From Trina & Mayette at 1:30 AM PST.

Dear, God. Okay, people. We have recapped Paley. We have recapped Paley in detail. We have recapped Paley in incredible detail, because we want you to get the best experience out of reading this. If you didn’t get to go, don’t worry, I can guarantee you will feel like you were there after you check out this short novel we have constructed here. It took a couple days, but hey, we think it’s worth it. If you read it and enjoy it, please comment to let us know! We want to be sure people like what we try to bring here at FNW.com ALRIGHT NOW, let’s get this thing started, shall we??

And here we go!
• Woke up at 3AM, because such is the way when roadtrips are on the agenda.
• By the time Trina picked up Mayette and Nick, it was 4AM, and we hit the road for…
• San Francisco! Which we got to at about 6AM. Why did we go to SF? UM, TO PICK UP SHELBY.
• Okay, so, NOW. 6AM, and we start the real trip to LA.
• HEY REMEMBER THE JOY OF EATING FROM THE COMIC CON ROADTRIP? YEAH, WELL IT RETURNED. And Shelby caught proof of it.

• We realized about half-way through the trip that we had nothing for the writers to sign (in case they would be able to). So we found a Target to pick up some stuff and got some lunch at Togo’s while we were there.
• Driving, driving, driving, grapevine, driving.
• TRINA HIT A BIRD It wasn’t on purpose—she was being negligent. We would’ve held a bird funeral for it, we swear, but… well, we still had a lot of trip ahead of us.
• We listened to the Office playlist Nick made, and decided there needs to be a Toby tribute video made to “Everybody Hurts”. Probably all in slow motion, too.

• Then around 1PM, we got to LA! First, we found the Paley Center. Then, we found some 2-hour parking and holed up in some ritzy Tiffany’s bathroom while we did out make-up/hair.

• Now more suitable for being seen in public, we took a little time to walk around.

• Oh, and also, hit up Sprinkles cupcakes. Because it’s necessary!!!

• By then, our 2-hour free parking was up, so we left and decided to park in the Paley Center’s parking garage and change into our pretty pretty outfits.

• Once we were done, we noticed a sign that said the garage was for valet-parking only? And also, we never got any ticket stub saying what time we got into the garage so they would know whow much to charge up when we wanted to leave. Luckily someone who worked there was around to ask about all of it. He was like, “oh, you guys are here early!” and we’re like, “um, duh, it’s first come, first seated”. But anyways, that parking garage was supposed to be for “certain people”, and the people attenting the event were supposed to park somewhere else. But then he said, “…but I never saw you, so don’t worry about it. Your fine.” UM HOW AWESOME? Because that totally meant I got to park there for free. Score.
• Then, the waiting. We officially got in line (read: started the line) at 3:30. But then 10 minutes later other people showed up and so it was definitely worth it to get there first.
• Um, random: Brandi C. (from ‘Rock of Love’/'I Love Money’) was at the restraunt next door eating for like a freaking hour. Shelby got a far-away picture:

• Waiting waiting waiting. Our butts hurt from so much sitting. Still waiting. There was lots of tic-tac-toe and hangman to be played. Waiting more.

• And Shelby and Trina wanted to give a shout out to certain people:

• They started letting people in at 6 (the event itself started at 7), so at 5:50 we started waiting by the door. On the screens inside they kept playing this obvious ‘Baby Shower’ clip on repeat, and we were watching it without sound (obviously) and still laughing like idiots.
• 6PM, they let us in. I had my e-tickets, membership card and my ID all out and ready to check in so we could hurry up and get seated. BUT, for some reason, they never printed a hard copy of my order so they had to print them there. And all the while other people were getting checked in even though we got there so early to be first This will be remedied ;)
• We got seated in the fourth row. But then again, it’s a super tiny theatre (150 seats, I think) and everything was still super visible from our spots. But still. We made conversation with the people around us and found out it WAS okay to take pictures as long as the flash was off. Totally thought it was prohibited, so this was AWESOME news.

• AND THEN, the usher-type woman found 4 seats in the second row (normally reserved for press/family/friends) that were reserved but no one claimed them, so she gave them to us! SECOND ROW, SCORE. Especially considering that…
• The seat directly in front of me was reserved for Greg Daniels. I know, right?!!? He ended up sitting in the next seat over (right in front of Shelby), but still. Hey, creator of The Office, you’re right there!

• While we were waiting, Shelby and I started talking to the guy next to us, who turned out to be there for LA Magazine. He started asking us questions about ourselves and how far we’d traveled to get there, and he said he might write about us. And we know how that turned out.

• Once he sat down, they started the show. They played and introduction video for the Paley Center in general, featuring Kim Cattrall (which Nick enjoyed) and Patrick Dempsey (which Shelby and Nick enjoyed).
• Barbara Dickinson, the Paley LA Director gave and brief intro about the Center, before introducing the moderator (Jennie Tan from OfficeTally), who introduced Greg Daniels. Greg Daniels said they had a clip from ‘Baby Shower’ to play for us, which they then…did. It was the cold open (and the clip we could see playing while we were waiting outside earlier). And if you’ve seen it, then you already know how hilarious it is.

• THEN, they introduced the writers. In order, they were: Charlie Grandy, Ryan Koh, Anthony Farrell, Justin Spitzer, Lester Lewis, Lee Eisenberg, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein, Mike Schur, Greg Daniels.
• Greg Daniels said that there were a couple other writers who were supposed to show up. Aaron Shure was going to come by after he was done overseeing some soundmixing for ‘Baby Shower’—”If he were here right now, there would be no episode this thursday,” he said. So yeah, we were willing to wait ;) Jen Celotta was also going to be by once she was done watching a talking head being filmed right then for an episode she had written.
• Alright, for the Q&A part, we’re gonna switch the format a litte. Let’s try it out, shall we?

QUESTION: What is it like watching The Office in a group of people?
ANSWER: Greg thought it was fun to watch. Mike said he always felt nervous. Although he liked to hear people laugh—”which is something you don’t get to experience when you don’t have a live audience”—he still gets nervous about it. He said even when he wrote for SNL, if a sketch he wrote was being performed, he would go all the way into another room and watch it on a tiny black and white monitor instead of seeing it actually performed because he couldn’t take the pressure.

• Mindy said she’s always nervous when Paul is doing a scene, that he won’t be able to keep it together. Paul countered and said he’s seen take after take of Mindy breaking during scenes. Greg added to that and said that if you see Mindy covering her mouth/putting a finger over her lip or looking up, it’s not because she’s acting—it’s because she’s trying not to break.

QUESTION: Why is The Office popular? Did the writing influence the success?
ANSWER: Greg said that it’s all about the behavioral moments. Mike said that The Office does something that other shows don’t normally do, in that they take chunks of time to not be funny and to be real. He said, “if you’re going to write a serious scene, write a serious scene.” They don’t feel the need to make every moment comedic in order for it to be a comedy. (NOTE: So true, right??)

• Just then—dramatic pause—JEN CELOTTA ARRIVED, YAY!!! She was on set watching an episode she wrote be shot, but she reeeeaaally couldn’t say anything about the talking head they just shot.

QUESTION: Will there be a celebration after episode #100?
ANSWER: Lester said, “yeah, we’ll start writing episode #101.” Oh, you witty, witty writers!

• Because that question brought up the issues of celebration, they said Holly’s suggestion of fruit for the party in ‘Weight Loss’ came from one of the writers suggesting fruit instead of cake when they have their parties. They said that someone will usually “call everyone upstairs” for a meeting, and then the party will happen up there!

QUESTION: How is it determined who writes what?
ANSWER: Greg said that it’s usually who came up with the idea, because whoever loves that topic has more strength with it. Jen Celotta says that ‘Grief Counseling’ is a good example of an episode that no one wanted to touch (NOTE: What? But it ended up being so hilarious!). Mike and Lee went on to say that everyone’s wanted to do a weight loss episode since about 3 years ago, but they didn’t know how to incorporate all the time into an hour or less. Then Greg came up with the idea of each act break being a certain time period. Greg said it was difficult then, since most episodes take place over the span of one day, to all of a sudden have an episode that spans weeks. It made it tricky for continuity, which is why there’s one shot in a scene where Michael is supposed to have his goatee, and he magically doesn’t. In a typical episode they could just rearrange scene in any ways they wanted for the most part, but ‘Weight Loss’ had to have a specific order to keep the timeline in right. They also said that, since the idea for the episode had been floating around for so long, they had jokes from years ago already thought up that they had to try to work with/incorperate when they finally got around to making it.

• During this, Mindy Kaling refered to episodes that are difficult to write as “unbreakable”. She explained that a “breakable” episode is one where you can take the main idea of it, and “break it down” in a way that it can apply to each character and tell a complete story. If they can’t do that—TADA, it is “unbreakable”!
• Other previously “unbreakable” story ideas? ‘Earth Day’ and ‘Blood Drive’. Someone said, “these were three episode ideas [they’re including ‘Weight Loss’ here] that have been unbreakable for so long and now we’re going to throw them all at you at once!”
• Jen Celotta also joked that they locked all the “new” writers in a room and leave it up to them to “break” an episode if the rest of them can’t. She said it actually helped with ‘Weight Loss’ because they were all so eager and excited to work that they came up with a lot of ideas.
• They couldn’t think of the name of the episode for 10/23 (’Crime Aid’), so we said told them, and they pointed and applauded. They were all, “These guys know their stuff!” UM, HOW COOL, RIGHT?! And after that all of them would make lots of eye contact—Shelby snapped a couple pictures of Paul when he looked our way.

QUESTION: Do you feel any pressure from fans to keep Jim & Pam together? Do they have to live happily ever after?
ANSWER: Greg said that the best way to write is to make them real; “How would Pam react in this situation? How would Jim react?” Someone said that conflict is good, too. Greg added that it’s hard to talk about Jim and Pam because anything said is taken way out of context and draw so many conclusions from it when they’re just trying to explain something simply.

QUESTION: Michael Scott walks a fine line between being likeable/mean/clueless. Do you ever draw a line for him?
ANSWER: Mike said, “Pass.” But then he talked about an index card they have up in the writer’s room that says, “Michael is not Homer.” Because they are, in the same sense, hopeful and do mean good. But Homer is a cartoon, and Michael is a real person. Greg cut in to say, “For example, the Halloween episode. Michael thinks that he can fire someone and still be friends with him, and in some ways even I can relate to that hopefulness.” At this, most of the writers turned to look at him suspiciously. DUN DUN DUN. Moving on, they said other times where Michael can be seen as a real person is when he follows the GPS instructions to drive into the lake from ‘Dunder Mifflin Infinity’.

• Jen Celotta explains the backstory of that idea: She discovered that there was a “do not drive into a body of water” warning on a GPS system, which she thought was completely ridiculous and obvious already. But then she researched it, and found there really were people driving into bodies of water because they trusted their GPS system so much. She said that a lot of it happened in London at a specific spot, and people were charging $40 to tow people out of the water because it happened a couple of times a day. Mike explained his thought behind Michael doing it in DMI was that he had been so confident in his “old fashioned” ways of doing business (with gift baskets). But when that failed, he started doubting himself, and thinking that maybe Ryan was right about new technology, and that it must know something he doesn’t. Jen thought people (and Michael), must think the water is only a couple inches deep. Greg added that that reasoning for why Michael went ahead and turned was shot when they got to the lake and saw that is was filled with cattails and obviously was not just a couple inches deep, but they just had to go with it.
• Adding to the general discussion, Mindy talked about when Sprinkles died. Michael knows Sprinkle’s name, and then in the same sentence, calls her Pringles. (NOTE: they talked about this at Comic-Con, too. Not sure if it was Mindy who brought it up then or not, but still.) Mike talks about how Michael’s brain has the capacity for that one thought, and then it’s just lost.

• They talk about how Steve Carell is fluent in “Michael Scott.” He knows his character really well, and sometimes ixnays on some stuff that he thinks Michael wouldn’t do, or plays up things he think he would. For example, kissing Oscar in ‘Gay Witch Hunt.’ OOH FUN FACT: There was a deleted scene there as well, where Toby tells Michael that he counts on his discretion with the information about Oscar. Michael then goes up to Oscar all, “Oh my god, I can’t believe your’re gay, let’s talk about it!”. Toby confronts him afterward, saying that he thought he had his discretion. Michael says, “Yes. And then I discressed it with Oscar.” Greg Daniels says that Michael Scott sometimes makes bad choices. Another example of that? Greg said, “There’s an episode I’m trying to think of. Dwight’s got some crazy idea and Michael is willing to go along with it.” At the looks he was getting from the writers (NOTE: And also, audience), he added, “Yeah, that’s not very specific.” But then he remembered he was thinking of ‘Chair Model’, when Dwight offers to track down the model to “bear [his] fruit,” and Michael agrees, “That sounds good.” He’s just so caught up in the genuine excitement at the thought, that he blindly agrees to it.

QUESTION: Are there any plans for a live episode?
ANSWER: Mike said, “It’s a documentary…” And in order to do something like that, they’d maybe have to “pretend it isn’t live”. But there are also problems in the way that alot of things start out as voiceovers before they cut to the person speaking (like with talking heads, etc), and that would be essentially impossible if an episode were “live.” Paul then said doing a live episode is good for promotion, but not necessarily a good show.

QUESTION: Someone noticed that the better episodes take place inside the office versus taking them outside of the office.
ANSWER: Paul Lieberstein said that they are trying for a big chunk of the beginning of the season to stay inside the office. Greg said that it also costs a lot to go outside of the office, which is why it was so contained in the first seasons, when they had no budget. They also said that they enjoy going out of The Office sometimes, because they are real people and they do have lives outside of the office and it’s not always realisitic to keep them in it whole time.

• Sometimes when a scene isn’t working, they realize it’s because the cameras are too close for the characters not to be “camera aware”. They can’t make a really personal scene with the cameras 5 feet away from them and just expect them not to take notice that they’re being filmed.

QUESTION: Jim & Pam proposal scene—let’s hear more about what it took to make it?
ANSWER: It was Greg’s idea to have it at the gas station with the mics going out. He google mapped a kind of “middle point” rest stop, and saw the street view of it and was determined to have the proposal take place there (on the actual location) because of the giant trees and everything. BUT, then they discovered that to fly everyone and everything out there that they needed would have cost $100,000 (NOTE: YIKES). On top of the cost, it was to tricky to time everything he wanted to happen at the same time (rain, traffic constantly driving by and blocking them, getting a “spy” shot from across the road, etc). So they faked it. None of the set was natural, it was all done by the amazing production crew in the parking lot of a Best Buy about thirty minutes from Paley. The traffic was a set of cars driving in a continuous loop around, the rain was all rain machines, and the gas station was totally fake (with cardboard displays inside to look like vending machines/soda/etc). They hired professional CGI guys to make trees for the background. Then he said he almost hates telling people about how it was made because he wants people to enjoy it like it was all real. To that, we say—trust us, we can suspend out disbelief for it!

• Mike added that Jim was played by Seth Green, btw. The wonders of CGI!
• Greg also said, that there were 3 different edits for the proposal scene, and “don’t blog about this!” We are defying him for you guys. YOU’RE WELCOME.
• All of a sudden, MELORA HARDIN CALLED! He looked like he was about to ignore it, but we said, “ANSWER IT. ANSWER IT.” so he did He told her where he was and then put her on speaker, and we could hear her say, “Hi Everyone!” From the second row, we could hear it, but it was kinda fuzzy so Greg said that it wasn’t working and he’d call her back. Mike went, “That’s what she REALLY sounds like. ” Then Greg hung up and said, “Um. Yeah. So where where we?”

QUESTION: Who has an iPhone? Who has a Blackberry? Point to the person most addicted to their phone.

ANSWER: ALL POINT TO MINDY!! It looks like Charlie & Lee point to Lester, but really, it’s Mindy. Mindy said, “It’s only because B.J.’s not here!”—Rumor has it B.J. is very addicted to his blackberry.

QUESTION: We saw Paul direct Money. Is anyone else going to direct an episode?
ANSWER: Jen just finished directing an episode written by Charlie that airs a week from Thursday (NOTE: to clarify, 10/23)! Charlie says that she had such a strong script to work with. They also say that Lee & Gene directed the new webisodes, and Mindy’s in some of them!

• Mike joked that Paul Liberstein is going to start a school School of Acting—”Or annex, really. It’s an Annex of Acting” He said the two fundamental rules that Paul would teach were:
     1. Don’t laugh.
     2. Keep your water bottle off the desk. You’re not supposed to have water bottles when you’re acting. (Paul nodded a lot at that one).
     (later they added rule number—) 3. Always know the last word in the line of the person speaking to you, so you know when to start talking.
• Mindy says that when writers direct, they give so much, and it’s almost a kind of relief because they can feel how something is supposed to flow script-wise.

QUESTION: Another note on writers directing: what’s it like to write, direct, and act at the same time?
ANSWER: Mike and Paul said, when Paul was directing ‘Money’, he had a small monitor on his lap while he was acting/on screen to see what was going on. He actually missed his cue for his one line sometimes because he was to focused on watching the monitor for directing. (NOTE: This is when Mike added rule number 3 to Paul’s Annex of Acting). Jen said she would love to direct again!

QUESTION: What are some of your personal favorite moments from the show?
ANSWER: Each writer talks about their favorite episodes or moments: Anthony Farrell says 3 weeks from now has something in it that he loves. The episode was directed by Dave Rogers (who everyone went on to say is a great director who’s earnest. Also, Justin said he loves Superman and was on the Florence Henderson show for having the largest private collection of memorabilia in South New Jersey—to which Mike joked, “So he has two pieces of superman memorabilia.”) Lester says his favorite part is “when lunch comes.”

• They joked that Lee Majors will guest star in the final episode.

QUESTION: Do you ever read fan feedback about episodes? Are there every overwhelming positive or negative reactions that you didn’t expect?
ANSWER: Mindy talked about Jim & Pam, and how sometimes their storyline overshadows Michael’s, since she sees the show as being about Michael and Dwight and their crazy ideas. She said that in an episode like ‘Weight Loss’, people only remember the proposal and not the rest of it (NOTE: UM FALSE EVERYTHING IN THAT EPISODE WAS GOLD). She went on to talk about when she wrote, ‘The Injury,’ and how originally websites hated it because it didn’t address Jim & Pam from the last episode and they were basically all, “What the fuck is this about a burned foot??”. It was just a comedic episode that did not follow the Jim/Pam storyline. But now, it’s a classic Michael and Dwight episode and everyone loves it.

• To add to the original question some more, they said that the “creepiness” of Toby that was discussed all over the internet during season 4 was NOT INTENTIONAL AT ALL. He was not the mastermind behind getting Jim in trouble even though people took it that way. Someone (I think it was Anthony Farrell) joked, “We try hard enough as it is to make Paul not creepy.”
• They also talked about ‘Valentine’s Day’, and how people paid most attention to the fact that Jim didn’t get Pam anything. Which was the intent, but still.
• Just then, AARON SHURE JOINED, since his soundmixing work was done!
• Greg Daniels hates spoilers (NOTE: WE UNDERSTAND YOUR PAIN, GREG!). For example, the proposal. They tried to keep it as secret as possible, but some sites like E! somehow got enough information to report that, “something happens in the rain!” He said that sometimes they release fake spoilers, so don’t believe everything you hear. He also talked about when ‘Valentine’s Day’ aired, a lot of people were upset because they had read a spoiler that Jim gave Pam a gift. Actually, that had been in an early draft of the script that someone then leaked, and so after it was taken out the spoiler was floating around the internet and people were expecting it.

QUESTION: Do you think The Office would be a success ten years ago, considering the affect technology has on today?
ANSWER: First they talked about how helpful the show being on itunes was to increasing it’s popularity. When it was first released, it was the number one comedy download (”Yeah, but it was only up against some old German cartoon,” Mike joked). They also said that itunes announced it was offering NBC shows the day after ‘Christmas Party’, in which Michael gets Ryan the video ipod. They said even though it looked like strategy, it was actually a complete coincidence. They’re glad to be back on itunes, even though they had recently just discovered Amazon “unbox”—which they all thought sounded ridiculous. Mike said, “Who would use something called ‘unbox’? Honestly, how much have you spent in the last year on Amazon Unbox? Ten, fifteen-thousand dollars?”

QUESTION: This has spoiler potential, so a simple “Yes” or “No” is fine: Do you know of any scenes that will definitely be in the season finale?
ANSWER: Greg Daniels said that they have some ideas floating around, but that there will definitely be some flashbacks to WWII times. They also said they, in general, don’t think more than a half-season ahead.

• Then it was time for audience members to get to ask questions.
• Mayette got to ask the first question!! We’ve been wanting to know this for FNW, so it was all very exciting: “This is a very specific question. In the episode ‘Dunder Mifflin Infinity’, I know you wrote it, Mike, there is a line that Kelly says when Ryan comes back: ‘Ooh, big strong man—fancy new whatever. I don’t think you ever cared about me!’ I know that all of you contribute, so I was wondering who wrote that line, specifically. Because we started a website, fancynewwhatever.com based on that line, —writers laugh! Mindy says, ‘Oh my god, that is so cool!’ (NOTE: !!!!!!!!!) —yes, you should all go to it.” Mike did in fact write that line; Mindy said he writes good Kelly lines (like “Usher Jennifer Hudson Kapoor”? All Mike). Mike then said, “That was very specific question, by the way.”—to which Mayette said, “I prefaced it!” and Trina said, “She warned you, though.” at the same time because we are awesome like that.

QUESTION: Are there any plans for an episode filmed actually in Scranton?
ANSWER: They said they’d like to, but it can get very expensive.

• Someone in the audience suggested Garrison Keillor as Dwight’s father. The writer’s said they have heard of a few people that fans want to guest star—Stephen Colbert as Jan’s ex, Carol Burnett as Michael’s mom, etc. But they went on to say that it is a mockumentary, and there are some stars (like CAROL BURNETT) who are too recognizable to see as Michael’s mom and not as the actor themselves. They also said they have to pretend then like The Carol Burnett Show doesn’t exist in the ‘Office’ world. It was enough of a stretch with Amy Ryan—they talked about how Michael watches The Wire at the end of ‘Night Out,’ and then Amy Ryan is on the show and he magically doesn’t recognize her as the girl from The Wire. Someone also mentioned that Michael once referenced My Name is Earl, and, “what happens after he watched it on TV? Does he just black out and not see The Office??”
• They talked about how they got Amy Ryan on the show! Everyone went and wrote the character of Holly, with the description that “Michael was in love with her,” and a lot of people already had Amy Ryan in mind to play her. It turned out that, at the same time they were trying to figure out how they could get her, she was trying to get on the show because she liked it so much. That, friends, is perfect timing!

QUESTION: Will we ever see Todd Packer again?
ANSWER: David Koechner is very busy, and it’s not for lack of trying that he hasn’t been back. They had him written in an episode and couldn’t get him. They joked that they wrote the character of Holly instead for Michael to become attached to, and if they had gotten to write Packer back in, this season would have been the one where Michael “comes out”.

QUESTION: Are the documentary crew considered characters?
ANSWER: They try not to overdo it, but yes. They went on to talk about how great their cameramen are: some of them shot on Survivor for a while. Greg brought up a specific example. In ‘The Client,’ Greg wanted Randall Einhorn to have to “find” Jan when she showed up in the parking lot after her night with Michael. But because he was so good at it, Greg wanted to make him really have to search for it, so he told Randall to close his eyes, and then he spun him around to throw off his sense of direction. Lee joked, “And also, almost break a $125,000 camera.”

QUESTION: How believable is it to re-hire Ryan Howard?
ANSWER: Greg stressed that it was only because he’s a temp again! He said that he went back to the agency, and implies that he moved back in with his parents (!!!), and Michael couldn’t resist getting him back in the office. Jen also talked about a deleted scene from either ‘Weight Loss’ or ‘Business Ethics’ where David Wallace calls the office and recognizes Ryan’s voice. He chews him out and hangs up, and Ryan eventually starts bawling and says, “He just made the list!!!” Paul said that it’s on NBC.com. We shook our heads because NO IT IS NOT, and he saw us and was all, “It isn’t? It should be soon. Or on the DVDs.” Yeah, you know, just talking with Paul (!!!)

QUESTION: Is there any room for improv?
ANSWER: They talked about the ‘Gay Witch Hunt kiss’, and the Michael & Dwight scene in ‘Halloween.’—the original written scene was scrapped because their improvised scene was too good. “MY HEART SOARS WITH THE EAGLE’S NEST” from ‘Dunder Mifflin Infinity’ was all Steve Carell!! Michael’s food shove in ‘The Deposition’ was because Paul told Steve to just knock his food off, and they had it in one take! They said they feel shame sometimes when the actors improv lines that are funnier than what they wrote.

• Paul brought back the topic of Steve being fluent in Michael Scott and being such an amazing improviser and how it can get to be really frustrating. He said that they always have these amazing lines for Steve, but he’ll find ways to make them so much better. It was then that Paul gave “Steve”—US, the audience really—not one but TWO middle fingers: “It’s like: Fuck you, Steve! Thank you…but..fuck you!”

• FUNNY STORY: Mindy said that Greg is an improvisor! She talked about how he played one of Michael’s neighbors in ‘Office Olympics’. “Fern Widgale” was the character’s name—which Greg came up with. She said he and Mike and the official “fun name” people (NOTE: Mose?? Fern?? Yeah, definitely.) Back to the story! Basically, Steve started improvising, and Greg got nervous. They said you could see the sweat on his face. Steve asked, “What do you do for a living?” (which Mike—who was telling this part of the story—kept stressing, “let’s be clear, that was the first line he improvised!!”). Greg answered, “I’m a salesman” because it was what he saw in front of him (they all looked to Greg to say his lines when they were telling this— which he did, but you could tell he was embarrassed. Oh, funny.). And then Steve went on and asked him “of what?”, and Greg said (again, everyone turned to him to say his line), “Yarn.” Greg hung his head after it and everyone kept teasing him. And in case you didn’t notice, this scene is on the season 2 blooper reel!

QUESTION: How many people contribute to a person’s script?
ANSWER: After the initial draft and table read, it kind of gets picked apart by the other writers. Mindy said sometimes she’ll get really defensive when people try to change or top a joke in her script with something else—”Everyone will be throwing jokes around and I’ll be all, ‘Oh, okay, really? You wanna replace my joke, which is fucking hilarious, with Paul’s? Okay. I just wanna be clear.” At that, Lee said, “Wow, you are just dropping the F-bomb tonight!” And Mindy was all, “I don’t even care, I’m hardcore, I was drinking before I came out here.” And Mike turned to her and said, “You trashed the green room before while we were waiting for this thing to start,” and Mindy just slouched in her chair all, “I don’t even care.” It was hi-larious. BUT BACK TO ANSWERING THE QUESTION: Lee talked about the benefits of table reads, and how if a line flops, he thinks, “Oh, okay. Maybe it wasn’t as funny as I thought.” Mike added that it also works out sometimes that they write a line that they think is hilarious, and they’re prepared to defend it when people want to try and find something to replace it, but then in 30 seconds time, there are 7 lines thrown out that are funnier than his. Mindy talked about how a while ago when everyone would be in their offices reading the newest script, they used to always pay attention to hear whenever Mike laughed in his office—”Yeah, it would be totally silent because everyone’s reading their scripts and all of a sudden, you hear Mike laugh and you get excited and ask what the line was and then he answers: ‘I found a typo!’” Mike defended himself and said, “I can’t help it, grammatical errors make me laugh.”

• Jen says that another index card (besides “Michael is not Homer”) they have up in the writer’s room says, “Let arcs breathe.” It means to say that they don’t want to focus too much on one story, and push other stories aside. They just need to let other stories happen as they do and give major arcs time to, well, breathe.
• Mindy commented that sometimes writers take a leader position, like Mike, which makes everyone else jealous and full of resentment. But then she said they get back at him by writing a Mose scene and getting to tell him, “Go sit half-naked in that outhouse over there!”

QUESTION: Who started TWSS?
ANSWER: B.J., of course.

• Jen is the best at catching a TWSS moment. Mindy said she (Jen) will be on the phone on a business call, but she’ll still be listening to whatever conversation is going on in the room that she’s in, and then out of nowhere she’ll turn to the people in the room and say, “that’s what she said” for something in their conversation. Mindy said that she takes no joy in it, either.

QUESTION: Who was Phyllis’ one-night stand?
ANSWER: “You’ll find out in the very last episode!!” Someone said, “Was it Tom? You remember Tom…”

• SHELBY GOT TO ASK A QUESTION! She asked what the word is that Jim and Pam made up for when something is stuck in your shoe (NOTE: which, seriously, the world needs to know!). None of the writers answered, and Greg said, “Shh, don’t tell them!” She also asked Paul to make one up, and Paul said, “I got nothing.” Mike said, “Rock.”
• They started talking about Michael’s love life, and said there was an original idea (before Holly), that Michael was going to start secretly dating a homely woman who made him soup.
• Someone in the audience said they watched the TWSS compilation on YouTube, Mindy joked that Jen made it.
• Someone said they watched The Office (or did some kind of Office-related activity) while at work, and Trina said “Time thief!” at the same time as Greg Daniels. Quoting = stellar.

QUESTION: Are they ever afraid of running out of office scenarios?
ANSWER: “We ran out about two months ago.” Lester went on to say, “When you see ‘Earth Day’, you’ll know that every episode after that is gonna suck.”

QUESTION: Can you tell us about anything coming up in The Office? (NOTE: THIS ANSWER CONTAINS INFO ABOUT UPCOMING EPISODES THAT MAY BE CONSIDERED SPOILERS.)
ANSWER: Greg says that there is a crime committed (the office is robbed), and there is corporate espionage. Mike then said, “And someone might rear their ugly head back in the office,” as he tipped his head at Paul!!! And Mindy said that there’s a scene with Gene & Lee in an episode she wrote that airs in 11 weeks. She was surprised, because they were actually studying their scene and taking notes and everything.

• They talked about the Christmas episode that Justin wrote for this season. They say that he also wrote the one that was supposed to be in season 4, but it got trashed because of the strike. Justin defended himself after Mindy said, “Wait, are you saying that your script pre-empted the writers’ strike?” Mike then commented that Greg hated Justin’s script so much that he called the NBC higher-ups and said, “We have got to shut this town down so that this episode doesn’t happen!” He said before that, Greg poured gasoline all over the set and had a lighter in his hand, ready to burn down the studio, and then he realized he could just start a strike instead.
• They talked about whether or not we’ll see Mose again. First they said, “Mose is dead!!” Mike explained that he wants Dwight to come home to find that Mose has left and gone to college and that he’ll come back in four or five years completely socialized and normal—Mike gestured to himself, to which one of the other writers said, “Normal??“. And apparently, only Mike wants this for Mose. Everyone else made fun of him and said they all want to make Mose put on overalls and run in a field. Justin Spitzer said, “Actually, that is the ending. Mose wakes up and it’s all a dream!!”

• Then they had some trivia about the writers, complete with goody-bag prizes. Inside was a t-shirt, ‘world’s best boss’ mug, stress ball, season 4 DVD set, and the 2009 DVD calendar. Mindy mentioned that she doesn’t even have the season 4 DVDs yet and that they have to go out and buy them themselves. NBC, come on!
• One of the questions was “who played the intern in ‘Fun Run’?” Justin, of course. He then recreated his famous line, “Oh, so that is where her uterus went.”
• Nick won one! The question was “who does the voiceover on the DVD board game?” (Paul).

• Mike was completely fascinated by the concept of a DVD calendar. And in general, everyone was clueless about how much ‘Office’ merchandise was out there. Mindy didn’t know about all the dollar-bin stuff at Target!

Here are two very short clips stitched together that I (Mayette) took during the panel:

The first part is Paul talking about the reel he saw of Mindy breaking over and over again, and the second part is Greg giving up on putting Melora on speaker phone.

• SO AFTER THAT, the Q&A was over. We weren’t sure whether or not they would stick around to sign autogrpahs and stuff, but we went up to the stage anyways just to see. AND GUYS, THEY WERE TOTALLY NICE. Greg, Mike, Paul, and Mindy were on the stage getting their picture taken by someone from Getty/Wireimage, and when we asked if they would sign stuff they were all, “Sure!” One of them commented on how nice my whiteboard was to sign because everyone just followed and wrote on a line (it’s the ‘TWSS Target whiteboard, FYI). Trina said, “Yeah, I totally planned that, too— that’s the beautiful thing.” which made Paul laugh.
• Nick asked Mindy where B.J. was (he was scheduled to be there), and she said, “he’s in Germany shooting a Quentin Tarantino movie.”
• Mayette went over and talked to Mindy. Okay, here’s her story:

Nick jetted down to the stage, and I followed. I held my Matt & Ben promo card and said, “Mindy! I’m in your show!” and she said, “OH MY GOSH.” and took it and started reading it. I told her, “I’m Matt Damon!” and she laughed and said, “Oh my god, that is so cool. Where is this?” I said Sacramento, and told her about how much fun we were having doing the show and that she should totally come see it if she hasn’t seen it in a while, you know. She said, “You know I broke Brenda’s nose?” and I replied, “YES! We were talking about it the other night at rehearsal!” and then I asked her to sign my whiteboard. She said of course and asked me what my name was. I spelled it out, and she wrote: “Hey Mayette, You’re adorable. xoxo Mindy Kaling” Then she asked if she could keep the promo card and I said of course! She said, “I’m going to put this in my office!” EEEEEEE. Amazing! I asked for a picture with her, and she said, “Of course, you look so cute.” I say thanks, and I start to wait for Paul to finish signing stuff while Mindy starts signing other stuff. I look behind me and realize that the entire crowd had moved down, and it looked like people were waiting to get to the stage. I think, “I AM NOT MOVING.” and talk to Mindy some more! I asked her about the pink polka dot dress she wore in ‘Dunder Mifflin Infinity’ and if she knew where it was from and she replied, “Yes! I know this! It’s Betsey Johnson.” and I said awesome, because I want to be Kelly for Halloween. I also say, “P.S. the talking head about looking amaaaazing and buying bathing suits? BEST THING EVER IN MY LIFE.” and she laughed and said thank you!

• When Trina had Mindy sign, she started writing extra stuff at the bottom and putting stars next to people’s names who’d already signed. She was all, “Sorry, I’m defaming some of these guys here,” and Trina said, “Feel free.” What she did was make a key at the bottom that said: “* best writer”, “** not as good”, and “*** over-rated”. Next to the signatures she had put * next to herself, ** next to Mike Schur, and *** next to Paul Lieberstein.
• Mike was still on stage, and he took pictures with all of us, too. He remembered we were the ones with the website and Mayette asked if he would visit and he said, “Yeah! You know this site ‘Northern Attack‘?” and she said, “Yeah, it’s still around!” and he said, “Oh it is? Cause there’s this joke that like, that’s Paul’s little thing, he started that site. And now I can say that I started this one.” And she said, “Oh, you definitely can!” and he was all, “I know!”

• Nick, resident (and extremely diligent) note-taker of the evening, got to be all cool and talk to Jen Celotta. Here’s his recap:

Most of the writers had left the stage by then but my Office-loving friend Nora wanted to get the others writers autographs (as did I) so we ran to the back and we grabbed Jen Celotta again. I asked her a bunch of questions while Nora got her autograph.
     1) THIS POINT GIVES HINT OF A SPOILER: I really love all of the small relationships in the office and wanted to know if there are going to be anymore explored specifically Oscar and Gil? She said that those are one of her favorite things as well, finding out small things about the other characters. She said we do find out about Oscar and Gil and that later in the season Oscar is “heart broken,” so that’s one possible spoiler.
     2) Nora mentioned the little things about the characters being discovered and brought up Stanely being an activist and a civil rights member and Jen said one idea they threw in but didn’t use was that Stanley was an active participant in sit-ins.
     3) I mentioned that darn musical episode possibility again and Jen said its been on the writers board forever because they get so many requests to write one but all of the writers have pretty much agreed that it would be impossible to do in a documentary. I told her that Michael should just make a mandatory talent show that everyone has to participate in. She said it’s upsetting they can’t do a musical episode because so many of the actors have very good singing voices and they can’t be put to use. Then we said Thanks and she said Thank you guys and keep watching.

• And then it turned out that pretty much EVERYONE ELSE was also hanging out in the lobby just talking to people, so of course, we mingled!
• We thought we saw David Rogers, but we couldn’t tell for sure if it was him or not. He was at Comic-Con (which Mayette had pictures of on her camera still), so we were looking at those to compare him to, but we still couldn’t tell for sure and didn’t wanna be idiots if we were wrong so we didn’t ask him.
• We saw Justin and had him sign stuff. He said, “I’m glad you just want my signature—I can’t think of anything witty to write.” So Trina asked him to write “uterus”, which he totally did. And then he criticized his own handwriting. Mayette told him, “You know what? I thought you would be perfect on Scrubs.” And he said, “That’s funny because, my first writing gig was on Scrubs!” and she was pretty must just like “jfabhsuyzhgjwellTHEREYOUGO!!” We got a picture and HE REMEMBERED FNW.COM, TOO. Trina took a piece of paper out of her purse that had www.fancynewwhatever.com written on it and handed it to him. I asked him to post it in the writer’s room and he said he would. Shelby asked him to give it to Jenna and Angela and he said he would. Justin, are you reading this? I hope you kept your word!

• We saw Lee hanging out and got pictures with him, too. YOU GUYS, THIS NIGHT WAS SO FUN AND COOL AND MANY OTHER ADJECTIVES.

• So finally we went back to the parking garage where the guy let us park from earlier in the day. And, remember how he said it was for “certain people”? Well, those certain people turned out to be the writers, because Lee was getting in his car as we were going to ours. ‘Cause we’re totally cool like that, obviously.
• SO, after all that, it was about 9:30, and we stopped at a Denny’s for some food and to change. And also to recover and bask.

• Finally, we hit the road for good. We made it back to San Francisco to drop Shelby off at around 4:30AM, and got back to Sacramento AND HOME FINALLY around 7AM, where we proceeded to drop dead from exhaustion.

• But so totally worth it!!!

THANK YOU to our friend Nick for helping take notes! He’s going to send us a little blurb about his conversation with Jen Celotta. Stay tuned for that!

Alright, this concludes PALEY POST, 2008. Did you like it?? WERE WE THOROUGH ENOUGH FOR YOU?? We’re going to upload larger pictures of the Q&A into the gallery shortly, but for now, enjoy this.

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tags: videos, melora hardin, mindy kaling, ryan koh, paley, paul lieberstein, greg daniels, office writers > everyone else, encounters, lester lewis, lee Eisenberg, charlie grandy, anthony farrell, justin spitzer, aaron shure, jen celotta