Some of the greatest Office tidbits come from the show’s DVD commentary.
On the latest episode of Stitcher’s Office Ladies podcast, former co-stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey chatted all about the Season 6 episode “Murder,” which featured that famous Office finger guns meme and a song that cost $45,000 to use. They also shared a hilarious tech fail involving Michael’s computer that they learned about from the episode’s DVD commentary.
As noted in our previous article, five minutes into “Murder,” Michael is spiraling alone in his office. He’s drowning out his fears that Dunder Mifflin will file for bankruptcy by blasting the 1998 banger “Lullaby” by Shawn Mullins, which, again, cost the show a whopping $45,000 to use. Once Michael’s music becomes disruptive to the office, Jim walks in and turns it down. He has a brief chat with Michael, then Michael turns the music back up. Did you catch the tech fail? Neither did we…at first.
Jim turning down the sound on Michael’s computer. Listen closely.
Credit: SCREENSHOT: THE OFFICE / NBC / PEACOCK
“Well, I have a background catch at 5:29,” Kinsey explains. “Michael says he needs more Mullins, and he hits the volume button on his keyboard repeatedly. Greg [Daniels, show runner] shared that they worked really hard in editing to get that sound to match Steve hitting the keyboard. And Danny [Chun, writer] shared that after the episode aired, the comment boards were full of people saying that that was a Mac sound. And Michael is using a PC.”
“Oh my gosh,” Fischer said. “Oh wow. They picked the wrong volume up sound.”
“Isn’t that funny?” Kinsey replied.
Sadly, there’s no clip that shows the scene online. But I watched the episode on Peacock and clearly heard the Apple-esque sound effect. Though the sound doesn’t exactly match the ones available on my MacBook Pro at the moment, the “Murder” episode aired in November 2009, and Apple fans know that macOS sounds are updated and changed over the years.
Be sure to listen closely on your next rewatch and check out the full podcast episode to hear more behind-the-scenes stories about filming the episode, “Murder.”
You can stream episodes of The Office on Peacock and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.
