Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson Once Pitched an ‘Office’ Promotion for Real Offices
Before The Office became a hit, Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson were worried about its prospects. They shared one idea to ensure viewers in real offices would talk about the show. It wasn’t ultimately required because the show lived for nine seasons on its own merits. Still, it was still a fun idea.
Carell, Wilson and creators Greg Daniels and Ben Silverman were on the first Television Critics Association panel for The Office in 2005. Carell shared the proposal and the producers explained what NBC actually planned to do to get the word out. The Office is now streaming on Peacock.
Steve Carell wanted ‘The Office’ to become a literal watercooler show
Television fans in the DVR and streaming age may not be familiar with the term “watercooler TV.” Back when TV was only live, the idea was a show could be so popular that everybody at work watched it and stood around the watercooler talking about it the next day. By 2005, DVR already allowed people to record shows to watch later more easily than VCRs. So Carell had an idea to make The Office a watercooler show
“I think NBC should send out water coolers with The Office printed on them,” Carell said. “Send them out to companies all over the country, and you go to the water cooler, and you talk about the office, because The Office is written on the water cooler.”
Steve Carell went the extra mile for his ‘The Office’ proposal
Daniels clarified that Carell was repeating an idea that Wilson suggested. So, Carell took the idea further.
“And you fill the water cooler with Scotch,” Carell said. “That’s me. That’s not NBC.”
NBC’s actual strategy to promote the show
The NBC legal department probably wouldn’t sign off on shipping alcohol to offices around the country. So NBC promoted The Office within their means. But, it was a different sort of venture than the traditional sitcoms like Friends or Cheers.
“We had a great meeting with the NBC team who I think acknowledges that this is a show that has a core group that’s really going to love it and hopefully expand as the episodes air,” Silverman said. “One of the great lines that one of the executives said when we went to our first meeting was,’”We need to figure out how to yell without screaming,’ and I thought that was a great line. The show is, and hopefully America can respond to that kind of slow build.”
That meant their TV spots couldn’t be a montage of wacky shenanigans saying, ‘This week on The Office…’
“They treated it like this is an interesting challenge for them,” Daniels said. “Their normal way of promoting things was to cut the joke highlights of things and squeeze them as tightly together as they can so it feels very fast and funny. And they were saying how, for this particular project, the tone of it and the pace of it requires the room in between things, and that they were challenged to try and find ways to present whole chunks of the show so that they don’t misrepresent what our pace is to people. And they seemed pretty excited by the challenge. So I’m looking forward to it.”
