The Office may have ended almost 13 years ago, but the NBC sitcom remains a favorite to this day. For those with a Peacock subscription, the series is being kept alive thanks to “Superfan” episodes, and people are constantly discovering and rediscovering The Office. It also helps that the cast never seems to tire of talking about it, including Creed Bratton, who spoke about filming one of my favorite scenes with John Krasinski, and it sounds intense.
Bratton looked back at his time on The Office, which ran for nine seasons, during a chat with EW, and he revealed that he was always the most excited to work with Krasinski, Steve Carell, and Rainn Wilson from week to week. He also recalled a certain scene with Krasinski that has stuck with him over the years, and it’s arguably one of my favorites:
There's a scene I have with Krasinski, we shot a scene where I wanted cobbler, I was demanding a cobbler pie. 'Give me a cobbler!' He says he wanted to shoot it like a David Mamet play.
The underrated scene that Bratton is referring to is from Season 4, Episode 11, “Survivor Man.” The episode sees Jim trying to celebrate everyone’s birthday with one party. This leads to a talk about what kind of cake would be at the party, and Creed hilariously gets very close to Jim’s face in the break room to talk about the kind of cake that he wants. It turns into a rapid-fire Q&A that is very brief, very funny, very intense, and apparently, very wet, as the actor recalled:
I said that, and the director said that, and John just said, 'Let's shoot it like a Mamet play.' Boom. And we're right there in each other's faces. I have spittle on my tongue, we went back and forth like this. We laughed so hard. The thing is, it was intense when we were doing it, but we laughed so hard.
One of my favorite things about The Office is that you never know what to expect. The characters are all so different; some talk with other characters more than others, and some are very passionate about certain things, like Kevin and his chili. Or, in this instance, Creed and his cobbler pie.
Knowing that Bratton and Krasinski were so close to each other that they were basically spitting on one another really makes the entire scene even better, which I didn’t think was possible. And the fact that Bratton can remember it like it was yesterday, when it was 18 years ago, truly speaks volumes to how great it was filming it.
The Office is one of the best NBC sitcoms ever, even if it did nearly get canceled, and one of the reasons is because of moments like the cobbler pie scene, where it’s just so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh. Perhaps the only thing that would truly make this better is seeing bloopers from filming. The Office does have a lot of outtakes out there, so it’s possible the cobbler pie scene made the cut, but in either case, I need to see it.
At the very least, the scene in question can be watched on Peacock, both the Superfan way or the regular way, and just hearing about it makes me want to watch the episode all over again. And maybe even look closely to see if any spittle made it into the scene.
