‘The Office’: Joss Whedon Gave a Nod to Iconic Vampires With an Unscripted Jim Moment
One of the well-known directors who did an episode or two of The Office is Joss Whedon. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator oddly had an episode with a vampire subplot. He found a way to give a nod to iconic vampires through Jim’s (John Krasinski) prank.
Tricks on Dwight don’t always go as planned on ‘The Office’
Jim likes to prank Dwight, or find a way to stop him from being annoying. These scenes are usually scripted but they don’t always go as planned.
The episode “Performance Review” starts with Dwight bouncing on a fitness orb. The bouncing bothers Jim so much that he gets up and pops it so he’ll stop.
Dwight falls down to the ground because of this. But that wasn’t how it was scripted. Jim was supposed to pop it so it slowly deflates. This happened in all of their takes except for one and they decided to use the blooper.
Jim pulls a vampire prank on Dwight
Jim always finds an opportunity to mess with Dwight. In the episode, “Business School” there is a bat trapped in the office and Dwight makes it his mission to get rid of it.
Jim decides to lie to Dwight saying the bat bit him. “I feel so tingly, so strangely powerful,” he tells Dwight. Karen (Rashida Jones) also joins in on the prank.
Jim picks up her garlic bread in front of Dwight. He drops it claiming it’s “white hot,” but Karen says it’s cold. Dwight starts researching on vampires because of this. The episode ends with Jim saying he’s going home to lie down and complains there’s too much sun in the office. Dwight holds a broom, which has been sharpened into a stake as he walks away.
There was an unscripted moment paying homage to vampires
Whedon added his own touch to the prank. The writer of the episode revealed an unscripted moment he added to this story.
“And it’s just a total coincidence that the first episode that he directed happens to have a vampire subplot in it and he was the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” writer Brent Forrester said on the Office Ladies podcast. “What you notice in that vampire subplot that I remember most is the visual detail that Joss added that was not in the script.”
That would be when Jim says goodbye to Dwight in the office at the end of the day. Jim pops his collar and looks over his shoulder at Dwight. “It’s the perfect image of Dracula looking over the corner of his cape and it just works wonderfully as a visual gag,” he said.
Of course, the gag doesn’t end there. Jim walks to his car with his jacket over him to block out the sun. He is always willing to commit to a prank and the popping of the collar helped with that.
