History Characters / TheOfficeUSMichaelScott

* AmbiguousDisorder: Given [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} his personality]], [[CampStraight mannerisms]] and propensity to bumble into impossibly awkward situations, it's been theorized that he has anything from being on the Autism Spectrum to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LLfLTsiDAo Histrionic Personality Disorder]].

* UnfortunateImplications: 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.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: 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.

** "Michael's Birthday" and "Threat Level Midnight" show that he's a natural at ice skating.

* {{Jerkass}}: In general, he's selfish, shallow, and obnoxious whether he realizes it or not.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He might be selfish, but his employees all consider him a genuinely nice guy at heart and will rally around him when he needs it. 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:

* DependingOnTheWriter: 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 a BastardGirlfriend, 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. Creator/BJNovak (credits include "Diversity Day", "Sexual Harassment" and the aforementioned "Chair Model") preferred immature, self-centered Michael, while Creator/MindyKaling (credits include "The Dundies", "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" and "Diwali") specialized in Michael as sympathetic.

* EnergeticAndSoftSpokenDuo: Michael's hyperactive and immature demeanor often clashes with Toby's soft-spoken personality and his level-headedness and their comedic rivalry is often popular by fans.

* MirrorCharacter: Despite Michael hating Toby and the two men being polar opposites, they are both very insecure, lonely and socially awkward and have struggled romantically.

* RedOniBlueOni: Michael's expressive and impulsive Red Oni and Toby's reserved and cautious Blue Oni.

* LargeHam

[[center: [- [[Characters/TheOfficeUS Main Character Index]] | [[Characters/TheOfficeUSMainCharacters Main Characters]] | '''Michael Scott''' | [[Characters/TheOfficeUSSecondaryCharacters Secondary Characters]] | [[Characters/TheOfficeUSRecurringCharacters Recurring Characters]] | [[Characters/TheOfficeUSThreatLevelMidnightCharacters Threat Level Midnight Characters]] -] ]]

* SoUnfunnyItsFunny: His attempts at intentional comedy almost always end up as this, because they're so clumsy and full of cliches.

* OneHourWorkWeek: 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.

[[header:Michael Gary Scott]]

->Played by: Creator/SteveCarell
->Seasons: 1-7, 9[[note]]"Finale"[[/note]]
->''"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. [[BreadEggsMilkSquick Occasionally I’ll hit somebody with my car.]] So sue me."''

* LargeHam:
-->'''Michael:''' No, God!... No, God, please, no!... No!... No!... Nooooo!!!!

* MistakenForGay: According to Phyllis: She and Michael's classmates in high school thought he was gay due to the outfits he wore.

* NoSocialSkills: He does not think before he speaks. When in a counseling session with Toby, he even [[BlatantLies claimed to have been raised by wolves at one point.]] It would have certainly explained a lot.

* LargeHam: Michael often has moments where he hilariously screams at the top of his lungs especially he gets upset when Toby comes back from Costa Rica.

--->'''Michael:''' No, God!... No, God, please, no!... No!... No!... Nooooo!!!!

* LargeHam

* BirdsOfAFeather: With Holly. Both are dorky individuals who love making jokes and doing impressions. They also can be InnocentlyInsensitive.

** A rare inversion occurs in "The Duel," [[spoiler: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.]]

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: 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.

* AFatherToHisMen: One way he's WrongGenreSavvy is that he often tries to behave this way with his employees, making attempts at a RousingSpeech, or treating them like wayward children who need guidance. In "The Convict" he even calls them "babies" when they refuse to take his ScareEmStraight character Prison Mike seriously.

* FriendToAllChildren: He is very fond of children (babies, too- he tries to hold one every day) and wants to have his own kids [[spoiler:(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.

** 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.

** In "Email Surveillance" he's shown to be quite good at karaoke.

--->'''Michael:''' "Really? You're kidding me? You and Pam? Wow. I would have never put you two together, you really hit it well? God. [[BlatantLies I usually have a radar for stuff like that]]."

-->'''Michael:''' "This is an environment of welcoming. And you should just get the hell outta here."

* TheIllegible: 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."
-->That can't be right. We're ''soul mates''.

* JerkassToOne: When he insults someone, it's usually [[InnocentlyInsensitive unintentional]]...unless he's talking to Toby, since his hatred for Toby is a RunningGag.

* 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).

** 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 [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter 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.
--->I am going to be Cupid. And I'm going to shoot my [[TheMalaproper 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.

-->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.

* LargeHam: He's known for his immature, erratic and excitable goofiness or he feels passionate about something, like his job or his extreme hatred for Toby.

** The words he says to Toby when he kicks out of Diversity Day:

* BuxomIsBetter: 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 ([[spoiler: and it works, at least for a little while]]).

** His attempt (in deleted scenes) to claim that Meredith was drunk when he [[spoiler: hit her with his car]] actually turns out to be a reasonable argument.

* FriendToAllChildren: He is very fond of children (babies, too- he tries to hold one every day) and wants to have his own kids [[spoiler: (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.

** Even if everyone else hates Todd Packer for being a complete {{Jerkass}}, Michael sees him as a friend. [[spoiler: 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.

--->'''Michael:''' Really? You're kidding me? You and Pam? Wow. I would have never put you two together, you really hit it well? God. [[BlatantLies I usually have a radar for stuff like that.]]
* HypocriticalHumor: 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.

** He considers Stanley a good friend, even if it's pretty obvious Stanley can't stand him. He sees both Stanley and Darryl as StreetSmart mentors just because they are only black employees. Unlike Stanley, Darryl at least tolerates Michael (sometimes) and mostly humors him for his own amusement in teaching him nonsensical "black man phrases".

** He does have some grounds to question why Pam and Jim, both salesmen, did not inform him of their pregnancy. 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.

** Effectively puts both Ryan (his corporate boss) and Jim (his co-manager) in their place when it comes to operating the Scranton office. It ''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:

* BabiesEverAfter: Per supplemental material, he and Holly have three kids together plus one on the way 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.

* BabiesEverAfter: Per supplemental material, he and Holly have three kids plus one on the way 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.