I was cooking dinner and missed what happened with Andy. He ended up back at Cornell somehow? What happened and how?
That’s going to be my new ‘go away’ phrase, thank you.
Poor Clark and Plop barely had any lines, and I had hoped to see Holly somewhere, too. I know it would have been impossible to bring back every character ever shown, but she changed Micheal’s life.
Creed has always been a gem in this show and I’m glad that even to the end they didn’t overuse him. All we need was a toss-away line like, “Hey, my crystal meth is here!” to appreciate the zeitgeist of Creed.
A spinoff I’d like to see (that won’t happen, of course, this is fantasy we’re talking about) is Erin getting to know her birth family; Joan Cusack and Ed Begley, Jr are hilarious people, he’s done the mockumentary format before and I think it’d be a scream.
He was asked to give commencement at Cornell as a joke but ended up giving a pretty inspiring speech, supposedly. The 5 second clip they showed was him saying “Even though I’m baby wah-wah, you all should be the baby wah-wah’s because you’re leaving Cornell” (paraphrased) which got a huge positive response. Because of the positive response, Cornell asked him to work in the admissions department but no specifics were given as to the nature of his job. He says it’s his dream job but he misses the good old days and wishes you could know when the good old days are while you’re living it.
There was also a nice bit halfway at the panel where it seemed like there was nobody in the audience and when Andy goes to close the doors there was a horde of fans behind the velvet rope, waiting to get in. They greet Andy and not with Baby-wah-wah but with his documentary catchphrase -ri-di-di-didoo that (d)evolves into a steady chant and makes Andy feel better about himself.
What I’d like to see is updates through the years (real time). Just little one minute or so updates from the characters, on the website. I think that would be really cool. For example, an update from Ryan in 6 months (again, in real time) talking about him and Kelly getting back together after the wedding, then breaking it off two days later and him getting his baby back (or not, because it wasn’t his, it was just to get Kelly back).
Maybe an update in a year from Jim and Pam to tell us about Austin. Etc. In my head, these would show up randomly and go on indefinitely. It wouldn’t take much, just when the actor can get a few minutes of studio time or can get some time alone with a cell phone/tablet camera or shoot off the video to the studio.
NBC could keep these strictly on the website so they can load them up with ads and use Twitter and Facebook to tell people about them so they’ll gain a ton of followers on social media sites from people waiting to hear about the new videos.
That’s a pretty good and innovative idea, no one would think about Jerry Seinfeld or Hawkeye Pierce doing follow ups like that. Unfortunately, I think it would be a little too forward thinking for a broadcast network – why would they want to provide content that they wouldn’t put in a broadcast slot. On the other hand, they’re already doing this with webisodes so it’s not completely unprecedented. If they could justify the expense, I’d think they would want to do it.
I think, if they could convince the actors to not get to wound up with makeup and hair and whatnot, it wouldn’t be too expensive to make. Especially, for some of them like Jim and Pam or Ryan or Andy who are the type of characters who would film their own updates while sitting at home during a commercial break on TV that could actually film their own updates with a decent cell phone/webcam/tablet. As long as they were willing to do it for not to much money, it would be neat and keep interest in the show. On top of that, when it ended, someday, lets say 20 years down the road, there would be more articles and more renewed interest and more people rewatching the shows and the could re-release the DVD box set with all the updates.
I think it would be kind of neat, but, it’s not all that likely and I’m sure all the actors are ready to move on.
I vaguely remember another show offering continuing web updates on its characters.
Was it The Office during the summer season a few years ago? 
Yeah, there was a series of webisodes where the characters were looking for a missing file or something. They had some other stuff as well like that music video with Kelly and Erin.
I had no idea what they were chanting as I haven’t watched the show since Carell left. What was this documentary and what does the catchphrase mean?
Uhhhh
Baby-wah-wah is from his meltdown after being rejected from an American-idol-esque acapella show.
Rididididoo is just my personal interpretation of what it sounds like when Andy half-heartedly scats in acapella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLUQcSmqPjc . It was never a major plot point and kind of obscure.
The documentary is the show. They openly acknowledged that the show is in fact being filmed for a PBS documentary and everything we’ve seen is from the “documentary”. That’s what I meant by different catchphrases. Baby-Wah-wah is from someone else filming Andy’s meltdown, leaking it onto youtube and not part of the actual documentary. Rididididoo is from the show and thus the documentary and shows that the crowd is there to support Andy for his role in the documentary/show and not there to mock him for his youtube fame.
Confusing? A bit. I hope someone else can explain more succinctly?
*The youtube thing is still in-show though. It’s not actual viral footage of a young Ed Helms failing in a singing competition.
That reminded me that Dwight’s direct look at the camera and deadpan delivery of “And viewers like you.” made me hoot.
No, it was a show that provided continuing updates on the characters after the show ended.
The premise of the show has always been that it’s a documentary about an office (hence the interview segments), but they were a lot more explicit about this in the final season, with the camera crew sometimes interacting directly with the Dunder-Mifflin employees.
They were also chanting Nard-Dog. In other words, the chanting was affectionate, not at all mean. (And during the retrospective, one of the actors mentioned that they get a very warm response when they visit Scranton.)
BTW, I read somewhere years ago that the footage of Scranton from the title sequence to the show was filmed by John Krasinksi when he made an informal visit to the city before the series started.
I never knew that. The Dunderpedia backs you up.
I thought the finale was very well done. I liked that the audience confronted Pam. I loved Michael’s cameo and felt it was just perfect. His speech about his children growing up and marrying each other and it being his dream is just the quintessential Michael moment. Everything about the episode was just pretty damn good honestly.
I am really happy with the fact that the documentary became self aware in the last season. It really gave the show’s format more of a point, or gave some substance to the style. The british version of the show missed out on the effect of what a documentary would do to the real lives of these characters once aired, and I thought in that way, the american version here excelled and explored something fairly unique.
I think The Office dragged on a bit too long but overall it was a great show and I think it will be well remembered throughout american tv history, and this was a great way to end it.
I saw an interview with some of the cast a few years ago about this. The “ri dit dit dit di doo” was an inside joke in the writers room. When someone came up with a great idea, they’d say that afterwards. They eventually wrote the phrase into Andy’s character.
There were a few brief interactions in the past like when one of the camera crew alerted Pam to some early Dwight and Angela flirting but it got explicit this season.
Not true. There was a one hour special after the two British seasons that did exactly that. It took place after the documentary aired.