Steve Carell Says Paul Rudd Warned Him ‘Don’t Audition’ for ‘The Office’ and ‘Our Pilot Was the Lowest-Testing Pilot in the History of NBC’

“Show me N*** Tayne.”

You hardly ever get to see Jawas in the n***.

There's no universe where this tested lower than *The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer*.

Lower than Daddy's Boy?

TIL that was a real pilot and not that one episode of AD

Yeah definitely the best! But after watching Bob Odenkirk in that one episode, I could see him pulling it off.

Paul Giamatti I could see as more as a spiritual companion to the David Brent type. Not so much what it morphed into. I think Alan Tudyk would've been amazing but I'm more than a little biased for him.

I mean there was a whole other version of the show with a different actor playing that role 

Bob Odenkirk

They tried to redo the British version of the office, making Carell a copy of Gervais’ character. *The 40 Year Old Virgin* happened after season 1, and they changed Micheal’s character to be a lovable goofball to mirror Carell’s movie character.

Nah dude, when it only has 6 episodes, every episode matters for the season rating, and you can’t tell me the basketball episode, the racial awareness one, and the health care one weren’t bangers.

I think episode 1 was a little trash, but by episode 2, they had found their footing.

That's kinda Mike Schur's style. He makes great shows, but it usually takes him a while to figure it out.

this is my unpopular opinion but i thought it was good. same with always sunny season 1. both create that pained, hurts to watch awkwardness. they later do a more routine sitcom style which while still good, loses that cringe effect

Season one is genuinely amazing. Diversity day is a top five and health care is at least a top ten.

That’s how it usually is with sitcoms. It’s not until season 2 or 3 that a series really hits it’s stride. 

It tries to be the OG office while it grew into itself. Yea it’s a little raw, but I still love it. It’s interesting that many of the characters were re-tuned after s1. Kevin especially.

Why does everyone say this? It was peak awkward humour. Seasons 8/9 are more than a little trash

I’m a midwestern old millennial and my friends and I watched it in college.

Elderly millennial.  I liked British shows and believe I downloaded it from somewhere.  Canadian though. 

I lived in a house I shared with several roommates around 2002, and they had BBC America on cable. I had read about The Office, so when I was flipping channels late at night and saw it on, I lingered. Got hooked immediately. It soon became a touchpoint for making new friends. Within a few years, it became a bragging right to say you owned it on DVD. I actually ignored the American version for the first few seasons.

In their defense, The Office didn't have great success on broadcast. It was getting beat out by Two and a Half Men and King of Queens, and even on NBC Scrubs had peaked as a much higher ratings machine. Friends and Frasier both ended IIRC in 2004, which was the last of NBC's big shows before broadcast ratings just never came back. NBC was thinking of killing comedy production, but then their slate of late-2000s shows went to the original iteration of Netflix and they all became culturally iconic. But back in 2004/2005, an NBC sitcom was where your career went to die.

You should really watch Foxcatcher (2014) and The Patient (2022). Those alone show his talent.

He played a very different character in "The Way Way Back" and many other movies.

Hmmm. I’d say Friends is a better match. Part of the Office’s appeal was that you could kind of envision yourself as someone in that show, or relate to people on it as you’d be in a similar occupational situation. I don’t think anybody felt that they were in a Seinfeld situation. They were clearly older and just too weird for most Gen X’ers. Friends was more relatable. It was like the TV show version of the movie Singles.