Characters / The Office (US): Michael Scott

Main Character Index | Main Characters (Michael Scott, Dwight Schrute) | Secondary Characters | Recurring Characters | Threat Level Midnight Characters

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Michael Gary Scott

"Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy, both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me."

Played by: Steve Carell
Seasons: 1-7, 9^note "Finale"
"Guess what, I have flaws. What are they? Oh, I don’t know. I sing in the shower. Sometimes I spend too much time volunteering. Occasionally I’ll hit somebody with my car. So sue me."^note "No, don't sue me. That's the opposite of the point that I am trying to make."

Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin, Scranton.

UK counterpart: David Brent.

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#-F

• 419 Scam: Michael has a habit of falling for these, to the point where Pam jokes he is "sponsoring twenty Nigerian princesses."
  Michael: ... when the son of the deposed king of Nigeria emails you directly, asking for help, you help! His father ran the freaking country!
• Abhorrent Admirer: He tends to barrel forward with almost any crush he has, often going straight to borderline Stalker with a Crush. Not to mention the very awkward scene where he tried to kiss Pam (because they were both lonely), making Pam cringe.
• Accidental Innuendo: In-universe. He does not stop and think that some of the well-intentioned things he's saying could be potentially offensive. Like choosing "Little Kid Lover" as a username.
• Accidental Truth: In one episode he pretends to have depression, and acts like he is going to commit suicide, while he has a hidden object that will cushion his fall, without knowing that this object is not actually going to cushion his fall, and he can really die if decides to jump, in addition to when he starts to talk. , is implied that he really has depression.
  Jim: Oh. He's going to kill himself, pretending to kill himself.
• The Ace: At sales. It's mentioned several times that his sales record at Dunder Mifflin is virtually untouchable.
• Adaptational Attractiveness:
  • David Brent won't be winning any beauty awards, whilst Michael has a more well-designed face, is taller, styled better and in much better shape. Michael also noticeably has more relationships and sexual adventures than Brent.
  • This becomes much more notable with the second season; during the first, Michael's hair is seemingly thin and slicked back and he's often seen sans suit jacket in larger shirts that make him seem quite a bit bulkier than he is. By the second season his hair is fuller, he looks healthier and even younger overall and the choice in suits fit him better and make him look slimmer. In their podcast, Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer note that this was due to Steve Carell getting in shape and hitting it big with The 40-Year-Old Virgin, a film in which Carell's co-stars ironically remark that he doesn't look forty..
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Compared to David Brent, his UK counterpart: David is a Mean Boss with a genuinely nasty and self-centered attitude, while Michael is more of a well-meaning Stupid Boss.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
  • Compared to David Brent, he generally has a much better relationship to his employees. While David Brent is just barely tolerated by the people at the office, who all harbor some level of disdain for him, the people at Dunder Mifflin genuinely do like Michael, though to varying degrees, even if they're frequently annoyed by his antics.
  • His relationship with Jan, compared to their UK counterparts David and Jennifer, is probably the biggest difference. David Brent and Jennifer has a strictly platonic relationship. Jennifer is also far more patient with the even more clueless Brent, and though they end on awkward terms, it's because Jennifer fires David, not because she went off the deep end after a period of dating.
• Aesop Amnesia: Has a mind-boggling ability to completely forget practically every lesson he ever learns almost immediately. This finally starts to turn around when Steve Carell made his decision to leave The Office.
• Ambiguously Bi: Michael has been known to be a womanizer and has had relationships with Jan and Holly, but he also seems to have a big crush on Ryan.
  Diane Kelly: Mr. Scott, who is this other woman "Ryan" who you refer to as "Just as hot as Jan, but in a different way?"
• Analogy Backfire: Oh, so prone to these, to the point that practically any analogy he makes ends up in his face. Dwight especially loves doing this to him, sometimes even when Michael's in the middle of making his arse-backwards statement.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Many episodes end with a Michael monologue in his office, where he makes an attempt to sum up what he thinks was the episode's Aesop in a philosophical way. It usually ends up in Metaphorgotten territory.
  (at the end of "Grief Counseling") There's such a thing as good grief. Just ask Charlie Brown.
• Attention Whore: Michael will even try to make someone else's wedding about him. During one wedding, he even tried to make a man in a wheelchair standing up and walking his daughter down the aisle about himself.
• Babies Ever After: Per supplemental material, he and Holly have three kids together (and are expecting their fourth!) by the series finale. When he shows up in the finale, it's mentioned that he has two cell phones because he takes so many pictures of his kids. He really just wanted to do the family plan, as before he didn't have five friends for a prior plan.
• Back for the Finale: To be the best man (or "bestest mensch") at Dwight's wedding.
• Benevolent Boss: He likes to think of himself as one of these (and, in all fairness, he does genuinely try), but he's so bad at it that he ends up being a Stupid Boss instead. Though he comes close occasionally, even having moments where he actually is helpful. (Supporting Pam after her failed art gallery show, for instance.) Also, almost every boss that replaces him when he leaves prove themselves to be incompetent, stupid, Ax-Crazy or downright evil, so at the very least he is the nicest by comparison if nothing else.
• Berserk Button:
  • Never, ever insult Michael's car. You'd instantly regret it.
  • NEVER badmouth Dunder Mifflin or criticize Michael's management style behind his back to your classmates, especially if you are an unexperienced employee who does not perform well. That's a very valuable lesson, and Ryan learned it the worst possible way.
  • If your name is Toby Flenderson, just steer clear.
  • If you're an authority figure above Michael, do not try to be more fun than him.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Overlapping with Beware the Nice Ones, Depending on the Writer and your view of him. Nevertheless, while he's usually conflict-adverse due to his childishly playful nature and desperation for people to love him, if he's backed into a corner and you've managed to get on his bad side, watch out; he can be surprisingly effective and dangerous. As an example, see his response on learning that Dwight had been trying to steal his job behind his back, which results in him launching a long-game with the end result of Dwight squirming on the floor of Michael's office tearfully begging not to be fired.
• Big Eater: Though it doesn't come up a lot, Michael has a surprisingly big appetite. Once eating an entire family size chicken pot pie for lunch, and downing a sweet pretzel covered in 18 different toppings.
• Big "NO!": When Toby returns, Michael loses his shit.
• Birds of a Feather: With Holly. Both are dorky individuals who love making jokes and doing impressions. They can also be Innocently Insensitive.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer:
  • He's the single most successful salesman in Dunder-Mifflin history, and every time we see him make a sale, he is incredibly good at pitching and selling the company's service and has a great rapport with almost all of his clients. This is why corporate had him promoted to Regional Manager, a position which he seemed to have been a perfect fit on paper, but is largely incapable of doing properly.
  • Due to (or despite) his strange and distracting managerial style, the Scranton branch goes from being the worst performing branch in the company at the beginning of the series, to the most successful branch by season 5. Even prior to the start of the series he had raised the branch's profits by 17%.
  • He is genuinely able to act as a man in his position should (as Roy's attempted attack on Jim and the watermark incident prove), it's just a matter of untangling him from his skewed beliefs enough to get him to do so.
• But Now I Must Go: He gets engaged to Holly and he moves to Boulder, Colorado to live with her.
• Camp Straight: He's very conscious about his appearance, wearing nice suits and staying in shape, which coupled with his flamboyance, his being a middle-aged bachelor and his aforementioned interest in Ryan might lead him to get pegged as gay, except he's linked with numerous women over the course of the series. Interestingly, this seems to have been a lifelong trait, since we see him in a suit with slicked-back hair in the video of him on a TV show when he was a child, and Phyllis says that in high school, the majority of his peers assumed he was gay due to his mannerisms and unusual interest in his appearance. However, in "Gay Witch Hunt" he makes the excellent point that, as an extreme Attention Whore, if he were gay he'd be very Camp Gay.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Whether it's Jim's crush on Pam, Oscar being gay, or news that the branch is closing, Michael is incapable of keeping a secret for more than ten minutes, often by dropping incredibly obvious hints within earshot of others. On the other hand, he will never mention some things that he really should have earlier because he sees them as unimportant or is trying to keep people from worrying (when regardless they should know what's going on).
  • A rare inversion occurs in "The Duel", where Michael found out about Dwight's affair with Angela, but managed to avoid telling Andy for some time. Feeling things have gone on long enough, he then takes Andy aside and privately tells him.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Well, he can tell them reasonably well in the right conditions (as seen in "The Client"), he just can't come up with good ones himself or reliably tell one when put on the spot. Even when he can tell it right, he immediately goes overboard and will try the same joke again and again long after if it was funny.
• Can't Take Criticism: A major trait of his. Since he views his employees as his family, if they push back against him, he interprets it as being rejected by his loved ones and gets a severe case of hurt feelings, even if they're just kidding around, like joking about prison being better than Dunder Mifflin in "The Convict" or the roast in "Stress Relief".
• Casanova Wannabe: His "Date Mike", persona does about as well with attracting women as David Brent. Subverted when he doesn't try as hard and actually acts like himself.
• Catchphrase: "That's What She Said!"
• Chandler's Law: He repeatedly misuses this at improv classes, on the grounds that you can't top pulling out a gun for drama.
• Character Development:
  • While he very gradually grows as a person over the course of the show, it really ramps up in season seven where he gets closure with all of his past girlfriends, finally sees Ryan and Todd Packer for what they really are, and rekindles his relationship with Holly.
  • He is a very calm and collected person at Dwight's wedding, showing how much Holly and his kids have matured him.
• Characterization Marches On: In addition to his embarrassing sense of humor and neediness, his Season 1 characterization is a lot more selfish, bitter and antagonistic, and he's genuinely unlikable at points. In later seasons, while he never quite loses the neediness or the cheesy jokes, he generally becomes a bit sweeter, nicer and more of a romantic, and the latter two points are usually explained/justified as being a result of his loneliness and desperate desire for friendship and love. While he can often still be kind of a self-centered jerk (otherwise premise of the show wouldn't work), post-Season 1 it generally tends to be presented more as the result of cluelessness, thoughtlessness or immaturity rather than outright malevolence.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Michael has some very strange thought processes. He completely lives in his own world, where things work a bit differently than they do in real life. It's what makes his attempts at being a Benevolent Boss backfire most of the time.
• Comically Missing the Point: Often, for example when Oscar is outed as gay and Michael wonders if Gil, Oscar's "roommate" knew. Even in improv class, which he treats as a matter of "winning" by introducing material that shuts down the other players, when the point of improv is to build on others and not lose momentum.
• The Con: He mentions not being able to attend college because he lost his savings in a pyramid scheme.
• Contemplate Our Navels: Prone to this, especially in talking head segments at the end of episodes.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Experience in sales done with a few repeat clients in a highly personal manner doesn't translate into telemarketing very well since telemarketing involves rapid fire calling rather than building a personal rapport, as Michael finds out in "Money". Also a key part of his character, considering he was promoted to Regional Manager because of his sales skills, which didn't exactly convert to managerial skill in his new position.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: There are a couple of times when he is genuinely angry, and dear Lord, he can be terrifying when that happens. The shift is big enough to get a just as angry Stanley to back down.
  • He's able to cow Dwight when he appears to be gunning for his position in an early season.
  • He also shows an outright awesome level of negotiating skills when his fledgling paper company comes at odds with the new Dunder Mifflin management. Up until this point, he'd bumbled his way through every negotiation attempt, but then he suddenly demonstrates enough business acumen to completely rock David Wallace's resolve. To achieve this, he often needs to be backed into a corner before it comes out:
  David: Here's the situation. Your company is four weeks old. I know this business. I know what suppliers are charging. I know you can't be making very much money. I don't know how your prices are so low, but I know it can't keep up that way. I'm sure you're scared. Probably in debt. This is the best offer you're gonna get.
  Michael: I'll see your situation and I'll raise you a situation. Your company is losing clients left and right. You have a stockholder meeting coming up and you're going to have to explain to them why your most profitable branch is bleeding. So they may be looking for a little change in the CFO. So I don't think I need to wait out Dunder Mifflin, I think I just need to wait out you.
  • Effectively puts both Ryan (his corporate boss) and Jim (his co-manager) in their place when it comes to operating the Scranton office. It's his office damnit. In the former case, when Ryan threatens his territory and knowing that his people skills trump Ryan's, he brings the founder Robert Dunder into the office and directly exploits Ryan's lack of people skills in a conversation outside the conference room:
    Ryan: We have actual work to do.
    Michael: Fine. Then I will call David Wallace, and you can explain to him why you threw the founder of the company out on his ancient butt.
  • When Sabre's "sales is king" policy makes the sales staff act like a bunch of cocky jerks only concerned with money (Phyllis even called Michael "numb-nuts"), he decided to not reward them, and instead gave the leads to the other employees, who proceeded to hide them around the office.
  • He can be surprisingly crafty when he really wants something. After Jim and Pam turn down his offer to have dinner at his place too many times under the pretense of prior plans, he pretends everyone has to work late one night so they can't make plans, "angrily tells off" corporate that night and sends everyone home, then asks Jim again and reminds him that he didn't have any plans. Forced to say yes, Jim admits to the documentary crew it was a clever plan.
• Depending on the Writer: How much he is sympathetic or an unlikable jerk. The episodes "Dinner Party" and "Chair Model" are great examples: in the first, he is portrayed as a sympathetic man suffering from Domestic Abuse, while in the latter, which is the next episode, he completely ignores his employees problems, demands that they find a date for him and then insults said dates when they do not live up to his high standards. You can even tag specific writers to specific versions of Michael. B.J. Novak (credits include "Diversity Day", "Sexual Harassment" and the aforementioned "Chair Model") preferred immature, self-centered Michael, while Mindy Kaling (credits include "The Dundies", "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" and "Diwali") specialized in Michael as sympathetic.
• Desperately Craves Affection: This is what drives Michael to his antics in the office and why he simply can't be a boss.
• Dirty Coward:
  • Whenever there's a fire in the office, Michael is always the first to run out, not caring how his employees are doing.
  • When his "Golden Ticket" idea looked like it was going to cost the company, he let David Wallace think it was Dwight and then tried to convince Dwight that it would be in his (Dwight's) best interest to take the fall.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Falls into this when he suffers from a very mild burn on his foot and ends up using crutches. Throughout the episode, he acts as if it was ten times worse than Dwight getting a concussion from a car accident earlier.
• Don't Explain the Joke: He loves to subvert this trope.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • Some of his more lucid moments have Michael realizing that he doesn't receive the respect that is due to him by merit of his position if nothing else. Such moments are typically staggering enough to his normal behavior that he tends to act like a man with his job would normally, and as such, have a few moments of awesome.
  • Often claims this in moments when he doesn't deserve it. After the "Golden Ticket" is shown to have actually gained the company exclusive rights of a huge client - and after he had basically forced Dwight to take the fall when it was considered a terrible idea, and who was now hailed for "his" idea - he literally demanded this trope.
    David Wallace: What is it you want?
    Michael: I'll be honest, I would like all the credit... with none of the blame.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Stopped clocks are right twice a day, and even Michael Scott stumbles into some legitimate points one or twice a season. Witness:
  • His advice to Jim on the Booze Cruise: "BFD. Engaged ain't married. Never, ever, ever give up."
  • His response to Andy's anger about having told Erin about his former engagement to Angela: "You didn't tell her you were engaged to someone who sits six feet from her? That's, like, Mr. & Mrs. Smith crap."
  • He correctly surmises that after Roy attacks Jim, Darryl is attempting to use the incident as leverage for a pay raise.
  • He stands up to the disaffected customer in "Product Recall" correctly noting that his apology and offer of free paper is fair in the circumstance and that requiring his resignation as a regional manager is completely unreasonable.
  • His attempt (in deleted scenes) to claim that Meredith was drunk when he hit her with his car actually turns out to be a reasonable argument.
  • His speech to Stanley at the end of "Did I Stutter?", when he reasonably points out that however little Stanley thinks of him, he has to treat him with the respect due a boss.
  • He has David Wallace on the ropes while negotiating their jobs back, explaining in detail exactly why Michael Scott Paper Company is a direct threat to Dunder-Mifflin and David himself.
  • He does have some grounds to question why Pam and Jim, both salespeople, did not inform him of their pregnancy. While this is just him making it about him as usual, given that it means he was about to lose two vital members of his staff for various degrees of time, it's not entirely unreasonable to expect some notice.
  • Everyone attacks Michael's obsessions with the idea that Donna wants him to kiss her again, and later that she's cheating on him - both of which turn out to be correct.
  • Meta example - As it turns out, both Dwight and Michael are correct in "The Secret" to assume that Oscar is faking sick to get out of work. Dwight is just so excited about this that he misses The Reveal - that Oscar is gay.

• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Noted by Jim in reaction to Josh Porter leveraging his position at the Stamford branch to get a better job at Staples, thus putting his employees (who'd thought that their jobs had been saved from the cuts) unexpectedly out of work: Michael Scott, for all his faults, would never do that to his people.
  • For all his awkwardness, he's genuinely taking aback by the reveal that Oscar is gay. Michael is immediately ashamed of himself for using a homophobic slur and apologises to Oscar for his behavior. Even though it makes things worse and he accidentally outs him, he genuinely tried to atone for his behavior.
  • Though he is initially onboard with framing Toby for drug possession, he foils his own plan when the cops show up to bust Toby, realizing he's gone too far.
  • The night before Jim and Pam's wedding, he disgustedly dismisses Jim's brothers' jokes as inappropriate.
  • Even though he hired Luke to be on good terms with his half-sister, he is clearly shocked when Luke sabotages his employees' sales and becomes very creepy when interacting with them, leading to Michael spanking and then firing Luke.
• Everything Is Racist: Especially when trying to approach Stanley, Darryl, or Oscar.
• Extreme Doormat: He wants to be beloved by his office workers and to that end he regularly brushes off almost every major and minor rule infraction committed by them, such as Jim's many pranks against Dwight or the time Dwight started a fire in the office to test the office's emergency preparedness. When he does need to discipline a worker he will be as indirect as he possibly can, as seen when Stanley openly disrespected him during a meeting and Michael spent the entire episode trying to not to chastise him and starts crying when he finally has to.
• Fan Boy: Is a big one for Saturday Night Live. At least two of his most famous lines^note  "That's what she said!" and "Dwight, you ignorant slut!" are references to the show's sketches and he once dresses as Will Forte's MacGruber character for Halloween.
• A Father to His Men: One way he's Wrong Genre Savvy is that he often tries to behave this way with his employees, making attempts at a Rousing Speech, or treating them like wayward children who need guidance. In "The Convict", he even calls them "babies" when they refuse to take his Scare 'Em Straight character Prison Mike seriously.
• Food as Characterization: Michael's preference for chain restaurants is a sign of his immaturity and lack of sophistication; for example, when he goes to New York City on a business trip, he gets a "New York Slice" from Sbarro, and uses the local Chili's both when he has a meeting with a potential major client, and when hosting the annual Dundie awards.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: He's a major believer in "love at first sight" and tries to rush many of his relationships. He proposes to Carol on only their ninth date, and is soundly rejected. He eventually averts this by taking Jim's advice to slowly court Holly, whom he does have an instant connection with, and allows their friendship to slowly turn into a relationship.
• Freudian Excuse: He never experienced love or friendship growing up and attempts to have the office act as a surrogate family to compensate.
  Young Michael: When I grow up, I want to have 100 kids, so I can have 100 friends and nobody can say no to being my friend.
• Friend to All Children: He is very fond of children (babies, too - he tries to hold one every day) and wants to have his own kids (and by the end of the series he does). He even chooses "little kid lover" as his online dating username so that people will know where his priorities are. Oops.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Not as much as Dwight or Andy but he does fit the criteria for Proximity, Pity, Supervision, and the rare Caring. The other workers hold an immense dislike for his antics and somewhat dread any social involvement with him. This does diminish throughout the series, partly because they become aware of why he is like this and his Hidden Depths, and partly because other managers tend to show them Michael is certainly not the worst person they could work for. Early in the show, of the whole office he was the only one not invited to Jim's party (even Dwight was invited).
• Friendless Background: Much to his chagrin. He even states the lunch lady was his only friend in the fourth grade at school.

G-L

• Genius Ditz: For all of his incompetence, when Michael is good at something, he's really good at it. Particularly sales, ice skating, and being great with kids. In "Dream Team", he recounts that he "scored more goals than anyone else in the history of the hockey team" after being told by his math teacher that he was on the verge of flunking out of high school.
• The Gloves Come Off:
  • When he isn't trying to impress everyone, he's a good worker and boss. This confused Jim as he made a pie chart analysing his work schedule and shows that Michael spends more time avoiding work than actually doing it. When he does work, it's enough to keep his job.
  • In "Did I Stutter", he lays down the law on Stanley by telling him that he finally accepts Stanley's hatred of him but regardless of the animosity, Stanley cannot speak to him in such an aggressive manner under any circumstances.
  • In "Murder", he organises a murder mystery game for the office workers and tries to keep the game going when everyone remembers the rumors about Dunder Mifflin filing for bankruptcy. Jim confronts Michael and tries to tell him off for not taking the situation seriously, only for Michael to tell him "shut up" as he's trying to keep morale up while everyone is distressed and worried. It doesn't matter if the game is childish, everyone has gotten distracted and has cheered up for a while.
• Has a Type:
  • All his most important love interests (Jan, Carol, Holly) are blondes. He also briefly dated Pam's mom who was blonde as well. Made obvious in "Casino Night" when Carol and Jan stand side-by-side and look like mirror images of each other.
  • Michael rarely misses a chance to remind people he likes big boobs, and two of his "cons" about Jan were that her chest was "nothing to write home about" and she was lacking in "chesticles." Jan is well aware of this and gets a boob job in an attempt to win him back (and it works, at least for a little while).
  Michael: [To Pam after she had told him not to get back together with Jan.] You made a good argument. Hers was bigger.
• Hidden Depths:
  • "Michael's Birthday" and "Threat Level Midnight" show that he's a natural at ice skating, having played for his high school's ice hockey team.
  • "Moroccan Christmas" shows he's great at making drinks.
  • In "Email Surveillance", he's shown to be quite good at karaoke.
  • For all his faults as a boss, he's a fantastic salesman (he even manages to impress Jan with his skills at one point).
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Michael Scarn, international superspy and the hero of Michael's movie, Threat Level Midnight.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Even if everyone else hates Todd Packer for being a complete Jerkass, Michael sees him as a friend. Subverted in the episode of the same name, where Michael decides that Todd has gone far enough.
  • Even if Ryan has proven many times to be lazy, incompetent, and unrealiable, Michael still thinks highly of him and keeps insisting on bringing him back. Just like with Packer, he eventually comes to realize how much of an ass Ryan is and ends up delivering him an ultimatum to carry the point how he no longer respects him.
  • He considers Stanley a good friend, even if it's pretty obvious Stanley can't stand him. He sees both Stanley and Darryl as Street Smart mentors just because they are the only Black male employees. Unlike Stanley, Darryl at least tolerates Michael (sometimes) and mostly humors him for his own amusement in teaching him nonsensical "black man phrases".
  • Kevin originally applied for warehouse worker. Michael hired him as an accountant because he saw something in him. He saw wrong.
  • When gathering the office employees for a game of basketball against the warehouse, he enlists Stanley while passing over Kevin. Stanley turns out to be a terrible player who can barely dribble the ball while Kevin is an excellent shooter who can make long range jump shots with ease.
  • He never notices the blatant Everyone Can See It, until Jim tells him that he has feelings for Pam.
    Michael: Really? You're kidding me? You and Pam? Wow. I would have never put you two together, you really hit it well? God. I usually have a radar for stuff like that.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Complains about Andy "I don't understand how someone could have so little self-awareness." While he was right at that moment, Michael himself has no self-awareness at all, most of the time.
  • The words he says to Toby when he kicks him out of Diversity Day:
    Michael: This is an environment of welcoming. And you should just get the hell outta here.
• Idiot Ball: Even for Michael, driving his car straight into a lake in Dunder Mifflin Infinity just to prove a point about technology (specifically, that the GPS that led him into the lake was unreliable) was unbelievably stupid.
• Idiot Houdini: If it was real life, he would be fired within the year, at most. Or better, not be promoted at all. In The Office, he manages to stay regional manager at least seven years, largely because despite his incredibly unorthodox management style, he ends up making his branch extremely successful.
• If It's You, It's Okay: With Ryan.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Is fond of doing this when it's grossly inappropriate. He finally gets it right when he delivers it to Gabe in regards to Erin in "Viewing Party".
• Ignored Aesop: No matter how many times people, including his mentor Ed Truck and Holly, explain to Michael he has to stop treating his employees as his friends rather than his subordinates, Michael will refuse to do so.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: His stated reason for becoming a salesman, and the reason why he acts the way he does.
• The Illegible: Michael has such terrible handwriting that even HE sometimes struggles to decipher it. In "Company Picnic", he reads his love note to Holly and refers to them as "soup snakes."
  Michael: That can't be right. We're soul mates.
• Important Haircut: In the series finale, Michael's hair is very visibly graying. A minor running gag in the show that was mostly left relegated to deleted scenes was that Michael dyed his hair to appear younger. Now that he's settled down and happy, Michael doesn't need to do this anymore.
• Innocent Bigot: He says the most insulting things to minorities such as Stanley and Oscar (the only black and Hispanic/gay persons in the office, respectively) but he constantly gets away with it because he really does mean well.
• Innocently Insensitive: A large component of his sense of humor. Made worse by the fact that his underlings (constantly) point how much his jokes offend them, he refuses to change his choices of joke-worthy material.
• Insufferable Imbecile: On his worst days. He's a socially clueless Manchild and his extreme ignorance often make him inconsiderate and insensitive to It's All About Me levels. In short, he's not the "World's Best Boss".
• It's All About Me: It's not that Michael doesn't care about other people... it's just that he has problems grasping the idea that not everything has to be about him. If a situation centers on someone else, he'll immediately try to grab the attention or at least share the spotlight, no matter how inappropriate it is. Early on, he's actually unsure of what "open-mindedness" means. A large part of his character arc is eventually coming to the realization that no, the world doesn't revolve around Michael Scott.
• Jerkass to One: When he insults someone, it's usually unintentional... unless he's talking to Toby, since his hatred for Toby is a Running Gag.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's generally selfish, shallow, and obnoxious whether he realizes it or not. However, his employees all consider him a genuinely nice guy at heart and will rally around him when he needs it as a result. Take his guilt over the Prince Family Paper Company, for a start. In turn, if the wellbeing of his employees is on the line, Michael will always step up to do the right thing. Lampshaded by Jim when a rival branch manager sells out his employees for a promotion:
  Jim: Say what you will about Michael Scott, but he would never do that.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Also depends on the story. Really only in the legal sense is he a Houdini, as the show makes it rather clear that most of the people he knows try to avoid being around him if they have a choice in the matter, so he suffers in that regard.
  • Though initially against the plan, he ends up being complicit in Jim and Dwight's scheme to trick Todd Packer into going to Florida under the false pretense that he had a promotion. And he moves to Colorado with Holly very shortly afterwards, meaning that he never has to suffer the consequences of this. Though Todd Packer was such a complete tool, not to mention he had just insulted Holly to Michael's face, that it's unlikely anyone in- or out-of-universe really minds.
• Kick the Dog: Whenever Toby is around, mostly in regard to his divorce.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Is the only one apart from Angela to get upset over her cat Sprinkles' death.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: This might be one of his defining character traits: he's remarkably ignorant of most things to the point of delusion (one shining example shows him claiming to be a regular in all of New York's fineries, and then promptly listing all of the tourist trap restaurants in Times Square as his favourite locales), but it doesn't stop him feigning brilliance on whatever subject he's talking about. And his "research" for any given topic generally consists of watching TV shows or movies, or doing internet searches.

• Lethally Stupid: His antics in the warehouse fall under this category. Aside from more mundane dangerous activities such as pushing a ladder out from under someone for the sake of a joke, he absolutely refuses to accept that the heavy machinery are not toys, and that he cannot and should not use them. Even when told in no uncertain terms directly to his face, multiple times.
• Like Brother and Sister: His relationship with Pam is sort of like a crazy big brother. Protective and loving, but she has most of the responsibility. Best seen when he shows up at her art show when no one else does, and tells her how proud he is of her.

M-Y

• Malaproper: Often he uses the wrong word in a common phrase - for example in one episode he opens a casino for charity in the Warehouse; stating that he considers himself "a great philanderer". ^note He means "philanthropist". Though, considering the amount of girlfriends and casual hookups Michael has throughout the show, the former isn't really that far off base. In another episode, he comments that a red wine he was drinking had kind of an "oaky afterbirth" (he hopefully meant to say "aftertaste").
• Manchild: He often comes across as a clueless teenager in an adult's body. Lampshaded by Pam, who notes that Jan basically has to treat him like a 10-year-old. A deleted scene from Fun Run takes this to an extreme - Michael seeks treatment from his paediatrician for dehydration (even in the aired version he is shown with a sucker in his mouth).
• The Match Maker:
  • Subverted in that Michael believes he's the one who first put Jim and Pam together. After they have their first child and attempts to do the same to the rest of the office.
  • He tried to be this for Erin and Kevin in one episode, even after Erin tells him that she likes Andy. As usual, he was completely wrong.
  • In "Blood Drive", he insists that the singles mixer he's staging for the business park is to help other people find love, when it's really just a ploy to reconnect with the woman he met in the bloodmobile.
    Michael: I am going to be Cupid. And I'm going to shoot my sparrow at unsuspecting victims and they are going to get hit and say, "I'm in love. I was hit by Cupid's sparrow." Funny little bird, but he gets the job done.
• Mean Boss:
  • An interesting example where he tries to be a Benevolent Boss (and at times is), but his giant ego and immaturity make him greatly disliked by his workers.
  • Played straight, after breaking up with Jan, and before meeting Holly, where he openly acts like a jerk to his employees, instead of just being Innocently Insensitive, and goes as far as blaming Pam for things that are his fault, and forces his employees to get him a date.
• Metaphorgotten: Any time he tries to come up with a clever analogy, it's always poorly thought out and gets hilariously derailed, with his observation in "The Coup" probably being the most epic example.
  Michael: Business is like a jungle, I am like a tiger, and Dwight is like the monkey that stabs the tiger in the back with a stick. Does the tiger fire the monkey? Does he transfer the monkey to a different branch? [eyes light up] Pun! There is no way of knowing what is going on inside the tiger's head. We don't have that kind of technology.

• Mistaken for Gay: According to Phyllis, she and Michael's classmates in high school thought he was gay due to the outfits he wore.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: The former Trope Namer; he picks "Little Kid Lover" as his dating username to show that he's good with children, and the poor guy doesn't realize what it really implies until it's too late.
• Money Dumb: Michael was mentioned to be in debt before, but in Season 4's "Money", he is shown to be having to take a second job to pay for his debts, not helped by his live-in girlfriend Jan wasting their money and having no idea of the debt issue. When Oscar analyzes his spends, he realizes that Michael's issues come from unnecessary purchases.
• Never My Fault: When someone (usually Pam) explains that a problem happened because of him, he'll quickly deny it and/or turn the blame on the person in question (or Toby). A big example of this is in "The Merger", when one of the Stamford employees, Tony, quits on the first day at the Scranton branch, telling Michael in no uncertain terms that's it because he can't deal with his antics. This leads Michael to rant that Dunder Mifflin doesn't hire quitters and fire Tony in a pathetic attempt to save face, since letting him quit would mean admitting it is his fault and that he's not the awesome boss he thinks he is. All this does is earn Michael a phone call from an annoyed Jan, who says he should have just let Tony quit, because now they have to give him severance pay.
• No Social Skills: He does not think before he speaks. When in a counseling session with Toby, he even claimed to have been raised by wolves at one point. It would have certainly explained a lot.
• Oblivious to Hatred: As part of his lack of self-awareness. He considers all his employees his best friends (except Toby) but they just find him annoying most of the time. Especially played straight with Stanley, until Michael learns the truth in "Did I Stutter?".
• One-Hour Work Week: Michael manages to pull this trope off despite the show taking place at his job. He seemingly has no administrative duties and has all the time he wants to spend on his frivolous hobbies, activities and meetings. "The Fight" explains that his main responsibility is to simply sign a few papers at the end of every week, which he always childishly puts off to the last minute.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • His adoration towards Ryan is pretty much universally known. Thus it's a big surprise when Michael insults him in front of his own class when Ryan badmouthed the paper industry, but more specifically, him.
  • Generally any time Michael stops acting like a goof and starts acting like an actual company manager would. For example, when Stanley made it clear he and Michael would never be friends. Rather than overreact dramatically, Michael accepted that, but countered that he is still Stanley's boss and needed to be treated with at least some respect from him.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • Michael invading Stanley's privacy and telling the office that he cheated on his wife. Despite the fact that Michael is portrayed as being in the wrong for invading his privacy, it's hard to feel too bad for Stanley when Michael tells everyone that he cheated on his wife. Because, after all, he's the one who cheated on his wife to begin with.
  • When his nephew, Luke, finally gets on the last nerves of everyone in the office, Michael responds by giving him a spanking. In front of the entire office. While it is extremely unprofessional and dumb, considering how much of an idiotic douchebag Luke was, it's hard to argue that he didn't deserve to be humiliated like that.
• Parental Substitute: To Erin, who doesn't have parents.
• The Peter Principle: A textbook example. He was and still is a great salesman, which is how he got promoted to management, a job for which he has absolutely no aptitude.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: A perfect example of The Peter Principle in action. He was a very good salesman who got promoted to regional manager, a job in which he is completely in over his head. He does have his moments of clarity, in which he's actually the Benevolent Boss he so desperately wants to be, but those moments are few and far in between.
• Put on a Bus: Towards the end of season 7. But he returns Back for the Finale to be Dwight's best man (or "bestest mensch") at his wedding.
• Progressively Prettier: In the first season, Michael was made to look a bit sleazy, with tightly slicked hair to give off the illusion that he was balding, and overly tight neckties to make it seem like Michael was a bit pudgy. However, as Michael became a more sympathetic character, his appearance cleaned up to match.

• Redundant Romance Attempt: Unaware that he's being romantically set up, he's quirkily joking his way into the heart of Pam and Jim's friend. When Michael learns the truth, he exits the bar, unbuttons the top button of his shirt, puts on a backwards hat, and re-enters as "Date Mike," whose antics are so obnoxious the girl leaves early.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Sometimes.
  Michael: Have any of you talked to Dwight?
  Stanley: Oh, sure, we talk all the time.
  Michael: Really?
  Stanley: No.
• Shipper on Deck: He has been a huge Jim and Pam fanboy since the day Jim told him about his feelings for Pam.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: He and Holly definitely have their moments.
• Sleeping with the Boss: His rather rocky extended relationship with his boss Jan.
• Small Name, Big Ego:
  • He vastly overestimates the amount of impact he has on his employees.
  • In "The Fire", he claims to be both Street Smart and Book Smart. Needless to say, he's neither, since he's not savvy enough to be street smart, and too ignorant to be book smart.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: His attempts at intentional comedy almost always end up as this, because they're so clumsy and unoriginal.
• Stepford Smiler: He likes to act as the funny guy who's always joking around but he's actually a deeply lonely man who Desperately Craves Affection (at least until he meets his "soup snake", Holly).
• Teeny Weenie: Michael Scott is many things, but according to Pam (who accidentally walked in on him while he was changing clothes at one point) and the warehouse crew, well endowed is definitely not one of them.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: This is a big issue in his romantic relationships, as he thinks that instead of building a relationship from the ground up, he's supposed to sweep a woman off her feet with a Grand Romantic Gesture. It utterly fails with Carol (the Rejected Marriage Proposal and the ill-advised Photoshopping of himself into a family picture), then fails with Jan up until she realizes how easy he is to manipulate. He makes better progress with Holly after Jim convinces him to reject this line of thinking and try establishing a friendship or at least commonalities with her first.
• Too Dumb to Live: He doesn't see the potential danger in his worst Idiot Ball moments.
  • He tries to eat unidentified mushrooms he found in the woods.
  • To demonstrate the risk of depression and suicide, he was about to jump off the roof, thinking he would have been safe if he can land on a bouncy castle. Thankfully, his employees find out about the hidden castle before he could jump and talk him down from the roof.
    Jim: Oh. He's going to kill himself, pretending to kill himself.
  • He drives his car into a lake to prove a point about technology.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In Season 2 he starts doing things for his office like taking them out to Chili's for the Dundies, and hosting a casino night. Michael also shows his sensitive side around kids in this season. By the end of the series, he is a very different character.
• Two First Names: His first and last name can both be used as a given name for a male. He shares this trait with his British counterpart, David Brent.
• Ultimate Job Security: Played with constantly. Many of his antics are seen as counter-productive and a drain on the company's resources and it's noted on several occasions that his job consists mainly of a few minor administrative tasks (which he still manages to struggle with). His job is under threat on more than one occasion during the series and several of his bosses at corporate admonish him over his lack of responsibility. However it's shown on several occasions (notably in "The Client", "Initiation" and "Golden Ticket") that Michael is responsible for singlehandedly pulling in some of the company's biggest clients and his office is probably the most unified of all the branches making him far too valuable to the company to let go. Significantly, Michael only ever leaves the company of his own volition.
• Ungrateful Bastard: On various occasions. Even when his workers go along with his crazy ideas, he'll often wind up complaining, yelling, and acting like a Spoiled Brat.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Varies throughout episodes, but in general he fits this description, as an immature, self-centered, incompetent Work Com supervisor.
• Verbal Tic:
  • "That's what she said" veers into this on occasion, especially in "The Deposition", where he does it in response to something he said himself and doesn't even seem to realize he's doing it.
  • When he's lying or being forced to agree to something, he tends to mutter "yesh," and for the most part, this fools nobody.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Generally, what is Genre Savvy in Michael's head is actually Wrong Genre Savvy in the real world, and vice versa. A recurring theme is that he correctly behaves like the lead character in a comedy, but it's the wrong kind of comedy. He either thinks he's the funny, inspirational cool boss and The Ace in a feelgood Work Com, or the plucky underdog hero in a Romantic Comedy (basically, he thinks he's either Robin Williams or Tom Hanks, depending on the situation). Instead, he's the Pointy-Haired Boss in a Cringe Comedy.
• You Were Trying Too Hard: Whenever Michael is relaxed in a social setting and isn't trying too hard to win people over, he's very likeable and pleasant to be around. It's best shown in "Happy Hour", when Jim and Pam secretly set Michael up on a date with Pam's friend Julie. He initially charms her because he has no idea it's a date, but then he turns her off when he finds out and goes into his obnoxious "Date Mike" persona.