YMMV / The Office (US)

• Adaptation Displacement: To The Office (UK) for American viewers.
• Adorkable:
  • Michael, on the rare social occasion he is actually relaxed and not trying too hard.
  • Pam, especially in early seasons with her meek, shy personality, and the way she smiles when Jim is around.
  • Andy, after he Took a Level in Kindness he becomes more endearing and well-meaning, while still being very odd, eccentric, and naive.
  • Erin is a sweet and ditzy Genki Girl with a lovely appearance. She's probably the most innocent character on the show, and her childish innocence is Played for Laughs.
  • Toby has a meek and awkward personality mixed with how sympathetic and likable he can be a person.
  • While Gabe can be an arrogant, selfish, and uptight stick-in-the-mud, his vulnerability, eccentric nature, and quotable quips can be interpreted as this.
  • Holly Flax, being the Distaff Counterpart of Michael Scott, is extremely dorky and shares the same goofy sense of humor as him. Unlike Michael, however, she does seem to have self-awareness most of the time and lacks the It's All About Me attitude. So rather than those antics becoming a pain to the other characters like when Michael does them, they just come across as cute instead. A few Innocently Insensitive moments aside, this is exactly why she worked so well as a Morality Pet for him. She showed him how to be fun and childish without becoming a Jerkass.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Since the characters are very sharply-defined, but we're mostly seeing them in a workplace context and not delving that much into their personal lives or motivations, practically everyone on the show has become subject to this.
  • Pam: a nice, sympathetic Shrinking Violet who then, unfortunately takes a level in Jerkass and stops being nearly as sympathetic, or a depressed, shy doormat who learns to trust her own judgment, speak her mind and actually go after what she wants?
  • Jim: an affable prankster making the best of a job he doesn't enjoy by playing practical jokes as a way to cope with crushing boredom, or a smug, callow bully who picks on people who are disadvantaged compared to him just for his own amusement?
  • Gabe in "Secretary's Day": the characters all seemed to think he was being a fun-killing jackass with no sense of humor. Except that right up until the end of the episode, when he turned on Kevin in an effort to make the entire office stop bullying himself, instead, Gabe—until ratted out by Toby—looks to have actually done an effective job of stopping an office-wide bullying incident. (Sure, it wasn't entirely legal, but he may not have known that.)
  • Andy: an egotistical and self-centered Jerkass Manchild or a Jerk with a Heart of Gold whose insecurities and self-destructive tendencies cause him to lash out at times? The answer is yes.
  • Stanley in the Cold Open of "Costume Contest". Was he truly oblivious to everything his coworkers were doing, or did he notice but simply didn't care?
  • Ryan: was he always a Jerkass and just hid it well? Or was his attitude after being promoted due to him being out of his element among the corporate higher-ups (and the drugs he indulged in)? Similarly, was his fall into being a lazy employee the consequence of his Dunder Infinity passion project in Season 4 blowing up in his face?
  • Kevin: Dumb as rocks, or Brilliant, but Lazy and just masking his actual competence with Obfuscating Stupidity? He may be bad at his accounting job, but he is not so bad that he has ever been fired from it, and the fact that he is a former world champion poker player suggests that he is actually fantastic at numbers (also shown with his "pie math" in Season 9) and almost has to be faking, and he is also shown outsmarting the other characters on several occasions, such as during the "Dallas" board game or on the Trivia night out.
    • In season three, Kevin has a talking head claiming to have asked Martin Nash to explain three times why he went to prison because it sounds like what he does every day. Is this just Kevin not understanding the complexity of Martin's fraud, or is there some shady business going on at Dunder-Mifflin?
  • Toby, despite having enough complaints against Michael to fill an entire shelf in the warehouse, seemingly never reports his abusive boss to corporate and get him fired. Is it because he's just so beaten down by both his job and his personal life that he's Stopped Caring, or is he like Michael in that he's desperate for friendship and chooses to ignore the problems Michael causes in a vain attempt to get others to like him? There is also the theory that he is actually the real Scranton Strangler.
  • The Scranton Branch's opinion on Michael's buffoonery. Do they really hate how juvenile and unprofessional Michael is or do they secretly enjoy it because it allows them to get away with their own unprofessional behavior, such as Jim's pranks or Stanley's slacking? A mix of the two? It's shown that they can directly contact David Wallace and other high-ranking members of corporate about their problems, but instead almost always go to Michael himself or to the ineffectual Toby.
  • Bob Vance (Vance Refrigeration)'s frequent use of Verbal Business Card. Is it a weird quirk, just plain egotism, or is he being a savvy businessman and repeatedly plugging his business into a documentary that will air on national TV so he can benefit from the publicity? It's also occasionally hinted that Bob is involved in criminal affairs, adding the possibility that his verbal quirk is his attempt at maintaining his cover.
  • While it's pretty unarguable that Jan gradually becomes a manic, abusive narcissist throughout the series, the causes for this can result in this trope. While the general explanation tends to be simple Flanderization or just Jan being a rather horrible person on a fundamental level, this video raises the alternate viewpoint that a lot of Jan's problems are actually exacerbated by or a defense mechanism in response to the near-constant misogyny that she is forced to cope with, often alone, as seemingly the sole female corporate executive at Dunder-Mifflin. Dealing with Michael's idiocy couldn't have helped her sanity either.
  • Speaking of Michael, he himself gets some of this. The common attitude towards him, as indicated by the above comment, is that he's basically an over-promoted idiot in a position of responsibility that he is in no way suitable for, and that while he might have skill as a salesman he should never have been promoted to manager. Except that Scranton is consistently suggested to be Dunder-Mifflin's highest-performing branch, something that mere salesmanship skills can't necessarily account for, which leads some (such as this video, produced by the same people as the above video) point out many things — many of which stem from the qualities that supposedly make him inappropriate to be a manager — that actually make him a very good boss, even if unwittingly.
  • While "Scott's Tot's" is generally viewed as one of Michael's lowest and most painfully cringey moments, seeing as he foolishly promised a group of inner-city students that he'd pay for their college tuition despite there being almost no way he'd ever be able to fulfill such a promise, as the AV Club's Nathan Rabin points out, the blame for their disappointment and shattered hopes doesn't fall entirely on him. The students and school were equally guilty of deluding themselves into thinking that a local paper company manager would ever have access to such wealth and that they could and should have probably tempered their own expectations. At the very least, it probably wouldn't or shouldn't have been very hard for someone in the school to perform a closer background check into Michael's position and finances before letting things get to such a point.
  • There's a healthy amount of debate over whether Josh was justified in leveraging his promotion at Dunder-Mifflin for a better position at Staples, despite this leading to the closing of his branch and the relocating / firing of his employees, as Dunder-Mifflin is typically not depicted as a place that rewards employee loyalty and Josh has a right to look out for his own interests.
  • Did Jim really love Karen? It seems obvious he dated her to get over Pam since he thought he would never return to Scranton. He also attempted to dissuade her from living as close to him as possible while in Scranton and pretty much abandoned her in New York to see Pam.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Not a lot of people had high hopes for this show as several previous attempts to adapt British television shows for American audiences in the 1990s and early 2000s did not pan out and the original British version had a great reputation with American critics and television aficionados. The pilot, which was basically a shot-for-shot remake of the original's, seemed to validate these fears. However, following some minor retooling after the rocky first season, the show found its own voice and became one of NBC's biggest hits during the decade. Its popularity has only continued to grow in reruns and streaming, and the series is now considered one of the most iconic shows of the 2000s.
• Archive Panic: 9 seasons, 201 episodes, with more than a few Extra Long Episodes and lots of ongoing arcs to keep track of. Then there are the webisodes and outtakes.
• Ass Pull: Toward the end of Season 9, it doesn't make sense that the camera crew would continue to film the Scranton office since the documentary had already been finished, edited and was preparing to air. But Word of God from David Rogers, who directed the penultimate episode "A.A.R.M.", is that only the first few episodes of The Office: An American Workplace were finished. The final episode is going to be about the Dunder Mifflin employees watching the earlier episodes and how they reacted, which is why they're still filming. In "Finale", the explanation for the crew being there is that they're filming a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue feature for the DVD release.
• Award Snub:
  • In 9 seasons, it won a grand total of five Primetime Emmys (Outstanding Comedy Series after Season 2, Greg Daniels for writing "Gay Witch Hunt", Jeffrey Blitz for directing "Stress Relief", and editing awards for "The Job" and "Finale"). Steve Carell was nominated six times as Comedy Lead Actor and never won a single Emmy. Not one. Considered one of the biggest Emmy blunders ever- something his costars and even some of the showrunners have definitely NOT been shy about pointing out (Carell himself appears to have taken a much more lighthearted view of things- just before the 2012 Emmys, the first where he was no longer eligible for an award for playing Michael Scott, he cheekily Tweeted that he couldn't wait to "not go to the Emmys")! Ironically, one of his losses was to Ricky Gervais (for Extras). Rainn Wilson went 0 for 3 as Supporting Actor, while John Krasinski never even got a nomination (though he was later nominated for his work making a Special Class Program for the show's final season). Jenna Fischer got nominated as Supporting Actress just once.
  • Oddly enough, the Summer 2006 web series, The Accountants, aired only at NBC.com^note and sold as a bonus feature on the second season DVD release five days after the last episode was posted won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Broadband Program - Comedy, and the web series's principal performers - Brian Baumgartner, Angela Kinsey, and Oscar Nuñez - all shared the award, despite neither of the three ever getting a single Primetime Emmy nomination for the main series.
• Base-Breaking Character: Really, every other character in the show is either this or a straight-up Scrappy, with very few that can count as being universally loved (or at least tolerated) by the whole fandom. The standout examples include:
  • Michael Scott. Simply put, the fanbase is divided as to whether his Cringe Comedy moments and generally boneheaded antics are utterly hilarious or just plain annoying and downright uncomfortable to watch.
  • Jim is either the sweetest and funniest guy ever, or a smug jerk that gets away with being a bully because the narrative will bend over backwards for him. This has only intensified in later years with increasing attention being paid to toxic workplace environments and dynamics.
  • There is no question that Gabe is a massively cringeworthy weirdo. Whether that's hilarious or unpleasant to watch is up for debate.
  • Erin. Her fans adore her bubbly personality and enjoy her increased role in the later seasons while her detractors find her naivete nauseating and believe she's undeserving of the attention she gets. And then there's a much smaller third faction that generally likes her but felt she was better as a background character who was used more sparingly. A particular sore spot for many in the second camp and some in the third camp is her treatment of Andy during certain arcs.
  • As shown above with her entry under Alternative Character Interpretation, Pam became increasingly divisive with the fanbase as the series went on, with her popularity drop-off starting in Seasons 4 and 5. It's telling that many of her detractors generally held the latter view initially but then shifted to the former over time. Her actions in Season 9 are another point of contention.
  • Andy started off as an unlikeable douche but became popular when he Took a Level in Kindness and got some sympathetic moments, although he did have a segment of vocal detractors that still generally disliked him for his immature attitude and idiotic moments. This intensified after Michael left, with Andy becoming a more major character as time went on. The show tried to counter this in the final season by both downsizing his role (partly due to Ed Helms' schedule) and making him (intentionally) more unsympathetic, but this only resulted in an intense backlash from his fans who accused the writers of derailing his character for petty reasons. Suffice it to say, Andy's arc continues to be one of the most divisive arguments in the fandom.
• Broken Base:
  • There is no denying that the show underwent some measures of Seasonal Rot at some points, but exactly when it started happening tends to be a point of intense debate among fans. Many do however agree that Michael's departure marked the biggest downslide.
  • Many of the arcs in Season 9 have split the fanbase into very heated factions.
    • The Athlead arc and the problems it brings to Jim and Pam's marriage. Leaving aside the fact that Jim did deposit a large amount of money behind Pam's back to invest in the business, fans are split as to whether Jim was right to try broadening his horizons (as he'd made it clear before that he didn't want to stay at Dunder-Mifflin selling paper until he was 50) and Pam was being unreasonable since Jim had previously supported all of her efforts to do the same (including attending art school in New York), or if Pam had every right to be paranoid that the idea could fail and hurt them badly (as starting a new business is a risky venture, no matter how you spin it).
    • The Brian story arc in the season and his whole character in general. Some were ecstatic to see someone from the documentary crew and a new shake-up in the character dynamics. However, the fact that his character also had a major part in the already contentious "Jim vs Pam over Athlead" arc to provide possible adulterous temptation to Pam led to a major fracture in the fanbase. One half sees Brian as a minor Ensemble Dark Horse for what little screentime he had and the arc as a realistic story that proves the ultimate strength of Jim and Pam's marriage; the other half saw Brian as The Scrappy and felt his inclusion was a forced and pointless addition only meant to stir up more drama for an arc that wasn't going to go anywhere.
    • The Pete/Erin relationship. While it's widely criticized for being a blatant copy of the Jim/Pam ship and for its Derailing Love Interests treatment of Andy, the ship does have a small contingent of loyal fans that appreciate it for being a relatively more stable relationship for Erin. Ship-to-Ship Combat is the main cause of this fracture in the fanbase, but even non-shippers get in on it on both sides.
• Character Perception Evolution: Karen was initially utterly despised for coming between Jim/Pam. However, since the show concluded, more fans have grown increasingly sympathetic to her due to her being a designated Romantic False Lead and for how Jim treated her. It has gotten to the point that Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer (Pam's actress, no less) took her side while discussing that plot arc in their Office Ladies podcast.
• Common Knowledge: A common belief among the fanbase is that the song sung by the cast in "Michael's Last Dundies" was a complete surprise to Steve Carell; some also believe that Ryan's glare at Deangelo after he sang his line was producer BJ Novak being unhappy with actor Will Ferrell for butting in and ruining the moment. Both theories were debunked by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey on their podcast, but they did mention that while Steve knew about the song from reading the script, he was excluded from rehearsals and did indeed hear it for the first time during the shooting of the episode.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Jim's pranks are so elaborate that his status as the Only Sane Man is highly debatable.
  (Seeing Dwight climb a pylon) "He'll be fine. I made it up there."
  • Creed. His Mysterious Past, badass skills (catching a fish bare-handed, for starters), and the tidbits of info he gives pertaining to his life in his interview segments add to this.
• Creator's Pet: Nellie, a character introduced in Season 8. While she had definite signs of The Scrappy initially (hated by fans), the writers have been publicly praising Catherine Tate (adored by creators), brought back and put in as the boss and attempted to be given a sympathetic backstory (put into large scenes), and finally talked up by other characters (with Jim and Pam taking to defend her at one point). It got even worse in Season 9, considering how there were Character Shilling moments for Nellie in seemingly every other episode. They even attempted to retcon her Jerkass behavior in the previous season by having her offhandedly mention that it was her merely playing the part of a "villain" as a ploy for more screentime.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Anything relating to the office weirdos Dwight and Creed, and sometimes Meredith.
• Designated Monkey:
  • Toby's treatment can sometimes feel excessively mean-spirited and thus hard for some fans to stomach. It doesn't help that unlike his Parks and Recreation successor Jerry (whose treatment in that series' later seasons drew similar complaints from fans), he doesn't have any bright spots in his life or Throw the Dog a Bone moments to balance it out in any way.
  • Andy being turned into the Designated Villain in Season 9 and subsequent "punishments" (including Erin cheating on him and being humiliated on Youtube for his failed talent show audition) was a major sore spot for his fans, many of whom admitted they have a hard time rewatching the series knowing what happens later.
• Designated Villain: Andy Bernard often ends up as this, especially in his relationship with Erin Hannon. While their first breakup could be seen as Grey-and-Gray Morality as Andy should have told Erin about his relationship with Angela, though given the circumstances, it's perfectly understandable why he wouldn't want to talk about it. However, after that Andy was always presented as in the wrong. Repeatedly he would be forced to move on, only for Erin to realize she liked him again, making Erin come across as flighty and cruel. They finally got back together after Andy risked his job to go and get her back from Florida. However, in order to make Nellie (a Creator's Pet if there ever was one) more sympathetic and introduce a new love interest for Erin, they had Andy suddenly take a level in Jerkass and the audience is expected to forget any character development up to that point.
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Given Michael's Cloudcuckoolander personality, Camp Straight mannerisms, propensity to bumble into impossibly awkward situations (he doesn't seem to recognize appropriate social behavior), tendency to obsess over single issues, it's been theorized that he has anything from being on the Autism Spectrum to Histrionic Personality Disorder. In "Local Ad" Michael notes that he couldn't talk yet at the age of five. Some fans have hypothesized he might have undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome (which makes perfect sense given his age- Asperger's wasn't even recognized as a disorder until the mid-90s).
  • Dwight is also often viewed as possibly being on some kind of spectrum, due to his very stiff, humorless, and Literal-Minded personality. He is also easily distracted by random topics and turns minor issues into Serious Business. However, the show plays with this a lot more, as many of the hints we receive about Dwight's background would seem to suggest that his issues are more the result of a very eccentric upbringing rather than any kind of personality disorder. Like Michael, he also has exceptional skills despite these behavioral traits.
  • In an In-Universe example of this trope, Holly was led by Dwight to think that Kevin was actually mentally disabled. She believed so for months since there was little in Kevin's behavior (he talks in very simple tones and has a somewhat childlike demeanor). to contradict that.
  • Pam, Jim, Toby, and Stanley could all be suffering from varying levels of depression.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Pete gets this from a large number of Andy/Erin shippers. It really didn't help that the Pete/Erin pairing was set up in a way that was an obvious attempt by the writers to recreate the Jim/Pam romance, nor that it essentially required putting Andy through the Derailing Love Interests treatment after a long arc of Will They or Won't They?, Relationship Revolving Door, and Unrequited Love Switcheroo that the Pete/Erin pair-off rendered into a "Shaggy Dog" Story at the end. Now it's possible that some of Andy's derailment was a result of the writers attempting to make Nellie appear more sympathetic, and it was just a coincidence that they tried to hook up Pete and Erin at the same time, but that only makes the backlash and anger even more intense.
  • Karen was this in the eyes of many Jim/Pam shippers simply for existing.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • A certain segment of Dwight's fanbase can be a bit too quick to overlook his personality flaws, over-emphasize everyone else's in regards to their conflicts with him, and use his anti-social nature (usually on the supposition — never confirmed or seriously suggested in the show — that he is somewhere on a spectrum) as an overly sweeping excuse to absolve him of all fault. While Dwight has his positive qualities and does genuinely undergo Character Development, he's still clearly presented as rather officious, obnoxious, scheming, ruthless, authoritarian, hypocritical, insensitive, stubborn, intransigent, domineering, and callous, and the show makes it clear that he often brings a lot of the problems and poor treatment he receives from others on himself while usually refusing to accept any blame or responsibility. It's hard not to suspect that many of those who hold Dwight in such high regard mainly do so because they don't actually have to interact with him (or because they may be closer to him personality-wise than might be entirely comfortable).
  • The fact that Michael is gradually shown to be a more vulnerable, sympathetic, and likable person the more viewers spend time with him can make it a bit easy for some viewers to forget his genuinely irritating and unlikeable qualities as well. There are some corners of the internet where people have unironically expressed the belief that they would love to have Michael as a boss, perhaps as with Dwight forgetting that they only have to spend half an hour at a time with him, and not a whole working day putting up with his neediness, childishness, selfishness and irritating demands for constant attention.
  • Josh also has a rather devoted sub-fanbase who are willing to passionately defend his decision to leverage his promotion at Dunder-Mifflin for a better job at Staples, arguing that he has a right to look out for his own interests and that Dunder-Mifflin rarely rewards employee loyalty so has little right to expect any from its employees in return. While not wholly unreasonable points, given that Josh's actions result in the closing of the branch he managed and the firing or relocating of his employees, this can't help but clash with how he was typically depicted as the "good boss" in contrast to Michael, making him seem somewhat hypocritical at least. There is a good chance that people would perhaps be less willing to champion the primacy of his pure self-interest over Dunder-Mifflin's plans or his employees' livelihoods if he wasn't also charming, youthful and handsome.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Erin was initially meant to be a temporary character, but she was made into a regular as a result of both the producers loving Ellie Kemper and the positive fan response to the character.
  • Creed is very popular, despite being a minor character. This even extended to his castmates, with John Krasinski citing Creed's one-liners as being among his favorite moments in the whole series, and Rainn Wilson conceiving a whole A Day in the Limelight episode for Creed that never got made.
  • Dwight's cousin Mose is also very popular, thanks to many Funny Moments. He even has his own Facebook fan page.
  • Kevin is also a fan favorite. How much? Brian Baumgartner earned a million dollars in 2020 just from sending out personalized greetings to fans on the Cameo video-sharing platform.
• Epileptic Trees: There is a huge following of fans who truly believe that Toby is the Scranton Strangler, with many articles reinterpreting scenes as evidence that he's unstable or hiding a huge secret about himself. It's also believed that George Howard Skubb was just a scapegoat that Toby managed to pin the charges on and that Skubb's attempt to kill Toby was due to him revealing the truth during his prison visit. Even the Official YouTube channel go in on this in their video compilation of Strangler scenes.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Andy and Kelly, especially according to this character analysis video, as they both are rather immature and enjoy pop culture, even playfully interacting with one another.
  • And speaking of Andy, Andy/Erin were also generally far preferred over Erin/Pete. Apart from Michael's absence, this was one of the main criticisms many had for the final season, as many critics and viewers hated how Pete's inclusion ruined three seasons' worth of relationship building between Andy and Erin (on top of putting Andy through an especially blatant Derailing Love Interests treatment in order to facilitate Erin getting together with Pete, who himself was The Scrappy for being an obvious Jim clone). Not even Ellie Kemper herself being a Peter/Erin shipper has put in a dent in it (although Kemper also said that she did not approve of Andy, feeling he was too childish to properly help Erin).
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • The series has one with its original UK source show. While they are ostensibly similar in their basic premises and themes, they have radically different approaches to humor and characterizations, so a great deal of the rivalry comes down to which style the individual viewer prefers (which isn't to say they can't enjoy both).
  • Some Office fans are known to get in angry and heated debates online with fans of Parks and Recreation over which series was better in the long run. Granted, it's an extremely small Vocal Minority that engages in this and they're mostly Friendly Fandoms (as detailed below).
• Fanon:
  • Even though it's relegated to a single deleted scene and doesn't fit with how his character's been established (he's often shown working on actual crossword puzzles, not just faking it), a number of fans enjoy the idea of Stanley liking hentai purely for humor's sake. Most of it comes from how sincerely Leslie David Baker delivers the line "it's called hentai, and it's art".
  • Fans have speculated that Jim and Pam conceived Philip Halpert at Dunder Mifflin during the episode "P.D.A.". During the episode, it's implied that Jim and Pam hooked up off-screen during Valentine's Day. To added further proof, Pam goes on maternity leave later that Fall, which would coincide with the theory's timeline.
  • Some fans believe that Jan lied about the paternity of Astrid, and think her true father is Jan's ex-assistant Hunter.
• Fountain of Memes: Nearly every character in the series has produced at least one meme. Creed is arguably the most quotable.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Parks and Recreation as the two share writers, styles and an actress (Rashida Jones). While there is some debate over which of the two is superior, it is generally agreed that Office was more iconic and influential on comedy during its peak years while Parks and Rec had a more consistent run whose later seasons never approached the Seasonal Rot the later seasons of The Office did.
  • Also with Modern Family, due to their shared traits of being mockumentaries and heartwarming, relatable sitcoms.
• Genius Bonus:
  • In "Health Care" Dwight brags about having the ability to either raise or lower his cholesterol at will, which perplexes Jim and Pam as they can't figure out why he'd ever want to raise his cholesterol. There actually is more than one type of cholesterol, with the HDL variant providing assistance to the liver and reducing the risk of heart failure.
  • When Jan announces that she's pregnant, Michael immediately asks her in a concerned tone, "Have you touched any of my Propecia?" Hair growth drugs like Propecia and Rogaine can cause birth defects if handled by pregnant women.
  • Kevin mocks Angela when she brags about attending the city comptroller's party, saying, "Who even knows what a comptroller is?" A comptroller is basically an accountant, so Kevin, being an accountant, is showing himself to be very dim by not knowing.
  • A listener to the Office Ladies podcast pointed out an almost certainly unintentional but intriguing case of Meaningful Name for Jan Levinson-Gould. She's the epitome of the Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis, and two of the psychologists responsible for much of the important developmental psychology theory on mid-life crises were Daniel Levinson and Roger Gould.
  • Andy Bernard is named for Andrew Bernard, a lifelong friend of Greg Daniels. It turns out that the Real Life Bernard, who's an economics professor at Dartmouth College, is a very appropriate Shout-Out for the character. Like the fictional Andy, he's an Ivy Leaguer (he teaches at Dartmouth and got his bachelor's at Harvard), and Bernard's area of expertise as an economist is the study of American firms and how they respond to business globalization. That became one of the important subtexts of the show in later years, with Dunder Mifflin's financial problems and eventual acquisition by Sabre. You can argue that the show first dealt with the theme when the Stamford branch ended up getting consolidated with Scranton, which is the arc that introduced Andy to the show.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • While the US version was successful in the UK, the original is still more famous. But in Australia, the US version is much more popular.
  • The foreign language adaptations tend to follow the UK template, but in some cases also import elements of the US remake. The Israeli version has a gay Arab based on Oscar, and the Indian version has many characters and episodes based on the US version.
• Growing the Beard: After a rather shaky start, the show really comes into its own in the second season, after the show started finding its own distinct identity and humor style away from its British parent (as well as Steve Carell getting a star boost from The 40-Year-Old Virgin that summer). In fact, many people would even say season two was the show's peak. To top it all off, Jim's Anguished Declaration of Love to Pam in the season finale "Casino Night" demonstrated that the show could pull of moments of great emotional depth as well.
• Ham and Cheese: Jim as Goldenface in "Threat Level: Midnight". He only did it to impress Pam, but he sure looked like he had fun with it (although he admits he didn't love the character or dialogue).
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • One single scene features an upset Michael Scott doing a Bill Cosby impersonation while listening to a Gary Glitter song with a Donald Trump book visible on his bookshelf. All three figures have been accused of sexual offences. It puts certain episodes where Michael oversteps his boundaries into a rather uncomfortable perspective.
  • Andy's family going broke because Andy's dad ditched the family to be with a much younger woman isn't quite as funny nowadays, as Walter Bernard's actor, Stephen Collins, was outed as a child molester with several decades of criminal history.
  • A quote from Dwight where he's jealous of Michael's newfound friendship with Ryan: "I hope the war goes on forever and Ryan gets drafted." When the episode aired in 2005, the War on Terror was still a relatively new conflict and no one at that time expected the Afghanistan War would only end in 2021, a full twenty years after it had begun.
  • Dwight's infamous quote "There's too many people on this Earth. We need a new plague." gets a lot darker after the COVID-19 pandemic led to a decrease in pollution due to quarantine measures, which in turn has led to the increasingly vocal "ecofascist" movement, which essentially espouses the same quote without any irony.
  • A double whammy in "Michael's Last Dundies": Michael says that Piers Morgan took over Larry King's show after he "died"; at the time, King was still alive, but he passed away in 2021. And Morgan's show, which was in King's old timeslot, was canceled in 2014.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the episode "Gossip", Michael spreads a bunch of false rumors in an effort to destroy the credibility of the one he knew was true at the time (that Stanley was having an affair). When the staff gets together to try to trace some of the rumors, Kevin says that the rumor about him was that there was a little person inside of him working him with controls. This would later become the premise of the Pixar film Inside Out, whose stars included Phyllis Smith, Mindy Kaling, and Rashida Jones.
  • In "Stairmaggedon", just a few episodes from the end, Stanley tells Dwight "You are not my boss, and never will be". In the second-last episode, Dwight becomes manager. Though the finale shows Stanley retired very shortly thereafter.
  • Similarly, back in "Beach Games", there is one scene where Andy and Dwight are competing against each other after Michael revealed that he's using the events as the basis for who gets his job. Cue a talking head with Oscar where he says that he'll quit if either of them is made manager. Both Andy and Dwight have held the Regional Manager position since then (granted, Andy gets significant Character Development first), and Oscar's still around at the end of the series.
  • In the cold open to Season 4's "Money", Michael has been watching The Devil Wears Prada and adopts a diva-ish attitude towards Pam that is similar to the attitude Meryl Streep's character takes with her personal assistants. One of the personal assistants was played by Emily Blunt, who would later to go on to marry John Krasinski.
  • In the Season 4 episode "Chair Model", Jim jokes about setting up Michael with Pam's mom. The two ended up dating for real in Season 6, much to Pam's dismay.
  • In a Season 9 episode, Clark shows his disdain for the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise. Deleted scenes in the finale show him flirting with a new co-worker played by the film's leading lady, Dakota Johnson.
  • David Denman, Roy's actor, played another role just like Roy: engaged to a girl who was the apple of a much nicer man's eye and eventually lost to him.
  • In "The Chump"^note episode 25 of season 6, there was a joke about a Billy Joel Rock Band game - something which, at the time, couldn't happen, because Billy Joel didn't allow his music to be used in either Rock Band or Guitar Hero at the time. Not only did Billy Joel's music^note 10 songs, to be exact - "Big Shot," "Captain Jack," "It's Still Rock N Roll to Me," "Movin' Out," "Only The Good Die Young," "Piano Man," "Pressure," "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," "The Entertainer," and "The Stranger" appear as Downloadable Content over 3 months later in Rock Band 3, but according to Billy Joel himself, he did so because of the joke; he read a review of the episode where the reviewer said "God forbid that should ever happen"^note it's not clear if he was doing this to snark, or because they wanted to see it happen, and Billy Joel got on the phone and told his people to get him in the latest Rock Band game^note this likely would've been a case of What Could Have Been had it not been for the fact that Rock Band 3 featured a keyboard controller, as Billy Joel's music is heavily dependent on the piano. However, a Billy Joel Rock Band in the same vein as The Beatles: Rock Band or Green Day: Rock Band, which is more likely what the critic was actually referring to, still has not happened (or, for that matter, a Guitar Hero game in the same vein).
  • When the "Niagara" episode aired in 2009, Meemaw showed disdain for watching Charlie Rose on TV. It's likely he was a mere random target. But in 2017, Rose, who worked for PBS and additionally CBS, made some sexually inappropriate behavior, and both networks canned him. Again, it's coincidental... unless Meemaw was on to something.
  • The pre-credits gag from "Trivia"^note season 8 episode 11 unintentionally foreshadowed John Krasinski's A Quiet Place.
  • This quote from Dwight, now that Rainn Wilson has voiced Lex Luthor in the DC Animated Movie Universe.
    Dwight: And in conclusion, I think that Lex Luthor said it best when he said "Dad, you have no idea what I'm capable of".
  • John Krasinski played Jim, who's pretty hopeless even with his beloved sniper rifle in Call of Duty. Now that Krasinski's done 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (alongside Roy's actor David Denman no less) and Jack Ryan, he's clearly doing a lot better with a gun.
  • Dwight's insistence in the pre-credits scene of "Counseling" that children could use their imaginations to make plastic silverware into toys feels downright prescient following Toy Story 4.
  • Michael leaves in season 7 and is temporarily replaced by Deangelo Vickers, played by Will Ferrell. This is doubly funny when the same year Season 7 was released (2010), the Dueling Movies Despicable Me and Megamind came out, both of which have Steve Carell and Will Ferrell respectively voicing the main characters with very similar plotlines.
  • Way back in Season 2's "Sexual Harassment", Toby responds to a question about workplace romance with the warning "Office relationships are never a good idea." Obviously no one paid attention, because during the next eight seasons over half of the employees would have a romantic relationship with a co-worker, including several Love Triangles, resulting in three marriages (and two broken engagements).^note plus the drunken Ryan/Kelly marriage that ended in divorce a week later in "The Search" There's also some unrequited love, and Michael dating his corporate superior Jan.
  • A Saturday Night Live skit claims that The Office is actually a ripoff of a Japanese sitcom. We see the supposed original where Steve Carell runs a Japanese office and has everyone participate in morning calisthenics (which is commonplace Japanese workplaces). In the series finale, Dwight implements this program in the workplace because he is an Occidental Otaku.
  • Ryan wanted to implement a social media function to the Dunder-Mifflin website and Jim and Dwight wonder why a paper company would need one. Nowadays, social media functions are very commonplace. Though in complete fairness to Jim and Dwight, most of these are essentially corporate accounts on pre-existing social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc.) that the companies primarily use for marketing and customer relations, rather than trying to make the company website double as a social networking platform in its own right as Ryan was attempting to do.
  • One of Jim's most popular pranks was "Asian Jim," where Jim gaslights Dwight by having an Asian actor pose as Jim, convincing Dwight that Jim's been Asian all along and he just didn't notice. Asian Jim was played by Randall Park, who would go on to play, well, an Asian Jim when he took the role of Jimmy Woo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • Jan threatens to shut down the Scranton warehouse team if they unionize. In the mobile app game The Office: Somehow We Manage, the premise of the game is built around corporate taking the profits generated by the sales team and paying them with a pseudo-currency that Michael plagiarized from Dwight. So essentially corporate is showing exactly why they're adverse to workers sticking up for themselves.
  • Dwight's handlebar mustache in "Branch Wars" is intriguingly prescient, as Rainn Wilson would later go on to portray infamous mustache-twirler Harry Mudd on Star Trek: Discovery (ironically, Rainn's depiction of Mudd lacks the iconic mustache in favor of a full beard).
  • In "Scott's Tots," Dwight says to Jim, "I bet if you tried, you could grow the best beard out of anyone in the office." Now that John Krasinski has grown a beard, many fans are inclined to agree.
  • Michael crying about Political Overcorrectness because he found out Phyllis was playing Santa Claus makes you wonder how he'd react knowing that there's going to be an Australian remake of The Office with the bumbling boss character played by a woman.
• Ho Yay:
  • Kevin and Oscar in "Niagara". Helps that Oscar is actually gay.
  • Occasional hints of this with Dwight and Ryan, starting in "Initiation" with Dwight's Accidental Innuendo assertion that "Just as you have planted your seed in the ground, I’m going to plant my seed in you." They also get extremely chummy planning their anti-Jim conspiracy in "Manager and Salesman".
  • Michael has been enamored of Ryan for a long time. He repeatedly writes about Ryan in his diary; when reading it at Jan's deposition, anyone who didn't know Ryan believed he was a woman Michael was in love with, based on some entries (he describes Ryan as being "just as hot as Jan, but in a different way"). There's also the Dundies, the annual office awards assigned by Michael. Michael repeatedly awards Ryan "Hottest in the Office", a title previously held by Pam. When someone else wins "Hottest in the Office" in the 7th season, Ryan is shown to be pretty upset by this. Heck, Michael even outright states that he would sleep with Ryan.
    Ryan: (discussing filling in as receptionist while Pam is on vacation) Jim has been looking at me, kind of, a lot, all week... I would be creeped out by it, but, it's nothing compared to the way Michael looks at me. (cut to Michael staring longingly at Ryan through the blinds in his office)
  • Dwight towards Michael. Dwight is always trying to please Michael, takes care of him when he's hurt, and in the episode "Koi Pond" calls him handsome when trying to cheer him up. There's also him getting jealous of Michael giving Ryan attention and favoring him in "The Fire."
  • Played for Laughs by Jim, who in one episode claims that Dwight tried to kiss him and that he's not sure how he feels about it. (Even more hilariously, Dwight doesn't actually truly deny this.)
  • There are some moments of one-sided Ho Yay from Andy towards Jim, such as when he calls Jim while they’re both at work in the office, and the following conversation ensues.
  Jim, answering the phone: Jim Halpert.
  Andy: *groans* I am so horny.
  Jim: (A moment of silence and a slightly horrified look at the camera) Okay, I can’t help you with that.
  Andy: Oh, I think you can, Big Tuna. (A long pause, as though he’s waiting for a response before he continues) Tell me about that Indian chick, Kelly.
• Hype Backlash: The Office's massive popularity on multiple internet fandom circles (particularly Reddit and Tumblr) has inevitably led to this for newcomers who are of the opinion that the series is funny but way overblown by its fans who gloss over its many flaws, or simply don't care for the show's reliance on dry Cringe Comedy style of humor.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The first season was generally an awkward attempt to Americanize the original British series. Notoriously, the Pilot was a straight remake of the UK pilot. While "Diversity Day" is now viewed as a good first step toward finding a unique voice for the US version, the other episodes just sort of come off as sanitized copies of the original's style, with some funny moments offset by weaker material. It all seemed rather pointless and didn't do well with audiences or critics. In Season 2, it Grew The Beard and developed its own style and identity.
• It Was His Sled: Because they were such major moments, anyone who starts watching the series from the beginning for the first time now is probably already aware that Jim and Pam eventually get married and Michael will ultimately leave Dunder Mifflin.
• Jerkass Woobie: Has its own page.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Andy has been shipped with several characters, including Erin, Oscar, Karen, Jim, Kelly, Ryan, Robert, Gabe, and original characters.
• Memetic Badass: Stanley. According to the fandom, he's seemingly capable of doing literally anything if it allows him to go home from work early.
• Memetic Mutation: To say this show has produced a veritable boatload of iconic memes would be putting things mildly.
  • That's What She Said
  • NO, GOD. NO, God, please, no, NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!^note  Michael's Big "NO!" when he sees Toby had come back from Costa Rica. Naturally used anytime someone hears some distressing news. An alternet use for the same result is the scene where Pam realizes Michael is dating her mother.
  • False.^explanation A catchphrase of Dwight that people have used to prefix Literal-Minded responses to metaphors.
  • Oh my GOD! Okay, it's happening! Everybody stay calm! STAY F*CKING CALM!^note In "Stress Relief", Michael shouts this once he realizes there's a fire in the building. This clip is often used when an announcement is made online for something that has a decent amount of hype behind it, or something that people never thought would happen actually happens.
  • How the turntables… ^note Another Michael Malaproper of the phrase “how the tables have turned”, which became so popular that it is frequently used in place of the actual phrase.
  • Corporate needs you to find the differences between this picture and this picture. ^note  They're the same picture. Often used to compare similar objects or ideas to one another, or deliver a "Not So Different" Remark.
  • For fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, mashing up Robert California's dialogue with clips of Ultron^note both characters are played by James Spader.
  • "Sir, this is a Wendy's",^note  used as cheeky retort on Twitter to any sort of overly-emphatic or rambling statement, seems to have been inspired by the bit in "Chair Model" where Kevin tricks Michael into calling a Wendy's under the misimpression that he's calling a "hot and juicy redhead" named Wendy (though the actual line is "Dude, this is a Wendy's restaurant").
  • The photograph of Ed Truck shaking Michael's hand. ^note  Gets used for people being praised for accidental achievements, receiving recognition from someone with more skill in the relevant task than oneself, and more broadly, being celebrated for things one has very minimal understanding of.
  • "BOY HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND, CAUSE I'LL HELP YOU FIND IT!"^note  this also became a meme on TikTok in 2021 with the first part of Stanley's quote ("That little girl is a child, I don't want to see you sniffing around her...") included. Users created videos featuring fictional and real life Age Gap Romances using the sound.
  • A Running Gag in comments about Office-related videos on Youtube is that Creed Bratton is a Real Life Cloudcuckoolander who just happened to walk onto the set for the pilot and spent 9 years thinking he was working in a real office.^note Which is actually not that far off from the truth. Bratton had called director Ken Kwapis, who he'd worked with before, to ask if could get a job as a stand-in for the pilot. Kwapis said the show didn't need stand-ins, but could use some background extras to play office employees. Eventually he became an official ensemble member in Season 2
  • "It's called hentai, and it's art."^ExplanationA quote from a Deleted Scene where Michael accidentally uncovers Stanley's Porn Stash, which Stanley responds to in an interview by saying that It's Not Porn, It's Art. The frankness of the quote and the unexpected acknowledgement of hentai from a mainstream American show led to the line instantly catching on among fans, being parroted in reference to NSFW or otherwise suggestive artwork online.
  • Jim pointing to the whiteboard in "Baby Shower" is used by the poster to make a point, similar to the Lisa Simpson presentation meme.
  • "I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious."^note One of Michael's many Malapropers.
  • "I am aware of the effect I have on women."^note Said by Charles Miner in the episode "Two Weeks."
  • "Why are you the way that you are? I hate so much about the things you choose to be."^note Michael's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Toby in "Casino Night."
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • It's a recurring joke within the show's fandom that Toby is secretly the Scranton Strangler, citing that it would serve as an outlet for his stressful work environment with his unreciprocated romantic feelings for Pam and having to deal with Michael wailing on him at work.
  • Creed. Not exactly unfounded given that he's shown to be a repeat criminal offender, who's implied in the show to have committed murder more than once. He's even considered one of the biggest alternatives to Toby as the true identity of the Scranton Strangler.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales:
  • The show's portrayal of Scranton, Pennsylvania wasn't particularly flattering, but the city loved the show, largely due to the writers having Shown Their Work with numerous references to local landmarks and businesses in the script. There was a huge "wrap party" event a couple of weeks before the finale aired in 2013, when the cast visited Scranton and received an ecstatic welcome.
  • Cornell University graduate Andy isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for his alma mater with his various eccentricities, but Cornell itself loved the character enough to invite Ed Helms to give the commencement address in 2014.
• Misaimed Fandom: Jim's elaborate pranks on Dwight are hilarious but what most viewers tend to overlook is that Jim eventually realizes that the entire reason that he was pranking Dwight in such elaborate methods was because he wasn't being fulfilled at his job. In the scene where Dwight brings his list of grievances of Jim to Michael, Jim even comes to the realization himself that the jokes are less funny when he realizes they're indicative of how sad and bored he is at Dunder Mifflin. Doesn't stop most from cracking up at the reveal that Dwight hit himself in the head when he tried answering the phone.
• Moe:
  • Erin - we even see her in her "jammy jams".
  • Early on, Pam as well, though she moves away from it over time. Even Dwight feels protective of her.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Darryl's Cookie Monster impression.
• Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: In "Finale", even before she starts asking Erin about her birth mother, the mere fact that the woman at the panel who asks a question specifically for Erin is played by Joan Cusack makes it fairly easy to figure out The Reveal that's about to happen.
• Never Live It Down: Out of all of Michael's insane actions over the course of the series, the one that often sits the worst with fans is "Scott's Tots" where it was revealed that he had inexplicably promised to pay the college tuition of an entire class of inner city children. Unable to bring himself to tell them the truth, he strung them along for over a decade and was forced to confess he couldn't afford it only a few weeks before their graduation, offering them cheap laptop batteries as an apology.
• Older Than They Think:
  • A great many fans of the American version are not aware of the English one.
  • Also, the character Michael Scott, who bears an intriguing resemblance to Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman. Willy Loman strives for success but his main goal in life is to be loved, the same as Michael Scott. Both are convinced that's how you succeed. Both were very successful salesmen before the start of the narrative, and neither has realized how far downhill they've gone. Both are at a dead end in their careers, and neither realizes that their true talents lie elsewhere (Michael as a salesman, Willy as a carpenter). Both are desperate for normal human connections, and are incapable of keeping them. Willy Loman is really just Michael Scott in fifteen years, played for tragic anti-hero rather than for laughs.
  • The use of "That's What She Said" as a joke response to anything that could be interpreted as even vaguely sexual is definitely Older Than They Think. Though popularized by The Office, that phrase had been used in that exact same way for at least a decade before the show existed (thanks to the popularity of Wayne's World), if not longer. In fact, it ended up on the show because B.J. Novak recalled hearing it all the time when he was a student at Harvard in The '90s.
  • Also, "...you ignorant slut." came from Saturday Night Live. Since Michael is shown to be a fan of the show, it's definitely where he got the line from.
  • Some of the cast members already had Mockumentary experience when they joined the show. Jenna Fischer had directed, written and starred As Herself in 2004's LolliLove, a rare comedy from Troma (where her then-husband James Gunn was a frequent director at the time). Oscar Nunez had made some memorable appearances on Reno 911! as Capt. Dwayne Hernandez (aka "Spanish Mike" Alvarez).
  • Within the series itself, the Big Damn Kiss at the end of the Season 2 finale "Casino Night" is frequently called "Jim and Pam's first kiss." However, in the season premiere "The Dundies", after Roy left Chili's and she got extremely drunk, Pam gave Jim an unsolicited, slightly passionate kiss after winning the "Whitest Sneakers" award, a moment that clearly left him stunned. Since that falls under In Vino Veritas, while the "Casino Night" kiss had a much clearer context and intention, Jenna Fischer says she still thinks of "Casino Night" as the first meaningful kiss.
  • In his memoir The Bassoon King, Rainn Wilson says he was a big fan of WKRP in Cincinnati when he was growing up, and he used that show's resident eccentric dork Les Nessman as one of his models for Dwight Schrute (for one example, compare Dwight's beet obsession with Les's intense interest in hog farming).
  • Michael's "superstitious/stitious" bit is a pretty old Ditz joke. Gracie Allen once told George Burns she wasn't superstitious or "regular old stitious".
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Bob Odenkirk in the episode 16 of season 9, as an office manager very similar to Michael Scott. Odenkirk nearly got cast in the role of Michael.
  • All of the managerial candidates that were interviewed after Deangelo was dismissed, save for David Brent, Robert California and Nellie.
  • Randall Park as Jim and Pam's Asian-American friend Steve, who comes into the office while Jim is at the dentist and pretends to be him to mess with Dwight.
• Paranoia Fuel: What if your coworkers really do have you under electronic surveillance, looking for something they can use to ruin you for their own benefit?
• Periphery Demographic: Although it's a Work Com, with most episodes rated TV-14, and with quite a few overt sexual references, it's always been popular with kids and teens, who can still appreciate the quotable dialogue, relatable situations, goofy storylines and colorful characters. The voice acting of Steve Carell in Despicable Me and Mindy Kaling and Phyllis Smith in Inside Out has also been a factor in attracting younger audiences to the show.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Quite a number of younger fans don't realize that Michael's "Dwight, you ignorant slut!" was a reference to an older Saturday Night Live skit with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Andy is introduced as a thoroughly unlikable sycophant with rage issues. While he's continued to be portrayed as a comically awkward character, his portrayal became more sympathetic during his engagement to Angela (who cheated on him and was otherwise emotionally abusive) and by the time he ended up a main character, he was one of the most likable characters on the show, to the point that the fans were absolutely outraged by the treatment he received in the series' final season that had him as the Designated Villain. This also occurred by the end of Season 9 where after spending most of the final year as a total jackass devoid of his likable characteristics he got back to his nice, charming self.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • A deleted scene from "WUPHF.com" had a lady named Sheri approach Dwight about the Hay Festival and being picked as "Mother Harvest". She was played by Selah Victor - Chloe Bourgeois.
  • In season 6's "The Banker", the titular investment banker is played by David Costabile, more famous for his later role as Gale in Breaking Bad.
  • In the same season's episode "The Delivery, part 2", the woman that Pam shares a room with after giving birth is Bernadette.
  • Randall Park, who played "Asian Jim" in the Season 9 episode "Andy's Ancestry", went on to hit it big a few years later with his roles as Louis Huang in Fresh Off the Boat, Kim Jong-un in The Interview, and Agent Jimmy Woo in various Marvel Cinematic Universe projects.
• Romantic Plot Tumor:
  • The Dwight/Angela/Andy love triangle in Season 5 just sort of dragged on and made Dwight and Angela into bastards.
  • Andy and Erin's will they/won't they dilemma wasn't nearly as complicated as the writers kept making it out to be. They had a mutual attraction, but even when both characters were single they seemed too reluctant to just get back together. And it really didn't help that Erin ultimately dumped Andy after three seasons of this.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Just as Dwight tends to be susceptible to Draco in Leather Pants treatment by a certain segment of viewers, so too does his rival and foil Jim tend to receive this trope in turn. While Jim definitely has his flaws, and his pranks towards Dwight do occasionally border on excessive (which, to be completely fair, the show and even Jim himself have acknowledged on occasion), he is not quite the cruel, unfeeling bully that his more fervent detractors tend to depict him as being. Outside of his pranks, he is often shown to show far more genuine concern for Dwight and others when it's needed than his coworkers can tend to (to illustrate, when Dwight and Andy's rivalry finally comes to blows in "The Duel", alone of everyone Jim rushes out of the office to make sure both men are okay). And unlike Dwight, he is clearly shown to have standards about how far he'll go with his pranks (he never tries to get anyone fired from their job or ruin their career, unlike Dwight) and is willing to draw a line he won't cross.
  • The couple in "A Benihana Christmas" who split Dwight from the rest of the group at the restaurant seem to be genuinely detested by a significant amount of fans who — not entirely jokingly — venomously denounce them for not moving seats so that Dwight could join the others from Dunder-Mifflin. While they could have perhaps switched seats so as not to split the party, this overlooks the fact that Dwight is not exactly polite about asking them to move (practically demanding that the man surrender his chair rather than asking politely if he could move to allow Dwight to be seated with his friends) and that Michael orders Dwight to leave them alone, clearly signalling that he's not interested in being seated with Dwight. They are, at most, guilty of a minor social faux pas, not the serial killers the fanbase acts like they are. And again, it's pretty telling that their biggest crime seems to be the inconveniencing of the show's resident Draco in Leather Pants.
• The Scrappy: While this show has a large number of Hate Sinks, meaning many characters are supposed to be obnoxious, these characters fail to be enjoyable enough for fans to hate them even in a fun way:
  • Deangelo Vickers, a brief successor for Michael's job, generally left audiences cold, seeing him as unfunny when the show intended for him to get laughs, charmless and rude to the other characters. He also suffered from lacking consistent writing or direction, with his personality seemingly changing from episode to episode. His appearance only lasted for four episodes, but opinions seem largely grateful for that brevity. The only positively remembered element of Deangelo is the invisible juggling scene in his second episode, and even that scene is still a good example of his inconsistency.
  • Robert California quickly became this with the critics of the series. While his initial introduction and characterization was praised, over the course of Season 8, critical opinions on him began to sour to the point where his character was considered the weakest link of the Post-Michael seasons. Not helping was the ridiculous way he was inserted as the new CEO and characterization that fell into a bad case of Depending on the Writer.
  • Nellie was already disliked ever since she appeared in "Search Committee", but the hatred of her began to really pick up after she stole Andy's job. Main criticisms include her being such a Karma Houdini it shreds any Willing Suspension of Disbelief to pieces, and the strong suspicion of her being a Creator's Pet. The praise given to Catherine Tate by Paul Lieberstein in his interviews did not help matters.
  • Pete became this for many Andy/Erin fans. Even non-shippers disliked him due to finding him bland and boring and a badly done rehash of Jim with no character of his own outside of being Erin's new love interest. People still call him by his In-Universe nickname Plop on message boards rather than his real name.
  • Brian, the boom mic operator. Many viewers see him as an unnecessary character who exists just to add some tension to Jim and Pam's relationship.
  • Despite only appearing once, Erin's foster brother, Reed, is despised due to how creepy he acts around his "sister."
• Seasonal Rot: Season 4 definitely marked a turning point for the show, with the primary ongoing plot resolved at last, the season getting interrupted by the Writers Guild strike, and Greg Daniels and other members of the creative team leaving to start up Parks and Recreation at season's end. Seasons 5, 6, and 7, with Paul Lieberstein taking over as showrunner, saw some fan complaints about a drop in quality. Steve Carell's departure toward the end of Season 7 led those complaints to increase tenfold. Most fans and critics agree that the show saw its biggest downturn in quality then. Without Michael Scott as the show's focus character, the creators tried bringing in several new characters and story arcs to fill the void, all of which were met with a lukewarm reception, so Seasons 8 and 9 generally have a lesser reputation (though the series Grand Finale is well-regarded).
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: The Andy/Erin vs. Pete/Erin debates still inflame parts of the fanbase.
• Squick: Dwight saying Schrute Farms' biggest attraction is their 200 year old mattresses.
  • Dwight talking about how he performed his own circumcision as a child is a cross between this and Nightmare Fuel.
  • Dwight pretending to give birth to a watermelon in the cold open of "Baby Shower". Even Creed is grossed out.
  • Meredith attends a party that has a male stripper come in and we find out the stripper is her son Jake. Instead of being outraged or surprised, she tells him he's doing it all wrong and shows him how to gyrate.
• Strangled by the Red String: Erin hooked up with Pete in the final season just because the writers wanted to try and imitate the early Jim/Pam romance dynamic, all the while putting Andy through an especially bad case of Derailing Love Interests to make Pete look more appealing.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • In "Conflict Resolution," Toby reveals that every week he has a meeting set up with Dwight to complain about Jim's pranks, and he tells Dwight they go to a special file in New York. That "special file" is a box under Toby's desk. While Dwight is annoying and Jim's pranks are funny, Dwight has every right to be angry when he finds out the truth. He has been complaining about an ongoing problem with a coworker to HR, only to discover that HR has done nothing to resolve it.
  • Jim considers Josh Porter leveraging his position at the Stamford branch to get a better job at Staples and jeopardizing the Stamford workers' livelihoods reprehensible. However, given that Dunder-Mifflin is a textbook Incompetence, Inc. that makes cuts and loses money every year and whose upper management shows no signs of turning the company around, can you really blame him for deciding to take a job at a company that has a more stable future? This said, Jim's disdain is clearly framed as being aimed at the callous, underhanded and hypocritical way Josh went about securing the job rather his desire for more stable employment in and of itself (not to mention the fact that Jim himself is one of the people whose livelihoods have been threatened thanks to Josh, making it entirely reasonable that he would fail to appreciate Josh's point at that particular moment).
• Super Couple: Jim and Pam, especially in seasons 2-6. One of the great examples of a Happily Married couple on TV this side of Friday Night Lights.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The American version's Instrumental Theme Tune is more upbeat and quirky than the UK version's "Handbags and Gladrags" cover, but they share obvious similarities in arrangement and structure. In a lot of ways this echoes the relationship between the two shows themselves.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: Phyllis and Bob Vance. Despite their mature age and neither being conventional knockouts, they can't seem to get enough of each other. Phyllis auctioning off a hug that Bob pays top dollar for is an especially touching moment for them.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While the whole writing team in general wasn't let off the hook for the more contentious aspects of the ninth and final season, fans of Andy especially deeply despise Greg Daniels for how he depicted the character under his belief that Andy was funnier as a jerkass, ignoring all the development and genuinely sympathetic aspects Andy had, as well as callously sinking the Andy/Erin ship by derailing Andy's character in favor making Pete, a new addition and a bland clone of Jim, a better match for Erin. Many fans continue to feel incredibly bitter over this arc years after the series concluded.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Danny Cordray, played by Timothy Olyphant, is treated as a really important character for the two episodes he's in, but after that, he disappears and is never brought up again.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • Michael Scott is one of the most beloved sitcom characters of all time, so this was bound to happen with whoever took over as manager. Noticeably Andy was one of the series' most popular characters but suddenly became far more divisive once he was picked to fill Michael's shoes.
  • Pete was openly acknowledged as the new Jim, but he didn't get to make much of an impression outside of being a Nice Guy. Jim being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold at least gave him some depth.
• Unintentional Period Piece: For much of the late 2000s and early 2010s, especially with regards to the technology and pop culture references.
  • In Season 2, the most coveted gift at the office's Secret Santa exchange is an iPod 5G (and understandably so: Ryan remarks that it costs $400).
  • Jim and Pam's wedding in Season 6 is an extended Shout-Out to a then-popular YouTube video.
  • Characters are frequently shown using Blackberries and flip phones.
  • Dwight's obsession with Battlestar Galactica (2003) is now quite dated.
  • The fourth season (which ran from 2007-2008) featured a subplot of Ryan trying to modernize Dunder-Mifflin and make it more user-friendly. It's telling that there's never a mention of using social media like Facebook or Twitter but rather creating a chatroom for the company's website.
  • In season four's "Local Ad", Dwight plays Second Life, which was at the peak of its popularity, receiving lots of attention from the mainstream media at the time.
  • The Season 9 subplot about the elevator being shut down and leading to "Stairmageddon" was a reference to the 2011 closing of Interstate 405 in Southern California, which was dubbed by the media "Carmageddon."
  • Oddly, the irritated Wendy's employee on the phone in "Chair Model" who tells Michael "You have to come to the restaurant to order food" and mocks his proposal to send someone over to pick it up, since today most fast food chains (including Wendy's) now allow ordering via their website or custom apps, and pickup/delivery services like Doordash and Uber Eats are popular.
  • The few times Netflix is mentioned, it's based on the franchise's mail-order model rather than the streaming service that became the norm sometime after the series' end.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Katy is supposed to be seen as a generic and shallow Romantic False Lead that Jim is only dating because Pam's still engaged to Roy. But other than being a bit of a ditz, she's shown to be a nice person who legitimately liked Jim and didn't do anything to warrant being treated so callously by him when he decides to end things.
  • Andy all through Season 9. He's painted up as having taken a massive level up in jerkassery, but between Nellie taking his job in the previous season, his family issues, and deteriorating relationship with Erin (who emotionally cheats on him and then dumps him for another guy), he can be considered a Jerkass Woobie.
  • Jan. The show frames her as a cold "ball-buster" and a selfish jerk who increasingly becomes abusive towards Michael, but as this video points out, the environment that she's expected to put up with as one of the few (if only) female chairs high up in the corporate branch of the company and dealing with Michael in general clearly has taken a toll on her sanity.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Michael as the well-meaning boss who's too oblivious to realize when he's being insensitive. From the start, he was intended as a Lighter and Softer version of the much more odious David Brent from the UK version, with the affable Steve Carell in the role. But his selfish behavior, horrible treatment of his employees and co-workers, aggravating acts of utter stupidity, and general inability (if not outright refusal) to learn from his mistakes or become a better person can make it hard to really like him as a character, and the attempts to give him Character Development and Hidden Depths can sometimes feel forced as a result.
  • The office staff constantly berate Michael for his incompetent management of the branch when it's clear that many of them are incredibly dysfunctional themselves. In fact, it's more than likely that Michael's mismanagement is the only reason half the office remains employed, especially some of the supposed Only Sane Men like the prank-happy Jim or the openly disrespectful Stanley.
  • Nellie starts off as a Hate Sink, but attempts to make her more sympathetic further down the road were unsuccessful for many viewers because she could Never Live It Down.
  • Phyllis in the party-planning subplot between her and Angela. To show how she is being mistreated by Angela, any episode that involves a party tends to include multiple scenes of Angela berating Phyllis for a mistake she made in the preparations. However, this happens so often that it quickly comes across as though Phyllis spectacularly fails at every single task she's given, making it hard not to see where Angela's frustration is coming from. It doesn't help that, when she starts blackmailing Angela in order to take over the party-planning committee, she proceeds to really Kick the Dog with how far she takes it, never mind that she spent months knowing one of her coworkers was being cheated on but decided to keep that information private for her own benefit. Later on in the show, Phyllis starts to get called out on her nasty tendencies, with the writers seemingly recognizing this.
  • Erin in Season 9. In the show's frequent attempts to recreate the Jim/Pam romance, they attempt to portray her as neglected and mistreated so she could be pushed toward the supposedly nicer and more understanding Pete instead. However, the handwave they used to explain why Andy would inexplicably start treating her that way so soon after risking his job to win her back involved him going through exceptionally difficult circumstances that made his behavior actually somewhat understandable, and made Erin come off as heartless for abandoning him during such a rough period in his life, and over a temporary bout of Jerkass behavior that obviously wasn't entirely his fault. Ellie Kemper herself said that Erin's choice to be with Pete was supposed to show her growing up by choosing a more stable guy, but that argument can feel flat by how it feels less like Erin's matured inasmuch as her immaturity was just dumped on Andy, and it collapses on itself in the scene where, in the midst of their breakup, Erin bursts into Andy's office and demands that he "just get over it" like a spoiled teenager, after she had already proven in the previous season that she was completely incapable of doing that herself with the situations reversed. Then we see Erin throw a tantrum over losing a paper airplane contest and storm off when Jim and Pam refused to double-date with her and Pete, making the aforementioned maturity arc fall flat on its face.
  • Toby's crush on Pam and subsequent resentment of her relationship with Jim in season 4 would be a lot easier to sympathize with if he'd ever said anything to her about it, ever. His awkward interactions with her often come off as creepy, especially when he lays his hand on her leg, and in "Did I Stutter", he and Ryan conspire to get Jim in trouble with corporate (Jim had earned Ryan's ire by going over his head and complaining about website to David Wallace) because Toby wants Jim out of the way. His behavior can be seen as crossing lines, and it makes the character harder to root for after he moves on. His advances on Nellie in spite of her repeatedly telling him she's not interested also does him no favors.
  • While Jim's pranks are meant to be amusing to the audience, some of them instead come across as downright mean-spirited, over the top, and uncalled for, making him seem like a bully to Dwight instead of a lovable prankster. Even moreso when he tries agitating Andy after the guy had just come out of anger management. In one earlier episode, Jim hears a list of HR complaints from Dwight listing his pranks and realizes how bad it makes him look, but this ultimately doesn't change Jim's behavior.
  • A recurring topic on the Office Ladies podcasts about the first three seasons is that Pam's behavior is often frustrating to watch, with Jenna Fischer herself frequently agreeing with Angela Kinsey about this. Especially in the second season, she's a bit of an Extreme Doormat for Roy, and is a Master of the Mixed Message with Jim, being flirty with him one minute then standoffish afterward. Then she acts completely shocked by Jim's Anguished Declaration of Love in "Casino Night", as if she'd never considered that he might have feelings for her. It's also a bit hard to sympathize with Pam's jealousy towards Jim's early season girlfriends. Katy is a Nice Girl who tries to be friends with her and the only reason Jim is dating her is because Pam is engaged to Roy and refuses to break off what is clearly an unhappy relationship. Pam responds to Katy's kindness with undeserved passive-aggressive snarking. Even after Jim leaves Katy for good and tells Pam he loves her, she still refuses to end things with Roy, only having the courage to break the engagement after Jim has gone to Stamford. When the two offices merge, Pam is surprised to see that Jim is now with Karen, repeating her passive-aggressive behavior even though it was entirely her own fault that Jim decided to move on and date someone else.
• Unpopular Popular Character:
  • Dwight. Hardly anyone in the office likes him and the few that can tolerate him are a little odd themselves. Despite this, he's probably the most memorable part of the series, with his popularity rivaling David Brent's.
  • Creed tends to be viewed as a creepy, incompetent Cloudcuckoolander by his coworkers but is an Ensemble Dark Horse among fans.
  • Andy turnes out to be an in-universe example. Most of the staff can't stand working in close proximity to him, but when the documentary was finally released, he'd become one of the most beloved characters.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: B.J. Novak has stated that children as young as five years old come up to him because they know him from The Office. Not only is the humor too mature for that age group (in Canada, the home video releases are rated 14A, meaning that no one under the age of 14 is to purchase them), but most children that young would find the show boring.
• The Woobie: Has it own page.

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