‘The Office’: Why Fans Never Got to See Jim’s Most Epic Prank on Dwight in the Finale
The Office character Jim Halpert loved a good prank on his co-worker Dwight. The series finale was supposed to include Jim’s most elaborate prank yet, but it had to be cut for time, unfortunately.
‘The Office’ had one last epic Jim prank but fans never saw it
During the Sept. 8 episode of An Oral History of The Office podcast, host Brian Baumgartner discussed the show’s series finale — and there was one scene in particular that didn’t make it into the final cut of the episode.
Editor Dave Rogers shared that there was a Jim prank on Dwight that was very elaborate, but they had to cut the scene for time. Rogers said that they’re saving it for the 10-year reunion, however.
Rogers explained The Matrix based cold open prank, which would have involved Jim and Pam training a cat.
“We can talk about the prank that hasn’t made it to the big screen yet that I think we’re saving for the 10 year reunion. The Matrix, do you remember that?,” he asked Baumgartner.
They had to cut Jim’s prank, but it lives on in the table read
It would have been Jim’s greatest prank if it made it in the final episode. “That’s the finale script, they prank Dwight to make him think he’s in the Matrix,” Rogers explained. “Remember Hank [the security guard] is down as Dorpheus, he’s Morpheus’ brother. And they have a cat, there’s a cat that walks by… and the cat walks by again as Dwight is in Michael’s office. And Jenna goes, ‘It took six months to train the cat.’”
“And then we have the security guard walk by… he was the big guy, but he had a twin brother and we used him also as a glitch. And then he’s going to take the red pill or the blue pill?,'” Rogers continued.
He added, “Like we had a whole thing, but it was too long. We cut it for time.”
Fans can hear how it would have played out in The Office finale table read, however.
One of Jim’s pranks on Dwight was very involved
The Matrix prank wasn’t the only Jim prank that was involved. In a season 3 episode, Jim did a psychology experiment on Dwight. Fans saw as Jim, over a period of weeks, gave Dwight an Altoid mint every time his computer chimed after rebooting.
Dwight eventually expected the mint when he heard the sound.
In a talking head interview, Jim shared how he was inspired by a school lesson. “In school, we learned about this scientist who trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell by feeding them whenever a bell rang. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been conducting a similar experiment,” he said.
There was a huge attention to detail
Since Jim’s experiment prank went on for a number of weeks, the actors had to change their wardrobe to show that Jim was giving Dwight the mint on different days.
During the Sept. 9 Office Ladies podcast, hosts Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey shared that, in addition to John Krasinski and Rainn Wilson changing their clothes to film the scene, the background actors also had wardrobe changes.
“They had a rack of clothes of all these different changes and would film and change a few times,” Fischer said.
“But guys, it wasn’t just John and Rainn,” she added. “All the rest of us were in the background.”
Kinsey noted, “Anyone that the camera saw had to change as well.”
