Greg Daniels - Pt. 1

We begin at the beginning, with The Office’s creator and showrunner Greg Daniels. He discusses “moving the ship of comedy” in a new direction, creating the world of Dunder Mifflin, and building a collaborative on-set dynamic. Brian reminisces about the first time he tried to make small talk with Greg - let's just say, it didn’t go great.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Hey, this is John O'Brien, entrepreneur and a fellow
builder just like you. Thanks for the help of iHeart
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that community building the best version of you. Make sure

(00:22):
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Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hi,
my name is Cassidy Zachary and I am April Callahan
and we are fashion historian YEP and co hosts and
the creators of the podcast Dressed the History of Fashion,
which is dedicated to investigating the significance of dress from

(00:45):
throughout history and around the world. And we are so
excited to bring you a brand new season celebrating groundbreaking
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every Tuesday and Thursday. I'm Emilia on this podcast, I'm

(01:09):
taking you on a search, a search for love, hard
working Latina. But there were other reasons. I felt like
I couldn't always beat myself. My mom's in prison. This
Crumbs my love story. It's a show about the things
we set up for and the bits of ourselves that
make us who we are. Listen to Crumbs on the

(01:31):
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Hello everybody, h oh, I am so excited

(01:58):
today that jazz a little tune is getting me very excited.
Welcome one and all to the first, the absolute first
premier as we call it. In the business episode of
The Office Deep Dive. I am your host, Brian Baumgartner.
Now where did this podcast come from? I don't know

(02:20):
if you're aware that I had another podcast and oral
history of the Office. Now, if you haven't listened to that,
you should, because I mean it's absolutely genius, if if
I say so myself. But what happened was we did
that podcast and we had so much fun making it
and getting back together with my old cast mates and

(02:43):
crew and writers and directors. The problem was we got
so much good material we could not fit all of
the great stuff in. That's what she said, so we
decided to make another podcast, this podcast, the one right
here that you're listening to right now, And this time

(03:04):
I am releasing all of my raw, unfiltered full length
interviews for you to go even deeper. So let's dive in,
shall we. Hi. I'm Greg Daniels. I was the showrunner

(03:24):
of the Office. So how do we begin? Well, we
begin at the beginning That made no sense. Uh. The
thing is, there is only one way to begin a
podcast about The Office, and that is with Greg Daniels. Now,

(03:47):
as some of you Office fans undoubtedly no, Greg was
the creator and showrunner of the American version of the Office.
But what you may not know is that before that,
Greg was the showrunner and co creator of King of
the Hill. And before that he was a writer on
The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. And see what is

(04:11):
so cool is that, as you'll hear momentarily, all of
that experience totally shaped Greg's vision for The Office, which
at the time was honestly revolutionary. There was nothing like
The Office on American television. I truly cannot overstate how

(04:31):
significant Greg's role was on the show. He assembled the
entire team and he was responsible for everything from casting
to set design, production design, the shooting style again, all
of that you're gonna hear about in a minute. But
the point is he is literally the reason we're all
here today. Well maybe not you guys, but me. He's

(04:55):
definitely the reason that I'm here. So I'm obviously very
excited to kick things off. I'm gonna shut up now,
ladies and gentlemen, for our very first interview, I am
proud to present Mr Greg Daniels Bubble and Squeak. I

(05:16):
love it, Bubble and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker cooking
at every moment, left over from the nut before. Oh him, fuddy,
hire you so good to see you, to see you too.
I love that carved I have a Gartner's chapel. I

(05:39):
have an engraved plaque. That's fantastic. We face each other,
How do you? I think we face each other. I
think we're here. It kind of neat. It's a great room, right, Yeah,
how are you are they recording? Yeah, we're just having
a chat. We're having a chat. I've stolen a few tricks, exactly.

(06:00):
We just merging. Actually, that's exactly right. I learned from
the best. Um. Well, thank you for fighting me. Congratulations
on your podcast. Thank you so much. It's been so
fun to one just see people and to to like
reminisce and talk. I mean, everyone has been so generous

(06:25):
and thoughtful and articulate, and well that's going to change. Yeah,
I kind of figured. So I'm not talking to you
about that. I'm just gonna talk to you about King
of the Hill is okay, it's fun. Um So, before
the office, what were you? What were you doing immediately

(06:45):
prior to well, Um So, I had just kind of
come off a very intense, maybe eight years at King
of the Hill, and this was the first show that
I was the showrunner. And uh, that job is maybe
not that widely known outside of Hollywood. It's like the

(07:07):
director of the movie. It's very full time, intense, start
to finish on something job. So I had come off
The Simpsons, and the Simpsons was really good training in
many ways, but there was a lot of things I
wanted to do differently, because you know, when I got
to The Simpsons, it was season the end of season

(07:28):
four and the show was getting a little wilder kind
of and for King of the Hill, I wanted to
keep it contained and realistic. The whole time, and I
was very much of the opinion and you have to
really start slow on the show and just the value
of slowness, but come up with stories like from a

(07:50):
simple place, not a grand idea or set up. Is
that what you mean? Well, like, for instance, the the
pilot of King of the Hill, you of the first
couple of minutes, these guys are standing around a truck
just going yep, you know really and um, you know.
So I had come off that and you know, I

(08:12):
was a huge fan of Seinfeld and I wanted to
get on that show. I sold them one script. I
was a freelancer, but I generated a lot of stories
and would pitch them and I really thought about that
show a lot. And then I went on The Simpsons
instead and learned a whole bunch there. But I, um,

(08:33):
it was kind of a good student of knowing that
I wanted to be a show runner. So I would
take notes and you know, write them down, and I
have all these scraps of things and I would develop
a different theories. And one of the theories that I
had I call stuff the sausage, and that theory is

(08:53):
a great show like Seinfeld is wasteful of wonderful ideas,
you know what I mean, Like, have a great idea
and it might just turn into a couple of lines
or a scene, like they don't milk it and make
a whole episode out of right. So we tried to
do that on the Office too, But there was a
lot of that on King of the Hill, where you'd
have subplots and you know, really tried to put a

(09:17):
lot of story into an episode. What were your favorite shows, Like,
what were you watching at that time? Seinfeld I loved.
But part of it was when Matt came out. You know,
it was very different and it was really on by
the skin of its teeth, and if you picked up
on it early, you had definitely this feeling of, oh

(09:39):
my god, here's something super funny and if I don't
watch it, it's gonna be extinguished. And actually I had
a I had a meeting at ABC and they were talking.
They said, what do you like to watch? I said, oh,
I love Seinfeld And they said something like the that
they had Home and Movement and that they identified that

(10:02):
Simon Feld was going to be a threat and they
wanted to move Home Improvement against it and squash it
in its cradle. But they couldn't because they had this
long standing deal to run Sibs opposite Seinfeld, and they
were watching it kind of catch hold, and they were
they were like, as soon as they could, they were
going to squash it with Home Improvement. And I was like,
don't you dare do that? You know, Um, well that's

(10:24):
kind of what happened to us too by the end, Right,
they moved Grey's Anatomy against US and c S. I
was on CBS like they were pulling all their big
shows against US. Yeah. Well, I kept making I made
a lot of Seinfeld comparisons in the beginning, because um,
you know, I was like, oh look how small that started.
It's something new, it's something unique, it's funny, you know,
let it grow and everything. But it turns out every

(10:45):
single producer made Seinfeld comparisons if you had a show
that was struggling, you know, no matter how good it
was or how close it was to Seinfeld, they had
heard that argument before. Um and when did you become aware?
You were aware of the British version? Ricky Gervais and
uh no, here's what happened. Um, okay, so so I

(11:07):
do King of the Hill, Yeah, I go into an
overall deal at twenty and then when that deal expired,
I started to kind of look for the next thing,
and my agent, our Emmanuel, sent me a VHS cassette
and said the office on it, and the show was

(11:28):
completely unknown, and I didn't watch it, and he called
me like after the holidays and he said, um, hey,
I'm gonna, you know, send this to the next guy
on my list if you don't watch it. So I said,
all right, all right, hold on, I'll try and watch
it tonight. So I popped the cassette in like at
nine PM or something, and I stayed up till one
watching the show. And I absolutely loved it. I thought

(11:49):
it was amazing and I couldn't even figure out how
it was done, you know it was. It didn't feel
like scripted. It was so alive and cool. And you
know how I said, I was like a student a
bit of being a showrunner. So a lot of times
I wanted to meet the people who I thought were
doing the best work, whether or not I figured I

(12:12):
would ever work with them. So it was really important
for me to sell a freelance episode of Seinfeld so
that I could work with Larry David and see what
was up. And I identified that Ricky and Stephen had
created something amazing, and I really wanted to figure it
out right, but I didn't. I didn't really think that
it was plausible that it would come to American TV,

(12:33):
or that I would get the job or whatever. But
I wanted to meet them and asked them about it.
So I met him at Ben's office, a little bungalow
on the Universal lot. Yeah, and it turned out that
Number one, they loved the Simpsons. Number two, Ricky's favorite
Simpsons episode was one that I had written, called Homer
bad Man. So we started vibing nicely, and um, you know,

(12:58):
and I talked to them about what I saw in
the show, and you know how I would adapted, and
a lot of it came from King of the Hill
being kind of realistic and slow and poignant. Um. But anyway,
we got along really well, and um, so they trusted

(13:21):
me to take over and do the adaptation. And Ben
had identified a few people who he thought would be
really receptive, and Kevin Riley was the front runner and
he was running f X, and it seemed plausible that
if anybody could take the office, it would be f X,

(13:41):
or maybe HBO. Those were like the two we were
thinking about. But now Ben told me that HBO wasn't
interested because they didn't want to do a remake. Correct, yes,
they were out of the running, so FX looked pretty good.
But what happened was, Um, Kevin Riley left f X
and took over NBC, and he still wanted to do
the show. And I was very skeptical because everything on

(14:03):
NBC had was multi camera Will and Grace was their
number one show, and um, it did not feel at
all like The Office. So okay, so I started to
convince myself maybe the point of bringing The Office, I
actually thought this was, was move the ship of comedy

(14:25):
in a direction towards something I liked more. And even
if I just nudged it in that direction, maybe it
would be valuable. Like flame Out to do you know,
even if it failed miserably, you were doing your part. Yeah,
I was gonna nudge Network Comedy or the main ship
of comedy. I wanted to nudge it in a different direction. Um.

(14:46):
Then a few things happened that were very anxiety producing
for me. At some point, Uh, The Office started to
air on BBC America in the United States, and it
was very small rating. Um. But that also made me
very anxious because I didn't think that it would ever
air in the United States, do you know what I mean?

(15:07):
Like I have the role to the office that Norman
Lear had All in the Family because All the Family
was an English show, but no one's ever seen the
English show that All the Families based, right, so Norman
Lear has no points of comparison. I didn't have to
worry about anything. It was just like, oh, what a great,
great new show you got. Um. So that shared air

(15:28):
and all the cool comedy people were really into it,
you know. And this was when we had we had
already shot pilot, so I'm jumping ahead a little bit.
This was right before, right before we uh, right before
we were going to airs, when I started to come
out because they wanted to like connect it, I think
to the NBC Show or something. Okay, yeah, I mean
I I had gotten an early DVD of it too,

(15:49):
And it's interesting. I was one of the first people
to get a DVR because I felt like, well, if
I'm meeting on these shows, I need to see what's
out there. Whether I like it or not, I should,
you know, see an episode of C S I and
see an episode of Will and Grace. So I just
spent all my time watching and to try I got

(16:11):
a tvo. Y. Yeah, and so I had watched I
had watched it at that point. I have a funny
tevo stories side bar. But yeah, so I got a
TiVo too, and they had an early version of the
Netflix algorithm. They were like, oh, you look, you watch
this and this and this. At the time, I was
watching Ken of the Hill episodes just to make sure
it aired properly. Um, I love the Sopranos. So I

(16:35):
was watching that, and then my kids were watching dragon
Tails on PBS, and so they tried to triangulate off
those three and uh, and they said, you know what
you'd like Michale's Navy. That was the cross seconds. Kind
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the show to NBC. Yeah, you're running it, and now

(20:25):
it's time to come up with a pilot. Now, how
how did you come up with a decision to keep
it so close to the British version? Yeah, well that
was interesting. I had went back and forth. I had
generated a bunch of stories if I was going to
do a completely original story. And when I was growing up,
my dad was a businessman who had a lot of
performative interests like stand up and he used to do

(20:46):
a manager's meeting every year at his company where he
got karnak hat you know, the turban and his name
is Aaron. He would do Aaron Ak and my first
joke writing was writing jokes for his routine Aarnac. And
as I became a comedy writer, some very good people
like Colan O'Brien wrote for him, and you know, Mike Reist,

(21:08):
a lot of good comedy writers wrote for Aaronnach And
I used that, I think in the Dundees because I, uh,
Michael has an Aaron Ach or karenak Wig and he
does the exact same joke. That was the first joke
that I wrote for my dad. Um. But to get
back to the question of what to do, so uh

(21:28):
so I used to do an award show at King
of the Hill called the swamp Eas, named after Swampy Marsh,
who was one of our designers who went on to
create Phineas and Ferb and he had a big personality
and so we called it the Swampys. And I got
those little plastics salesman trophies that are not too hard
to get, and I used to give those out at

(21:49):
King of the Hill. So anyway, I thought, well, the
Dundees Dundee Awards would be a good you know, pilot episode. Yeah,
because you'd sort of by giving awards to everybody you
can enter us all these different characters or whatever. But
um then I started to get worried and I didn't
want to um do an original script that the NBC

(22:11):
executives were going to start giving notes on which they
would have, I believe, with an original script. And I
was just really I felt like the pilot was like
the challenge was, can we do something that feels like
The Office and not like Will and Grace and not
blow it right? I thought it was more of a
producing challenge and the hiring challenge to anything else. And

(22:34):
so ultimately I got Kevin to say I want to
make The Office and said, all right, I'm gonna hold
you to that. The first the pilot we're gonna make
is going to be very close to the English show anyway,
So I made some changes to the English pilot. I
added a bunch of stuff and advanced the romance a
little bit so you'd know at the end of the

(22:54):
pilot what was going on. And ultimately, in the edit room,
which lasted forever, we did twenty three cuts. I ended
up losing a bunch of stuff that I had added,
but I did you know, there were some good things
I had, Like I added that World's Greatest boss mug
that he bought from Spencer Gifts and a bunch of
things like that. Um anyway, but for you, it was

(23:15):
more about creating the world and finding the team and
finding the and the cast, the rhythm, the dynamic and
selling that as opposed to trying to you know, write
a Dundee's Award and change how the show was launched. Yeah,
I thought it was a huge producing challenge, and you know,

(23:36):
and I had all those theories and like the stuff
to sausage and stuff, and some of the theories that
I had was that the show had to be handmade,
like it couldn't be a factory product. And what I
didn't like about network television was how much of a
factory it was. And how you know, there was a
writing staff and the writers wrote jokes and the joke

(24:00):
got passed down to the actors, and the writers and
actress would always resent each other, and the writers would
try and write actor proof jokes that you know, are
can contain the setup in the punchline in the same line,
because they didn't ever trust that the actors could get
laughs on behavior. So the first thing I really wanted
to do was create comedy television in a different pattern

(24:24):
so that you could get more laughs off performance and
not jokes. Right, I've heard um and people have talked
about it, and you've talked about it. Um, that you
were trying to create an environment that was more like
S and L where the writers and the actors there
wasn't so much disconnect and that and that writers were

(24:45):
performing with the actors, and actors could pitch ideas to
the writers. Um, what what I haven't heard before that
you just said, which I find so interesting? That you
wanted laughs to come from behavior and from actors performances
and and and so you needed a writing staff that
understood and had trust in the actors, which is in

(25:07):
a way kind of the reverse of how I thought
about it. Yeah, well, you know what they always said
it was the biggest laugh of all time was Jack
Benny where he's getting mugged and the guy says your
money or your life and he just like has to
think about it, you know, and like, to me, that's

(25:27):
great because that's not a joke, right, it's just like
you're bringing to bear the everything you know about the character.
I thought those were such cooler things than jokes and
Um anyway, so that was like the big challenge. And
then also it was that format, right, It was mockumentary,

(25:48):
and it was very quiet, and it had its rhythm
and the comedy of awkwardness, where like, you know, someone's
supposed to behave a certain way and they aren't, you
know what I mean, and then it sinks in and
m That was certainly really hard to pull off at
that time. Yes, I had a director that I worked
with for a long time in theater before. He always

(26:09):
talked to me about off the beat. That comedy exists
off the beat. So if you have an expectation of
when you should respond, you you you wait a half beat,
you do something that jars people, which surprises them. And
I felt like, that's what what you did so well
on our show. Well, surprise is really good for comedy, right,

(26:30):
and to me, um, anything you can do to increase
surprise is good. And the problem to me with your
multi camera shows in general was that the rhythms were
so ingrained. You know, it's always like up, you know,
and you could kind of just and it felt like

(26:53):
like kabuki, you know, or some kind of really ritualized thing.
So there's a lot of really cool things about the
office in terms of increasing surprise. One of them to
me is you're going for poignancy half the time you're
going for something emotional, So you're not aware as an audience,
remember what the goal of the moment is. So you think, oh,

(27:16):
you know, oh this is sad, this is a you know,
and then it's funny and then you you're surprised or
if vice verse him. So um. So the first the pilot,
we had Peter Smokeler as the DP, and a lot
of the hiring of the pilot for me was trying
to get people who I super respected from different things
that were kind of off like not the standard sitcom.

(27:39):
So um. Alison Jones loved freaks and geeks that thought
her casting was amazing, so I really wanted to get her.
And then I had tried to work on Larry Sanders.
I did a couple of days of punch up there.
I'd identified that as something similar to to Seinfeld, like
some a show that was just doing amazing stuff. And

(28:00):
that's how we got to Ken Kuoppas Yes and um.
The whole thing with Ken was wanting everybody to believe
that they were working at a paper company and absorbing
that and kind of taking the Hollywood out of it. Well,
there were so many things that you guys did, first
of all, getting a sound stage as a location and

(28:22):
choosing to put the offices in the production offices upstairs,
right because that was a real space. And Ken and
his making us be all ready to go at seven
am and doing thirty minutes of just work. Yeah no,
that was really uh part of that notion of obstacles

(28:43):
that like I um, we discussed that a lot as well,
which is uh on the Hollywood set. And again this
is like trying not to be factory, not to be Hollywood, right.
So on Hollywood set, they make the walls wild able,
which means any room you're in you can pull the
wall off so that the camera can get back and

(29:04):
get a great shot. And our esthetic on the office
was nothing should be wilder, bowl you you should. The
obstacle of a column in the way is subconsciously interpreted
by the audience as another piece of evidence that this
is actually happening, that's real, which makes it much more intense,

(29:25):
right because subconsciously you're like, oh my god, they couldn't,
they can't, they can't quite see what's happening, right, So yeah,
you're totally leaning forward and that zoom lends stuff and
going through the blinds and going around the side and everything.
And there was always a debate about how much to
lean into that device, and the writers often would want

(29:48):
to do it more than the rest of the crew.
And one of the interesting things of being a showrunner is,
first and foremost you're had writer. You're like one of
the writing staff, but you also interact with everybody else
on the crew way more than the writers do. And
so for instance, Phil Shay, the prop master, He's a

(30:09):
guy that I would ask his opinion all the time.
And Dave Rodgers, the editor, I completely relied on. And
I would also often bring in the accountants. Remember this,
I would have two different cuts downstairs, and I'd bring
the accountants in. I'd play it for them because I
figured they were the closest we had to ordinary people.

(30:31):
But anyway, so like some certain key moments, the big
question was how much to use that device of obstacles. Interesting, Um,
I want to talk about the casting just a little. Yeah,
and Alison Jones, how why did you choose Alison Jones? Okay, well, um,
so I did. Uh. While I was at Fox, I

(30:51):
did a pilot, uh, and it was sort of based
on me growing up in New York, and yeah, I
I considered it sort of of Seinfeld the Family show.
It was like a Seinfeld family show. And I was
casting right when Freaks and Geeks had been canceled, and
I saw all of the kids, and um, a lot

(31:14):
of them perconted tears when they went toition because they
were so sad that their show got canceled. And I
ended up using Sam Levine in this show. But anyway,
I got I was really into Freaks and Geeks and UM,
I really liked the choices, like she chose really funny people,
but they were, you know, pretty character in a great way. Yeah.

(31:37):
So I when I tried to think of all of
the casting directors that I could try to go to,
you know, uh, I was like, I want to I
want to work with her. I think she's she'd be great.
So we went into this really long casting process and
we were off for some reason. We were off cycle.
We were like going to be mid season, so we

(31:58):
didn't have to compete with every single other show. And
we started with um, you know, Jim and Pam, Michael Dwight.
Those were like the ones we started with, and we
saw a ton of people from Michael, and I brought
in people who I had worked with were writers. I
brought in one of the head writers of The Simpsons,

(32:20):
Mike Greece, to try out, and this writer I knew
named Chuck Tatham. And I remember taping myself on a
video camera late at night doing the sides for Michael
because I was like, I don't even know what to
tell them, you know, And I did it a bunch
of times, and I realized that one of the keys
that I thought for people trying out for Michael was

(32:44):
that he's thinking that if he does a good job
on this documentary, maybe Jennifer Anniston will watch it, and
that's in the back of his head. That was well,
that was like my direction that yeah, And I did
that from taping myself and going, oh, that's the only
thing this motivate aading me into something resembling this weird performance. Um,

(33:05):
was there anyone that came in right away who you
ultimately cast that you went that's it. Jenna. Yeah, Jenna
came in and it kind of blew my mind because
I didn't understand it. I was like, she doesn't appear
to be acting. She appears to simply be Pam. And
I had all these weird questions for her that were like, well,

(33:26):
you wouldn't ask an actor. I was like, where where
have you worked? What is that? You know? It was
like it was a real interview for receptionists. There was
one part of me, in trying to get an interesting
love story that thought maybe it should be interracial love story,
and so part of me was I had a one
version of it where Craig Robinson was Roy, not Darryl.

(33:50):
And there was a really likable actress Erica Bettina Phillips,
and I was like, could she be Pam? Wow? Is
that gonna work? And everything? You know, But she was
a pretty easy pick. And I felt pretty much like
that about John. I think too. Um, there were some

(34:11):
other good guys for John, but not not close and
was it about the two of them together? Yeah? And
then well the great thing also that Ken did and
it was really smart, which is he said, okay, like
we are not going to try and take these people
in front of NBC on a little stage and have

(34:34):
them read in front of the executives. And I was
completely on board with that because we would never be
shooting like that. That's not the right style. And what
that is is a filter to get more theatrical performers
who are good for multi camera, who can work a room. Yeah,
who work a room and come alive when they're in
front of a room and and project and you know,

(34:54):
are just more theatrical. And so we got this idea
to do screen tests like old fashioned screen tests, and
we blocked off three days and um and we took
all the different top three or four candidates for each
role and we pitted him together in different improvs. And

(35:16):
it was great for Ken too because he worked out
a lot about the shooting style doing this. And it
was fun for me too because I came up with
lots of little improv games and could figure out things
and like, for instance, one of them was between the
Gym candidates and the Dwight candidates, and I had Dwight
sitting at his desk and I said, like, all right,

(35:38):
the Gym just bring a glass of water in a
nice way to DWIGHTE and Dwight be super suspicious because
why is Jim doing something nice. It was really nice
by the way of all the actors, because a lot
of the actors gave us three days shooting, so that's
a long audition. But just like everything, it took time.
I mean, you cast for three months, then you did

(35:59):
multiple days. I'm super methodical. I have to say, like,
I feel like, if I have time to make a decision,
I'm going to chase down every option and a bee
it and really try. And you know, and as you
started to find the rest of the ensemble, what were
you looking for there? Well, part of it was different

(36:21):
types of people, you know, and part of it was
Allison having passions for people, like we didn't have a
ton of choices for Kevin, right, she was really passionate
about you and came in and we could see it
right away and it was like cool, that's great. And

(36:45):
Oscar and Angela were both you know, had come from
the same improv theater. They were both io guys. And
Oscar has the ability like he has such a straight face.
I mean he has the ability to play it's so
straight and it's so funny. Has a little Jack Benny
actually you referenced him before, just yeah, yeah, And and

(37:08):
the great thing was also the set informed a good
bit because like we were all in the same room,
but It was very useful to have a nook with
three improv masters to have a sort of create a
subplot with almost you know, you needed to cut away
from what was happening in the triangle of Jim Pam

(37:31):
dwighte desks, and the accounts were great for that. And
the other thing that was great was you guys were
just making your own bits up. We we were the
star of our own show in the corner, which was hilarious,
and you would come to me and go, hey, hey, hey,
check this out. We got this thing going. I have

(37:51):
to tell this story. Um. We were the first season.
We shoot the basketball episode, which is your first episode
you wrote. And I'm trying to bond with my boss, right,
and I'm a huge sports fan, big basketball fan, and
so we're doing the basketball episode and I remember I said, so,
Greg are you are you you're a big fan of

(38:13):
basketball and you turned like kind of tilted your head
slightly and said, I'm a fan of comedy and then
turned and walked away. I was like, that went really well, Brian,
a great, great job. It was just so so interesting
for me that you had constructed that as being that

(38:35):
was my That was funny. Yeah, I mean this, Yeah,
that's so sad and lame on my part. But I
didn't have enough brain space for sports, you know what
I mean. I I am marvel at people who can
know all about all the teams, and it's a great
thing for guys to hang out and bond with each other.

(38:55):
It's like my dad and my son are both great
at it, no matter where they go or just they
can instantly have a cool conversation about basketball. Well, they
just didn't have the room. Well there's a theory, right
that people only have the brain space for for one
of three things. One is sports, two is music, and
three is useless trivia. Oh I got that that man,

(39:18):
So it's one of three things and useless trivia because
that's not Unfortunately it's not music in sports. But it
does help when you write Dwight because a lot of
times I would, you know, I'd be like, yes, if
there's one character I'm probably the closest to, it's fucking Dwite.
I don't know, I don't know. It's sometimes it felt

(39:38):
that way. It was really easy to do all those
bear runs. And like one time when that do you
remember that book? What was it called? It was like
Worst case scenario handbook. Remember that book, all right, So
this is this was like a Christmas type you know,
novelty gift book, and it was it was just how
do you escape from a bear? How do you escape

(39:59):
from a burning building? You know, worst case scenario and book?
And anyway, that Christmas, I got like eight copies of
that bad book from people. They were like all of
them were like, this is for you, this is this
is for you. So I don't know, definitely easy to write, right.
But on the other hand, also I identified a lot
with Michael. For instance, the Halloween episode, this notion that

(40:22):
you would have to fire someone but you'd want to
stay friends with them. That comes from identifying with the
boss in the situation. And normally you identify with the
employee until you've had an experience of being a boss,
and then you start to go, oh, wait a minute,
maybe there's somebody has a point of view there. And
I was the boss of the writers, and so it
was sort of funny because like a lot of times

(40:44):
they would be you know, pulling their eyes at me
and mocking me, and I was like, yeah, you can
use it for the show. And Steve used to say
something like if you're in a situation where there you
don't see any Michael Scott, you're Michael Scott's right, that's right.

(41:05):
On the latest season of the Next Question with Katie
Correct podcast, Katie dives into Well Katie Here, exclusive podcast
only conversations between Katie and the people who made her
memoir Going There Possible. We spent a lot of time
together around a dining room table here and in the city,
and you know it was a very intense experience. All

(41:27):
episodes of Next Question with Katie Couric are available now.
Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to our show.
I'm Zoe de Channel and I'm so excited to be
joined by my friends and cast mates Hannah Simone and
Lamar and Morris to recap our hit television series New Girl.
Join us every Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast,

(41:49):
where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite
New Girl episodes, revealed the truth behind the legendary game
True American, and discuss how this show got made with
the writer's guest stars, and director who made the show
so special. Fans have been begging us to do a
New Girl recap for years, and we finally made a
podcast where we answer all your burning questions like is

(42:09):
there really a bear? In every episode of New Girl?
Plus each week you'll hear hilarious stories like this at
the end when he says you got some schmid on
your face. I feel like I pitched that joke. I
believe that. I feel like I did. I'm not a
thousand percent I want to say that was I tossed
that one out. Listen to the Welcome to Our Show
podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or

(42:31):
wherever you get your podcasts. If I could be you
and you could be me for just one hour, if
you could find a way to get inside each other's mind,
walk a mile in my shoes, Welcome mile in my shoes, Shoes.
We've all felt left out, and for some that feeling
lasts more than a moment. We can change that. Learn

(42:54):
how it Belonging begins with us dot org, brought to
you by the App Council Mountain. So after doing the pilot,

(43:18):
we get a very anemic pickup of five episodes for
a season one, and all of my seinfeld arguing rebounded
against me because you know, I was dancing and trying
to get get a pick up and everything, and they
were like, well, if it's really like Seinfeld Seinfeld only
had four episodes or whatever in the first season. Were like, um,

(43:40):
so we get this little skinny pickup, and now I
get the ability to hire writers, and so I love
hiring writers. And I read hundreds of scripts, not hundreds,
but at least a hundred for each time I have
to hire a staff, and I meet people, and in
the meetings, I'm disc riving the show because it hasn't

(44:01):
come out right. And the more you describe it, the
more your thoughts start to coalesce. And I and I
realized as I was trying to like pitch the show
over and over again two different writers, that this was
the first um comedy version of reality show, and it
was kind of the first show. And this gets maybe theoretical,

(44:24):
but like I was saying, all right, well, sitcoms multi
camera coms are a TV show for people who love
theater and have done a lot of theater and go
to theater. That's the idea. But now everybody has their
own cam quarters, and what about a show for people
who have taken video and are used to looking at

(44:44):
the viewfinder and turning to cover one guy and then
the other guy. You know, America's funniest videos like that
cam quarter thing had come in hard and m and
reality shows. So I was kind of developing this idea
that the bones of the show wouldn't be theatrical, they'd
be video. And when you think about photography and you

(45:05):
think about the great you know, street photographers, so much
is about finding a way to look at the real
world and finding beauty in what you see right in
front of you, by the way you compose it, or
your selection of subject matter, or the decisive moment or
you know, stuff like that. Well, Randall, uh, talk to

(45:27):
me a little bit about this idea. He attributes to
quote to you, which is everything that makes it harder
makes it better. Yeah, that's that obstacles and the yes.
And in terms of the obstacles and obviously a huge
part of the aesthetic was the camera as a character.
How important was that to you? Oh, I think that's huge.
I mean I used to give notes very differently to

(45:52):
camera operators then most shows. Like most shows, the note
is okay, I want you to pay and over here
and then on this line, I want you to, you know,
do blah blah blah, push in or whatever. And I
used to only give notes to them like they're actors.
I would say, Okay, here's what's interesting. You've been following
this story, and you know this person who's never expressed

(46:14):
any interest in that person before, You've suddenly noticed that
they're eyeing them with interest. Go for that. And some
of the things we used to do with Randall. I
would sometimes say, Okay, the problem with this scene is
you know what you're looking for, and I would have
the camera operator close their eyes and I would spin
them around and I'd say, right, find it on action

(46:37):
and we go action and the scene would start and
the camera guy would open his eyes and be pointing
the wrong way and he'd have to like find find
what was interesting. Yeah, we had a bunch of tricks
like that. What I have said is the thing that
I'm the most proud of was that every single shot
was purposeful in terms of the camera. Is the camera

(46:58):
in the space. Are the characters aware that the camera
is there? How does that make them behave? Yeah? Well,
I you know, the writer's offices were near the stage,
and so I would often come down and look and
see stuff or get called down, which was very fun

(47:19):
but also kind of high stakes kind of deal because
you show up, the whole crew is there and they're
they're saying, can you look at this? This doesn't seem
to be funny, or I would look at the rehearsal
and I wouldn't think it was funny, And then you
only have a couple of minutes to figure it out.
And one thing that I noticed was that camera awareness

(47:40):
was the cause of half the times when it wasn't funny.
Is that we had gotten the camera awareness wrong and
we were in a situation where we should have been
spying on them through blinds, but the cameras right and
everybody's face, and we were expecting people to act as
if they didn't know the cameras were there, right, or

(48:00):
you know, sometimes it's funnier to not spy on them
and to let them be embarrassed that the cameras are
seeing it. Like I was just watching that one. Which
one was it? I guess it was the client, remember
that one and just the camera Chase Michael, he got
the call being the Jane didn't want to see him
while he was he was sort of bragging the camera

(48:22):
and then he got this horrible call and he had
to actually hide in the well under his desk, and
the camera came around and like squeezed past kind of
taught him there like a raccoon in the light next
to a garbage It's added so much, the camera could
add so much. Totally, did you right for the camera

(48:44):
as though it were a character. Yeah, sometimes, for sure.
I remember jen Um Salada actually doing that the most.
Like she she was the first person to have the
camera nod. You know, she had I forget which episode,
but she had somebody looked to camera and say where

(49:05):
do you go or something like that, and the camera
kind of like gestured and that was kind of fun.
It was. It was really up to the line though, Um.
And then you know, when we had that arc of
Jennet going to art school or Pam going to art school.
We had a whole thing and it was originally I
think I think it was Mindy's idea or she was

(49:26):
the biggest proponent of it, but it was the idea
of the boom operator getting involved, and it was to
me one of the coolest ideas. I couldn't really figure
out how to work and we had a version where
she got mugged on a subway and the boom operator
dropped or the camerabitt dropped the camera and came and

(49:46):
remember that. I remember that idea? Yeah, was that in
a table read? Even it probably I probably was, Yeah,
you know what's really fun Now, it's like people are
talking about the show all the time, and so I
got asked about it. But it's ten years ago or whatever,
fifteen years ago, and sometimes I can't remember what made
it into the show or what was like a crazy

(50:08):
table read or what was pitched and I turned it
down for obvious reasons. One other question, just about the pilot.
Do you remember how the pilot tested? I'm guessing not good. Yes,
So Kevin Riley told the story that how testing happens
is there's certain people who are set up in different

(50:28):
rooms and every room was bad. Yeah, and accept they
got to the last room, which essentially were people who
didn't count, but they were p A s and office
assistants at young people and they loved it. So it

(50:48):
was like from the very beginning, that's interesting. Yeah. Well,
they they said to me, with the testing, they said,
we're going to go out in the mall and just
have a bunch of people. You can have one question
to disqualify people. And so the question I had was
if they were a fan of according to Jim, that

(51:10):
TV show. They were disqualified because I didn't want to
you know, I didn't want to do a sitcom, so
I had to pick one. But anyway, but I mean,
I I had prepared Kevin right like way before I
knew this wasn't gonna test well, and I you know,
I had certainly laid the ground worth Kevin for that.

(51:31):
I was like, this thing is not going to test well.
It is firmly in the pattern of Mary Tyler Moore,
Cheers Seinfeld. It's classic NBC comedy, and you know it's
gonna work. But don't don't worry about the testing. And
I said, you know, there's a in this podcast room.

(51:52):
You guys have this Cheers poster where you've replaced all
of the Cheers characters with office heads. One of the
things that's so funny I think inappropriate about that is
about the theme song, because we had put a theme
song on the pilot that then was grabbed by another
NBC show. Yes, um, what was it, Mr Blue Skies?

(52:14):
That was what was on the pilot, and it was
all the internal screenings that that was the theme song
on the pilot, And the pilot was also called The
Office colon an American Workplace, which I thought was more
doc you you know that. I also kind of figured
it would open us up to be able to do
other an American workplace like this is I mean it
this didn't really apply until we got to the finale

(52:35):
and I managed to work it in finally, But that
was the that was the thinking that you could you
could do another series that was something else an American
workplace where that that this was just a season of
a larger series called an American workplace like just to
just to try and get more reality to the documentary
thing because after a while, I mean we sort of

(52:57):
pointed it out at the end, like why were you
here for nine years? But um so I had really
fun experience getting the theme song for King of the Hill,
where we went out to bands and stuff and they
all submitted stuff and we had to sort of sum
up what the show was really quickly. And my line
on King of the Hill was Andy Griffith's back and

(53:19):
he's pissed. That was how I would sum up that show.
But when we were looking for a theme song for
the Office, I kept referencing Cheers because I was like,
the Office is funny and poignant and original, and it
has this sort of cheersy vibe. Right. Yeah. I always

(53:40):
felt like our show that that was where its deepest
roots was Cheers. Yeah. Um, the only difference was these
were people who had to show up every day, whereas
Cheers they chose to show up at this particular place.
But that, um, the tone of the miliarity and constant

(54:02):
interaction that that it had its ties there. Yeah, no,
I agree with you, and and Sheers had a very
it's sort of there are moments of nobility and a
lot of appreciating different character people. I also used to
compare it to Hogan's heroes in the beginning. Yeah, you know,
because uh, the staff were kind of like prisoners that

(54:25):
were all trying to like outwit the boss. Kind of
that was I don't think that's the main influence at all,
but interesting fun to think about it like that. Sometimes.

(54:46):
All right, guys, we're gonna pause there. We're not gonna stop.
We're just gonna pause. Um, because there's so much more
great stuff from Greg, you're gonna hear more from him,
and not just one, but two future episodes. But in
the meantime, you can go right now and you can
listen to my interview with Rain Wilson a k a.

(55:10):
Dwight Shrewd, which, as you just heard, Greg and Dwight
kind of the same person, so it makes total sense. Now.
Normally we're just gonna put out one episode a week,
but I was just too excited. I was just too
excited about launching the podcast. So go now, America's sweetheart.
He's never been cooked that Rain Wilson. Anyway, thank you

(55:32):
so much for listening. Episode one done check. I hope
you enjoyed it, and uh yeah, we will see you
next week. The Office. Deep Dive is hosted and executive

(55:53):
produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley.
Our senior produce Sir is Tessa Kramer, our associate producer
is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia.
My main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our
theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend

(56:13):
Creed Bratton, and the episode is mixed by Seth Olandsky
Special thanks to the amazing production crew who recorded these
interviews with us Joanna Sakalowski, Julia Smith, Benny Spiwak Russell
with Jaya, Margaret Borchard, Christian Bonaventura, Matthew Rosenfield, Alex Mobison,
Lucy Savage, Judson Pickward, Jack Walden, Jonathan Mayer, Andrew Stephen,

(56:38):
David Lincoln, and said to Lee. On the latest season
of The Next Question with Katie, Couric Hood asked Katie

(57:00):
dives into Well Katie Here exclusive podcast only conversations between
Katie and the people who made her memoir Going There possible.
Katie is a pack rad and she has basically her
own archive of sorts in her basements. Plus, Katie explores
some of the big news stories she's covered over the
decades and the people behind them, like Anita Hill, I

(57:24):
thought I could just get back to my life, and
that was impossible. It was not going to be the same.
There's plenty of Katie's signature curiosity and no holds barred interviews,
along with some of her own revealing answers. We spent
a lot of time together around a dining room table
here and in the city, and you know, It was

(57:45):
a very intense experience. All episodes of Next Question with
Katie Couric are available now. Listen on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
From Cavalry Audio, the studio that brought you The Devil
Within and The Shadow Girls, comes a new true crime podcast,

(58:06):
The Pink Moon Murders. The local sheriff believes there may
be more than one killery. They were afraid it's face
it out in that area. The family was targeted, most
of them targeted while they were sleeping. The Pink Moon
Murders is available on February twenty second, and you can
follow The Pink Moon Murders on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Give us

(58:27):
the over attention. We need everything you've got fast Waiting
on reparations would beat the podcast. Tune in every Thursday
politics and wordplay. We fight for the people because they
got us in the worst way, from the Hill Cooper,
the Bomb Bay to Kant, from the Left Enclave to
what the neo kansea. Every Thursday heading conversation and to
break us off with some break because we wait in

(58:47):
the reparations. Listen to waiting on reparations on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.