Brian Baumgartner, who performed the endearingly dim-witted accountant Kevin Malone on NBC’s “The Office,” can’t escape the function that outlined him for 9 seasons.
He even lately appeared in an episode of the NBC drama “Suits LA,” enjoying himself. Within the present, he requested his lawyer to discover a method to eliminate the character so he might understand his dream of changing into an Oscar-worthy dramatic actor.
Loyal “Office” followers absolutely caught the within gag.
In truth, Baumgartner has for years served as a contented ambassador for the beloved mockumentary in regards to the staff of a Scranton, Penn., paper firm. He hosted a podcast celebrating ”The Workplace” and turned it right into a best-selling oral historical past ebook. Kevin Malone’s well-known chili paved the best way for 2 cookbooks.
Many hit exhibits from a long time in the past have been embraced by audiences due to publicity on Netflix and different streaming platforms. However even amongst that group, “The Office” — which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary — lives in uncommon air.
Whereas by no means a blockbuster hit throughout its preliminary run that started on March 24, 2005, streaming has helped flip “The Office,” an adaptation of the eponymous British sequence, into an everlasting popular culture touchstone.
The acquainted solid members have ridden the wave, evoking their well-known roles in TV commercials for Cheerios, Panera Bread, Bush’s Beans, Fox’s telecast of the 2020 Tremendous Bowl and AT&T Enterprise. The present is being licensed for toys (Lego, Little Folks, Funko Pop! and Polly Pockets) and kids’s books together with “The Office: A Day at Dunder Mifflin Elementary.” Tickets for an annual unofficial fan conference often known as the Reunion, to be held in New Jersey this yr, go for as a lot as $400.
“The Office” continues to have a stylistic affect on TV comedy as effectively. Its faux-documentary model — harking back to Christopher Visitor films — grew to become a template for different profitable sitcoms together with “Modern Family,” “Abbott Elementary” and most lately NBC’s “St. Denis Medical.”
The sequence will happen in “The Office” universe with alum Oscar Nuñez becoming a member of the solid. (Daniels, protecting of “The Office” canon, famous that Oscar Martinez was the one character who didn’t have a life-changing decision within the finale).
Baumgartner has helped feed “The Office” recognition machine for years, however he’s nonetheless bowled over at how a lot the present means to followers who’ve found it because it ended.
“They have an intense need to tell me how the show helped them through a difficult time,” Baumgartner advised The Occasions. “A medical condition, a family issue, a domestic problem. It’s a very powerful thing.”
Even with its cringe-generating moments, typically created by Steve Carell’s malapropism-prone Michael Scott, the familial ambiance of Dunder Mifflin is a welcome escape at a time of political division and offended social discourse.
“The Office” co-stars Craig Robinson, left, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, Kate Flannery, Creed Bratton and Brian Baumgartner in 2025.
(AT&T Enterprise)
“In this fractured society, just seeing and feeling a disparate group of people who care about each other is rare, particularly in TV right now,” Baumgartner stated.
Whereas streaming companies entered bidding wars for “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and different hit sitcoms of the previous, “The Office” quietly outperformed them. Nielsen information confirmed it was probably the most streamed present in 2020, a time when extra shoppers have been turning to Netflix, the place “The Office” was streaming, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
That demand translated right into a big-money deal. Comcast Corp. shelled out $100 million to its personal Common Tv unit that produced “The Office” to deliver the sequence to its Peacock streaming service in 2021 — 5 occasions what Netflix was paying, based on individuals conversant in the deal who weren’t approved to remark publicly.
The sequence is the most well-liked program on the service. NBC says the common Peacock viewer has watched 59 episodes of the sequence.
Peacock enlisted the present’s producers to create “super fan” episodes that restore materials reduce for its authentic 22 minute broadcast run-time (they’re simply attending to the ninth and closing season). They’ve helped drive 1.7 billion hours of viewing of “The Office,” accounting for 7% of all Peacock utilization.
“The Office” has additionally remained a staple of conventional TV, presently working on three cable networks: E!, Comedy Central and Freeform. With cable networks slicing again on authentic programming, “The Office” reruns are filling up hours of their schedules. The present airs on greater than a dozen worldwide broadcast companies.
The sturdiness of classic TV sitcoms reminiscent of “I Love Lucy” and “Friends” are pushed partially by the nostalgia of followers who grew up with them. However some audiences flocking to the “The Office” are discovering as if it have been a brand new present.
As streaming video gained viewers, Daniels heard from co-workers on his different tasks about how their preteen children have been watching “The Office” obsessively on Netflix which first purchased the rights in 2011. Being trapped in a cubicle and compelled to cope with a buffoonish boss resonates with the junior excessive crowd.
John Krasinski, left, and Rainn Wilson in “The Office.”
(Byron Cohen)
”It’s like your expertise in class, when the instructor is lecturing you and also you’re unable to keep away from it,” Daniels stated. “Or the person at the desk next to you is someone you didn’t necessarily choose to be your best friend and you’re kind of stuck there.”
Jim Donnelly, govt vp for comedy at Common Tv, stated the present’s youthful attraction helps replenish the viewers.
“I do think that as television viewers come of age, they are finding the show,” he stated. “We haven’t really seen any drop-off in interest.”
Daniels says the present nonetheless fells up to date after 20 years. The British model of “The Office” — created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Service provider — was shot with a Frederick Wiseman-like bleakness. However Daniels gave the U.S. version the look of a actuality present format, full with confessional interviews. He employed the movie crew from “Survivor” after “The Office” pilot was picked up.
The sensible jokes on the present attraction to a youthful era that devours prank movies — from MrBeast to Dude Excellent — throughout YouTube and different social media platforms. The official TikTok account for “The Office” has 4.2 million followers, practically 1 million greater than “Friends.”
The enduring success of “The Office” is outstanding contemplating the present’s rocky begin. “A single camera sitcom, shot as a faux documentary with no laugh track with people who look normal in the age of ‘Friends’ and ‘Baywatch,’ was not an easy pitch,” stated Ben Silverman, who introduced this system to NBC. (Silverman presently runs the manufacturing firm Propagate.)
“The Office” was created in one other period of tv, when reaching broad audiences was obligatory for community TV survival. The present was vying for a spot on the schedule at a time when NBC had misplaced its mega-hit “Friends” and had pinned its hopes on “Joey,” a spin-off that includes Matt LeBlanc that struggled to get by means of two seasons.
Jeff Zucker, who ran NBCUniversal on the time, admits the quirky comedy model of “The Office” pilot was not simple for his programming division to digest.
“The folks at NBC Entertainment at the time were probably not the target in understanding the humor of the show,” Zucker stated in an interview.
“The Office” had one actual champion in higher administration on the community: Kevin Reilly, the leisure president who first acquired a pitch for the mission when he was working cable community FX.
Daniels didn’t have the status TV snobs behind him both. Making a U.S. model of the acclaimed 2001 British sequence was perilous.
“There was a lot of stress because fans of the original show were saying ‘Why are you doing this? It’s such a gem,’ ” Daniels recalled. “I would say, ‘If you like this kind of comedy, this is the closest you’re going to get.’ ”
The pilot was not well-received by check audiences, however confirmed sufficient of a pulse with youthful viewers to earn a six episode order — an unusually small quantity on the time for a community present.
Scores declined after an honest viewers for its premiere. Zucker stated there have been “long conversations” on the community earlier than bringing the present again for a second yr.
However the present caught a pair main breaks. One was Carell’s lead function in the summertime field workplace hit “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which turned him right into a film star and a draw for a present that averted casting huge identify actors at the beginning.
The opposite was NBC’s determination to supply episodes on Apple’s iTunes platform when DVD units have been the primary method to binge-watch. The transfer was a precursor to the video-on-demand streaming world.
Whereas the “Office” viewers was small by community TV requirements of the time, lots of its viewers have been younger, upscale and extra prepared to adapt to new know-how. In 2005, “The Office” grew to become a high vendor on iTunes with 100,000 downloads within the first few months.
“I think that told us that there was going to be a new way of delivering these shows,” Zucker stated. “Had ‘The Office’ started out on streaming, it would have been a huge hit right out of the box.”
Ash Tavassoli, govt vp and inventive director of advert company BBDO LA by no means caught “The Office” throughout its community run. However when he was recovering from surgical procedure he went down the sequence rabbit gap of 192 episodes.
“I’m like, ‘I can’t turn this thing off,’ ” Tavassoli stated. “I had to immediately tell anyone who I knew who hadn’t watched it, ‘You need to go watch this thing.’ ”
The on-screen alchemy between the solid members impressed him to make use of them in an advert marketing campaign for AT&T Enterprise that began working final yr.
“The Office” co-stars Baumgartner, Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer, Craig Robinson, Kate Flannery and Creed Bratton seem within the sequence of trippy commercials depicting the launch of a line of pillow audio system referred to as Sleep with Rainn. Tavassoli stated it didn’t take a lot to get the tight-knit group to make their very own inventive contributions to the spots.
“You put them on a set together and they have their own dynamic,” Tavassoli stated. “When we shot with them, they didn’t even feel us on set. We let them cook for three days.”
