The biggest laugh is in the Producer's Cut, involving Creed. Hilarious.

Does all that producers cut stuff make it onto the dvds? I haven't bought any yet, but I would assume so.

Didn't he also end it with "it's your funeral"?

Ryan's "Why don't you ask me 10 years ago?" - I know I've worked with that kinda guy. That's the purpose he serves, to be that guy.

I thought the Karen/Jim convo came too quick. Jim & Pam pulled a prank and, unless I missed it, they didn't really have a "moment". Y'know, where their hands touched or an awkward glance that Karen should have reacted in that way to. Sure, they were comfortable with each other, buth they've known each other for years. I thought they acted like 2 old friends who were having a good time with their prank. No big deal.

Of course he went to Cornell. He was a member of Here Comes Treble.

When Jim passed Pam the cell phone, they were walking past Karen and she definitely noticed. The impression I got though was that she didn't know about the cell phone prank and just saw them touching hands on the sly and mistook that for something else.

I just watched the entire producer's cut and I wish NBC would have aired it in it's entirety last night. Bump 30 Rock off and have super-sized episodes of MNIE, The Office and Scrubs! :)

Yes, that is very true as well. He got sloshed, slept there and made sure Jim was drunk as heck too. I think that may have just been his answer to the mundane task of inventory though, get trashed while Karen does the actual work. I could completely see some type of tradition like that starting w/ their old boss Josh.

I would assume so, as well.

Ryan pisses me off because he apparently thinks having a Treo (where he has his excuses to get out of the Benihana trip) or going to b-school (numerous references) is going to further him in his career more than selling paper, which he utterly sucks at (from what we've seen).

Yes, in the form of deleted scenes. It would be nice to either have them integrated back into the episodes, or have an original/extended edition option for each ep.

too much shilling for Staples. first the shredder (and ad for Staples) and now having Dwight work at Staples. I realize they're in a paper company and all that but it almost seems as if Staples has a hand in this. thoughts?

The problem with that is that 30 Rock is at this point either the funniest or second funniest of the shows. I couldn't support this at all. Now, if you wanted to air the 4 shows during the whole 3 hour prime time block with some extra content added in to make it work out, I can go for it.

On iTunes, all of the extended cut versions are available for purchase.

I thought this episode was hilarious. My favorite scene was probably Andy's snap and subsequent "That was an overreaction" comment. Everyone's reactions were hysterical. It reminded me of his other snap which we witnessed while he and Jim were still in Stamford and Andy's calculator ended up in jello.

I'm just hoping they have a play all button for the extras this year.

haha...mine too. "uh...that was an overreaction." haha

Didn't bother me. Perhaps I've just gotten used to such product/company insertions in tv/movies. But did you find the Staples usage more overt than such others as Chili's, Benihana, Hooters, the video iPod, the Seabring, et cetera? Heck, you could even include having Creed Bratton sing one of his own songs on karaoke durring the Christmas show this year.

Plus in the ep last night having Dwigt end up at Staples after the montage of him going out on interviews was pretty funny.

Possibly, but we already have the characters of Michael and Dwight to create that dynamic. Andy is just plain overkill.

^ Don't forget getting the Hammermill deal. That was pretty blatant as well.

Andy turns the Michael/Dwight dynamic on its head, allowing Michael to be the guy recoiling in horror at how little self awareness somebody has and allowing Dwight to seem to Jim like a half-decent guy. Changing things up like this is how you keep a show from going stale. They can't go to Chili's 5 times a season.

I didn't have a problem with any of the other companies being used. the Staples thing felt forced (do you remember Kevin showing off the features of the shredder?). I also don't remember seeing Hooters, Apple, Chrysler ads during the episode (I could be wrong). The Staples one felt forced and corporate driven/product placement-y whereas the other references didn't give me that impression.

There was also the promotion of TAR, though that gets into an interesting question. I'm sure that one probably wasn't paid for, but it certainly has the same effect as product placement. Should it be considered a different thing?

I like Andy because of the reactions you get from everyone else. Some added a picture of Jenna Fisher at the Golden Globes heres a better picture

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3.../MeArrival.jpg http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...ant/BFFweb.jpg

I don't get the problem with the Staples thing. Would you rather them use a fake company? If not, then Staples, Office Depot, or OfficeMax are the obvious companies they would use. Or he could go to work for Kohl's or Autozone, since his experience is in selling paper and those would make a lot of sense.

Besides, if product placement helps pay for the cost of the show and keeps it on the air longer, more power to them.

BTW, TAR is not on NBC, so I don't see them going out of their way to promote that show.

Staples made sense, because paper is what Dwight knows. I think Staples or Officemax really needs to sort of be a presence in the show because these companies have rendered operations like Dunder Mifflin totally moot.

I also think Dwight working on the Staples floor reinforces the notion of characters like Jan and Michael and Dwight being total misfits who are weirdly good at what they do in at this loser company but don't fit in anywhere else.

As for the "product placements" regarding the restaurants, I expect that's really less imposed by the marketing than coming out of the writers' New York antipathy towards chain restaurants and the people who eat at them. I'm sure somebody has to get permission to depict the restaurants, and I'm sure someone calls Chili's and says "Yeah, Steve Carrell goes to Chili's and he really loves it," but the origin of that is someone in the writer's room who would never, ever eat there saying "Michael Scott is the sort of douchebag who loves to go to Chili's."

a show that's this popular shouldn't need to rely on product placement to remain on the air (but that's beside the point).


My point about the Staples thing goes mostly back to the shredder. Kevin gives a demo of it (albeit with a joke when he accidentially shreds his credit card) and then they advertise the very same shredder during the commercial break. I don't care about product placement or using brand names or whatever if it's for the story, but the Staples (again, the shredder usage is what I have more of a problem with) seemed too much. Is this clearer?

I'm 99% sure they showed Chili's ads during those episodes. And The Office debuted on iTunes the day after the iPod episode ended. This is not unprecedented.

As others have said, I'd rather they use a real company, and they didn't focus too much on Staples: The Company. It was about Dwight being Dwight in a new place that just happened to be Staples. They even treated it like it was a step down for him, so I'm not really sure what your problem is with it.

Great show but damn that Andy is annoying. Does anyone know or ever encounter someone like that in real life? I think if I had to work with someone like that, one of us would be dead in a few hours. I hope Andy goes

Great to see Oscar back, at least we was able to finally laugh at the gaycation

No Toby is always a plus

That Temp is becoming a bit of a bitch too. No fun and just as boring as Toby. Is he still with that Kelly girl still? I thought he hated bieng with her, havent they addressed that?

Jim is an idiot, hes leaving the steak cause his feelings are too strong for the spam... So foolish.

Oh well, Producers, my wish is to keep Karen around till shows end and have the first office death, kill off Andy. I dont care if he chokes on a paperclip, just do it

:D

If they've done it with other companies and their products then I don't really care. I thought it was just Staples and the shredder. The use of Staples last night was fine and worked well.....I was just still think about the shredder and thought that the Staples CEO was dating an NBC exec. or something like that.


I HAVE NO PROBLEM :)

Andy is an office culture monster. He's read too many self-help books about how to advance in business and he is putting the advice to work badly. He is transparently fake and attempting to be friendly, and behaving in a way that no sane human being would behave, to the extent that even Michael, who is extraordinarily self-absorbed and lacking in the ability to read social cues, is on to him. Michael criticizing somebody else's lack of self-awareness was very funny to me.

Andy's ringtone of himself singing all the parts of the a capella was god-damn hysterical.

I like that Ryan's sort of beta male personality leads him to get pushed into things he hates, like the job and the relationship, and then he whines about it. I think he is a good foil to the overbearing characters in the office.

And I think Toby is very funny. I think it is very funny that Michael hates him for no reason, and I think that the actor does a great job in that you can see he takes it very personally, but he never says anything about it. The bit with them taking the bathrobe away from him on Christmas was very funny.

Would you like it better if they used a make-believe company? The Office is supposed to be at least grounded in reality so it would take some of that away if Dwight went to work at Stumples or something like that. I always get taken out of it a little bit when I see a "Cola" can in a scene or when they talk about a non-existant casino on CSI. Of course that makes sense because no real casino would want their name mentioned as a scene of a murder even if it is just tv. In any event I don't get what the big deal is with product placement. What if Michael bought a "Z-pod" for Christmas last year and everybody went ape over it? There's no such thing as a Z-pod. Or instead of going to Hooters they went to a place called Booters or something like that? If they can get away with it by all means use the real companies in my opinion.

Oh yea all that stuff is great and the reason I dont hate this show is because everyone seems real. Ive seen and interacted with people like that and I hate to because theyre a drag, I try to stay away from drags like that in the real word (but its near imposible to online :lol: )

But Andy ive never encountered, thank god

Oh and I LOVED Michaels speech where he mentioned Marv Albert, as an avid detester(is that a word?) of Marv, I couldnt stop laughing on that part.

What is your deal with the shredder? If you don't like commercials (like most of us) don't watch the real shredder commercial when it comes on when The Office goes to a commercial break. The point of the shredder gag and Kevin was not to sell shredders. It was just supposed to be Kevin doing something stupid and funny. Don't look so deep into some things.

Nah, Toby is great. And he delivered one of the funniest lines of the season: "Why?"

And he actually was in this episode. He could be glimpsed during the party scenes.

I miss Creed.

Toby is best in small doses doing exactly what he has done so far. It's good to have characters like that.

Creed could also be glimpsed in the episode, but had no lines in the broadcast version.

Hie thee to the NBC website and watch the extended edition. His two cut scenes are gold.

Creed has a couple hilarious lines in the Producer's cut. "Draw me a map, momma" and "You're not real, man!" were both great.