam’s computer. 
• I don’t think the whole ending of Michael and Dwight trying to shoot the video was in the original. 

Reaction to the episode:

This episode is the reason this show almost didn’t make it. It was totally cringe and inappropriate at the time. In 2023 I can’t believe people haven’t made sure it was removed from all streaming and off Comedy Central reruns. 

I remember thinking this show was garbage the first time I saw this. And like the pilot. Watching it now. Now that I know this is actually a good show and I care about the characters… It’s not as bad as I remember… I’m still looking forward to when the show started picking up for me the first time though because I’m probably going to get giddy. 

Before we move onto the next episode. Let’s REWRITE THE OFFICE

• Ep 2: What if Michael didn’t sign the diversity day training form?

These questions from each episode will be shared on social media. You can follow @belatedbinge across TikTok IG Facebook and Twitter. There’s also an exclusive Facebook group for listeners of the podcast. 

The best responses will be included in a future episode of the podcast!

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