The Office stars are professionals, but sometimes the show was too funny for even them to handle.
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, “Secret Santa,” which featured a scene so funny that the entire cast broke while filming. We’ve heard about other giggle-inducing scenes, including several from the “Women’s Appreciation” episode, the whomever/whoever conference room scene in “Money,” and three scenes in “Branch Wars.” And who could forget that John Krasinski and Rainn Wilson laughed so hard filming “Lecture Circuit: Part 1” that the show had to shut down production for 20 minutes? We know laughter on set wasn’t a rarity, but according to Fischer and Kinsey, it was really something to see the entire cast break during one scene.
In addition to chatting with Green Day’s lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong about Dwight and Andy’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” karaoke scene, Fischer and Kinsey discussed the funniest moment of the episode: When Kevin sat on Michael’s lap.
As a refresher, both Phyllis and Michael showed up to the office holiday party dressed as Santa. Michael was in a mood because he felt Phyllis was stealing his Christmas thunder, so he staged his own Santa photo op by sitting in a chair across from reception and invited Kevin to sit on his lap.
“Kevin sits on Michael’s lap. Michael’s like, ‘Well, what would you like for Christmas, little boy?’ And Kevin’s like, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know you were going to ask me that.’ And Michael’s like, ‘What did you think was going to happen?’ And Kevin’s like, ‘I don’t know. No one’s ever let me sit on their lap before,'” Kinsey recalled. “Michael’s really struggling now. He’s like, ‘Just tell me what toys you want.’ And Kevin’s taking a long time to think about it.”
You can rewatch the full, delightful scene here.
Robbie V, an Office Ladies fan in South Korea, wrote in to the podcast to say, “At 7:56, if you pause, you can clearly see Ed Helms and Mindy Kaling breaking so hard. A few seconds later, B.J. Novak started to break. They were all laughing so hard, Ed needed to hide from the camera.”
Fischer and Kinsey confirmed that filming the scene was funny as hell.
“I would say overwhelmingly this was one time where the entire cast broke. The entire cast,” Kinsey said. “I’ve read so many interviews in prepping for this episode where John, Ed, and Brian all talk about how they were all breaking. I read where Veda [Semarne], our script supervisor, said how she would have to mark whenever someone laughed in a take and it was like everyone.”
“They didn’t have any footage of us not laughing,” Fischer said. “They didn’t have any. We never got it. That’s why all the footage shows us breaking in the background.”
“That’s exactly right. On the commentary, Claire Scanlon, who was our editor, talked about how difficult it was to edit this scene because someone was constantly laughing,” Kinsey explained. “And if you watch you guys all see Mindy break. Ed literally had to go behind the wall. There was like a plant and a wall, and you watch him go and hide. There are a lot of bloopers from this…”
Now go back to that clip above, start at 1:30, and rewatch to see if you can spot anyone breaking.
“John dives out of frame. Like, we’re all losing it,” Kinsey said.
“You notice in those scenes there are no like cutaways to the reverse. There are no reaction shots,” Fischer added. “There were the people who were like stationed behind this action and they had to try to hold it together. The rest of us, we were all there. We’re all watching. You don’t see us because we couldn’t ever act.”
“No, we were just all laughing,” Kinsey agreed.”That like took me back. Watching it and reading everyone’s like stories from that day. It was so much fun.”
Be sure to check out the full podcast episode to hear more behind-the-scenes stories about filming the episode, “Secret Santa.”
You can stream episodes of The Office on Peacock and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.
