Chapter 1: What happens at Meredith's Moroccan-themed Christmas party?
Welcome to your second drink of Moroccan Christmas. This episode has a little bit of everything. It has an intervention, a scandalous affair, and princess unicorn dolls. And we have a lot of fun details. We reached out to folks from the cast and crew for behind-the-scenes trivia. Listen to this list.
Justin Spitzer, Aaron Schur, Halstead Sullivan, Jen Salata, Randy Cordray, James Carey, Stephen Socks, and Kate Flannery all shared amazing stuff with us for this episode.
I mean, we left no rock unturned for this one. This is true. So let's dig into the second drink. A lot of you wrote in about the Princess Unicorn storyline. And like Jenna said, we have great details about how it all came together. And Jenna, when we broke down the episode originally, you mentioned there was a commercial for the doll, but we never played it on the podcast.
We'll shout out to Office Ladies listener, Char T, who said, OMG, I found the Princess Unicorn commercial. And she shared the link with us. So I guess Peacock put it on their official YouTube a few years ago. You got to hear it. It's Princess Unicorn!
Chapter 2: How does Michael Scott handle Meredith's intervention?
Wow! She's Princess Unicorn, royalty with a horn, wearing the prettiest gowns ever worn. She's so elegant, so regal. I love her horn! Whenever you need a friend, she'll be there till the end. Good night, Princess Unicorn. I love you. On Princess Unicorn, you can depend.
Wow.
It's amazing. Royalty with a horn.
Well, Angela, when we first broke down this episode, you mentioned two things that you could make out on the dry erase board over in accounting. But we had a listener that was able to decipher almost the entire board. It is an amazing list of stuff. Izzy T. from Illinois wrote in with this list. And I thought you would enjoy this, lady, because you love a background catch. I do. I really do.
Izzy said, I looked very intensely at the whiteboard calendar. That comes up around 1 minute, 47 seconds. And I think I have found out most of the month's schedule for December.
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Chapter 3: What scandalous affair is revealed at the party?
On the 10th, there is copier machine maintenance at 10 a.m. and an Oxford rep due at 9 a.m. On the 15th, there is a Christmas party planning committee meeting at 4 p.m. in the conference room. On the 17th, there is the Scranton CFC annual holiday luncheon at Cooper's at 12 a.m. And Izzy wrote, yes, it really says a.m., On the 18th, there's an accounting staff meeting at 9 a.m.
On the 23rd of December, the warehouse is closed and it says no shipping until 1226. Also on the 24th, it says Christmas Eve, office closed at noon, office Christmas party 1 p.m. On the 25th, it says Merry Christmas. On December 30th, it says warehouse closed, no shipping until January 2nd. And then on December 31st, it says office closed.
And then for the 31st and the 1st, it says happy new year.
So much detail. That is amazing background catch work. Because I remember I tried to zoom in and I pretty much the thing that stood out to me was that the Christmas party was on Christmas Eve, which I thought was hilarious. Also, a lot of people wrote in about the Angela and Phyllis Party Planning Committee power struggle.
Elise M. from Pennsylvania says, I absolutely love the scenes between Angela and Phyllis. They are hilarious. They make me laugh every time I watch this episode. How did you all stop from completely cracking up? Well, Elise, it was really difficult not to laugh. And we did laugh a ton. But just for fun...
I wanted to see if there were any extra bits between me and Phyllis, and I found in the Candy Bag Alts all of these Phyllis talking head alts. They are so hilarious, and I wanted to read you one, okay? Yes, yes. It's an alt about how she's kind of flexing that she's planning this Christmas party herself. Okay, ready? Yes. Phyllis.
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Chapter 4: What unique props were used in this episode?
The Christmas party I organized this year is going to be our best one yet. I'm really good at this. I'm considering starting a party planning business on the side. I'd call it a touch of Phyllis because everything's a little sweeter with a touch of Phyllis. And then she takes out a notepad and says, oh, that's good. I can see that on a bench somewhere.
I love it. A touch of Phyllis. Well, lastly, we got a fan mail flurry. Samantha H., Debbie R., Nathan S., Michaela N., Allison D., Mackenzie P., and Tamara L. all wrote in because of a little bit of banter you and I had. Angela, I asked you why the character of Angela Martin was always so angry at Christmas.
And, Ang, you said that there are levels to Angela Martin's anger, but that the, quote, Christmas bitch is a whole other level of bitch. Well, we got several messages, like I said, a fan mail flurry of people saying, please make Christmas bitch into a sweater. Another one said, quote, I really feel like Christmas bitch needs to be on some seasonal merch. Just really cracked me up.
Oh, Christmas is really fun. I totally forgot about that. Now you guys all have my wheels turning. All right. Well, that was really fun. Thanks to everyone who wrote in and please go to officeladies.com to submit your favorite second drink moments and we'll share them on the podcast.
And now here's our second drink of Moroccan Christmas. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on The Office together. And we're best friends. And now we're doing the Ultimate Office Rewatch Podcast just for you.
Each week, we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you. We're The Office Ladies.
I hope you're in a festive mood today because we're talking about Moroccan Christmas.
So get out your Christmas plaid, but put away that nativity scene because Phyllis is going to throw you the party of a lifetime.
She sure is. It's Season 5, Episode 11, written by Justin Spitzer and directed by Paul Feig. Here is your summary. As you said, Phyllis throws a Moroccan-themed Christmas party, which receives compliments from the majority of the group, but some serious contempt from Angela.
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Chapter 5: How did the Princess Unicorn storyline come about?
We're getting ahead. All right. Fast fact number one. This was the third Christmas-themed episode of The Office. Yes, it was. Season five, but only three Christmas episodes. Why? Well, the first season, we didn't have one. And then in season four, it was the writer's strike.
I know. We missed a Christmas party.
It has been two years since we had a Christmas party on The Office.
They were always some of my favorite episodes, so I was excited.
Me too. I liked them because they were majority group scenes. Yes. We were all together all the time. It was like a whole episode of Conference Room. So lots of bits, lots of laughing.
We would just have the best time. We would get loopy. We would. But in the best way.
Fast fact number two, the inspiration for this episode, I was able to get in touch with writer Justin Spitzer.
What'd Justin have to say?
He told me that they had had these two ideas rolling around for a really long time. The first one was the idea of a Moroccan Christmas. They just loved the idea that Phyllis had thrown that amazing goodbye party for Toby.
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Chapter 6: What went into the production of the hair-on-fire stunt?
So he had like a very normal looking living room. Yeah. cozy, like a place you'd read books. I believe there was like a green leather chair. Oh yeah, there was like cozy chairs with like a blanket draped over it. So cozy. And then all of a sudden, when it was time to watch the show, the screen would come down out of the ceiling and it would turn into this amazing viewing experience.
I thought these guys are doing it right.
They know what they're doing. Yeah. And they have a great taco cart. Aw, that's so cool. Well, there you go. Just a little something from my digital clutter. And now we should break down this episode. Well, I think we should take a break first. And now we should take a break.
Let's do it. And we'll be back to talk all things Moroccan Christmas.
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Well, we are back, and, um, wow, is Dwight's desk festive or what? Oh, my.
This is an epic prank by Jim.
Every single thing on Dwight's desk is wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper.
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Chapter 7: What are the behind-the-scenes stories shared by the cast?
But chicken wire is stronger than you think. Oh, yes, it is. Right? It wouldn't have collapsed. Nope. It wouldn't have, Ange. Did they make one with chicken wire and it didn't work?
Yes. Oh, my gosh. So Randy said that he and Paul Feig and our set designer, Michael Gallenberg, and our first AD, Kelly Cantley, all tried to talk Greg out of this. They were very skeptical it would work. But Greg really needed to see it for himself. Okay. So here's what they did. They built four different desks out of four different materials. Oh, my gosh. What were the materials?
One of them was chicken wire. Okay. One was styrofoam. One was balsa wood. And one was corrugated cardboard. And then they meticulously gift wrapped all of them. Oh, oh, can I guess?
Can I guess which one worked the best? Yeah. What do you guys think? I wish we could hear what you think out there. I think the cardboard.
The corrugated cardboard. That's what I would bet on. All right. At the end, I'll tell you which one it was. Okay. Okay. So they set up one of the desks.
Yeah.
And then they asked our stand-in, Stephen Socks, to come in and do Dwight's motion of walking in, setting the briefcase down, and sitting down to see what would happen.
Now, there's four different types of desks and four different types of chairs.
Yes.
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Chapter 8: What is the significance of the intervention scene in the episode?
I say she dug into some Bob Vance cash. Mm. Because this is an over-the-top party.
Oh, that is such a good point, Angela.
Well, she has a talking head that she says the theme for her Christmas party is called Nights in Morocco. I love a party with a theme. I know. I get really excited. I mean, my 50th birthday, my theme was hummingbirds. And we all painted hummingbirds. And I had little pink hummingbirds like garland hanging in the bushes. It was amazing. I love a theme. Well, Phyllis does too.
And did you notice that Phyllis has on brand new glasses for this episode? No. Yes. And we talked about it in the DVD commentary. And Kate said, Ange, do you remember they were called her power glasses? Yes. What? I know. And because Phyllis is like the head of the PPC, she's like a boss lady, they wanted her look to reflect that.
Oh, I love this detail.
Yes. And Phil Shea brought a bunch of glasses to Phyllis. They picked out this particular pair, and they even put her prescription in them. So Phyllis and her power glasses are going to take Angela to task.
Well, her standoff with Angela starts right away. She marches over to Angela's desk and she just zeroes right in on that nativity scene. Yeah. And she like just sweeps half of it into the drawer.
Baby Jesus went into the drawer. Sure did. Angela's not happy. I have a background catch. At one minute, 50 seconds. Did you see what was on the dry erase board?
It was fuzzy.
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