(Jim makes a stupid face to the camera and shatters the fourth wall that protects us from him)
The Office was pitched as a show about a paper company--but it was really about the antics of Jim Halpert and his eternal quest to bedevil his coworkers with horseplay, hijinks, and monkeyshines. Today we share our favorite pranks, shenanigans, and monkeyshines:
Jim & the Mystery of the Nuclear Family
Jim finishes collating an end-of-day report for corporate. "I'm done for the day--I'm gonna head out a little early," he announces to The Office.
For several weeks, every day ends the same way: Jim finishes his report early; "I'm headed out, see you all tomorrow."
Dwight makes a funny face at Jim's most recent announcement: "I'm done for the day, love you." What is that wily Jim Halpert up to? he wonders. As a retired volunteer sheriff, he decides to "tail" Jim after he leaves work.
Jim's silver Saab Aero works its way through the bowels of Scranton's commercial & industrial center; Dwight follows behind, eating cheese sandwiches--his stakeout cheese sandwiches. He licks his fingers and carefully disposes of each sandwich bag in a slightly larger bag labeled "SANDWICH BAGS".
Over the course of twenty minutes, warehouses and factories become shops and restaurants, shops and restaurants become apartment complexes and innocuous suburban sprawl. Theirs is a game of cat-and-mouse, Dwight reflects...but whom is the cat and whom is the mouse?
The Saab pulls into a driveway and Dwight parks several houses away. He watches through the lenses of 15x70 binoculars as Halpert collects his things and walks into the house. "Got you."
Dwight checks his watch and makes a mental note: 16:57. At this time of year in PA, the sun is already slumping beneath the horizon--the first victim of night, but certainly not the last.
Dusk provides cover for Dwight's approach. Crouched between the frostbitten shrubs and bare flowerbeds, he peers through a front window. His quarry sits on a couch beside a woman, heavy with child; both wear pensive expressions. He recognizes the woman as a coworker named Pam, who has recently gone on maternity leave. She cradles a second, birthed child--Dwight searches for the child's name, but it eludes him.
Just then, Pam lifts up a corner of her shirt and bares one of her breasts to the child, to Jim, to the room. Dwight feels himself reflexively recoil and shrink...but then an acute fascination overtakes the revulsion. He exhales and watches as Jim--seemingly oblivious to his coworker's state of undress--continues to have a mundane conversation with her. For what feels like a very long time, Dwight observes them: they talk, they cook, they eat, they retire to bed; when they relocate to another part of the house, he repositions accordingly.
As the final bedroom light winks out, Dwight finds himself standing alone in a backyard in a quiet suburban neighborhood, the sound of his steps and breathing muted by a soft snowfall. He puzzles over the confusing ideas that Jim and his coworker have ambushed him with tonight. What was the purpose of this prank? An act of exhibitionism?
The heavy creak of the driver's door on the Firebird Trans Am cuts through the night air of this place that he has been lured out to once again; the struts groan softly as he climbs inside and starts the engine.
Jim & the Curious Case of Amish Progeria
For a goof, Jim calls Child Welfare Services and convinces them that Dwight's cousin Mose is actually a child with "Amish Progeria". But when CWS visits the Schrute Farm and finds Mose collecting rusty nails to make thermite, everybody gets a bigger scare than they anticipated.
Now Dwight & Mose have gone into "hiding" on the farm, and Jim is making the most of the situation by concealing the fact that CWS has already figured out Mose is a 27-year-old manchild. He provides the duo with periodic "updates" and, when he feels them testing their boundaries and growing bold, he finds ways to feed into their intense paranoia: Patrol cars are lured out to the farm with bogus noise complaints; a utilities truck is presented as an undercover stakeout; a slapdash photoshop suggests an "international manhunt" for the two Schrutes.
Back at The Office, Angela grows increasingly worried about Dwight's extended absence, but Jim invents a story about Dwight finally taking that trek to "Mordor". When Michael expresses curiosity at Dwight's disappearance, Jim simply claims that Dwight died; after fleeting concerns, Michael becomes preoccupied with Googling inheritance law for bosses of dead employees.
Meanwhile at Schrute Farm, Dwight and Mose sustain themselves with beets and snowmelt as Jim's visitations become increasingly sporadic. After adapting to the perpetual darkness of the farm's extensive cellar system, Mose has developed a fear of the sun and falling into the sky, and Dwight has become obsessed with cultivating a beet that thrives in darkness he refers to as "the Crepuscular Beet".
As the days turn to weeks, and the weeks turn to months, the only question that remains is: How long can Jim keep the charade going for?
Jim & the Full House @ Olive Garden
"Jim--Jim!" Pam's hand goes from pointing out the window to reflexively grabbing the Oh-Shit handle of their Subaru as the "BABY ON BOARD" placard rattles against the rear window.
Jim mashes the gas pedal and cuts the wheel, weaving around traffic as he runs the red light, his expression flickering between consternation and a stupid grin. When they're clear of the intersection, he reminds her that they have to "beat everyone there."
They pull into a handicapped spot right by the front entrance of the Olive Garden. Before she can say anything, he reminds her that "having a baby is like being handicapped." The vehicle is barely in park before he's yanking out the key and flinging the door open; he hooks a door hanger from a Chinese food restaurant on the rear view mirror.
Inside, he finds their seats--a set of tables pushed together to accommodate ten people--and begins: Loosening the lids on pepper shakers and swapping the contents of the sugar and the salt. He opens his mouth to give Pam instructions but immediately changes his mind. "...actually, you know what--I'll take care of the chairs. Here, just sneak these into the water glasses." He hands her a sandwich bag of plastic flies and she reluctantly begins dropping them into glasses at random. "Just like we planned. Don't do every single one, it'll be too obvious." Then he stoops down beneath the table and begins tampering with the chairs.
"Jim..." Pam protests, but he stops her.
"Pam? Just like we planned." He stands back up and rubs his hands together, surveying everything. "Yeah...yeah. Alright, I'll be right back, I've got to pay off the staff."
Minutes later they are all seated at the table: Stanley, Dwight, Kevin, Phyllis--the whole gang, present and accounted for. Andy is about to inflict an acapella of James Blunt's You're Beautiful upon the table, but when he goes to wet his whistle, the first domino falls. Coughing and gasping, he gurgles something about "eating a chunky" between ribbons of thick drool. Phyllis's face blanches.
As if on cue, Phyllis begins to projectile vomit. She instinctively covers her mouth and forces it into a fine spray, but it is soon spewing everywhere--undoubtedly a combination of sweet tea spiced with salt instead of sugar and her infamously weak stomach. Jim mugs the camera like an idiot and holds two fingers up. "Deuce! A glorious two-fer!"
Chaos descends upon the table. Stanley--until now in his own world with a basket of cheesy breadsticks--snaps when the lid falls off of the pepper and its contents spill everywhere. "What in the WORLD is this bull-shit?" he shouts, flipping the basket. These breadsticks are one of the only things he looks forward to in life and now his eyes are bulging out of his head.
Jim gets out of his seat and begins circling the table, phone in hand. "Andy--Andy look at me! Look into the camera!" he instructs. "Hey Stanley, how were those breadsticks, big guy?"
Kevin side-eyes Jim and looks panicked, like a spooked horse on the verge of breaking out of the stable. He shifts his weight wrong and the seat collapses, sending him careening forward into the tables; two of them topple beneath his bulk, pinning Oscar and Angela underneath plates and pepper and Phyllis's vomit. "Did YOU do this? Did YOU do this? Have you lost your DAMN MIND?" Stanley screams.
But Jim is a professional prankster with no time to parley. He snaps his fingers at Pam and points at Angela, who writhes around on the floor with a leg pinned under the table. "Pam! Do you have a good angle on Tiny Tammy Faye here?"
He is mesmerized. A full house! It's always been two-fers and maybe a triple-play. He studies Angela and wonders, suddenly, if his god isn't more powerful than hers.
Jim & the Killing Joke
Jim presents Dwight with a Knock-Knock joke. "You have to start it, though," he warns.
Dwight makes a small sound of disapproval but finally relents. "Fine. Knock. Knock."
"Who's there?"
Silence. Dwight's moon face, vacant and round, lingers for a moment before the eyes darken; the mouth turns into a crescent of a scowl. Once again he's been duped by The Office prankster. He looks around the room: Kevin, Phyllis, Meredith--they're all laughing at him. And Angela. Angela. She crosses her arms and shakes her head at him, emasculating him with a single arched eyebrow.
"...it's...Dwight," he manages. The laughter lurches to a halt.
"I'm sorry, what?" Jim--who was just strutting around the reception area, arms spread high to the sky, drinking in the adulation of his coworkers like a gladiator--drops his arms and turns around. "What did you say?"
Dwight licks his lips and steadies himself. "It's...Dwight. Knock knock, it--"
"--oh I HEARD you. You already knocked!" Jim plants his palms on Dwight's desk and leans over him. Memories flash by of Grandfather Heinrich looming over him as a babe, interrogating him about the nature of pigs, indicting him for the crimes at Nuremberg, demanding fresh dickmilch. "The dickmilch is spoiled mit ants!"
"You sure this is a door you want to knock on?" Jim asks him in a voice barely above a whisper. Dwight glances between the shadow of his grandfather and the rest of The Office. Everyone is watching: Kevin looks out of breath as he blots at the perspiration on his lumpy brow; Pam fans herself with a sheet of premium Hammermill and studies her coworker Jim with lust in her eyes.
"Knock, knock..." he hesitates. "...I'm just a salesman...canvassing the neighborhood for opportunities to sell paper." The two proceed into a long imaginary exchange between a hypothetical salesperson and a prospective customer with grueling earnestness. It is a lengthy sparring match of wits and words, with neither side willing to break kayfabe and admit defeat. As it drags on into topics of discounts and paper weights, The Office rapidly loses interest until only Pam and Angela remain witness. The day comes to a close; the employees of The Office file out of the building, leaving only the two women and their champions behind.
"...but I thought you said the 92-pound card stock wouldn't work in my home printer?" Jim finally counters. "I have an Epson." He looks over at Pam and she nods approvingly, her cheeks flush.
Dwight falters and struggles to regain his footing. "I...did I say that?"
"Strike him down, lover!" Pam blurts out. Even the reptilian Angela trembles and sheds a solitary tear, but stops short of begging for Dwight to be spared--she understands Psalms when it says "Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent."
Jim continues: "And Dwight: You offered me the small business discount, but I don't actually have a small business. I make costume jewelry for babies, but it's all under the table."
It is a killing blow. Dwight staggers back in his chair, defeated. He coughs, and there is blood in his cough; he twitches like a dying roach before stiffening like a dead roach. Jim tosses his coat over Dwight's face and offers his arm to Pam as the whimsical melodica of The Office's theme song begins to play.
Angela is left alone with Dwight's remains, but all she can think is how, if you remove every second letter from "Psalms", it spells "Pam".
Jim & the Trouble with Toby
"I think we should make it official. We should let Toby know that we're together," Pam says to Jim during a private lunch. "Aren't you tired of sneaking around? And it's only a matter of time before...you know...they find out."
"Staples?"
"No. What? No. The Office."
It's been three months since Jim turned down Staples for a corporate sales position but, if anything, he's become increasingly paranoid that they're trying to assassinate his character as time goes on. According to him, discovering an unauthorized interoffice relationship would be exactly the kind of ammunition they'd need to blackball him from the paper industry. He sees signs of their intrigue everywhere; their weekly ads end up in his mailbox but he never sees anybody put them there. And how do they know where he lives?
Jim takes a bite of his crustless turkey sandwich and shakes his head firmly. "That's capitulation. If I'm going to rat myself out to HR, I'm going to do it on my own terms." He chews and thinks; he points at her with the wedge of his sandwich. "But I've been considering something: You help me pull off this one prank...and I'll turn in our relationship to Toby."
Pam rolls her eyes. "...okay, fine. It's a deal. What's the prank?"
"I guess you could say that it involves giving our relationship to Toby."
Jim goes on to describe Toby as a miserable worm unfit for the gift of human locomotion. He should be wriggling on the ground Jim says. After a recent storm, Jim encountered such a worm writhing around on the hot asphalt, far from any dirt; he contemplated scooping it up and delivering it to the mud across the street "with the rest of its kind", but instead resolved to watch as the sun cooked it. That's how he got the idea for this prank, Jim says.
That afternoon, Pam approaches Toby and Toby solicits her affections, as is his wont. Only, today is different; today Pam says yes. And as rehearsed, she suggests "some steak and some sex" at Farley's--the only place in town where one can get steak and oysters, "a sexual elixir". Toby's expression--rendered perennially inscrutable by years of lethargy--twitches with the faintest hint of excitement.
Jim is so titillated by the prank-in-progress that he heads over to Pam's apartment while they're still at dinner and fidgets with anticipation; he digs through her trash and examines a pair of heels in her closet--they are tiny, like shoes for a doll's feet. In the refrigerator he finds a quart of eggnog; Pam doesn't drink eggnog. Where did this eggnog come from? he ponders as he sips it from the carton. Roy drinks eggnog. Jim wishes Roy was dead.
Just then he hears the familiar music of keys at the front door and retreats to the bedroom closet. He squats beneath her coats and blouses and watches from the shadows as his coworkers enter the bedroom.
"I had a lot of fun," Toby says timidly. They both had a lovely time and share a lot more in common than they realized; they engage in typical post-date banter that Jim finds exhausting. As they sit on the edge of her bed and smooch, Jim grins like a cretin. Such an idiot, he titters. He even looks stupid when he kisses people.
He continues to watch them as they fall back on the bed; he drinks the eggnog and squirms impatiently, knowing that one day they'll march up to Toby's desk and make an official declaration of their love, and Toby will realize that tonight was all a magnificent farce.
Jim and the God Complex
Jim discovers that the surprisingly meager security system at Dwight's Bed & Breakfast is unsecured, and gains access to the property's cameras. As he idly flips back and forth between them, he racks his brain for the perfect prank. "Pretend to be psychic," Pam suggests. "You've always wanted to be psychic." But overwhelmed by the sheer number of options now at his disposal, he decides to sleep on it.
The following day, he returns to the cameras and observes Dwight break his fast with Grape-Nuts and buttermilk. From his secret vantage point, Dwight's head looks particularly bulbous. Turgid. That was a word-of-the-day, wasn't it? Dwight's head is turgid. The word continues to echo in Jim's thoughts.
That afternoon, Jim finds himself watching Dwight make cheese sandwiches by placing American singles between slices of bread; he does this again and again until an entire loaf of bread is exhausted--perhaps a dozen sandwiches in total. And later, he watches as Dwight and Mose play an elaborate game of Battleship in the parlor. Dwight fiddles with the brim of a Kriegsmarine U-Boat Captain's hat and mangles lines from Das Boot; Cousin Mose fidgets erratically and is visibly distressed when Dwight sinks his battleship. "I wish it was your U-boat," Dwight admits wistfully. "A hundred souls trapped on the ocean floor."
That night Pam has another suggestion: "Pretend to be god. You've always wanted to be god."
Jim reflects on Dwight's game of Battleship: The obscene act of condemning mortals to a watery grave, of holding sway over the lives of others--anybody can do those things. But a god savors it as an act of righteousness.
He waits until the Schrutes retire for the night; for a while still, he watches them sleep soundly in perfect silence. One moment it is 10:00 PM, and when he looks at the clock again, it reads 2:00 AM. He quietly slips out of bed--careful not to disturb his coworker Pam sleeping peacefully beside him--and grabs his car keys.
We all want to be god, don't we?
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