The end of Michael Scott??

It's Prison Mike!
Nooooooooooooo!!!! Oh well, all good things must come to an end, I suppose (he said, bitterly). It is being reported that Steve Carell has officially stated the next season of The Office will be his last. I have some mixed feelings about this. For one thing, at some point for me, the show clearly jumped the shark. I've not dwelled on it enough to pinpoint precisely when. Maybe it was when Pam stopped being the receptionist and became a salesperson. It may have been near the beginning of this season on the third episode, "The Promotion", when Michael Scott (Carell's wonderful character) and Jim became co-bosses at Dunder Mifflin.


Michael Klump
Certainly when Dunder Mifflin became Dunder Mifflin Sabre, it was clear something had been lost. That delicate mix, the precarious balance which had up until then made the show so special had been overly tinkered with. Perhaps the writers were trying too hard, running out of ideas, and all they could think to do was to put the Fonz on that motorcycle.


Date Mike
My absolute fanaticism for the show seemed to change a bit during last season, so maybe it was then. Also, I felt quite a disturbance in the Force when I began to see it being repeated on TBS. It somehow started to seem less special, more mundane. It had been something I felt ownership of, and it was now being shared with "the masses" (on TBS). With Carell leaving (sob, sniff, sniff), as one commenter at A.V. Club says:

"if he goes, i go.

no interest in the jim/pam baby show."

Amen to that, brother. If Carell leaves, it's pretty much over for me. But there are the season DVDs (all of which I own), there's Hulu, as well as the aforementioned TBS repeats, so the show will never die. Still...I can't help but feel a little bit sad at the potential (there's a theory Carell is angling for a Seinfeld-like salary increase) loss, that it may all be coming to an end. It's been a great ride, lots of laughs (many times to the point of tears and not being able to breathe), and many, many hours of enjoyment.....That's what she said:

Where Creed got the acting bug?

No offense, but the only reason I really have to care that the television writers' strike may be close to an ending is there will be new episodes (hopefully) of The Office. One of the great things about The Office is the "character" named Creed Bratton. Creed Bratton is of course portrayed by Creed Bratton.

Anyone who has watched the show for a while knows Creed was a member of the rock band The Grass Roots (from 1966 to 1969). But how many know The Grass Roots showed up in the last movie (after a twenty year film career) made by Doris Day? Hmmm?

With Six You Get Eggroll was released in that culturally confused year of 1968. Cocktail culture was getting its behind kicked by counterculture. The death of cocktail culture, and the moving of the national zeitgeist towards the tastes and sensibilities of the counterculture, was one reason why With Six You Get Eggroll was Doris Day's last film.

I think Day must have sensed the cultural plates shifting beneath her feet. For example, she and her manager/husband Marty Melcher turned down the part of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967) because they thought it was, heh, "vulgar." Oh the times, they had a-changed.

During this scene from With Six You Get Eggroll, set in a nightclub, Creed and The Grass Roots perform "Feelings," which is sort of like a poor man's "Under My Thumb." I don't know a whole lot about The Grass Roots, like how accomplished they were as musicians, for example. And I realize they were lip syncing, but it sure looks like they either aren't trying very hard to play along with the track, or they don't know how to play their parts. Perhaps studio musicians recorded the tracks for them, a la The Monkees(?). Again, I really don't know. Though as a guitar player, I can't help but notice such things.

After listening to "Feelings" several times during the creation of this post, I must admit--it's pretty catchy. I just wish I could tell who's playing that riff! There were bus tours people could take through Haight-Ashbury back during the '60s so as to gawk at all the hippies. That's sort of what the main cast (Doris Day included) does in this nightclub scene:

"That's what she said."

Here is a compilation someone put together of "That's what she said" moments from The Office. Being an Office junkie, I hear opportunities all day long to say this.



Oddly enough, my favorite one (from "Sexual Harassment") was left out. It's when Pam says: "My mom is coming" to Michael on the day her mother visits. I laugh at that one every time.

Summertime in Scranton

The one hour (each of the first four episodes will be an hour long) season premiere of The Office is September 27th. This is what summer was like for the employees of Dunder-Mifflin:

Michael Scott says he saw Ratatouille and walked out. I wonder if he saw Evan Almighty?

Dwight attempting to prove to Michael his worthiness to become regional manager of the Scranton branch in "Beach Games."

On a related note, here's Rainn Wilson's opening monologue on Saturday Night Live. This was nicely done and occasionally surreal:

Get Smart trailer

There's a trailer for the Get Smart movie coming out in 2008 with agent Michael Scarn (Steve Carell) in the Don Adams role. I love Steve Carell, and because he's in it, it might be amusing. But then again, there's Evan Almighty, so, perhaps not. It couldn't be any worse than Steve Martin's The Pink Panther remake. Or could it?

Threat Level Midnight (2007)
It sounds like the makers of the film wisely reprised the great Irving Szathmary theme from the 1965 TV series. I guess that was a no brainer. And with so many of these old TV show movie remakes, the old theme songs are frequently the best part. Here it is accompanying the classic opening credits sequence:

Creed Thoughts

First there was "the Beaver letter." Now Shorpy has revealed the contents of the document Jim is highlighting during the opening credits of "The Office" (click on pic):
You might think it would have something to do with the Dunder Mifflin paper company's Scranton branch, but actually it's a Los Angeles Department of City Planning (zoning) document showing revisions to the L.A. Municipal Code. Specifically, Section 12.22.C.20(f).

After seeing "the Beaver letter," I intended to do a similar thing by getting a screencap of whatever insane things Creed writes at his "blog," "Creed Thoughts" (www.creedthoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts). Shorpy has already done that, as well (I was the "Anonymous Tipster" who asked Dave about it in the comments, and he came through!):

One reason to turn on the TV in 2007

The Office cast at the 2006(?) Golden Globes
NBC is renewing The Office for a fourth season. This will inevitably be the season where it jumps the shark (if it hasn't already), but the thirty(!) new episodes should really allow for character development, since the basic BBC story line is long played out. Whatever. I love it! Huzzah!!

And, oh yeah, they are also doing a new Bionic Woman, because you know how the world has been clamoring for just such a thing.

Michelle Ryan IS the new Jamie Sommers

Crazy Creed

Creed Bratton is a taciturn but creepy Quality Assurance representative at the Scranton branch of fictitious paper distributor Dunder-Mifflin. As the result of his drug use during his career as a rock musician in the 1960s, Creed has a phenomenally poor memory; he hardly remembers the names of his own co-workers. Little is known about Creed's life outside the office. The scattered details which emerge are invariably bizarre. (From Wikipedia)

Creed Bratton
Kooky Creed facts:

lives in Toronto, spending three nights a week there in order to milk the welfare state

a product of the 60s, Creed is older than all of the other employees at the office

originally hired by Dunder-Mifflin in the late 1980s, when Ed Truck was still regional manager

spent time in an iron lung as a teenager

a member of the rock band The Grass Roots, and once toured with Cream, The Doors, and Janis Joplin

following his rock career, he had his own radio show in the 1970s as "DJ Wacky Weed Creed"

has concentration problems due to his drug use during his rock career and is unfamiliar with many of his co-workers, regularly forgetting their names and personality traits

karaoked to himself in the episode "A Benihana Christmas," performing his "Spinnin' N Reelin'" (from his album The 80's)

may have spent considerable time in jail as well as being homeless at some point (when he is having his photo ID taken, Creed turns to his side, as though he was having his mug shot taken)

episode "Casino Night" provides the first glimpse into Creed's passion for stealing

admitted in a talking head interview, "I love stealing things"

Creed
The Grass Roots 1967 song "Let's Live For Today" (#8 in the U.S.); note how the audience laughs when Jimmy Durante says the name of the band. I find that odd.

Prison Mike!

Steve Carell and the writers of The Office (Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant) are geniuses. Take for example this scene from the current season's episode, "The Convict." "Prison Mike" speaks with something vaguely like a clichéd Bowery Boys/Bronx accent, uses 1930s gangster slang such as "clink" mixed in with current hip-hopisms ("beyotch"), could possibly have brain damage and something wrong with his right eye, and he wears a blue doo-rag (ooooh, is he a Crip??). This is a brilliant "character," and I hope they find an excuse to bring him back in another episode for any reason whatsoever:


Prison Mike scaring them straight

Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica

Clip from next week's episode of The Office, called "Product Recall," in which Jim impersonates Dwight:

Mmmm, smoked turkey

Deer hunting with shovels

I'm a far bigger fan of the British version of The Office than I am of the American. The fact it takes place in the U.K., alone gives it an edge up. It's very Britishness I find to be appealing. The American version, while very good, will never be anything more than a pale, yet earnest, imitation.

By far the best thing about the American version is Steve Carell. The storyline requires that the office manager be an imcompetent, deluded fool, and while Carrell could never top Ricky Gervais' take on that sort of character, he is nonetheless perfect in the part.

In this deleted scene from "Halloween" (season 2, episode 5), it seems Carrell's Michael Scott has been on a hunting trip, and he learned that "it's hard to hit another living thing in the face with a shovel for about an hour." I did not know that.

Bedazzled! has the hilarious set of outtakes from season 2 of the British version.

"A veritable clearinghouse of pop culture esoterica"

You know this series of exchanges from The Office (season two, episode 1 of the BBC version)?:This post is my version of that. I'm the blog of the month in the back to school double issue of Buzz Texas magazine.

That's me(!), on the cover!! No, not really.
If you enlarge the following scan, you'll see that I "spread the wealth." Let me know how it feels to be pulled along on my coattails (wink, wink).
Since that's kind of hard to read, here's the online version. And, I promise to never forget where I came from. All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up, and then I vant to be alone.

Thanks, Kendal!