Alex Carson
Fans of The Office now have something to look forward to. If you love Jim and Pam as much as we do and secretly have always wanted to land a job at Dunder Mifflin, then you’ll love to hear what NBCUniversal has planned for the near future. But to get that tasty bit of intel, you’re going to have to stick around till the end of this video.
But before you just start skipping straight to the end, you’re really going to want to stick around to see all 8 surprising facts you never knew about the mockumentary that we couldn’t stop watching and never wanted to see come to its inevitable end.
And to many devoted fans, The Office never really ended. Even though the show wrapped up in 2013, it has been one of the most rewatched shows in history. Streaming platforms like Netflix have consistently seen record-high viewership for the series – and for very good reason! The show not only experienced high Nielson ratings throughout it’s run but it also garnered major critical acclaim racking up awards and nominations from The Emmy’s and The Golden Globes that numbered 48 and 186 respectively.
Not to mention, few shows have ever achieved quite the same level of fandom as The Office. So when the show finished up its 9th and final season, many lovers of the show have questioned whether there would ever be a reprisal, reboot, or reunion of the show.
One could only hope…until recently that is.
Facts Verse Presents: The Office Reunion is Finally Happening
Before we dig down deep and uncover some secrets that even Dwight couldn’t hide on his beet farm, make sure you tap that like button and subscribe to our channel. Turning on notifications is as easy as tapping the bell icon.
The Office’s theme song was voted upon by the show’s cast
Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet did an interview back in 2018 with IndieWire are they reveal that the cast all got to vote on the final version of the theme music. There are several versions line up by other artists and they consider other popular songs before they make their final decision.
The catchy little tune compose by James Furgurson – a composer who is famous for scoring movies like The Terminator, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and This Is 40. He also worked on TV shows like NCIS: Los Angeles, Tales From The Crypt, and Melrose Place.
The iconic theme music record only 1 week before the show first air and performed by The Scrantones.
The music that probably is forever stuck in your head almost never happened. The creators of the show were initially leaning towards Mr. Blue Sky by synth-pop band Electric Light Orchestra before changing directions at the last minute when the whole crew wasn’t on board with the song selection.
Jim and Pam’s proposal scene was super pricey
There was so much build-up before Jim finally popped that question to Pam that fans had been pining to hear for so long. There were even a couple of fake-outs before he finally uttered the words in such an unexpected and impromptu manner.
If you remember that moment, the scene didn’t seem like it should have been that expensive. Jim gets down on one knee in the pouring rain at a rest stop somewhere between Scranton and New York where Pam was attending art school.
So initially, the production team flew the whole cast and crew out to the real rest stop on Merritt Parkway but they ran into a bit of a snag when they realized they couldn’t use fake rain.
Instead of waiting around for a rainy day, they decided to fly back to LA and build a replica facsimile of the rest stop instead in a parking lot behind a Best Buy of all things.
The cost to recreate the location racked up a bill north of $250,000.
With a proposal like that, how much do you reckon there wedding cost?
Jim wore a wig during season 3
Well, at least the actor who played him on TV did.
John Krasinki had cut his hair super short for the film Leatherheads, a George Clooney flick about pro football players in 1925 where he played a young hotshot college prodigy that ends up saving the league from tanking.
That explains why Jim suddenly has a new haircut before his job interview in New York at the end of the season.
Seth Rogan auditioned for the show
It’s a stretch of the imagination to picture anyone else playing Dwight Schrute other than Rainn Wilson. But Seth Rogan almost got the job. Additionally, Adam Scott and John Cho both auditioned for the part of Jim and Kathryn Hahn tried out for Pam.
It’s also hard to picture Steve Carrell not being a part of the show but Bob Odenkirk aka Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad auditioned to be Michael Scott.
Speaking of Dwight, did you know that he almost landed his own spin-off show called The Farm taking place on this rural Pennsylvania beat farm. A backdoor pilot film and aired as the 17th episode of the ninth season when the network didn’t decide to pick the show up.
The Cast all learning CPR helped save a Life
Remember that “Stress Relief” episode in the fifth scene with the CPR scene? Dwight feigns an emergency by faking an office fire and Stanley has a heart attack? Later on, when everyone is busy trying to learn CPR, Dwight very dramatically slices the dummy’s face off.
That episode actually had some pretty sound advice for the viewing audience as well as the show’s crew. When the Instructor is teaching everyone about how they need to maintain chest compressions at the rate of 100 beats per minute, they note that you can keep up with this pace by following the tune of the Bee Gee’s classic disco masterpiece Stayin’ Alive.
In 2019, a young man by the name of Cross Scott pulled over on the side of the highway to provide assistance to someone who had their hazard lights on. When he took a peek in her vehicle however he realized the woman was unconscious.
He had never given CPR in his life and felt totally unprepared to help but he remembered that scene from The Office. So he started doing chest compressions to the tune of Stayin’ Alive and lo and behold, he was actually able to save her.
The Office Computers weren’t just props
It’s pretty obvious from watching the show that the computers all turn on, but they connect to the internet. The cast and crew certainly took advantage of that fact in-between takes and on their breaks. Makes you wonder how many games of Minesweeper were played on those things?
The Dinner Party episode never had to be rewritten
In fact, it was the only episode in the series that didn’t require major overhaul and revisions. The episode is no doubt one of the funniest and hardest to watch episodes in the show’s 9 seasons. It’s kind of like a train wreck happening in slow motion. It’s the episode where we as the viewers finally get a chance to see how messed up Michael and Jan’s domestic life really is.
The only thing omitted from the first draft was that Jan was going to kill the neighbor’s dog on purpose but the writers all agreed that would be taking things a bit too far.
Still, when the script was delivered to the network executives, their only feedback was that the episode was really dark…
And absolutely it was. But it gave us some seriously painful yet funny moments. Remember Michael’s brand new plasma TV?
Phyllis Smith was an NFL cheerleader in the 70s
On The Office, she played Phyllis Vance but back in the day she was absolutely smokin’ hot. She grew up in St. Louis and back in the day she was a cheerleader for the Cardinals before they moved the franchise to Arizona.
There’s a photo going around the internet that is claimed to be of her but in a 2012 interview with Yahoo, she dispels the rumor, despite the fact that she did indeed cheerlead for the team.
She landed that slick gig because of her father who had season tickets who got her in touch with a talent scout, who was simultaneously recruiting for the Municipal Opera of St. Louis as well as for the Cardinals.
Phyllis had her sights on the opera but the scout thought that she should try out for the cheerleading squad instead. To her surprise, she scored the job! She expressed in that same interview how she really loved the gig since it blended some of her favorite hobbies; football, dancing, and looking at cute guys from across the field.
The Office Reunion – Coming Soon
Unfortunately, The Office will be leaving Netflix at the end of 2020 despite being one of the most viewed shows on the platform, even overtaking Friends.
NBC secured the exclusive rights to the show to give a boost to their streaming service Peacock where it will be exclusively available to watch, starting in 2021.
It’s no secret that there are tons of streaming services available these days competing for viewer subscriptions, so it makes sense that they would want the popular show to add some value to their platform, which is currently suffering from a lack of content.
When HBO secured the exclusive rights to Friends, they announced that there would be a reunion show to capitalize on the acquisition and to give viewers what they really want – that is, exclusive content.
The Office Gang
Following the pattern set by HBO, it’s being reported that NBCUniversal has plans in the works to finally bring The Office gang back together for a long-overdue reunion sometime next year. There are even rumors circling that there may be some kind of reboot or spin-off series in the works. Time will tell if any of that actually pans-out, but for fans of the series, even a glimmer of hope that The Office might be coming back is enough to create massive buzz all throughout the echo-chamber that is the internet.
Steve Carell has expressed some apprehension of whether a reunion of The Office would actually be a good idea but it’s very well possible that he could be persuaded to reconsider his position if NBC were to make the right kind of offer.
Well, that’s it for our big reveal. Hopefully, The Office reunion isn’t just a pipe dream. Fans like us are eagerly awaiting to see our good old Dunder Mifflin friends back on screen again. We really actually miss Scranton.
Now we’d love to hear from you – our beloved viewers – do you think a reunion is really going to happen or do you think it’s all a bunch of empty promises and wishful thinking? Let us know what you think in the comments section and if the reunion actually does materialize, what do you think it should consist of? After all, some reunion shows have been historically pretty terrible. Remember the Brady Bunch Reunions or the Star Wars Christmas Special? oof…..
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See you next time
