Hello, everyone.
Happy New Year's Eve.
Yeah, last day of 2025.
We hope you have a safe and happy one, but we're here to keep you company.
So we have announced that in the new year we are going to be re-watching The Paper, the whole thing, because it is now on NBC on Monday nights.
And to kick things off, We thought we'd rerun our breakdown of the pilot.
Yeah, that way you're all ready to go in the new year with episode two of the paper.
Which will be coming out next Wednesday.
Next Wednesday, 2026, y'all.
All right, everybody have a very happy new year.
Here is the paper pilot breakdown.
I'm Jenna Fisher.
And I'm Angela Kinsey.
We were on The Office together, and we're best friends.
And now we're doing the ultimate office lovers podcast just for you.
Each week, we will dive deeper into the world of The Office, with exclusive interviews behind the scenes, details and lots of BFF stories.
We're the Office Lady 6.0.
Hello there, everyone.
Holy moly, do we have a big episode today.
We are going back to the office universe.
We sure are.
With the paper.
The paper.
You guys, the first four episodes are out now on Peacock.
Check them out.
Today, we're going to talk about the pilot.
And we got some behind the scenes scoop for you.
Behind the scenes, lady.
Lady.
We had exclusive access to the set.
We got to talk to the actors.
We got to talk to the crew, the writers, the producers.
Yes.
And for those of you who have been following along with us these past four Fridays we have been releasing some of those interviews with the cast members, some of the people we were able to talk to during our visit.
So definitely check those out if you missed them.
Well, we've got a lot to discuss.
I think we just got to get into it.
Let's get into it.
Today, we are talking about The Paper.
This episode is titled Pilot.
It was written by Greg Daniels and Michael Komen.
Michael Komen, Ellie Kemper's husband.
This was directed by Greg Daniels.
And this episode is 33 minutes and 18 seconds.
Well, here's the thing.
Right away, something new from the office is they get to have more time.
I know.
And how much fun is that?
I mean, as I was watching the episode, I was so wishing we could have had this extra 10 minutes per episode because, oh my gosh, you see what that gives you.
And I guess thankfully now Dave Rogers is giving us all of that in the super fan episode.
True.
Well, here is your summary, folks.
The documentary crew that filmed The Office is now looking for a new subject, and they find it in a historic, struggling Midwestern newspaper called The Truth Teller in Toledo, Ohio.
The show focuses on the paper's newly hired publisher Ned, whose goal is to revive the paper using volunteer reporters.
All right, we're going to do fast facts, and Angela, you're going to kick us off.
Yeah.
All right, fast fact number one.
So, like we said, we got to interview some of the cast and we all they could share with us about the premise of the paper.
Here's what Greg had to say.
I do want to preface this with if you guys haven't listened to the interviews Jenna and I showed up with only one microphone.
And our batteries died on the microphone when it was finally time to talk to Greg and Michael.
So we had to plug it in, and then the only way to be close to them is if you and I sat on a conference room table.
We have a picture of this, of you and I sitting on a conference room table.
Leaning towards them with this one microphone.
So if you hear a little clunkiness, it's because we're on a table.
Well, the premise of the show is that there is a company that bought Dunder Mifflin.
They basically own anything that produces or uses paper.
So they have Dunder Mifflin, which is office supplies.
But their biggest product is toilet tissues and toilet seat protectors.
And then they also have a few newspapers because they also use paper.
But the newspapers are the least money makers in there. low man on the totem pole.
And so the documentary crew is just trying to follow up what happened to Dunder Mifflin and finds that it's part of this conglomerate.
And they sort of stumble on an interesting story in the fact that this old newspaper is trying to be revived by an idealistic young publisher.
And they think, oh, that'd be a good documentary.
And they start following that.
Well, I actually think that sounded pretty good for two ladies on a table with one microphone.
I know.
And Greg, of course, always speaks so well.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, Michael also shared with us and the sound quality wasn't great on this.
So Michael, I'm just going to read it.
I'm sorry.
The table microphone setup slowly fell apart on us.
Anyway.
So Michael shared with us why they thought this story is timely to what is happening right now in a lot of industries.
He said that larger companies are acquiring newspapers and often the newspapers will just function as a ghost paper.
They're just sort of used for their name and people recognize them as a source of news, but they mostly carry stories from the wire that you get on the Associated Press or any other big site.
And they just milk them for ads until they disappear.
And basically they keep the newspapers around because they think it's good for the community, but they're not really servicing any news stories.
And that just fit in perfectly with the premise of the paper.
Well, Greg also shared about the comedy hook of this premise, which is that this dying newspaper only has one reporter.
But the new publisher that we're going to meet in this first episode has a lot of ideas about wanting to do original local coverage, but he doesn't have the money to hire reporters.
Yeah.
So we find out he gets volunteers from the people who already work there truck drivers salesmen, accountants.
Those are the people that become his news team.
And of course, they're total amateurs and, you know, hilarity ensues.
Yes.
Spoiler alert.
There's a later episode where they invite a bunch of kids in the journalism department of the local college to like shadow the newspaper.
And you realize that these journalism students know way more, way more than this ragtag group of local reporters.
And I really, that was really funny.
I know.
I love that.
Whatever.
When you see it, one character says, can we come and shadow you guys at school, like in your class?
Because I'm learning a lot.
Amazing.
Well fast, fact number two Greg shared with us that he really did try to recreate the magic that we had on the office.
And some of that was in hiring a lot of the same crew members.
So when we visited, we saw a lot of familiar faces.
We sure did.
And another thing that the office was famous for was having writers who also appeared in recurring roles on the show.
And we asked Greg if that was the same thing for the paper.
And he said yeah, pretty much everything that seemed like good luck from back then we tried to recreate.
So...
We have four writer performers.
And when we get into the show and we're doing our breakdown, I'll tell you who they are as we meet their characters.
I love that Greg brought back so much of the philosophy of The Office.
And I think you see it on screen.
We'll get to it.
We're going to talk about it.
But the paper, it feels like The Office.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's in the universe.
It's in the world.
Yeah, you feel it on screen.
Yeah.
Well, Jenna, you've got Fast Fact 3 and two words, Oscar Nunez.
Yes, Oscar's character is the head accountant for Enervate.
Head accountant, excuse me?
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, there's three accountants again, but this time Oscar is the head accountant.
Looky, looky at Oscar.
The accountants cover all of the accounting for Enervate, which is the company that owns both the toilet paper side and the newspaper side.
And, you know, last time we saw Oscar, he was running for state senator.
And Greg said that didn't pan out.
So now the fact that Oscar is working at this newspaper is sort of his way of serving the community.
And you're going to see that in his character.
Again, I don't want to give too many spoilers.
You don't want to give too much away.
But I would say Oscar's new journey has a little bit of Finer Things Club and a little bit of his heart for service.
Yes.
Well said.
Well, we saw Oscar that day on the set.
Yeah.
And it was so fun to see him in character again.
Yeah, we should say we were there for the taping of episode eight, but we were there on set while Oscar was doing a scene.
And we got to sit back in Video Village with Greg and watch Oscar in a scene.
Yeah.
And Dave Rogers was directing.
It was so magical.
It felt like a little travel back in time.
But we reached out to Oscar for this episode and we asked him a few questions.
First one was, how did you get your job on the paper?
Oh, yes.
So I have lunch once in a while with Greg Daniels, our showrunner from The Office.
And months ago we went out and he said something like Oscar, I'm thinking of an idea of something I don't know, a startup with a newspaper or something like that, a paper in the world of journalism, like an old newspaper or something.
And how would you feel if your character somehow bled over into that world or was part of that?
And I said, yeah, that's fine.
It was very, just very shallow, you know, an idea that he had.
And then time went by weeks and maybe we had another lunch and it was a little bit more fleshed out.
And this happened a couple times until finally he's like, when did you come by?
And they had an office down on Robertson.
And I went by and there was a writing team.
And that's when I knew, oh, this thing is kind of happening.
And so it was a writing team.
And then he started to talk.
Greg Daniels started to talk about possible people that he had in mind and fleshing out the idea more.
And that's how I found out about it in increments.
And I was sworn to secrecy from the beginning, of course.
So then, of course, we had to ask him about keeping that secret.
Yeah.
That's a big secret.
Here's what he said.
Angela, as you know, Jenna might know, but Angela, I'm not good at keeping secrets.
And it was very difficult.
When we shot, the pilot, Chris Haston, was there, which is kate flannery's boyfriend and photographer.
He's a professional photographer and he was there and he's like oscar, oh my god.
And uh, you know, greg danos told me you have to keep it a secret.
And he's like oh, i've been doing this for a long time.
And he, he found it very easy to keep the secret from kate because uh, he's been doing this photography for 40 years with all kinds of celebrities and whatnot.
But it was fun to see him there and and we had that secret together and um, But I did it.
I think I did it.
And then, you know, the cat got let out of the bag before they were ready to announce it.
Some reporter got wind of it.
And so here we are.
Well, I remember when we saw that article Angela, but that was not news to us because, you know, a while back we ran into someone who we won't say.
We can't say.
We'll never say.
Accidentally let it slip about Oscar to us.
I know.
And we said we won't.
We promise.
We promise.
And we locked it down.
We did.
No one knows until right now that we knew.
That's right.
Like no one.
Yeah, lady.
And I would see Oscar at all of these. like things that our daughters were doing together.
And I pretended like I didn't know it was on the paper.
He had no idea you knew.
Me and Brian and him talked about doing a fan convention together.
He had no idea.
No.
Brian didn't know.
Nobody knew.
Yep.
You know why?
Because we locked it down.
We locked it down.
We locked it down.
And I'm like so curious to ask Kate.
Like, Kate, Your longtime partner knew about this, was taking pictures on the set.
When did you find out?
I need a follow-up question with Kate now.
Well, yeah.
Because we didn't know.
We would never.
I didn't tell anyone.
I didn't tell anyone.
You didn't tell anyone.
Kate, certainly.
Oscar.
Ellie.
Ellie didn't tell anyone.
We had dinner with Ellie.
We're like, how's it going?
She's like, oh, you know.
What?
What?
What?
We had to say a word.
That's how tight this community is.
Yeah.
Well, everyone.
Well, I guess except for the one person who told us about Oscar.
I know.
Well, everyone who knew was very protective of it.
Yes.
And then ultimately, you know, a reporter found out.
I am not surprised, though, because.
It's such a huge secret to keep for so long.
And then they're filming at Universal Studios.
We'll get to it.
But there's like tour buses of people that go through there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's so many people who could have seen Oscar at Universal Studios.
It's a huge place.
Yes.
Well, listen, why don't we take a break?
And then when we come back, we are going to talk all about the paper.
Yep.
All right, we're back.
And the paper opens with words on a screen.
Yeah, it's a title card and there's a message.
The message says In 2005, a documentary crew started filming at a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
They followed the workers in an average office, dealing with new rules of workplace behavior and the ups and downs of their personal lives.
And then it says, 20 years later, they returned.
And the first thing the documentary crew, who's been gone for 20 years, shows us is the Scranton Business Park.
The exterior of our building.
That's right.
It's the parking lot.
There are four business signs listed.
A little bit of a foreshadowing here.
The businesses listed are Vance Refrigeration, One and Done Laser Eye Surgery and Tattoo Removal, Rubens and Kavala.
Yeah.
And now the camera crew starts to push into those doors that we know, those glass doors.
One background catch here as we scan the parking lot, everything looks the same, except there are now electric car chargers.
I didn't even notice that.
Yeah.
Oh, I love that detail.
Yeah.
We are going to go inside and guess where we start.
This was such a surprise, and I loved it so much.
We're at Vance Refrigeration, and we are warmly greeted by Bob Vance.
Bobby Ray Schaefer.
Bobby Ray does such a great job.
Bob Vance is going to have a talking head.
He says, hey, Dunder Mifflin's been gone for a while.
Phyllis and Stanley keep in touch.
They've both got the same kind of dog, a schnoodle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he says, you know, the one and done guys are less drama.
And you're kind of like, who are the one and done guys?
Yeah, what's one and done?
Well, we go down the hall to where the Dunder Mifflin offices were.
Yeah, we go past the elevator and we open that door.
And first of all, there's no carpeting.
It's now hardwood floors.
Oh, I didn't notice that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Reception desk is completely different.
It's like metal and shiny.
Yeah, it has like LED lights on it.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's very modern.
Very modern, very slick looking.
Yes.
And yeah, it's a laser eye company and laser tattoo removal.
Yes.
So the documentary crew clocks this and then they go back to talk to Bob.
Yeah.
He's going to get on his computer and he's going to explain that Dunder Mifflin was purchased in 2019 by a company called Enervate in Ohio.
They asked if Phyllis wanted to leave and move to Toledo, go with the company.
And Phyllis was like, yeah, right.
Forget it.
She's like, leave Scranton?
Yeah.
No.
I have two background catches for my folks that love a background catch.
Bob Vance has a post-it note on his computer.
It's on the top left corner.
It's orange.
And it says in handwriting, 10% discount only on fridges, not labor.
Oh, so you're not going to get a discount on labor.
Also, the Chamber of Commerce website is on the screen.
If you go to it, because I did, it is not an active website.
Oh, they didn't set up fakie websites.
Got it.
Here's something I thought of.
If Dunder Mifflin was sold in 2019, that means it was sold before the pandemic.
Oh.
So Dwight never had to deal with like COVID rules.
Here's my question.
Yes.
Does Dwight still own the Scranton Park though?
Oh, does he still own the building?
Yeah, because he bought the whole building.
You're right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We don't know the answer to that right now.
We don't.
I secretly hope he does.
Well, I just loved that the show opens with a familiar face.
I love hearing that Stanley and Phyllis both have schnoodles.
You know, I was just sort of on the edge of my seat when I saw Bobby.
I know.
We did not know he was part of the show.
We knew about Oscar, but I did not know about Bobby. a schnauzer and a poodle.
That's exactly what they are.
I mean, it's like a labradoodle is like a Labrador and a poodle.
I guess it didn't click for me what a schnoodle was.
I didn't know you could mix a schnauzer and a poodle.
I didn't either.
How does that work?
I don't know.
And I don't want to think about it.
Okay.
But back to Bobby Ray for a second.
So you guys, we did an AT&T commercial.
It's out in the world now.
You will have seen some of it.
It's so good.
It's so funny, lady.
They're so fun.
You did them as well.
They've really gotten almost the entire cast.
Yeah.
Well, we were on set one day and we were just chatting.
I was asking him how his life is.
He has a very peaceful existence on this nice big property in West Virginia.
And we exchanged phone numbers.
And when I watched this, I was like, oh my gosh, Bobby Ray was in it and didn't even tell me.
There you go.
There you go.
So I texted him and I was like, can you please share with us what it was like to be on the paper?
And he sent us in this lovely audio clip.
Let's hear it.
Hello to the office ladies, Angela and Jenna, and your loyal listeners.
This is Bobby Ray Schaefer, a.k.a.
Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration.
I'm pleased to join you today to talk about my experience filming the new TV show, The Paper.
There I was in my house on the hill in the woods in West Virginia, minding my own business.
And I was working on my autobiography, which I'm sure the listeners will delight in the title, which is What Line of Work Are You in, Bob?
Of course, it's about all the jobs that I had in my career, including the most famous and loved of them all, The Office.
Thanks to the greatest fans ever.
So I receive an email in my inbox one morning, and I open it up and it's from Hollywood.
Would I be interested?
Would I be available for a new Greg Daniels project?
Well, there's only one answer to that.
And it is of course, yes.
So I send back, uh, my, uh, your availability is total.
And, uh, then I had to wait for a while.
You know how that goes, ladies.
Um, And at the time I had thought, when I left LA after 40 years of grinding, that I would never go back.
But of course, as I told the producer who contacted me, I've never said no to Greg Daniels and I'm not going to start now.
So after about a month of, is it going to happen?
Is it not going to happen?
And I found myself right back in the old, um, mindset of it is it isn't it is it isn't and you know that's torture for an actor but uh after not having to go through it for a while it was kind of fun to be back in it to tell you the truth and uh the deal was closed the arrangements were made and i found myself on a big old jet plane to the coast i went to the set the next morning and i'd say That was the biggest difference, uh, in the office and the paper is that being on the universal lot, when I would walk out of my trailer, you know, the tour, uh, carts would come rolling by and all the people were waving and staring and yelling.
And that was a new dimension to filming.
But anyway, it was fantastic to be back in the Vance Refrigeration office.
As you know, details are key on the office and they are too on the paper, because it was a perfect replica, right down to a secretary and the whole office.
You know.
I really knew then what deja vu felt like.
I mean, you know I'd been there before, but it was delightful to see all the.
There were many of the crew members and
The key guy, of course, other than Mr. Daniels, was Sergio, our caterer.
And he was there.
And it was a delight to see him.
And Veda, the script supervisor.
And Dave Rogers, the editor.
And so it was like old home week.
And it was really just a wonderful feeling to be back involved with those great people.
So talented.
And Greg was directing the pilot.
And so I got to spend some quality time with him and he had written a very smart, funny open.
I hope you'll all enjoy it.
And the main reason I did it of course, other than you know, it was Greg and is the historical link with the office.
As you know, as many of you know, I've been doing a lot of fan shows and And I have to say I'll say it again we do have the greatest fans in television show history.
And I want to thank you all very much for making us feel so treasured and cherished.
It's really, truly a great honor.
And it's been a blessing to be able to make people happy with just a photo and a signature.
And you gave me that.
So, office ladies, You're kicking butt, taking names.
Keep it up.
Love you very much.
And I'll see you.
Bye bye.
Oh, that's not great.
So great.
I just loved all of that.
And I texted him.
Thank you so much from the two of us.
And he said, well, Ange, thank you.
And know that I forgive you for spitting on me.
And I said, I said, wait.
And he wrote back and he said, Oh my gosh!
So now I want to go back to Fun Run deleted scenes and be like, I totally forgot that scene.
Well, Greg told me that they went back to our old lot and they restored the Scranton Business Sign Park for that opening establishing shot.
And he said that on that day, some fans were there and they came and took photos.
He was like they got really lucky, because you know that sign is not usually there on the building.
Right.
He said it was just kind of cool to see it there again.
But, like Bobby said, the Vance, refrigeration and the eye center and the elevator, all of that they completely rebuilt on a soundstage at the Universal lot, because that's where they shot the paper was on a soundstage at the Universal lot.
That's right.
And we went and visited there.
Mm hmm.
And, you know, we were walking to our cars at the end of the day.
Greg was so sweet.
He walked us out after our visit.
We're standing by the cars and one of those buses went by.
Yeah, that Bobby talked about.
Yeah, it's like an open air bus with a bunch of visitors who are coming to Universal Studios.
You pay for this pass.
You get the tour of the whole back lot.
And there we were standing there.
And Greg literally was like, get down, look at us, dive behind like a dumpster.
We literally dove behind a dumpster because we did not want people to see us there.
We were afraid.
With Greg.
Yes.
Because there were the rumors that the paper was happening.
Yeah.
And we, yes.
Yeah.
But I have to say, hearing now that people took pictures of that Scranton Park sign at our old set.
Yeah.
Guys, zoom in.
I bet you have laser one and done.
Yeah.
You probably do.
Yeah.
Well, now that our documentary crew has figured out that Dunder Mifflin was bought by Enervate, we're going to go to Enervate.
To Toledo.
Yes, to the Truth Teller Tower.
And we go upstairs and we're going to see a bunch of workers in these like glass-walled cubicles.
And one of them is shaving.
He's got an electric shaver and he's reclining, kind of shaving.
Shaving.
He's getting the side eye from the person in the cubicle next to him.
Shout out to Steven Socks, who played the man shaving his face.
You might recognize that name because we have talked about him and his wife, Lori, for years.
They were the stand-in team on The Office.
They both had cameos on The Office, and I was so tickled to see him on the paper.
Yes, lady.
When we visited we saw both Stephen and Lori and it was so cool, but I had no idea that he had a cameo.
Neither did I, because everybody locked it up.
So when we watched this, I texted him about working on the paper.
I asked him how him and Lori came to work on the paper, what it was like working on the show, what it was like to do this cameo.
And he sent us the most lovely message.
Just like Bobby Ray, everyone has just been so wonderful.
You got to hear it.
Lori and I both got to work on the paper and the pilot episode was really a thrill.
I mean, somehow we were both able to work on The Office for all those years and we made so many memories.
And as soon as we found out about there even being a true office spinoff, we reached out to Greg Daniels, who is just so kind and just absolutely brilliant.
And somehow we got to work on this brand new show.
Well, one day I had a break from filming and I walked over to one of the other stages we were using and I saw the outside of a set that had just been built.
And from the outside a set just looks like wood and nails and a door here and there, and it's not until you open the door and step inside that the set is revealed.
There was no one else, not a single person on stage, and so i was all alone and i was curious about what we might shoot the next few days.
You know, it could have been a restaurant or an apartment or whatever.
So i opened one of the doors and it was the office's elevator lobby.
I had entered that door.
That was a stairwell door next to Bob Vance's glass door.
And I was instantly taken back to the old Chandler Valley Studios in Van Nuys.
It was shocking and emotional, actually.
I walked up to the elevator and so many memories flowed, flooded my brain and I thought of one of the most vivid memories on the show.
It was Steve Carell's last day and specifically Steve's last scene.
The scene was when Michael says goodbye to the office and he walks to the elevator and exits the building.
The day before, Greg had asked me to wear a suit and so he put me in the scene.
Me and a mail courier walk out of the elevator as Michael walks in.
On Steve's last take.
I watched the character Michael Scott enter the elevator and the doors closed.
And then after the scene ended, the doors opened and the actor, Steve Carell, stepped out.
It really was just him and I in the lobby at that point.
And I couldn't help myself and I just gave him a big hug.
Well, here I was. back in that space and I had goosebumps.
I saw Bob Vance's office and then I walked toward the Dunder Mifflin office and it was a laser hair removal place.
So it was Dunder Mifflin was gone.
And what I felt at that moment was just closure.
Life moves on and art shows us in amazing ways. that life has changed.
I got to stand there in that moment, full of gratitude for all that the office meant to me.
And then in that same breath, I got to pivot to this brand new show.
And then, like the next day, they asked me if I could come in and work with the talented Tim Key in one of the opening scenes of the pilot.
Just an incredible experience that I will never forget.
That is so powerful.
Well, I cried the first time I listened to that because he's right about what art can show us.
And I just can't imagine what it was like.
Like, it feels like time travel.
If I could open a door and be standing in that elevator bay again.
And I didn't know that story before.
That he had that moment with Steve.
Yeah.
And then now he is there again all these years later in that same elevator bay.
And yeah, I thought Stephen said it all so well.
Yeah.
I felt everything that he shared.
You're a little teary.
I, you know, yeah.
It makes me so excited for this group of people.
I just hope that this show gets to give them what the office gave us.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, now we are going to cut to a talking head of Ken.
Ken is played by Tim Key.
He is British.
He is the head of strategy for the corporate offices at Enervate.
And he's going to explain to us what Enervate does.
Let's listen.
Innovate sells products made out of paper.
So that might be office supplies.
That might be janitorial paper, which is toilet tissue, toilet seat protectors and local newspapers.
And that is in order of quality.
I loved at the very end when he says in order of quality.
He thinks he's being funny and he has this little smirk look to camera.
And it just cracked me up.
Now he's going to take us on the tour of the offices.
He explains that the corporate offices are on the eighth floor.
He's going to take us up to the ninth floor.
This reminded me of our pilot, where Michael Scott is taking you on a tour of Dunder Mifflin because he starts introducing everybody.
We find out that the ninth floor is home to Softie's toilet paper.
And when he opens the door.
By the way, This is when we get our first glimpse of the set, and it is huge.
It's so vast.
Yes.
It is this big open space, but there are very few people in it.
Michael Komen told me that this scene was the very first scene they shot of the paper.
Oh, really?
Yes.
Aw.
Well, you know, as Ken walks through he's greeting his toilet kings and one queen who I think has a little bit of an Angela Martin vibe.
She's got that ponytail pulled back tight.
And I love the throwaway snarky comment Ken said as he walked past her.
He says, scrunchie, no harm in it.
Because she has her hair that's scrunchie.
It was just a really funny throwaway line.
Well, Scrunchie Gal, aka Toilet Queen, is our first writer-performer.
She is a character that we're going to see at Softies named Kimberly, and she is played by Mo Welch.
Ken continues now to show us the rest of the Softies side of the office.
There's a lot of old artwork and logos.
And then he takes us to a gong that they hit whenever a sale is made.
I have to imagine that's going to drive everyone crazy if you work there.
Sure.
And this is when he introduces us to what's on the other side of the office, which is the local newspaper the Toledo Truth Teller.
Yes.
We find out that this entire building... Which is a big building.
Yes.
It used to house the newspaper with a staff of like a thousand.
And now they're just like half of this floor and there's like seven of them.
Mm-hmm.
Then we flash back to 1971.
Yeah, we're going to watch a little black and white documentary.
That's the year I was born.
Guys, we did have color TV in 1971.
I am not that old.
I am 54.
You're so right.
It made me laugh.
Anyway, I think we just needed to differentiate between our current day story and this like documentary.
You're so right.
Anyway, I'm sure that's exactly why they did it, but it did crack me up.
Yeah.
So we're watching this old documentary, and it's being hosted by John Stack, the publisher of the Toledo Truth Teller.
And we're seeing our same set, but now it is just filled with like wall-to-wall people.
John Stack is played by Tracy Letts.
Lady.
Lady.
Oh, your theater nerd heart went into overdrive.
You were like, Angela.
Angela.
Tracy Letts.
Multiple Tony Award winner.
He wrote August to Osage County.
He won a Tony for playing George in the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
I saw it.
I saw all of it.
I went to Chicago to see his play Superior Donuts.
At Steppenwolf and Lady afterwards, I got to go out and have drinks with him.
Wow.
Did you keep your cool?
Did you say anything ridiculous?
I barely spoke.
Okay, that's smart.
That's smart.
I was so nervous.
Yes, yes.
So I asked Michael Komen, I was like, how did you get Tracy Letts on the show?
And Michael Komen was like as big of a nerd about him as I was.
And he said he was my first choice.
So they just reached out and he said yes.
And Michael was like, I was genuinely thrilled.
Well, now... this scene that's going to come at the end makes perfect sense to me.
We'll get to that.
We'll get to it.
Because of Michael's love of him.
Well, he absolutely adores him.
He said they actually shot a ton of stuff with him and he really hopes that they're going to be able to keep weaving this old quote.
Unquote documentary.
From 1971.
Black and white.
Exactly.
But this was all just to show us, to give us a visual of, like what this used to be and what it is now.
Yes.
Just the juxtaposition of this lively, hustle and bustle, thriving newspaper.
And now it's like in the same office space as a toilet paper and toilet seat cover company.
And it's not even the major earner.
Yeah.
So we cut back to present day.
We're going to meet our first character from the truth teller and it's mayor.
She's a young woman.
She's sitting at her desk.
Um, ding, ding, ding.
We have our first adorable coffee mug siding.
Oh, What is it?
Everyone else has had a paper coffee cup and Mare's coffee mug is adorable.
It's banana themed.
It's a bunch of little bananas and they're all wearing little black rimmed glasses.
What?
I missed it.
I just loved it.
And you guys, I'm going to give you a little sprinkle of what's on everyone's desk as we go through.
Mare's desk is very simple.
There's an article that she has had framed, probably that she wrote we're guessing and a personal photo and some hand sanitizer.
We are going to learn that her job is compositor.
And here's what she does.
She just goes to the AP.
She pulls stories that are in their subscription price point.
Clearly, they haven't sprung for the best stories.
No.
And she just drags the articles into this like, what would you call it?
Yeah.
Plops them in there and then it formats them and then voila.
Yeah.
Mare is played by actress Chelsea Fry.
We got to meet her.
We interviewed her.
If you didn't hear her interview, go back and listen to it because it's amazing.
I was absolutely blown away by her performance.
I'm a little obsessed.
She's so good.
She makes so many great choices and you don't see her making them.
Do you know what I mean?
Yes.
It feels so effortless.
Yes.
I told Greg I'm obsessed with her.
Yeah.
She's so good.
Well, now coming up, you guys, we have the opening credits.
Yes.
I just loved them.
I love the opening credits.
We've seen the first four episodes and I've watched the opening credits every time.
I'm not skipping the opening credits.
They're great.
What they are, you guys, is sort of a montage of vintage scenes of people using newspaper for anything other than reading it.
Yes.
Then you do see some people reading it.
But we end on a shot of the newspaper, and it has been used to line a birdcage.
It's the character Nicole's birdcage and I guess the bird has peed and pooped on it because it's the liner of her birdcage and she is scraping it into the trash.
Well, I love all of the images from this, but I also absolutely loved the theme song.
It's very reminiscent of one we've grown to love.
I think we should hear it.
Lady, I hope that one day this cast is walking across the stage, getting an award to that song.
I know.
I really do.
I just hope they get it all.
Can you please tell us about this song?
Because it's just so special.
It gave me like the chills, like when I hear The Office one.
And then, of course, I love the little callback to the very end piano keys.
Well, Greg said that he did the same thing he'd done for The Office and Parks and Rec, in that he took submissions from a variety of composers.
He asked a number of people, write me a song.
And ultimately, he loved this one.
It's by Nick Thornburn and Patrick Ford.
But get this lady.
After he picked the composition, he went to Bob Field and the Scrantones to record it live.
They were the band from Booze Cruise.
And they were also the musicians who played our theme song.
That is so amazing.
That is so full circle.
And I feel like that's why it has a similar feel.
Yes.
Yeah.
Love that.
Okay, so the episode is going to start with a talking head from Mare.
She's going to tell us about their one resident reporter, the real deal reporter.
His name is Barry.
When they need accurate local sports coverage, that's who they go to.
They cut over to Barry.
He is asleep.
Yes, yes.
He's an older gentleman who's been there a long time.
He is played by Dwayne Shepard Sr., and he's our one reporter.
That's it.
Well, now we are going to meet, oh my gosh, she's my fave.
Talk about owning a scene.
Ah, we're going to meet Esmeralda, played by Sabrina Impacciatore.
You might remember her from season two of White Lotus.
She plays the woman at the front desk who's like running the hotel.
Yes, she is incredible.
And I just, Literally everything she says, I love her.
I know.
I have this whole thing where I go between Chelsea and Sabrina and I'm obsessed with these two women on this show.
Also, the moment we first met her.
Mm-hmm.
I felt like I was in a movie meeting someone.
You mean when we met her in real life?
In real life.
Yes.
Because she came in in this beautiful outfit, but she had just come from hair and makeup.
Yeah.
And so she had all these curlers in her hair.
She did, which is so funny because when she does her talking head in the episode, she's got clips in her hair.
Yeah.
So she's going to explain that she is in charge of TTT online.
I thought...
When I first heard this, I thought she said titty online.
Well, she does say that it's much more important, much more fun and much sexier than the printed version of the newspaper.
Because the print version is for people who just want to frame it if they're mentioned.
But the online version, they can go on and on and on.
There's no space issues.
So she's going to show us one of her recent articles.
It's called You won't believe how much Ben Affleck tipped his limo driver.
And her description of it is so funny.
I think we need to hear it.
There's so many pop-up ads.
Yes.
At TTT Online, we have no space or length limitations.
This is classic, long-form journalism.
Here is one of my articles I'm particularly proud of.
I don't know if you can see it.
So you start reading it.
Yes.
And you get very curious.
I'm scrolling.
You go next.
Oops.
I hit an ad and I click here and I'm scrolling.
And I'm learning a lot about the history of tipping.
Like the first tip, what was that?
Maybe a piece of cheese.
And then you keep learning about colors of cars.
There are so many colors.
But it's not a waste of time, because when you get to the end and you find out that the tips was 300, I mean that's a lot.
Lady, her article, it a little bit reminds me of me and you breaking something down, right?
Because we're going to take you on a deep dive of the history of tipping and the types of limos that existed in the world, just to eventually tell you that Ben Affleck tipped 300.
Every time...
We've watched this a few times now, and every time she gets to the part where she's like what was the first tip?
Maybe a piece of cheese.
Makes me laugh every time.
Every time.
Well, while this talking head is going on, we get a real glimpse into Sabrina's office.
It might be one of the most amazingly chaotic, crazy, vivid offices ever.
Definitely on the set of the paper.
There are so many great details.
I'm going to list a few things I saw.
First of all, there is a giant conch shell.
Then a leopard printed swivel desk chair is what she sits on.
There are gold little stars like cut out Like construction paper looking gold stars.
She's covered so many things in her office with gold stars.
Multiple frames of just her covered with these little stars.
Her laptop has stars on them.
But lady, I thought of you.
What?
Did you clock how many lamps she had?
She has a little tiny lamp with tripod legs with a little white square top.
She has two big gold-based lamps with white rounded tops.
Then she's got another like ye olde lamp with like the pink shade with the tassels.
God, I love a lamp.
She's like you.
I love a lamp.
You, Sabrina, and Steve Carell's character on Anchorman.
She also has a makeup mirror with a little makeup caddy.
I clocked some half-burnt sage.
She's been saging in there.
Stacks of papers, cups holding pens and scissors, a hairbrush, an open glass bottle of some type of soda and some very sad-looking plants.
Oh my gosh, she is me.
Sad plants and lots of lamps.
That could be my autobiography.
There it is.
Done.
I'm buying that book.
It writes itself.
Well, obviously, this is the pilot episode.
So we're learning about all these people.
We've learned about Esmeralda.
And now we're going to learn a little more about Mayer, who says that before she worked here she was in the Army.
And she did write for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
We got that paper when I lived overseas.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah, that's the paper I remember my dad reading growing up.
Well, Esmeralda is going to walk around the office and introduce us to people.
She's going to start with Nicole.
Yeah, poor Nicole does not want to be on camera, and Esmeralda is going to make sure of it.
She kind of like squeezes her face and then it cuts to Nicole saying we have a new talking head location.
It's like a storage room.
Yes, I loved it.
I loved the visual of it.
Behind her are all these old card catalog cabinets, you know the tall ones that are made of wood and have the tiny little drawers.
And then on either side of her are just shelves of files.
Yes, and this is where we're going to get our like talking head confessionals.
Yes.
You know what I thought?
I thought of Leslie David Baker.
Oh.
And I thought of all the talking heads he sat in the background of.
They made sure no one had to do that.
Nobody had to do it this time.
We're going to put you in like a closet for these talking heads.
That's right.
No one in the background.
Poor Leslie and Creed.
Leslie the most, but those two were in so many.
I know.
The only talking heads we don't see in this card catalog file closet are the ones in some people's offices that have actual offices.
Yes.
Correct.
Well, Nicole is going to explain that she's in circulation, so she keeps track of subscribers.
She also just talks about how maybe they generate revenue by maybe collecting and selling information on people who accept all the cookies on their website.
She has a very funny line where she says you could say we get more information from the readers than they get from us.
Nicole is played by Ramona Young, and we got to interview her when we visited.
It got cut short because they needed her back on set, but you can listen to that interview.
Yeah.
Her and I found out we were both on The Real O'Neils together.
I know.
You were on multiple things together, but you never really met.
Never worked together.
That's like me and Rob Lowe.
We were on three projects together.
Hold up.
We never were in a scene together.
Is there going to be a show where me and you and Rob Lowe and Ramona are all in one scene?
Well, I think we need to make it.
Yes.
On Mom Detective.
Oh my gosh.
Case number one.
Exactly.
All right.
Now we are going to meet Detrick, played by Melvin Gregg.
I'm so bummed we didn't get to interview Melvin.
I know.
We got to meet him, but we didn't get to interview him.
We got to chat with him on set.
Then they started rolling.
We had to whisk away.
And then he was in scenes.
Yes.
He explains that he sells ads for the paper.
And we also learn that he likes to cheer people up, specifically Nicole.
Nicole.
He's going to have a little crush on Nicole.
Angela, we have seen Nicole's desk and Detrick's desk.
Do you have a desk breakdown for us?
I do.
Okay.
So Nicole's desk, now you're going to see this a little bit more later in the episode.
Right now, we've only seen a quick glimpse of it.
She has a framed picture of her dog, some type of like Stanley cup, you know, like water bottle.
Mm-hmm.
Some little twinkly lights that it looks like she sort of strung around her partition.
The thing I'm most curious about is the bird cage.
That's got the little you know cloth covering it, because the bird is clearly inside.
It's sleeping.
It's sleeping.
But yeah, she gets to bring her bird to work.
And this made me think of a gal I worked with at 1-800-DENTIS who would bring her parakeet Dash to work.
In a cage?
Obviously.
Obviously. right?
Not on her shoulder.
I don't know why I said in a cage.
Actually, she had this little travel.
I don't even know if I'd call it a cage container.
It looked like a caboodle.
Remember the makeup caboodles?
Yeah.
It was like plastic, but the top was kind of open and grated and she could pop the lid open and they let Dash out.
It was okay.
At 1-800-Dennis?
At 1-800-Dennis, and he had a ball that he loved so much.
It had a little bell inside it And if you called 1-800-DENIS back in those days, you might've heard this in the background.
And that was Dash kicking his ball.
I had two parakeets growing up.
Pretty was the name of the first parakeet and Mango was the name of the second parakeet.
And Mango used to fly around our house and would sit on my shoulder when I played piano.
Yeah.
Dash would hang out at Paula was the lady's name and her little desk down.
All of our desks were connected.
So you might have Dash just traveling down.
Wow.
Yeah.
I want more bird is all I'm saying.
Okay.
I'm now intrigued.
We've seen it in the opening credits.
Now I see the cage on her desk.
When will we meet this bird?
When will we meet this bird?
Okay.
Melvin's desk, I will say, is a little bit more of a typical desk.
You know, papers, post-it notes, things like that.
Not too personalized.
Not super personalized, but oh my goodness.
Melvin, we need to discuss your computer screen.
He had so many tabs open.
Seriously, he has like 10 tabs open.
So he's got some digital clutter, lady.
There is one other desk that I think really rivals Esmeralda's for the amount of things, and we'll get to it.
All right.
Well, speaking of Esmeralda...
She's kind of flirting with the camera.
I loved this so much, lady.
This is my favorite moment of the episode.
Her acting is so brilliant.
Cassie and I were talking about it when I got here because this is her favorite moment.
Oh, my gosh.
We've got to hear it.
Let's hear it.
You are going to get tired chasing my busy little body around with that camera.
Also...
I'm a single mom, so there's lots going on in my life.
Anyway, here are two accountants and the head accountant.
Boring, boring, and head boring.
God, not again.
I'm not agreeing to any of this.
Don't you guys have enough after nine years?
Nobody wants this.
You know what?
You can't use my voice, my likeness, my face, nothing.
Oh my gosh.
This was so fun.
This is the reveal of Oscar.
Yes.
But the turn that she takes leading there where she's like flirty, flirty.
And then she's like, I'm a single mom.
I got a lot going on.
Yeah.
And then she kicks it over to accounting.
And then yes, we discover Oscar.
Yeah, he runs away.
He's like, you heard it.
You cannot use my life.
There's nothing.
I'm not doing this again.
And he runs in the bathroom and he slams the door.
And then the next thing we see is a title card with a message on it that says, yes, we can.
There's no end date to the release Oscar signed in 2005.
Yes, he's now a reluctant participant in this ongoing documentary.
He's got to be so pissed off.
Well, we're going to see this play out.
Like we said, we got to see the first four episodes of the show.
And without giving too much away.
It's kind of a soft launch because he's going to be avoiding the cameras.
He's going to get drawn in.
But I really loved that.
I love that we got to see this familiar face, but he's not in the main storylines at first.
Mm hmm.
He's going to get slowly drawn in.
Slowly pulled in.
I feel like we should mention the other members of this three-person boring accounting team, because they're played by two more of the paper's writer performers Bimasola Ikumelo and Alex Edelman.
And they play Adelola and Adam.
The other two accountants.
We're going to see Barry now.
Barry's desk area is sort of that classic desk of someone who has worked at the same company for a long, long time.
It has clutter, but it is clutter that has earned its place.
For example, his desk is situated by a big column.
That's part of the building and he has covered that column with a whole bunch of little tiny newspaper clippings.
Yes, probably articles he wrote over the years, I would think.
We would hope.
Well, Mayor is at her desk, and she's doing her business of pulling articles off the wire.
And she just says, you know what?
I need some air.
And we're going to now go outside, and we're going to see someone approaching the building.
But I think we should take a break.
And when we come back, we'll tell you who it is.
Yes, we're going to meet a young man with purpose.
Mm-hmm.
All right, we are back and we are going to meet Ned Sampson.
He's this nice looking young man.
He's got a backpack on.
He's played by Donal Gleeson.
Double crossover connection.
He was in the miniseries The Patient with Steve Carell and the movie Fountain of Youth with John Krasinski.
How about that?
Well, we're going to learn, you know, he's super excited to be there.
It's his first day working at the Truth Teller.
And he shares growing up, he didn't idolize Superman.
He worshipped Clark Kent, who was saving the world by working at a newspaper.
Yes, he's very idealistic.
Yes.
And as he's talking...
He kind of runs into Mare, who kind of runs in.
Yeah, he knocks her whole salad.
She's carrying this big salad and he backs into her unknowingly with his enormous backpack, knocking her salad out of her hands, dumping it all over the ground.
He never even sees her.
All I could think about was Hugh Grant in this moment.
Why?
He hates backpacks.
He does?
Oh my gosh, have you not heard him go off?
No, I, okay, wait, this is so funny because I know what you're talking about.
Yes, both him and also Cate Blanchett.
Have you seen these compilations of them going on and on about the things that they hate?
She hates leaf blowers.
She does.
Like so much, she hates them.
So much.
I think you need to hear his hatred of backpacks though.
Here's a clip of him talking about it on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
You are a man who you said I believe you are a walking pet peeve, in that you have a lot of pet peeves about human behavior.
Yeah, I'm an angry little man.
Yeah.
Can I read off some of your pet peeves and have you tee off?
You don't like people walking slowly.
I'm bearable.
Backpacks, you don't care for backpacks.
What's all that?
Why has everyone got a backpack?
Take it off.
Take it off.
But what if they have their stuff in it?
I don't care.
Carry it here.
Okay.
Oh, it's that the bag's not an issue.
It's that it's on your back.
Well, I use the subway, the tube in London quite a lot because you can't get around any other way.
And there's always someone's huge backpack in my face with their stupid water bottle.
So you also don't care for water bottles?
Why does everyone need a water bottle?
So basically, I think Hugh Grant would really hate Ned's backpack.
Oh, for sure.
It took out a whole salad.
And he doesn't even notice.
I know.
All right.
Well, he's going to go upstairs to these offices and he walks in.
And no one is expecting him.
He's just a guy with a backpack who's walked in.
He goes into the copy room.
He's kind of wandering around.
He's filming and taking pictures.
He's so excited.
He looks like a tourist.
He looks out of place for sure.
So Nicole clocks him and she goes over and she locks him inside of this copy room, which is a glass room.
Yeah.
And now employees start wandering over.
And then Ned is gonna discover that he's been locked in the room.
And this whole exchange, it made me laugh very hard.
I think we need to hear it.
We do not have door money.
This is just a misunderstanding, okay?
I just, I start work at the paper.
Which paper, news or toilet?
News.
Why would I say the paper about toilet paper?
We don't know you, sir.
How should we know why you say the things you say?
I've got a meeting at 2 o'clock, all right?
I'm just early.
That's all this is.
Okay.
Who's the meeting with?
Just briefly, I'm forgetting the name.
No, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
It's something unique.
Is there a Fantine that works here?
You'll find her in Les Mis.
All right, bye.
I really love Detrick in that scene.
Yes.
He's so great.
We don't know why you say the things you say, sir.
Yeah.
Well, Ned finally remembers Esmeralda's name, at the same time that Mare finally returns and says oh my gosh, I saw this guy downstairs.
He was talking to the camera crew.
He's legit.
Yes.
They let him out.
I want to point out.
At 14 minutes and 49 seconds we see behind Ned in the copy room, on the side of a filing cabinet, the same yellow froggy 101 radio sticker that was on the set of The Office.
Oh my gosh.
Yes, little Easter egg.
Well, I spotted an Easter egg on Oscar's desk that we're going to talk about later.
Yes, and I have a clip.
Oh, well, it's making me wonder if there are more of these.
Like if I watch it again, will I see more of them in the background?
I think so.
I think they're hidden all over.
You think there's a Simpsons thing somewhere?
I would think so.
Right?
I looked for it.
If I missed it, let me know.
Or a ducky.
I don't know.
I did see a stuffed animal in a filing cabinet.
Okay, for future viewing.
So when they let Ned out of the conference room, everyone's going to kind of come up and introduce him.
But my favorite is when Travis, the softy toilet paper guy, shakes his hand and then turns it into like a pat down.
Yes.
Just to make sure.
I love the character of Travis.
We have watched a few upcoming episodes.
There are a few scenes that he's in that crack me up.
Eric, you are hilarious.
Yes, he's played by Eric Rahill and he is our final writer performer.
Oh, he is so funny.
Yes.
Yes.
So Ned explains he's a new employee.
Mayor is immediately worried that she's fired because she knows we don't have room for new employees.
They get to chatting and he's like, I'm a little shaken up.
I could use a bite to eat before my meeting.
I owe you a salad.
You want to get something to eat?
She's like, sure.
They now go down to a little cafe.
It looks like it's maybe somewhere in the building, right?
Like on the mezzanine level of the building.
Yes.
It's called Eat House.
Get it?
Eat House.
Yeah.
And this is where the two of them start to get to know each other.
It's such a lovely scene.
I love Chelsea in this scene.
Yeah.
I love her.
I have to imagine that when Greg was watching her in this scene he was dazzled because she's incredible.
She's so great in it.
I did have questions.
This is when I wish we had the script, because Ned does this thing where he's picking out all of the tomatoes out of his salad.
Yes, he's like talking about his backstory where he came from, but all the while he's picking at his salad.
Like separating things out of it.
Yes.
She becomes very sort of fixated on that.
She's like, what are you doing?
And I was like, that had to have been in the script.
Like he didn't just do that, right?
I don't think so, because he has a very funny line where he says oh, this is the pile of things I don't want to eat from the salad.
This is the pile of eat-alones, and then this is the salad.
That's right.
That's right.
I just loved that writing.
But what I do wonder is, is there someone in the writer's room who does that to their salad?
I'm sure.
You know all these things make their way in.
That's right.
So we find out that Ned started by working at his father's cardboard company.
Then through a connection that his dad had at Enervate, he ends up working at Softies in Chicago.
And now, per his request, he's been moved to Toledo to work at the newspaper.
We also learn that he's a very good salesman.
Yes.
And we learn a little bit about his vision for what he wants to do here.
We're now going to cut back to the offices where some people are talking.
There's a hilarious conversation between Oscar and Travis where Travis is sort of telling him how to behave if you ever hit a deer with your car, what to do with your car to avoid hitting the deer.
This scene was so funny.
And this is a scene that I think might have gotten cut. if you only had 21 minutes.
Yes.
Because there's no purpose for this other than to just be very, very funny, to just watch two funny people in a funny scene.
It does have a moment, though that furthers the storyline, that Oscar doesn't want to be in it, because when Oscar sees the camera he kind of scooches behind his computer monitor.
Yes, that's true.
So that does serve that purpose.
But I couldn't help but think that Travis and Dwight would get along really well.
Definitely based on this speech.
And the pat down.
And the pat down, you're right.
I do want to give a quick shout out to Scott McGinnis, who is the prop master for the paper.
We chatted with him when we visited the set and we exchanged emails.
He shared with us that he knew Phil Shea well and he did a lot of the same things for the paper, like reaching out to local businesses for menus, magnets etc.
That Phil did for the office with the local Scranton businesses.
And I asked Scott what it was like to work on the paper.
And he said, is it possible to work with Greg Daniels without a story?
He's wonderful.
And I did ask him if we ever get to see that bird.
And he said, yes.
Oh, got some inside scoop.
Yeah.
Well, now we're going to have a talking head by the character Adelola.
And she's telling us about her deskmate, Adam.
He has four kids.
His wife makes him the same lunch every day.
He basically eats whatever the kids don't want to eat.
And I guess you could say I'm not sure she thinks very highly of him.
While she's saying all of this, it's so hilarious to me because they cut to Adam.
He is drinking out of a dinosaur sippy cup.
He's literally eating a kid's lunch.
It's really funny.
We see a little bit of both of their desks in this montage, and I thought I'd share with you.
First of all, at Alola's desk, she's got a lot on her desk.
She's got a lot of papers, a lot of things.
It's a little messy, but I think she's where people go to get little treats, because on the front of her desk she has glass canisters of candy.
Oh!
Kind of reminded me of Pam's desk a little bit.
Okay, okay.
Adam's desk is the one I was talking about, like Esmeralda's.
Holy moly, how many more things could you fit on this desk?
It is wall-to-wall things.
And when we visited the set, we actually talked to Alex while he was at his desk and he described it a little bit for us.
I have various books that you can only see the spines of.
This is a book by Ken Kwapis, who directed the second episode.
And it's facing in, so you can't see the spine, but it says but what I really want to do is direct, which is what Ken um Ken gave me the book.
This is a book about one of my mentors in my job before comedy.
Um, a guy named Larry Lucchino used to run the Red Sox.
The book's called Masters of the Game.
And so, um and yeah, and because my character is a dad, he's got a bunch of like he can't play at home.
So I've got a ball catchers like rubik's cubes, like this, um fart gun.
Yeah, it does different farts.
I have a question yeah, i have a question about this container of uh, toothpick cleaners, floss picks is that, is that props, or is that you?
Oh, that's props, you only the stuff.
That's me, but i love all of the props.
This is a mini bop it.
I'm really good at mini bopping, but once, like in an early episode at like a 6 am call time, I was like doing the bop at like in a bit of a trance state.
And I looked up and everyone was like watching me.
It was the wrong kind of attention.
I have a question about this.
Boston snow globe is is your characters?
Does your character have a Boston backstory?
My character like me does have a Boston backstory.
I'm from, I'm a proud Brookline, Massachusetts in, um, not a Newtonian like Novak and Krasinski.
Um, but it's a bit of a tribute to uh, all of the Bostonians who have come through the show and um yeah, my character is from Boston originally, although it's never come up.
I see that you also have the magic eight ball on your desk, which was in Michael Scott's office.
And a magic eight ball seems to find its way onto a desk in every iteration of the office.
So you know that wasn't my choice, but when I noticed it I kept hoping that no one would call me on it, because I really wanted to keep it, because I was such a big fan of the original show.
And so I thought, oh, man, Oscar has Oscar has his little nod to Michael Scott.
I love that I get to have a little tiny nod to Michael Scott, too.
But there are so many.
Yes, I have a bevy of chapsticks.
I have lots of chapsticks and this is a ball signed by a bunch of the crew, which is a really nice, nice thing to have.
And yeah, there are lots of little nods to the crew around the office.
A lot of the employees of the month or the, yeah, a lot of the plaques and like is a really fun set.
Isn't that great?
Yeah.
He also went on to show us all the pictures that are, quote unquote, all of his many kids.
And they're just all of his friends, kids, people that he holds dear to his heart.
But his desk had so many toys.
It had a marble racer, had all these things.
But I loved hearing how there was a little bit of things from his life, plus things that are props, plus nods to the office.
And I also just love how They continue the tradition, like we had on the office, of having crew featured in all these little places on plaques and things.
I love that, too.
Well, now we're going back to lunch, and now it's Mare's turn to open up.
And they're going to kind of agree together that this paper sucks, but maybe they can make it better.
Maybe it can be a real paper.
Yeah.
But in order to do that, Ned is going to have to meet Esmeralda.
And he's going to have to tell her.
That he is taking her job.
Yeah, he's editor-in-chief now.
She can still run the online part.
But he's going to basically replace her.
Yeah, he's in charge of the print paper now.
And he makes this apology to her.
He's like, I'm sorry.
I hope me coming in here and changing things up won't be too disruptive.
And she says, oh, don't be so self-defecating.
Yes.
She is just clearly has him in her bullseye.
And now she is going to just start taking jabs at him in all the tiniest and big ways.
Yeah, there's going to be some future storylines that play out that are just her really like undermining him.
But she pretends like she's in his corner.
Oh, it's just lost in translation.
Maybe like I oh.
There's one coming up, actually.
Well, I also want to say I just love that she's holding her cell phone in the scene.
It's just so true to character.
This is totally a person who walks around with their cell phone in their hand all the time and she does, and I love it.
We are now going to have our first conference room scene.
Yes.
It's just between Ned and Ken, who is the guy we met at the beginning, who works for Enervate and Esmeralda.
And basically, Ned is saying, listen—
I'm going to need a few things to make the kind of newspaper I want to make.
I'm going to need a full staff, dedicated reporters on multiple beats.
And Ken is like, whoopsies, I'm going to call 911 because our budget is having a coronary.
And he says, you know what else?
I am going to cancel the wire service.
We are only going to print original articles from this point on.
Esmeralda looks right at the camera like, who the F is this a-hole?
I
Now meanwhile, during this conference room scene, we see everyone out in the bullpen getting an email on their computers.
It's from Esmeralda.
Well, she's been clicking away.
As soon as he started telling her the wire was going away and how he was going to change things.
She is busy on her phone during this meeting.
And what she's been doing is writing a letter to the staff titled, Welcome Ned Sampson.
And we're going to see people reading it.
And one by one, people kind of start like coming over and looking in the room.
Yeah.
One guy comes over to the conference room and is like, hey, I'm here for you, guy.
You know, same thing happened to me.
We're here to show you my support.
And he leaves.
And everyone's kind of like, what was that about?
And Ken goes, I didn't even think that guy worked here anymore.
Yeah.
Everyone else starts to walk up to the conference room and there are these glass windows and they're looking through it pretty harshly at Ned.
They are not happy.
Ken is oblivious, but you can tell Esmeralda is delighted.
Well, Ned is going to excuse himself and Mare is going to show him something on her phone.
It is the email.
And here's what it is.
Esmeralda has sent an email to everyone explaining that Ned... has not been me too'd.
That's not why he came here, why he had to get a new job.
It was not because he was me too'd.
Yes.
So he has this conversation with Esmeralda where he's like why would you send an email telling people that I was not something, that I was not me too'd?
Her explanation is so funny.
She thinks so manipulative.
It's amazing.
I think we should hear it.
Hey, can we talk?
Of course.
No.
No.
Her.
Did you send an email to everyone here saying that I was not me too'd?
Yes, because I didn't want you to start off on the wrong foot.
But I wasn't.
Yes, in fact, that's why I said he was not me too'd.
I don't think.
I was not.
I've never been me too'd.
I've also never embezzled or slapped a waitress.
Oh, well, should I tell them?
No, that's what I'm saying.
You don't have to knot a thing that isn't.
You are preaching to the choir.
These are simple people.
To them, a man leaves his job, moves to a new town.
They think, I wonder what was his evil crime.
Did he do it to a person?
An animal?
I hope he doesn't do it to me.
That's why I wrote a mass email to everyone.
So instead they would think wait a minute, hold on.
Maybe I should wait and see.
What if my gut instinct against him is not completely, completely, completely right?
Okay, this is bad, Esmeralda.
You know what?
I'm going to tell everyone that everything that I wrote in that email was completely incorrect.
Okay?
Thank you.
You're welcome.
No, wait, wait, wait.
I think that's worse.
Why?
Why?
I think it's better if it comes from me.
I agree.
Great idea.
Everybody's going to appreciate your remarks.
Cool.
No, not now.
Not now.
Everyone.
Everyone.
Everyone.
The scene is brilliant.
She is just a master class in acting.
And then her way she yells at everyone to listen up.
It's so incredible.
So good.
Poor Ned is just deer in headlights.
Yes.
Well, he is in fact going to take the floor.
He's going to stand up on one of the desks in the middle of the bullpen.
You know, this is the photo we've all been seeing.
They released a photo of this moment when they were promoting the show.
So this scene gives us this really great wide shot of the offices.
You can see Ned standing on top of the desk.
You can see the softy toilet paper side.
You can see the truth teller side.
And I have to give a shout out to the production designer, Susie Mancini, who also worked with Greg on Space Force, and Adrian Garcia, who was the set decorator.
Greg and Michael shared with us that, in the same way that Greg visited like a small paper company when he was developing the office, he and Michael visited several small newspaper offices in Ohio when they were developing the paper.
And he said that something they noticed was that these old offices they have a lot of style because this was the big, like Google type company of their era.
And the set of the paper is modeled after some of the things that they observed touring these historic newspaper offices.
They wanted to create a place that felt like it had history.
And I think you can see that.
You can see that with the big columns in the room.
And those windows to me really sell it.
The windows are sort of this half moon.
They sort of arch up high and come around.
Yes.
And there's these other big windows that are like trimmed in hardwood.
Yes.
There's also this divider that has like dark wood trim around it and all this ironwork.
It looks like it's from the 1920s.
But they did an amazing job with this set.
They really did.
And this is, I think, the first time you get to really see the scope of it.
Well, we have a few background catches during this great big wide shot.
Lady, you texted me and said, Ange, what is that at 24 minutes and four seconds?
Is it what I think it is?
Yes, it's something on Oscar's desk.
Alex mentioned it.
Yes, he referred to it.
Yes.
Here's what it is, you guys.
Check it out.
Oscar has on his desk that scarecrow doll made out of like burlap and twine that Michael Scott gave him in the Goodbye Michael episode.
Do you remember the moment?
Here, let's hear it.
Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.
Oscar, you are very smart and you have a gigantic education.
And I think of you as my scarecrow because you gave me a brain.
So that's why I made you this.
Thank you, Michael.
It's beautiful.
It looks like it was made by a two-year-old monkey on a farm.
He has the lowest opinion of me, of anybody.
No one fake laughs better than Steve Carell, by the way.
Well, this is true.
I mean, I am like laughing because it's like that laugh sounds so real, but that's all performance.
Yes.
But yeah, that's what Oscar has on his desk.
Oscar brought that all the way from Scranton and then he put it on his desk.
Maybe he liked Michael after all.
Well, lady...
I know you have another catch because I caught it too.
This is just what we're going to call fantastic shoe catch.
And Adelola has on some sparkly, bedazzled, shimmering boots.
They're like a hot pink.
Yeah.
They're amazing.
Yeah.
Her legs are up on her desk.
I spotted them as well.
Well, now Ned is going to continue his pitch for what he wants to do at the paper.
And here's what he says.
He says, quote if you have ever wanted to be the first person to know what's going on in the place where you live, or if you want to make sure the people who are running your city are telling the truth and doing the things that they said they would do, or if you just root for the underdog and you want to give it to the loud mouths, you are more than welcome, all of you, to volunteer your time at this newspaper.
Because he says, I can't hire you.
And he spots Marv across the room and he says, Marv, is that okay?
Can people spend a little bit of their time?
Yeah.
Top boss Marv has come in.
Yeah.
And Marv says, okay.
And you can kind of see in the room, some people are feeling inspired.
Yeah.
And then he ends his speech.
He wants to address the me too thing.
The not me too email.
Correct.
He says, By the way, me didn't.
Me wouldn't.
Me believe in respect in workplace.
Me haven't.
And Mare's like shaking him off.
She's like, you're good.
You're good.
It's fine.
Esmeralda is not happy.
Yes.
She is ticked off.
She throws a fit.
And then we have this last parting shot of her.
It's downstairs in the main huge lobby of the big building by the elevator banks.
And she's in her coat leaving for the day.
And she says, in America, there is a saying about accepting things you cannot change.
Well, we do not have that saying in Italy.
I loved that quote so much.
Well, you know, one of the reasons she's pissed is because Ned kicks her out of her office.
Oh, yeah.
Was that necessary, Ned?
You couldn't have just.
This is such a big open space.
You can't find another area.
Another. nook to call your own.
You're going to kick her out of the big office.
She has so much stuff in there.
It's going to take her a long time to move.
Well, we're going to see in the next episode.
She's trying to move her stuff into a smaller space and it's not going well.
It's not fitting.
Well, Ned is sitting, he's on his laptop and he is watching this black and white documentary.
Back in 1971.
And this is when we have our cameo alert.
We're talking to the newspaper man played by Tracy Letts again.
He's giving a tour of the printing press.
And we see Michael Komen, who is playing sort of a newspaper printer man.
Yeah.
And they're clearly having this great conversation.
I was happy for Michael.
Me too.
Made me so happy.
I mean, listen, I would definitely want to write myself into a scene with Tracy Letts.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah.
Mare is going to now knock on the door.
She's heading home for the night.
She sees what he's watching.
And she's like, you know what?
I have something to show you that's pretty cool.
They head down to the basement way in the bottom of the building.
And Ned's trying to guess where they're going.
And then she opens the door.
And in front of them, and it's so huge, is an old printing press.
Yeah, she says, this is the original printing press, the thing you're seeing in this documentary.
Yeah.
So Greg told me they filmed this scene at the Santa Anita racetrack.
They have a printing room at the Santa Anita racetrack.
And he said the bigger working machines that you see in the black and white documentary were actually filmed at a place called Southwest Offset Printing in Gardenia, California.
But this whole thing was inspired by Greg and Michael touring the small newspaper offices.
He said they went into the basement of one of the buildings and saw these newspaper presses that were left over from when you actually printed newspapers that way.
Michael said that they learned that back in the olden days, when they built these buildings and these presses, that you actually had to embed the press into the foundation of the building and then build the building around it.
He said this was because when they were operational they caused so much friction that they would have like shook everything in the building.
So that's why they had to be like literally embedded in the ground.
They are so big.
I wanted to do a deep dive but it would have been a whole episode on the origins of the printing press.
The Library of Congress website has really some great information, but they have old pictures and drawings and schematics of these printing presses.
Some of them themselves were multiple stories.
Oh, Greg says. that the one they saw was like three stories deep.
He said it was like he'd gone into like the bowels of a Navy ship and there's all these metal ladders that were going to the different levels.
Yes.
He said they loved it so much they had to incorporate it into the show.
I was so glad they did.
And I love when Ned says, what happens if I press this button?
It's a big red button.
And Mare's like, I wouldn't do that.
And he presses it and nothing happens because this printing press is old and no longer works.
And then we cut to the documentary footage and the character John Stack is talking about what that red button does, and I think we should hear it.
So that button down at the end of the machine, that's, well, it's a magic button.
We push that button and the machine starts to rumble to life.
And all of those people, the 900 people in this building, All of the information they've gathered, the stories they've found, all of that gets fed into the machine along with the paper, and this goodnight process happens.
It is a kind of alchemy, and what comes out this end is the truth.
It's a truth teller.
That's what we do.
And I don't mean to be blasphemous, but I worship at the altar of this machine.
Yeah.
And that's how this episode ends.
It's really touching.
It really is.
We go to credits and at the end there is a tag.
Well, we love our tag.
We love our tags.
Oscar is standing at the copy machine.
The camera crew finds him and he's like not having it.
He's like, you know what?
I'm going to make this footage unusable.
And he just begins to say the most off-colored things and they're having to bleep him like crazy.
They're not doing a good job of bleeping him.
You understand everything he's saying, by the way.
They did not have the same standards and practices we had.
No.
And that is ultimately how the pilot ends.
I have to say a big thank you to Greg and Michael and the cast and crew of The Paper and the folks at Peacock for letting us visit and for talking to us about this great new show in the universe of The Office.
Yes.
We just loved it so much.
I am in.
I can't wait to see what happens.
Well done.
Yay.
Applause to everyone.
And also a big thank you to Bobby Ray Schaefer, Oscar Nunez and Stephen Socks for sending us those awesome audio clips.
Oh, and we want to give a shout out to Stephen and Lori's podcast.
If We Knew, Then which is the number one Down syndrome advocacy podcast.
Yes, it's great.
They have created a beautiful community for parents of children with Down syndrome.
We'll share a link to it in our stories.
Thanks so much for listening and we hope you have a good one.
Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.
Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.
Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins.
Our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubbico.
Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.
Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.
Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.
