* ActorSharedBackground: Like Ricky Gervais, David Brent is [[Music/SeonaDancing a failed rock star]].
* BreakthroughHit: Creator/RickyGervais and Creator/StephenMerchant became HouseholdNames, and left their day jobs to make TV shows, movies and more.
* TheCastShowoff: Ladies and gentlemen, the blues-rock stylings of Creator/RickyGervais.
* {{Corpsing}}: The actress who plays Rachel loses it and starts laughing while Brent is doing his terrible dance.
* TheDanza: Many of the background characters in the office have the same first name as the actors who play them: Ben (played by Ben Bradshaw), Emma (Emma Manton), Jamie (Jamie Deeks), Philip (Philip Pickard).
* DisabledCharacterDisabledActor: The wheelchair-bound Brenda was played by Julie Fernandez, who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta.
* HumbleBeginnings: The series started as a small, home-made video by Creator/StephenMerchant when he was trying to get a job at Creator/TheBBC. He came up with the idea for making a documentary style format as it would be easier for him to film. He and Creator/RickyGervais came up with the idea for the series and used a local university to film it. Upon seeing the short video the BBC requested that they make a series out of it. Many of the jokes from this original film are recycled during the proper series for example, David Brent's opening speech about making employees' dreams come true.
* OneTakeWonder: Creator/RickyGervais hoped that the scene where [[spoiler:Brent is made redundant]] only required one take, as it was so draining.
* RealLifeRelative: The cleaner who always stands motionless and looks directly at the camera is Creator/StephenMerchant's father Ron Merchant.
* RealSongThemeTune: "Handbags and Gladrags", in a version similar to the cover by Welsh rock band Music/{{Stereophonics}}.
* ReferencedBy:
** When Creator/MartinFreeman hosted ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' in 2014, they had him do a mash-up of Tim Canterbury and [[Film/TheHobbit Bilbo Baggins]] via ''The Office: Middle Earth'', which even used the "Handbags and Gladrags" theme and a [[Creator/JRRTolkien JRR]] logo in place of the BBC logo. In this version, Gandalf (Creator/BobbyMoynihan) is David Brent and Gollum (Creator/TaranKillam) is Gareth Keenan.
** ''La Job'', the UsefulNotes/{{Quebec}} adaptation of the original, gave its version of David Brent the name David Gervais.
* StarMakingRole: Take a bow, Creator/RickyGervais. Also for Creator/MartinFreeman.
* TechnologyMarchesOn: Nowadays Brent wouldn't have to go home and get a book to prove that [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Mr Spock]] is half human, half Vulcan. Someone could just Google it on their smartphone.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: "Sitting" by Music/CatStevens was the original theme song. Another Cat Stevens song, "Tea for the Tillerman", would subsequently be used for ''Series/{{Extras}}''.
----