Brian Baumgartner

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're on with Mario a little bit. Mario Lopez joining
me now on Zoom Kevin from the Office. Mr Brian
baum Gardner, Welcome back, my man. How are you. Uh,
it's great to be here. Thank you so much. It's
good to see you. Oh, it's nice to see you.
Congratulations on the new book, Welcome to dunder Mifflin. Fun title.
Where did you get the idea? Uh? We wanted to

(00:23):
tell the story my my partner Ben Silverman, and myself.
He was a producer on the show. I know you
know Ben. Uh. Uh, Yeah, we wanted to tell the
story and really examine why Now eight years I guess
the new figures just came in Squid Game, Secession succession. Uh.

(00:45):
The Office is still the most watched show in television today,
and we wanted to try to figure out why can
I give you my theory and then tell me my
theory is because it's just it's I'm trying to choose
my words. It's funny, obviously, but it's funny without having
to worry about being politically correct. It's just naturally funny

(01:07):
when people aren't worrying about offending. Because I don't think
you can do the Office these days. I don't think
you could make it today. Ironically, it's also, even though
it's popular, effortless like no, right, but but I'm saying
it was just fun Yeah, exactly, it's effortless. It's not trying.
You're not trying to be to woke or you're not
trying to be It's just funny for the sake of
being funny. And I think people appreciate that. In the
irony is that you couldn't make it today, but yet

(01:29):
today it's more popular than ever, am I am? I am?
I right? Kind of well, I do think you're right.
I mean, to me, there's been a lot of discussion
about that about could it be could it be made today?
Because of the things that people said. But here's the
really confusing thing to me, right, Uh, quite often it's
Michael Scott or you know, somebody else says something that

(01:51):
maybe you shouldn't say, right, I mean, even when we
were shooting it, things you should not say. But then
the camera hands around. That's sixteen other people in the
room who all are indicating you can't say like, and
so the overall message is actually, it's actually kind of woke,
even though you're saying things that yeah, people people now

(02:15):
say you can't say, but it was subliminally woke, right,
were aggressively before it's time woke. You interviewed, um, everyone
to find your answers. What what's who's the most perceptive
when it comes to the office. Wow, that's a great question.
I mean, look, we call it an oral history, and

(02:37):
what's fascinating about that is there's no fact, right, it's
literally what people remember. So there are things that happened
that I wasn't aware of or didn't remember or didn't
remember quite in the same way. But you know, we
did over a hundred hours of interviews with various people

(02:58):
from Steve Carell and John c Presents, he and Rain Wilson,
and the rest of the cast too, our directors who
worked on the show, and writers who worked on the
show and created and crew people who worked on the show, um,
and so really what this is this is a combination
of everyone's stories and everybody's memories and people were we're

(03:19):
remembered or were excelled at different things. Like you tried
to ask Rain Wilson a specific question about an episode,
It's like he has like he was on an acid
trip and doesn't remember that day, right, Like he has
no but on the same way, by the way, what
did I do? I don't know, But when you know,

(03:41):
he's incredibly perceptive. There's a section of the book where
we talk about, you know, sort of where the Office
fits in the history of comedy and where these archetypes
of these characters came from, which, let's face that they've
been around a long time. Like, he was incredibly insightful
at that. So I would say, much like the show,
everybody sort of had their their own different skills. Another

(04:02):
thing that's fascinating too is like my nephew, for example,
is obsessed and he's fifteen years old. I'm like, should
you be watching this? Are he's sixteen now or whatever?
But like a young kid. I don't think that was
exactly the target demo, But there's a whole group of
really young people that that love it. Why do you
think that is because it deals in the workplace. It's
not I mean, it has nothing. It's going to have

(04:24):
a very skewed perception of what work life will be, right, right,
But it's not relatable in any sense you would think.
But yet young people are that kind of tried me out. Yeah, well,
not surprisingly, Mario, You're very perceptive, and that was a
central question we were looking at, which is one, why
is it more popular now than it was when we
were on the air, and to why are young people

(04:45):
watching it? And because the truth is, we were talking
on set, like actually discussing the fact that, well, there's
two d million Americans work in offices, right, so if
those people watch the show or five percent, we've got
a big hit. Everything was great, but what we didn't
realize was we were making a show for young people.

(05:06):
And I think one of the discoveries through all the
conversations that I had was that the parallel between an
unreasonable boss who makes his employees do unreasonable things while
sitting next to people for years that you don't choose
to sit next to, that there's a clear parallel between
that an unread and an unreasonable teacher. The students do

(05:30):
unreasonable things while sitting next to people you don't choose
to sit next to. A very good Now it's a discovery. Yeah,
oh that's f Yeah. I mean, he rocks the T
shirts and it's so weird. Brian, I have a question
because I've at this point I've seen the series. I
don't know thirty times because I used to fall asleep
to it at night as well. But is there an
episode that you don't like? Is there an episode that

(05:51):
makes you uncomfortable? Because there's a lot of uncomfortable moments
in the show. No. I mean, look, I through this experience,
watched the whole thing again too, right, So I went
back and watched the whole thing, and mostly, quite honestly,
I was struck by how well it holds up. That
was really funny, Joe. Um. The answer that I get

(06:17):
often is um Scott's yes, let skip that. I have
to skip that one. It's it's so uncomfortable. I hear that.
I hear that. Yeah, you got Thanksgiving plants. I'll be home.
I'm here in uh in in New York City here
talking to a bunch of folks about the book. I'm

(06:37):
excited to uh to be home and uh and and
have some time with family. That'll be great. Your birthday
is near Thanksgiving? Right? It is? Indeed? Yes, birthday Thanksgiving? Yeah, actually,
UH exclude breaking news happening here. I uh. I will
be spending my birthday in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I'm gonna

(07:02):
go to the Packers game, going to the Frozen Tundra,
to the Frozen Tundra. Celebrating the birthday. Yeah, I'm excited.
Who are they playing that day? The Rams? Oh, that'll
be fun, right man. That's a good that's a good
way to celebrate right there. Well, congratulations man, and happy
early birthday to you, so please order Welcome to dunder

(07:26):
Mifflin wherever you get books. And Brian, thanks for hanging
out and I see you, thank you, good to see
you with Mario Lipez